Wednesday morning news - August 11, 2021

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington.

Senate passes bipartisan infrastructure bill » Lawmakers in the Senate on Tuesday passed the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill on a vote of 69-to-30.

Speaking in the East Room of the White House, President Biden celebrated the Senate’s passage of the bipartisan bill.

BIDEN: A historic investment in the nation’s roads and highways, bridges and transit - and our drinking water systems and broadband, clean energy, environmental cleanup, and making infrastructure more resilient.

Supporters say the bill will pay for itself over time. The White House says the infrastructure package would create about 2 million jobs per year over the coming decade.

But many GOP lawmakers questioned those projections and opposed adding more to the federal deficit. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson …

JOHNSON: There was a way to do infrastructure without further mortgaging our kids’ future. That would have been to take the more than $700 billion dollars of the $1.9 trillion dollar partisan COVID relief package that isn’t even spent until 2022 through 2028 and repurpose that for infrastructure.

Democrats in the Senate will now turn to a second, much larger $3.5 trillion dollar package. That would have to pass straight down partly lines using budget reconciliation.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the House will eventually consider both measures together.

New York Lt. Gov. set to take over after Cuomo resignation » New York will soon have a new governor. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul is on deck to take over after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation on Tuesday.

CUOMO: My resignation will be effective in 14 days.

That just days after a state investigation found that Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women. Before announcing his departure, the governor once again pushed back against the findings of that report.

CUOMO: In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn.

Cuomo said he didn’t fully appreciate “generational and cultural shifts” in what’s considered to be acceptable behavior.

The Democratic governor has spent more than 10 years in the state’s highest office.

Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, will become the state’s first female governor.

Chinese, Russian militaries conduct joint drills in China » Troops from China and Russia are participating in joint exercises in northwestern China in a sign of growing military ties between the two countries. WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg has more.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: Chinese and Russian ground troops and combat aircraft are taking part in joint drills, likely through the end of this week in northwestern China.

They’re conducting the exercise just to the east of the Xinjiang region.

Xinjiang shares a narrow frontier with Afghanistan, and Beijing is concerned about violence spilling over its border as the Taliban conquers more territory.

Russia and China have not announced a formal alliance. But they are increasingly coordinating their military and foreign policies to counter U.S. military dominance.

The Chinese government said the joint exercise “reflects the new height of the China-Russia” strategic partnership for a new era.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

Tropical Storm Fred pelts Caribbean, tracks toward U.S. » Another named storm is taking aim at the United States as it rips through the Carribean.

Tropical Storm Fred is pelting the northern Caribbean with strong winds and heavy rains. That after a quiet month with no major storms in the region.

Puerto Rico reported power outages on Tuesday. The island’s power grid still has not recovered from Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The storm could hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the southern Bahamas today.

Jack Beven with the National Hurricane Center ...

BEVEN: People further downstream in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Florida should keep an eye on the system. It is way too early to tell what kind of impact it’s going to have further along the possible track.

Right now, it appears Fred will ultimately head for Florida or the Gulf Coast over the weekend.

U.S. sending Mexico 8.5 million more vaccine doses » The United States will send 8.5 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico. That as the delta variant drives the country’s third wave of infections. WORLD’s Leigh Jones reports.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The White House informed Mexico of the new shipments during a call this week. That according to Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard.

Hospitalizations are again starting to rise in parts of the country as infections expand rapidly and the health system grows more stressed.

Mexican officials say this COVID-19 wave is different in that the bulk of the new infections this time are not in those 60 years and up, but rather people 20 to 50 years old. Authorities say that’s likely because vaccination rates are lower among younger citizens.

Mexico has received 91 million doses of five different vaccines. Some 51 million people have received at least one dose and 27 million have been fully vaccinated. That’s about 21 percent of the country’s population.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

I'm Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org.

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