Navy Seaman 1st Class James Richard Ward only had moments to decide what to do on the sinking USS Oklahoma during the bombing of Pearl Harbor: save himself, or do what he could to save others? Ward chose the valiant option, giving his life so his
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Senate wrapped up its work for the year, Sen. Michael Bennet took to the floor of the nearly empty chamber and made a late-night plea for Congress to redouble support for Ukraine[1]: “Understand the stakes at this moment."
It was the third time in recent months the Colorado Democrat has kept the Senate working late by holding up unrelated legislation in a bid to cajole lawmakers to approve tens of billions of dollars in weaponry and economic aid for Ukraine. During a nearly hour-long, emotional speech, he called on senators to see the nearly 2-year-old conflict as a defining clash of authoritarianism against democracy and implored them to consider what it means "to be fighting on that freezing front line and not know whether we're going to come through with the ammunition.”
Yet Congress broke for the holidays[2] and is not expected to return for two weeks while continued aid for Ukraine[3] has nearly been exhausted. The Biden administration is planning to send one more aid package before the new year, but says it will be the last unless Congress approves more money.
With support slipping in Congress even as conflicts and unrest rattle global security, the United States is once again struggling[4] to assert its role in the world. Under the influence of Donald Trump[5], the former president who is now the Republican Party front-runner, GOP lawmakers have increasingly taken a skeptical stance toward U.S. involvement abroad, particularly when it comes to aid to Ukraine.
“We’re living in a time when there are all kinds of forces that are tearing at democracy, at here and abroad,” Bennet said.
Bolstering Ukraine's defense used to be celebrated in the Capitol as one of a few remaining bipartisan causes. But now the fate of roughly $61 billion in funding is tied to delicate policy negotiations on Capitol Hill[8] over border and immigration changes. And in the last year, lawmakers have had to mount painstaking, round-the-clock efforts to pass even legislation that maintains basic functions of the U.S. government. Bills with ambitious changes have been almost completely out of reach for the closely divided Congress.
Still, congressional leaders are trying to rally members to address global challenges they say are among the most difficult in decades: the largest land invasion of a European nation since World War II, a war between Israel and Hamas, unrest and economic calamity driving historic levels of migration and China asserting itself as a superpower.
In the Senate, both Democratic and Republican leaders have cast the $110 billion aid package[9], which is attempting to address all those issues, as a potential turning point for democracy around the world. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer[10] told reporters last week that “history will look back if we don’t support our ally in Ukraine.”
In a year-end speech, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell[11] said: “From South Texas to Southeast Asia and from the Black Sea to the Red Sea, it is an historically challenging and consequential time to protect America’s interests, our allies and our own people.”
The Republican leader, a key supporter of Ukraine aid, has tried for months to build support in his party for Ukraine. But after a $6 billion military and civilian aid package[12] for Ukraine collapsed in October, McConnell began telling top White House officials that any funding would need to be paired with border policy changes.
The White House deliberately stayed out of the negotiations until senior officials felt the time was right to do so. But senior Republicans involved in the border talks believe the administration stepped in too late, ultimately delaying the prospects of additional Ukraine aid getting approved until the new year.
Senate negotiators have had to navigate both the explosive politics of border policy as well as one of the most complex areas of American law.
“This is a tightrope, but we are still on it,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator.
At one point during the negotiations, McConnell felt compelled to stress the urgency to administration officials and impose a deadline to reach a border deal in time for the agreement to be drafted into legislative provisions before the end of the year.
With the negotiations still plodding along, McConnell called White House chief of staff Jeff Zients on Dec. 7 and said a deal must be reached within five days — a message that the Kentucky Republican emphasized to President Joe Biden[13] himself when the two men spoke later that day, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
It wouldn’t be until five days later, on Dec. 12, that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and senior White House aides came to the Capitol to participate directly in the negotiations. A White House official said the administration got involved when it did because it felt the talks had moved beyond the realm of unacceptable or unattainable measures — and to a more productive phase.
A second White House official stressed that previous legislative negotiations, such as the bipartisan infrastructure law that is now more than two years old, started similarly, with Republican and Democratic senators talking on their own and the administration stepping in once it felt the talks were ready for White House involvement.
Still, “it would be nice to have had them earlier,” Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, the chief GOP negotiator, said last week.
“We would have a lot more progress, and we would have had potential to be able to get this done by this week if they would have gotten earlier,” Lankford said. The two White House officials and the person familiar with McConnell's phone call to Biden all spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private and ongoing negotiations.
The White House's strategy of including Republican priorities such as Israel aid and border security in the package has also raised several thorny issues for Democrats.
Any package also faces deep uncertainty in the House, where Republican Speaker Mike Johnson[16] holds tenuous control of the closely divided chamber. Before becoming speaker in October, Johnson had repeatedly voted against aid for Ukraine, but he has surprised many by offering support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and saying he wants to find a way to approve the aid.
But Trump’s allies in the House have repeatedly tried to stop the U.S. from sending more aid to Ukraine. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a close ally to the former president, said it was a mistake for Republicans even to insist on border policy changes because it could “give the Biden administration some kind of policy wins out on the campaign trail.”
As the border and immigration talks drag forward in the Senate, Johnson has weighed in from afar to push for sweeping measures. On social media, he has called for “transformational change to secure the border,” and pointed to a hardline bill that passed the House on a party-line vote.
As senators left Washington, they still sought to assure Ukrainians that American help was on its way. White House staff and Senate negotiations planned to work on drafting border legislation for the next two weeks in hopes that it would be ready for action when Congress returns.
Schumer told The Associated Press he was “hopeful,” but “I wouldn’t go so far as to say confident yet.” He sought to put the pressure on Republicans, saying they needed to be ready to compromise.
