UN rights office in ‘very serious’ financial situation

WASHINGTON: Billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday criticized the latest version of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill released by the US Senate, calling it “utterly insane and destructive.”

As Senate Republicans prepared to vote on the measure,  Democrats warned that its tax-cut elements would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of social programs relied upon by lower-income Americans.

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk wrote in a post on X. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”

Musk's renewed his tirade against the proposed measure, called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, weeks after the world’s richest person and Trump, the world's most powerful, ended a feud sparked by Musk’s opposition to the bill.

Senate Republicans planned to vote Saturday on the bill after agreeing on changes to address concerns about funding for rural hospitals and the deductibility of state taxes.

Several Republican senators who had previously expressed hesitancy about voting for the bill told reporters that their concerns had been assuaged and that they were ready to vote to clear a first procedural hurdle in the coming hours.

Senator John Barrasso, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, said the first procedural vote on the legislation would take place shortly, though it did not start by 4 p.m. (2000 GMT), as he had predicted. The bill is Trump’s top legislative goal. With his fellow Republicans controlling both chambers, Congress has so far not rejected any of Trump’s priorities.

The 940-page megabill would extend the 2017 tax cuts that were Trump’s main legislative achievement during his first term as president, cut other taxes and boost spending on the military and border security. Nonpartisan analysts estimate that a version passed by the House of Representatives last month would add about $3 trillion to the $36.2 trillion US government debt.

The Congressional Budget Office has not released a forecast for how much the Senate version — still subject to change — would add to the debt if enacted.

Partial to the wealthy

Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, called for the bill’s full text to be read on the Senate floor after the vote, a procedure that was sure to run late into the night, if not past dawn.

“Under this draft Republicans will take food away from hungry kids to pay for tax breaks to the rich,” Schumer said. “Future generations will be saddled with trillions in debt.”

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget public policy organization on Saturday said its preliminary estimate is that the Senate version would add $4 trillion to the debt over the next decade, including interest costs.

“If you thought the House bill borrowed too much — and it did — the Senate manages to make things even worse,” Maya MacGuineas, the group’s president, said in a statement.

The White House said this month that the legislation, titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would reduce the annual deficit by $1.4 trillion.

Ready to move forward

Republican Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Susan Collins of Maine, who had opposed concern about tax-code changes that could hurt rural hospitals, told reporters they were ready to move forward.

A successful vote would kick off a lengthy process that could run into Sunday, as Democrats unveil a series of amendments unlikely to pass in a chamber that Republicans control 53-47.

“By passing this bill now, we will make our nation more prosperous and secure,” Senate Budget Committee chairman Lindsey Graham said in a statement accompanying the bill text.

Republicans from states with large rural populations have opposed a reduction in state tax revenue for Medicaid providers including rural hospitals. The newly released legislation would delay that reduction and would include $25 billion to support rural Medicaid providers from 2028 to 2032.

“If you want to be a working-class party, you’ve got to get and deliver for working-class people,” Hawley told reporters. “You cannot take away health care for working people.”

The legislation would raise the cap on federal deductions for state and local taxes to $40,000 with an annual 1 percent inflation adjustment through 2029, after which it would fall back to the current $10,000. The bill would also phase the cap down for those earning more than $500,000 a year.

That is a major concern of House Republicans from coastal states including New York, New Jersey and California, who play an important role in keeping the party’s narrow House majority.

Republicans are using a legislative maneuver to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation in the 100-member chamber.

Narrow path
The narrow majorities for Republicans in the Senate and House mean they can afford no more than three no votes from the party in either chamber to advance a bill that Democrats are united in opposing.

Democrats will focus their firepower with amendments aimed at reversing Republican spending cuts to programs that provide government-backed health care to the elderly, poor and disabled, as well as food aid to low-income families.

The bill also would raise the Treasury Department’s debt ceiling by trillions of dollars to stave off a potentially disastrous default on the nation’s debt in the coming months. If the Senate passes the bill, it will then return to the House for another vote before Trump could sign it into law.

NEW DELHI: India’s ministry of external affairs said on Sunday it rejects a statement by the Pakistan Army seeking to blame India for Saturday’s attack in Waziristan.
A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a Pakistani military convoy in a town near the Afghan border, killing at least 13 soldiers, the Pakistan army said on Saturday. The convoy was attacked in Mir Ali area of North Waziristan district, the army said in a statement. “In this tragic and barbaric incident, three innocent civilians including two children and a woman also got severely injured,” it said.

Fourteen militants were killed by the army in an operation launched after the attack in the region, it said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and termed it a “cowardly act,” a statement from his office said.
Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir said in a statement any attempt to undermine Pakistan’s internal stability would be met with swift and decisive retribution.
“It was huge, a big bang,” a local administrator told Reuters, adding that residents of the town could see a large amount of smoke billowing from the scene from a great distance.
One resident said that the explosion rattled the windowpanes of nearby houses, and caused some roofs to collapse.
No one has so far claimed responsibility.

The lawless district, which sits next to Afghanistan, has long served as a safe haven for different militant groups, who operate on both sides of the border.
Islamabad says the militants run training camps in Afghanistan to launch attacks inside Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies, saying the militancy is Pakistan’s domestic issue.

Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group of several Islamist militant groups, has long been waging a war against Pakistan in a bid to overthrow the government and replace it with its own Islamic system of governance.
The Pakistani military, which has launched several offensives against the militants, has mostly been their prime target.