WASHINGTON: US Republicans failed spectacularly Friday in their latest effort to dismantle Obamacare, leaving the party in stunned disarray and President Donald Trump’s dreams of repealing his predecessor’s health reforms on ice.
The vote — held in the dead of night — came down to the wire, with the decisive moment resting with Senator John McCain, recently diagnosed with brian cancer, who sided with two moderate Republicans in voting with Democrats to oppose the legislation.
“This was a disappointment, a disappointment indeed,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told colleagues after one of the most tense votes in years on the Senate floor.
“I regret that our efforts were simply not enough this time.”
The collapse marks a major setback for Republican leadership and for Trump, who had campaigned relentlessly on a pledge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act passed under his predecessor Barack Obama in 2010.
Friday’s vote, which capped a series of failed efforts in recent months to get an Obamacare repeal measure over the line, was on a so-called “skinny repeal” bill that would have rolled back only parts of Obamacare but kept the bulk of the law intact.
It crashed to defeat, 49-51.
Senate leadership had never intended “skinny repeal” to become law, but rather to serve as a vehicle with which to join forces with House Republicans and craft a broader repeal-and-replace plan.
The vote was always going to be close, with Senate Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski telegraphing that they would oppose the measure.
Vice President Mike Pence was brought to the chamber around midnight, in case he would be needed to break a 50-50 tie.
But he never got the opportunity, as McCain, whose war hero status was mocked by Trump in 2015, refused to cave to pressure to get on board.
While several Democrats clapped when McCain cast his “no” vote, the mood remained somber in the chamber after the defeat.
“We are not celebrating; we are relieved,” said top Democrat Chuck Schumer.
“Let’s turn the page and work together to improve our health care system,” he added.
US Senate rejects partial Obamacare repeal, bitter blow to Trump
US Senate rejects partial Obamacare repeal, bitter blow to Trump
130 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren freed: government
- The religiously diverse African country of 230 million people is the scene of myriad conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims
ABUJA: Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school in November, a presidential spokesman said Sunday, after 100 were freed earlier this month.
“Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity,” Sunday Dare said in a post on X, accompanied by a photo of smiling children.
In late November, hundreds of students and staff were kidnapped from St. Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state.
The attack came as the country buckled under a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok.
The west African country suffers from multiple interlinked security concerns, from jihadists in the northeast to armed “bandit” gangs in the northwest.
A UN source told AFP that “the remaining set of girls/secondary school students will be taken to Minna,” the capital of Niger state, on Tuesday.
The exact number of those kidnapped, and those who remain in captivity, has been unclear since the attack on the school, located in the rural hamlet of Papiri.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said 315 students and staff were kidnapped.
Some 50 escaped immediately afterwards, and on December 7 the government secured the release of around 100.
That would leave about 165 thought to remain in captivity.
But a statement from President Bola Tinubu at the time put the remaining people being held at 115.
- Spate of mass kidnappings -
It has not been made public who seized the children from their boarding school, or how the government secured their release.
Though kidnappings for ransom are a common way for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash, a spate of mass abductions in November put an uncomfortable spotlight on Nigeria’s already grim security situation.
Assailants across the country kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshippers and a bride and her bridesmaids, with farmers, women and children also taken hostage.
The kidnappings came as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States, where President Donald Trump has alleged that there were mass killings of Christians that amounted to a “genocide.”
The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject that framing, which has long been used by the Christian right in the United States and Europe.
The religiously diverse African country of 230 million people is the scene of myriad conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims.
