By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday pledged an improved effort to combat drug overdoses that claimed the lives of about 100,000 Americans last year, using a White House summit to tout a multifaceted approach to tackle synthetic and illicit drugs such as the powerful opioid fentanyl.

“Today’s summit is needed because the global and regional drug environment has changed dramatically from just even a few years ago,” Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the summit, being held jointly with public health officials from Mexico and Canada.

Gupta added that “synthetic drugs have truly become a global threat.”

Biden administration officials said they would use tools such as medications to reverse opioid overdoses and use data collection to guide their efforts.

“Today, we’re here to … look at how our collective response can be improved and the role data collection has on saving lives,” Gupta said.

More than 109,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses, with about two-thirds of those involving synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, according to data shared during the summit.

An unprecedented number of people are dying from overdoses and poisonings in the United States, Mexico and Canada every year, Gupta said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said a regional approach to deal with the overdose and addiction crisis is critical.

The Biden administration last month said it was seeking to meet with the makers of the life-saving medication naloxone, used to reverse opioid overdoses, in an effort to increase access and reduce cost.

Opioid abuse has plagued the United States for more than two decades and has killed more than a half million Americans, according to federal data, turning the highly addictive pain medications into a public health crisis.

The White House in April said the Unites States planned to expand efforts to disrupt illicit financial activities by drug traffickers involved in the fentanyl trade by increasing the use of sanctions.

Some U.S. lawmakers have been calling on the Biden administration to take a harder line and ratchet up pressure on Mexico to crack down on fentanyl trafficking. A handful of Republican legislators have called for the U.S. military to bomb Mexican cartels and their labs inside Mexico – a proposal the Biden administration has not embraced.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican-controlled House of Representatives this week will take on what some lawmakers see as a burning issue: protecting Americans from new restrictions on gas-fueled stoves.

The House is set to vote on two bills preventing regulators from banning the stoves in the future or setting new energy conservation and health standards for new models.

Some state and local governments have begun banning gas-fueled furnaces, water heaters, and gas stoves in some new buildings as a way of reducing fossil-fuel emissions contributing to climate change.

The Republican bills, if passed by the House, could face opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Republicans accuse the Biden administration of pursuing regulations that could impact the more than one-third of American households using gas stoves for cooking.

“The White House wants to limit your ability to purchase and use gas stoves,” House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole said on Monday.

Democrats say they are trying to ensure new gas stoves do not lead to carbon monoxide poisoning or put children at risk of developing asthma. They also aim to reduce carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels such as natural gas.

“Contrary to rhetoric out there, the government is not coming for anybody’s gas stove,” Democratic Representative Mary Gay Scanlon said on Monday.

The votes come as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has begun collecting information on health hazards of gas stove emissions. CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka suggested in January a ban was possible, but the agency clarified that any regulatory changes, if ever pursued, would involve a “lengthy process.”

On Tuesday, the House is expected vote on the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, which would prohibit the CPSC from declaring gas stoves a hazardous product or take other steps to prohibit their sale.

On Wednesday, the House is due to vote on the Save Our Gas Stoves Act, which would restrict energy conservation standards for the appliances. It also would block the Department of Energy from taking actions that would lead to gas stoves being taken off the market or selling at higher prices.

Republican President Donald Trump in 2019 and 2020 eased or blocked rules encouraging water-conserving plumbing and energy-efficient light bulbs.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; editing by Andy Sullivan and Chris Reese)

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The deal to end the United States’ debt limit standoff was classic Joe Biden politics: eke out a narrow compromise from an ugly beginning and declare victory.

Biden’s pact with Republican Kevin McCarthy suspends the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding an economic crisis, in exchange for setting spending caps in the coming two fiscal years.

Both sides got something out of the deal, and Biden said it fits with a declared goal throughout his political career: striking bipartisan deals to fix problems and take the venom out of the country’s ideological divide.

“I know bipartisanship is hard, and unity is hard,” Biden said during his first-ever Oval Office address on Friday. “No matter how tough our politics gets, we need to see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans.”

But it remains to be seen whether this deal can help the longer-term effort of healing what Biden refers to as the “soul of the nation.”

“That’s easier said than done,” said Bishop Silvester Beaman, a family friend who gave the benediction at Biden’s inauguration and credits him with “trying to strike a chord that we need to put our partisanship aside so that we can better govern the country.”

In his first two years as president, Biden used Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate to push through massive stimulus packages despite the protests of Republicans.

