20/05/2025

TUESDAY | MAY 20, 2025

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Trump mega-Bill clears hurdle

o Republican rebels drop opposition

coverage under the programme, according to estimates by the independent Congressional Budget Office. Moderate Republicans fear overly large cuts in the popular programme could upset the party’s prospects in the midterm elections of November next year. But deficit hawks on the party’s far right insist the projected cuts don’t go far enough. “We don’t like smoke and mirrors,” one of those legislators, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told reporters. “We want real cuts.” “This is the largest spending reduction in at least three decades, probably longer,” he told the Fox programme. “It’s historic.” Even if the Bill passes in the House, it will face challenges in the Senate. Republicans in the upper chamber, who have a similarly narrow majority, are demanding major changes in the sweeping Bill, which Trump is eager to present as a signal accomplishment early in his second term. – AFP

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unanimous support to pass. Republican Congressman Josh Brecheen, one of four representatives who reversed their votes on Sunday, said the legislation “still required tweaking”. “We look forward to working with the White House and leadership to resolve these issues in the next few days,” he posted on X. Speaker Johnson told “Fox News Sunday” that he plans for a floor vote on the package by the end of the week. Independent congressional analysts calculate that the mega-Bill’s tax provisions would add more than US$4.8 trillion (RM20.69 trillion) to the federal deficit over the coming decade. To partially offset that, Republicans plan significant cuts in spending, notably by adding new restrictions on the Medicaid programme that helps provide health insurance for more than 70 million lower-income Americans. The policy change would result in more than 10 million people losing

Polar bear biopsies to shed light on Arctic pollutants OSLO: With one foot braced on the helicopter’s landing skid, a Veterinarian Rolf Arne Olberg checks if a bear is properly sedated in eastern Spitzbergen in the Svalbard archipelago. – AFPPIC

WASHINGTON: A mega-Bill central to US President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda cleared a key hurdle on Sunday, progressing out of the House Budget Committee after several lawmakers holding up the legislation dropped their opposition. Trump is pushing to usher into law his so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill” pairing an extension of his first term tax cuts with savings that will see millions of the poorest Americans lose their health coverage. But sharp divisions in the Republican Party have slowed the legislative process in Congress, with conservatives angling for much deeper cuts and moderates worried about threats to healthcare. House Speaker Mike Johnson spent the weekend working to persuade rebels who blocked the Bill on Friday. Republicans have a very slim majority in the House, meaning

polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – synthetic chemicals used in industry and consumer goods that linger in the environment for decades. Despite years of exposure, Svalbard’s polar bears showed no signs of emaciation or ill health, according to the team. The local population has remained stable or even increased slightly, unlike parts of Canada, where the Western Hudson Bay group declined by 27% between 2016 and 2021, from 842 to 618 bears. Other populations in the Canadian Arctic, including the Southern Beaufort Sea, have also shown long-term declines linked to reduced prey access and longer ice free seasons. Scientists estimate there are around 300 polar bears in the Svalbard archipelago and roughly 2,000 in the broader region stretching from the North Pole to the Barents Sea. The team found no direct link between sea ice loss and higher concentrations of pollutants in Svalbard’s bears. Instead, differences in pollutant levels came down to the bears’ diet. Two types of bears – sedentary and pelagic – feed on different prey, leading to different chemicals building up in their bodies. With reduced sea ice, the bears’ diets have already started shifting, researchers said. These behavioural adaptations appeared to help maintain the population’s health. “They still hunt seals but they also take reindeer (and) eggs. They even eat grass (seaweed), even though that has no energy for them,” said Jon Aars, the head of the Svalbard polar bear programme. “If they have very little sea ice, they necessarily need to be on land,” he said, adding that they spend “much more time on land than they used to ... 20 or 30 years ago”. This season alone, Aars and his team of marine toxicologists and spatial behaviour experts captured 53 bears, fitted 17 satellite collars, and tracked 10 mothers with cubs or yearlings. The team’s innovations go beyond biopsies. Last year, they attached small “health log” cylinders to five females, recording their pulse and temperature. Combined with GPS data, the devices offer a detailed record of how the bears roam, how they rest and what they endure. – AFP

