Democrats approved a draft of the party platform early yesterday that includes steps to break up large Wall Street banks, advocates for a US$15 an hour wage and urges the abolition of the death penalty, reflecting the influence of US Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.
Supporters of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated measures pushed by Sanders’ allies that would have promoted a Medicare-for-all single-payer healthcare system, a carbon tax to address climate change and a moratorium on hydraulic fracking.
Sanders on Friday said he would vote for Clinton, but has so far declined to offer a full-throated endorsement of her campaign or encourage his millions of voters to back her candidacy. The Vermont senator has said he wants the platform at the summer convention to reflect his goals — and those representing him at a St Louis hotel said they had made progress.
“We lost some, but we won some,” said James Zogby, a Sanders supporter on the panel. “We got some great stuff in the platform that has never been in there before.”
“We’ve made some substantial moves forward,” added US representative Keith Ellison, a Sanders ally.
The convention’s full Platform Committee will consider the draft platform in Orlando, Florida, next month and it will be voted on at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia late next month.
The platform is a statement of the party’s values and positions on a wide range of issues. While it does not bind the Democratic nominee to specific policies, it serves as a guidepost for the party moving forward.
In many cases, Clinton’s side gave ground to Sanders. The document calls for the expansion of Social Security and says Americans should earn at least US$15 an hour, referring to the current minimum wage of US$7.25 an hour as a “starvation wage,” a term often used by Sanders.
The committee also adopted language that said it supports a variety of ways to prevent banks from gambling with taxpayers’ bank deposits.
It also approved language calling for the abolition of the death penalty.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion