In the News
In a rare attempt to stand up to U.S. conflicts abroad, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Monday which states that U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen has not been authorized by Congress.
The U.S. House voted, 366-30, on Monday night to pass a resolution condemning civilian deaths, starvation and the spread of disease in Yemen, admitting that much of the responsibility for that humanitarian crisis rests with the U.S. because of its support for a Saudi-led military intervention and noting that the war has allowed al Qaeda, Islamic State and other groups to thrive.
In a rare exercise of its war-making role, the House of Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly passed a resolution explicitly stating that U.S. military assistance to Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen is not authorized under legislation passed by Congress to fight terrorism or invade Iraq.
While all eyes in the political world are on the Supreme Court as it considers a Wisconsin case that tests the role of partisan politics in drawing congressional district lines, there's a flurry of action on the issue unfolding just across the street at the U.S. Capitol.
The House adopted a measure on Monday to call for a political solution to the conflict in Yemen as a compromise to a bipartisan group of lawmakers who had sought a vote on a measure to stop the U.S. military's participation.
US politicians are set to debate a resolution that would limit "unauthorised" American involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, but the bill is unlikely to move past the House of Representatives, analysts say.
H.CON.RES.81 is expected to be debated on the House floor on Monday. It calls for the invocation of the War Powers Act to end US participation in the war in Yemen.
Skooter McCoy was 20 years old when his wife, Michelle, gave birth to their first child, a son named Spencer. It was 1996, and McCoy was living in the tiny town of Cherokee, North Carolina, attending Western Carolina University on a football scholarship. He was the first member of his family to go to college.
For more than two years, Congress has remained quiet as the United States backed a brutal war in Yemen, supporting a coalition that has killed thousands and starved the country into one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century.
Lawmakers put the finishing touches this week on military funding legislation that contains a provision that stands to significantly benefit Amazon.
The amendment, Section 801 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), would help Amazon establish a tight grip on the lucrative, $53 billion government acquisitions market, experts say.
"We saw people shredded to pieces, some with no head, no hands," a man told a Human Rights Watch researcher two weeks after a Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a crowded marketplace in Mastaba, Yemen, in March 2016. The strike, allegedly carried out in part with American-made and -supplied bombs, killed nearly 100 civilians, 25 of them children.