Yet Sen. Roger Wicker, an Alabama Republican who is a Ukraine supporter, expressed confidence that Congress would act. He alluded to the words of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, another European leader who eventually elicited robust support from the U.S. to repel an invasion.
“Americans will always do the right thing,” Wicker said. “After they’ve exhausted every other alternative.”
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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
Actor Brian Keith has been the judge on the television series "Hardcastle and McCormick," the uncle in "Family Affair," Teddy Roosevelt in the movie "The Wind and the Lion," and the father in "The Parent Trap."
He also starred in movies including "Death
Two federal retirement communities for disabled enlisted veterans and some officers face uncertain financial futures unless Congress and the Defense Department take steps to address budget shortfalls, the Government Accountability Office has found.
The Armed Forces Retirement Home, or AFRH, system, which operates senior living facilities in Washington, D.C., and Gulfport, Mississippi, is on a trajectory to deplete its trust fund by 2042 without intervention, according to a report published earlier this month[1] by the watchdog agency.
The system, founded in 1991 to manage the former U.S. Soldiers' and Airmen's Home in Washington and the U.S. Naval Home in Gulfport, has the capacity to house up to 1,120 residents, but had just 611 as of September 2022.
A declining funding stream, gaps in residential rates versus cost of care and capital improvements have led to financial struggles, according to the GAO.
"AFRH has not achieved its goals to raise its declining occupancy or to implement its other proposals. Also, AFRH faces further financial risks from costly repairs to deteriorating facilities," GAO analysts wrote. "AFRH may continue to face financial shortfalls that in the future could affect its ability to fulfill its mission."
The homes are financed by residential fees; a 50-cent mandatory payroll deduction from active-duty enlisted service members, warrant officers and limited-duty officers; the fines and forfeitures of personnel charged with disciplinary violations; donations; and interest off the AFRH trust fund.
But the payroll deduction has not kept up with inflation and revenues from fines and forfeitures have dropped, the GAO noted, as the number of courts-martial and disciplinary actions in the services has declined.
Investment interest income also is down as a result of trust fund balances that have declined since 2010 with the opening of a new Gulfport campus following Hurricane Katrina and the complete overhaul of a residential building in D.C., according to the GAO.
"If no actions are taken, the projections show that AFRH trust fund balance is likely to continue to decline -- even if the general fund transfers are provided at the current rate into the future," the report said.
Those responsible for AFRH had sought to stabilize its financial outlook by striking a deal with private companies to redevelop 80 acres of the Washington, D.C., campus for mixed use, with more than 3,000 residential units, retail stores, offices and open space.
The deal was quashed in October, however, as the result of "rising interest rates, inflation, supply chain challenges and a struggling office market in D.C.," according to John RisCassi, AFRH's chief operating officer.
"It was clear that the financial benefit to the Home was now significantly diminished and the terms of the long-term lease were riskier to AFRH," RisCassi said in a press release.
To make ends meet, Congress has provided AFRH with general funds transfers for the past eight years. In making recommendations for the system's future financial solvency, the GAO recommended that Congress continue to support AFRH by transferring $25 million to the system over the next 20 years.
It also recommended that Congress and the Department of Defense:
Raise the military contribution rate, which has not increased since 1977, from $.50 to $1.00.
Require Reserve and National Guard[3] members, who became eligible for AFRH in 2021, to pay the military contribution.
And increase occupancy levels at both campuses.
The report also recommended that the system be reimbursed by Tricare[4] and Medicare for health care, since nearly all residents are eligible for medical treatment through the military treatment facilities or the Department of Veterans Affairs[5].
The system also could benefit from having a functional advisory council, GAO auditors noted. According to the report, AFRH has not had an active council since at least 2015, even though it is required by law to have an advisory board with at least one financial management expert.
In a 13-page response, RisCassi and AFRH Chief Executive Officer Stephen Rippe said they appreciated the GAO's oversight and agreed that bolstering the system's trust fund balance is necessary.
They noted a number of achievements AFRH has made in the past five years, such as increasing the trust fund balance by 62%, raising the operating budget to attract talented staff, and increasing revenues by entering into leases with nearby medical facilities.
They said adjusting the service member contribution for inflation could help bolster income, as would increasing the average fee paid for those in independent living, especially in Washington, where one of the major facilities is about to undergo an extensive renovation.
Rippe and RisCassi also noted that, in discussing the occupancy rates, the GAO did not address the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced facility admissions, or the pending renovation, which has forced AFRH to reduce capacity and start a waiting list.
"In the coming years, we look forward to resolving the decades-long impasse over pay deductions supporting the Home; instituting new health records systems that will improve health care coordination for our residents and better facilitate reimbursement for covered services performed on site; developing an updated capital investment plan for facilities and equipment; and executing a new strategy to secure a long-term revenue stream from the Home's substantial real estate assets," they wrote.
To be eligible for the AFRH, residents must be at least 60 years or older; have spent more than half their military service as an enlisted member, warrant officer or limited-duty officer; have an honorable discharge, a service-connected disability or military retirement[6]; and be ambulatory and able to take care of themselves at the time of admission.
Residents pay a fee depending on the level of care and monthly income, beginning at the independent living level, at a cost of nearly 47% of income, for their residences, meals, health care and amenities.
Fees rise with the level of care: Those requiring memory care services pay 70% of their income, according to the GAO.
Navy Seaman 1st Class James Richard Ward only had moments to decide what to do on the sinking USS Oklahoma during the bombing of Pearl Harbor: save himself, or do what he could to save others? Ward chose the valiant option, giving his life so his 
Actor Brian Keith has been the judge on the television series "Hardcastle and McCormick," the uncle in "Family Affair," Teddy Roosevelt in the movie "The Wind and the Lion," and the father in "The Parent Trap."
He also starred in movies including "Death
