Also, uninsurable climate risks. Here’s the latest at the end of Wednesday.
The House will vote tonight on a bipartisan plan to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling for two years and limit spending as lawmakers race to act before a looming default.
The legislation is a product of intense negotiations between President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who demanded concessions from Democrats in exchange for suspending the borrowing limit.
To push the bill through with a 218-vote majority, McCarthy will need to cobble together a coalition of Republicans willing to back it and enough Democrats to make up for what was shaping up to be a substantial number of G.O.P. defections. McCarthy predicted that he would have the necessary votes by around 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, when the final vote is expected. (We are covering it live.)
My colleague Catie Edmondson told me that the bill was likely to pass, but that “something could always blow up.” The vote comes just days ahead of a June 5 deadline, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the U.S. will run out of cash to pay all of its bills on time.
Final passage of the debt deal — which is also expected to pass in the Senate in the coming days — would be seen by leaders of both parties as a success. Biden will have avoided a potentially catastrophic default while limiting the impact of the budget cuts. And McCarthy will have managed to cut federal spending by $1.5 trillion over a decade, a key conservative priority.
But meaningful elements of both parties are unhappy with the compromise — and the number of Republican defections tonight could offer a window into McCarthy’s strength as a leader.Parts of the U.S. are becoming uninsurable
Insurance companies, tired of losing money, are raising rates, restricting coverage or pulling out of some areas altogether — making it more expensive for people to live in their homes.
In California, the largest homeowner insurance company, State Farm, announced this month that it would stop selling coverage to homeowners throughout the entire state. In parts of eastern Kentucky, the price of flood insurance is set to quadruple, and most big insurers have already pulled out of Florida. The trend demonstrates that the climate crisis is becoming a financial crisis.A ‘false alarm’ shook Seoul
Around 6:30 a.m. today, residents of South Korea’s capital received cellphone alerts from the government that urged them to “prepare to evacuate“ — children and the elderly and weak first. Panic quickly spread across the city of 10 million as news spread that North Korea had fired a rocket. After about 30 minutes, the government said it was a “false alarm.
