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WASHINGTON AP 鈥?Capitol Hill top leaders spoke about COVID-19 relief and other unfinished business Thursday, adding to tentative optimism that a medium-sized aid package might break free after months of Washington toxicity and deadlock.House Speaker Nancy Pelo
stanley cup si and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell 鈥?frequent riv
stanley cup als but proven dealmakers 鈥?spoke on the phone, a conversation that came the day after Pelosi signaled a willingness to make major concessions in search of a COVID-19 rescue package.Pelosi spokesman announced the telephone conversation, tweeting that it was about their shared commitment to completing an omnibus and COVID-19 relief as soon as possible. McConnell office would not comment.With COVID-19 caseloads spiraling and the daily death toll equaling records, the momentum for finally passing
stanley cup a second major relief bill is undeniably building, especially after President-elect Joe Biden and top congressional Democrats endorsed a $908 billion bipartisan framework to build an agreement.The path forward is cluttered with obstacles, however, including a tight time window and hard feelings from months of futile talks and a poisonous election.McConnell, R-Ky., his leverage bolstered after the election, continues to take a hard line, insisting in a Thursday floor speech that any relief package be limited to consensus items like another round of paycheck protection aid to businesses, funding to distribute vaccines, an Gsot India s latest election embraced AI technology. Here are some ways it was used constructively
OKLAHOMA CITY 鈥?After two failed efforts in the state legislature to define a woman and a man based on their sex assigned at birth, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order limiting those definitions, the latest blow to transgender rights in the state. The order, which along with government agencies applies to schools and state institutions, stipulates definitions for certain terms, like man, boy, woman, girl, father, and mother. The narrow definitions in the so-called Womens Bill of Rights exclude
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stanley cup yone whose gender does not fit into the binary categories of woman or man. The orders language does not make room for those with chromosomal variations, like intersex people.Stitt framed the directive as a defense against what he described as out-of-control gender ideology eroding societal foundations, adding that the goal was safeguarding the very essence of what it means to be a woman. Oklahomans are fed up with attempts to confuse the word woman ; and turn it into so
adidas originals me kind of ambiguous definition that harms real women, he said before signing the order.Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, said the directive is neither about rights, nor is it about protecting women.It instead opens the door for further civil rights violations that open all women to being harassed and targeted