But he also crafted compromise deals on veterans’ healthcare, semiconductor chips, gun safety legislation, and now the debt ceiling.

Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell said after the debt deal was struck that “divided government means negotiated deals – it means nobody gets everything they want.”

Some of those compromise deals have upset elements of Biden’s Democratic Party, who wanted him to do more to tackle a wide range of issues that he campaigned on, ranging from addressing police brutality, to protecting voting rights, to the battle over women’s right to abortion.

“A lot of Americans are very disaffected by mainstream politics and by the compromises that the Democrats have made,” said Premilla Nadasen, a professor of history at Columbia University’s Barnard College.

Biden’s own popularity has withered over the course of his term, and is now standing at around 40%.

COMPROMISE

But some analysts give him credit for trying to bring the country back towards the political middle and isolate radicals who embraced former President Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election and were involved in the assault on Congress on Jan 6, 2021.

“How best to contain the anti-democratic conspiratorial right in America – that is the project that you’re seeing Biden work on,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian and professor at George Washington University.

Biden has at times applied the across-the-aisle strategy outside Capitol Hill, too.

Mitch Landrieu and other top Biden advisers recently negotiated an electric vehicle charger agreement with Elon Musk, the Tesla Inc billionaire owner who has called Biden a “damp (sock) puppet” and has expressed support for Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

“This is what’s amazing about working for this president: irrespective of what other noise is going on, outside of whatever it is that you’re talking about, he’s focused on solving the problem,” Landrieu said.

McCarthy, who negotiated the debt ceiling deal with Biden, was critical of the president during the crisis, saying he had “wasted time and refused to negotiate for months,” although he later had warmer words for Biden’s deal-makers.

“I do want to thank the president’s team that he put together,” McCarthy said, calling them professional and smart, despite “very strong beliefs that are different than ours.”

The brief peace in Washington after the deal may be short-lived, as both sides gear up for the 2024 presidential election.

Trump and DeSantis, the leading Republican candidates, seem focused for now on attacking each other but they are expected target Biden with fierce rhetoric.

And former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has already begun, saying a vote for Biden is a vote for President Kamala Harris, suggesting she believes Biden could die or be forced from office before completing a second term, putting his vice president in power.

“If this (debt ceiling) bill bought a reprieve from extreme partisan warfare, it’s temporary,” said Matt Bennett, at the center-left think tank Third Way.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting and editing by Heather Timmons. Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lincoln Feast)

(Reuters) – A man who fatally shot two Missouri correctional officers in 2000 was scheduled to be executed on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court and the governor declined to intervene even though jurors in the case petitioned for a reduced sentence.

Michael Tisius, 42, was convicted in 2001 of murdering Randolph County sheriff’s deputies Jason Acton and Leon Egley, who were both unarmed, during a failed attempt to help a former cellmate escape from jail.

Lawyers for Tisius argued he should be spared the death penalty given that he was 19 at the time of the crime, the New York Times reported. They said he was abused and neglected as a child, and that he was convinced by Roy Vance, the inmate, to go through with the plan.

Six jurors, including two alternates who voted in favor of a death sentence in 2010, said in sworn affidavits they were sympathetic to a reduced sentence, the Times reported.

Governor Mike Parson on Monday declined a clemency petition to commute the sentence to life in prison.

“Missouri’s judicial system provided Mr. Tisius with due process and fair proceedings for his brutal murders of two Randolph County jail guards,” the Republican governor said in a statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request by Tisius to stay the execution.

Tisius was accused of plotting with Tracie Bulington, Vance’s then-girlfriend, to help Vance escape from jail. Prosecutors said Bulington had decided against going through with the plan before Tisius shot Acton and Egley.

Bulington was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the killings.

Tisius had met Vance in 1999 while he was in jail on a misdemeanor charge for theft of a rented stereo, CBS News reported.

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; editing by Paul Simao)

(Reuters) – A man who fatally shot two Missouri correctional officers in 2000 was scheduled to be executed on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court and the governor declined to intervene even though jurors in the case petitioned for a reduced sentence.

Michael Tisius, 42, was convicted in 2001 of murdering Randolph County sheriff’s deputies Jason Acton and Leon Egley, who were both unarmed, during a failed attempt to help a former cellmate escape from jail.

Lawyers for Tisius argued he should be spared the death penalty given that he was 19 at the time of the crime, the New York Times reported. They said he was abused and neglected as a child, and that he was convinced by Roy Vance, the inmate, to go through with the plan.

Six jurors, including two alternates who voted in favor of a death sentence in 2010, said in sworn affidavits they were sympathetic to a reduced sentence, the Times reported.