veterinarian lifted his air rifle, took aim and fired a tranquilliser dart at a polar bear. The predator bolted but soon slumped into the snowdrifts, its broad frame motionless beneath the Arctic sky. The dramatic pursuit formed part of a pioneering research mission in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, where scientists, for the first time, took fat tissue biopsies from polar bears to study the impact of pollutants on their health. The expedition came at a time when the Arctic region was warming at four times the global average, putting mounting pressure on the iconic predators as their sea-ice habitat shrank. “The idea is to show as accurately as possible how the bears live in the wild – but in a lab,” said Belgian toxicologist Laura Pirard. “To do this, we take their (fatty) tissue, cut it in very thin slices and expose it to the stresses they face, in other words pollutants and stress hormones,” said Pirard, who developed the method. Moments after the bear collapsed, the chopper circled back and landed. Researchers spilled out, boots crunching on the snow. One knelt by the bear’s flank, cutting thin strips of fatty tissue. Another drew blood. Each sample was sealed and labelled before the bear was fitted with a satellite collar. Scientists said that while the study monitors all the bears, only females were tracked with GPS collars as their necks are smaller than their heads; unlike males, who cannot keep a collar on for more than a few minutes. For the scientists aboard the Norwegian Polar Institute’s research vessel Kronprins Haakon , these fleeting encounters were the culmination of months of planning and decades of Arctic fieldwork. In a makeshift lab on the icebreaker, samples remained usable for several days, subjected to controlled doses of pollutants and hormones before being frozen for further analysis back on land. Each tissue fragment gave Pirard and her colleagues insight into the health of an animal that spent much of its life on sea ice. Analysis of the fat samples showed that the main pollutants present were per- and

Huang greeting fans outside a restaurant in Taipei. – REUTERSPIC

Nvidia’s Huang mobbed by fans in Taiwan TAIPEI: Wherever AI darling Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang goes in Taiwan, his adoring fans and excited reporters follow, hanging on his every word, arms outstretched as they beseech him to sign books, posters and even baseballs. everybody’s very, very kind,” Huang said. His fame in Taiwan prompts bafflement from Nvidia colleagues, given he is often largely unnoticed when he attends similar events in the United States, and concern from his bodyguards as they try to hold back reporters and fans alike. “He’s not saying anything Huang’s autograph outside the restaurant. After finishing the dinner, Huang rushed off to the opening ceremony of the World Masters Games, where he was a guest of honour along with Olympics gold medallist boxer Lin Yu ting and renowned Taiwanese actor and director Sylvia Chang.

Huang, born in Taiwan’s historic capital of Tainan before migrating to the United States when he was nine, is visiting Taipei this week for the annual Computex trade show, and his every move has been watched since his private jet touched down on Friday. “Jensen I love you!” one woman shouted out to him from the crowd in English as he greeted a throng in front of a Taipei restaurant on Saturday where he was entertaining tech titans. “I love coming to Taiwan and love seeing everybody here and I appreciate their support, and

Huang’s participation even briefly embroiled Taiwan’s presidential office, after criticism from opposition politicians that Vice-President Hsiao Bi-khim was only making a last minute appearance to “freeload” on Huang also being there. When Hsiao confirmed she was going she did not know Huang would also be doing so, and in any case the presidential security detail had checked out the venue a month ago, her office said. – Reuters

important,” one bodyguard told reporters, asking them to step back as Huang handed out fried ice cream to his fans on Saturday outside the restaurant, where he and his guests enjoyed rice noodle soup and Taiwan’s award-winning Kavalan whisky. “He has encouraged Taiwanese young people like myself. I believe what he is doing is something we should learn from,” said 21-year-old student Hsu Han-yuan, who got