Governor Mike Parson on Monday declined a clemency petition to commute the sentence to life in prison.

“Missouri’s judicial system provided Mr. Tisius with due process and fair proceedings for his brutal murders of two Randolph County jail guards,” the Republican governor said in a statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request by Tisius to stay the execution.

Tisius was accused of plotting with Tracie Bulington, Vance’s then-girlfriend, to help Vance escape from jail. Prosecutors said Bulington had decided against going through with the plan before Tisius shot Acton and Egley.

Bulington was sentenced to life in prison for her role in the killings.

Tisius had met Vance in 1999 while he was in jail on a misdemeanor charge for theft of a rented stereo, CBS News reported.

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; editing by Paul Simao)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer for Texas billionaire Harlan Crow has offered to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee staff to discuss the panel’s concerns over his ties to conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a letter released on Tuesday showed.

Revelations about the links between Thomas, the court’s longest-tenured member, and Crow, including real estate purchases and luxury travel paid for by the Dallas businessman, have prompted calls from Democratic lawmakers for more rigorous ethics standards for the Supreme Court.

The Democratic-led committee held a hearing on the subject last month. Crow, a major Republican donor, last month rejected the panel’s request for a meeting.

In a six-page follow up dated Monday, Crow’s lawyer Michael Bopp reiterated that he does not think the committee has the power to request information from Crow or to impose ethics standards on the nation’s top judicial body, as it is considering pursuing.

Still, Bopp wrote, “we respect the Senate Judiciary Committee’s important role in formulating legislation concerning our federal courts system, and would welcome a discussion with your staff.”

Representatives for the panel said they received the letter, first reported by CNN, and would response shortly.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts last month said the court is considering steps to “adhere to the highest standards of conduct” and was committed to ensuring that its nine members adhered to them.

Unlike other federal judges, Supreme Court justices are not bound by the code of conduct adopted by the policymaking body for the broader U.S. judiciary that requires federal judges to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.”

The news outlet ProPublica has detailed the ties between Thomas and Crow. Separately, the news outlet Politico has reported that conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch failed to disclose the buyer of a Colorado property in which he had a stake – the chief executive of a major law firm whose attorneys have been involved in numerous Supreme Court cases.

Some Republican committee members have sought to portray these revelations as part of an effort by liberals and Democrats to smear the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

(Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer for Texas billionaire Harlan Crow has offered to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee staff to discuss the panel’s concerns over his ties to conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a letter released on Tuesday showed.

Revelations about the links between Thomas, the court’s longest-tenured member, and Crow, including real estate purchases and luxury travel paid for by the Dallas businessman, have prompted calls from Democratic lawmakers for more rigorous ethics standards for the Supreme Court.

The Democratic-led committee held a hearing on the subject last month. Crow, a major Republican donor, last month rejected the panel’s request for a meeting.

In a six-page follow up dated Monday, Crow’s lawyer Michael Bopp reiterated that he does not think the committee has the power to request information from Crow or to impose ethics standards on the nation’s top judicial body, as it is considering pursuing.

Still, Bopp wrote, “we respect the Senate Judiciary Committee’s important role in formulating legislation concerning our federal courts system, and would welcome a discussion with your staff.”

Representatives for the panel said they received the letter, first reported by CNN, and would response shortly.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts last month said the court is considering steps to “adhere to the highest standards of conduct” and was committed to ensuring that its nine members adhered to them.

Unlike other federal judges, Supreme Court justices are not bound by the code of conduct adopted by the policymaking body for the broader U.S. judiciary that requires federal judges to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.”

The news outlet ProPublica has detailed the ties between Thomas and Crow. Separately, the news outlet Politico has reported that conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch failed to disclose the buyer of a Colorado property in which he had a stake – the chief executive of a major law firm whose attorneys have been involved in numerous Supreme Court cases.

Some Republican committee members have sought to portray these revelations as part of an effort by liberals and Democrats to smear the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

(Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham)

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday pledged an improved effort to combat drug overdoses that claimed the lives of about 100,000 Americans last year, using a White House summit to tout a multifaceted approach to tackle synthetic and illicit drugs such as the powerful opioid fentanyl.

“Today’s summit is needed because the global and regional drug environment has changed dramatically from just even a few years ago,” Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the summit, being held jointly with public health officials from Mexico and Canada.

Gupta added that “synthetic drugs have truly become a global threat.”

Biden administration officials said they would use tools such as medications to reverse opioid overdoses and use data collection to guide their efforts.

“Today, we’re here to … look at how our collective response can be improved and the role data collection has on saving lives,” Gupta said.

More than 109,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses, with about two-thirds of those involving synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, according to data shared during the summit.

An unprecedented number of people are dying from overdoses and poisonings in the United States, Mexico and Canada every year, Gupta said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said a regional approach to deal with the overdose and addiction crisis is critical.

The Biden administration last month said it was seeking to meet with the makers of the life-saving medication naloxone, used to reverse opioid overdoses, in an effort to increase access and reduce cost.

Opioid abuse has plagued the United States for more than two decades and has killed more than a half million Americans, according to federal data, turning the highly addictive pain medications into a public health crisis.

The White House in April said the Unites States planned to expand efforts to disrupt illicit financial activities by drug traffickers involved in the fentanyl trade by increasing the use of sanctions.

Some U.S. lawmakers have been calling on the Biden administration to take a harder line and ratchet up pressure on Mexico to crack down on fentanyl trafficking. A handful of Republican legislators have called for the U.S. military to bomb Mexican cartels and their labs inside Mexico – a proposal the Biden administration has not embraced.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday pledged an improved effort to combat drug overdoses that claimed the lives of about 100,000 Americans last year, using a White House summit to tout a multifaceted approach to tackle synthetic and illicit drugs such as the powerful opioid fentanyl.

“Today’s summit is needed because the global and regional drug environment has changed dramatically from just even a few years ago,” Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the summit, being held jointly with public health officials from Mexico and Canada.

Gupta added that “synthetic drugs have truly become a global threat.”

Biden administration officials said they would use tools such as medications to reverse opioid overdoses and use data collection to guide their efforts.

“Today, we’re here to … look at how our collective response can be improved and the role data collection has on saving lives,” Gupta said.

More than 109,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses, with about two-thirds of those involving synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, according to data shared during the summit.

An unprecedented number of people are dying from overdoses and poisonings in the United States, Mexico and Canada every year, Gupta said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said a regional approach to deal with the overdose and addiction crisis is critical.

The Biden administration last month said it was seeking to meet with the makers of the life-saving medication naloxone, used to reverse opioid overdoses, in an effort to increase access and reduce cost.

Opioid abuse has plagued the United States for more than two decades and has killed more than a half million Americans, according to federal data, turning the highly addictive pain medications into a public health crisis.

The White House in April said the Unites States planned to expand efforts to disrupt illicit financial activities by drug traffickers involved in the fentanyl trade by increasing the use of sanctions.

Some U.S. lawmakers have been calling on the Biden administration to take a harder line and ratchet up pressure on Mexico to crack down on fentanyl trafficking. A handful of Republican legislators have called for the U.S. military to bomb Mexican cartels and their labs inside Mexico – a proposal the Biden administration has not embraced.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday pledged an improved effort to combat drug overdoses that claimed the lives of about 100,000 Americans last year, using a White House summit to tout a multifaceted approach to tackle synthetic and illicit drugs such as the powerful opioid fentanyl.

“Today’s summit is needed because the global and regional drug environment has changed dramatically from just even a few years ago,” Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the summit, being held jointly with public health officials from Mexico and Canada.

Gupta added that “synthetic drugs have truly become a global threat.”

Biden administration officials said they would use tools such as medications to reverse opioid overdoses and use data collection to guide their efforts.

“Today, we’re here to … look at how our collective response can be improved and the role data collection has on saving lives,” Gupta said.

More than 109,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses, with about two-thirds of those involving synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, according to data shared during the summit.

An unprecedented number of people are dying from overdoses and poisonings in the United States, Mexico and Canada every year, Gupta said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said a regional approach to deal with the overdose and addiction crisis is critical.

The Biden administration last month said it was seeking to meet with the makers of the life-saving medication naloxone, used to reverse opioid overdoses, in an effort to increase access and reduce cost.

Opioid abuse has plagued the United States for more than two decades and has killed more than a half million Americans, according to federal data, turning the highly addictive pain medications into a public health crisis.

The White House in April said the Unites States planned to expand efforts to disrupt illicit financial activities by drug traffickers involved in the fentanyl trade by increasing the use of sanctions.

Some U.S. lawmakers have been calling on the Biden administration to take a harder line and ratchet up pressure on Mexico to crack down on fentanyl trafficking. A handful of Republican legislators have called for the U.S. military to bomb Mexican cartels and their labs inside Mexico – a proposal the Biden administration has not embraced.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)