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House OKs Bill Blocking Planned Parenthood Funds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking to avert a government shutdown, Republican leaders drove a bill blocking Planned Parenthood's federal funds through the House on Friday, hoping to contain conservatives' demands for a politically risky showdown with President Barack Obama by striking a quick blow against abortion.

The nearly party-line 241-187 vote followed a no-holds-barred debate that included a graphic, poster-sized photo of a scarred, aborted fetus and underscored how abortion has resurfaced as a white-hot political issue. The battle has been rejoined just in time for the 2016 election campaign and next week's historic address to Congress by Pope Francis.

The issue's re-emergence followed the release of secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials offhandedly discussing how they sometimes procure tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research. The anti-abortion activists who made the videos say they show that Planned Parenthood is illegally profiting from fetal organ sales.

"What does it say about this Congress that today we're here on the House floor debating the killing and harvesting of aborted babies?" said Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. "How can there possibly be two sides to this?"

Democrats said the true GOP goal was to whip up conservative voters with legislation that would make it harder for women to get health care. Planned Parenthood, whose clinics provide sexual disease tests, contraception and abortion, says it's done nothing illegal and is being victimized by misleadingly edited videos.

Republicans "are willing to risk women's lives just to score political points," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who chairs the Democratic National Committee. "Enough is enough."

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Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during the CNN Republican presiden …

Planned Parenthood gets around $450 million yearly in federal payments, mostly Medicaid reimbursements for handling low-income patients. That's around one-third of the organization's $1.3 billion annual budget. Practically none of the federal money can be used for abortions.

Beyond Friday's bill, some conservatives want to attach language halting Planned Parenthood's payments to broader legislation financing government agencies, which otherwise run out of money next Thursday. Those Republicans say a shutdown fight would at least produce a veto battle that would show voters where Republicans stand.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, a long-time abortion foe, and virtually all House Republicans favor halting the flow of federal dollars to Planned Parenthood. But Boehner and other GOP leaders say a shutdown battle would be fruitless because they lack enough votes to prevail in the Senate or overcome an Obama veto. They say voters oppose a shutdown and would punish the GOP in next year's elections if one occurred.

GOP leaders' efforts to avoid a shutdown were explicitly endorsed Friday by the nation's most powerful anti-abortion group. Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said in a written statement that a shutdown would cause "political damage to our allies" by angering the public, adding, "The grim fact is this: In order to defund Planned Parenthood, we must have a pro-life president."

Long unhappy with Boehner and other GOP leaders for not being confrontational enough, some in his party have threatened to force a House vote on removing him from his post if he backs down on this or other upcoming fights over federal borrowing and spending.

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, accompanied by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid …

The legislation approved Friday, proposed by Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., would end federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year, diverting the money to thousands of community health centers. Republicans say those clinics could handle the displaced Planned Parenthood patients, but Democrats say the centers are overburdened and sometimes distant.

Pressure from conservatives may ultimately force leaders to let Congress vote anyway on a bill that would avert a shutdown and stop Planned Parenthood's federal dollars, a measure certain to die in the Senate. Once defeated, that would likely be followed by a measure temporarily financing government, perhaps into December, that would include Planned Parenthood funds and buy time to resolve disputes over spending, abortion and other issues.

For now, Republican leaders are hoping that investigations by four congressional committees and other anti-abortion bills will relieve some pressure.

Along those lines, the House voted 248-177 Friday for another measure, this one by Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., that would impose penalties of up to five years in prison plus fines on doctors who don't try to save infants born alive during abortions.

And the Senate set a vote for Tuesday on a measure banning most late-term abortions. Both of those bills would face likely Senate defeat and an Obama veto threat.

In Friday's House debate, both sides showed plenty of fight on the issue.

Franks, who brought the fetus poster to the floor, said Congress' response to the Planned Parenthood videos "is vital to everything those lying out in Arlington Cemetery died to save."

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., asked, "In the face of these videos, with all the alternatives women have for health, why would you want to force your constituents to pay for something so evil?"

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said Republicans relying on deceptively edited videos had "manufactured a witch hunt." Added Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., "Stop being so mean. Solve problems, do not create them."

Planned Parenthood spokesman Eric Ferrero called the two House-passed bills "a callous attempt to insert politics into women's health."

Summer 2015 has seen the largest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II. Europe is scrambling to meet the challenges posed by the inflow of 381,000 who have reached the continent this year alone. Half of that number is made up of Syrians, with the remainder primarily from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and various states in Western Africa — refugees who are escaping similar political unrest and in many cases sure death.

Germany opened its arms and doors to the frightened and fleeing. The natural course to the German border is to go first through Serbia, then to Hungary and Austria to reach asylum. Hungary, overcome by the masses, declared an emergency on Monday, Sept. 14, deciding to close its border with Serbia, building a barbed-wire fence and stationing police officers to arrest those trying to cross.

On Wednesday, Sept. 16, with the Hungarian border closing, clashes broke out with desperate refugees throwing stones and water bottles. Exhausted and locked out, they were stranded on the Serbian-Hungarian border.

A thousand people made it onto a train to Austria before Hungary closed the border. Hundreds more must now map an alternative route into Europe. Refugees have begun to enter the country through Croatia and Romania instead. Hungary has already said it will extend its fence to seal the Romanian border. (Gabby Kaufman/Yahoo News)

On the ground and on assignment for Yahoo News, photographer Francesca Volpibears photographic witness to this touching journey from Sept. 11 – 16, capturing all the determination, chaos and heartache that characterize the refugee crisis.

Here's a look at a few of her best from this small slice in this onging worldwide refugee crisis.

Striking images from ongoing refugee crisis

Photographer Francesca Volpi witnesses the determination, chaos, and heartache currently gripping Europe.
See photos

Associated Press Videos
Croatia Pres. On Migrants: Need To Be Realistic

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Thousands of migrants flooded into Austria on Saturday, seeking refuge after shuttling for days in bordering countries that were unable or unwilling to offer them shelter.

Austrian police said some 6,700 people traveled to the central European country from Hungary after being trapped Friday in a vicious tug-of-war as bickering European governments shut border crossings, blocked bridges and erected new barbed-wire fences in a bid to shut down the flow.

More are expected as people continue to make their way north via Turkey and Greece after fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. On Saturday, the Greek coast guard said they failed to save a 5-year-old girl found in the sea off the island of Lesbos after the boat she traveled on sank, also leaving 14 others missing.

Asylum-seekers who headed westward into Croatia after being beaten back by tear gas and water cannons on the Hungarian-Serbian border just days earlier found themselves being returned to Serbia or to Hungary, after Croatia declared it could not handle the influx.

Hungary then put them on buses, and sent them on to Austria. More were expected Saturday.

Meanwhile, Hungary's military said that it is calling up 500 army reservists as the country reinforces its borders with razor-wire fences, the deployment of thousands of soldiers to the border and other tough measures.

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Migrants board a bus after they arrived at the border between Austria and Hungary near Heiligenkreuz …

The EU's failure to find a unified response to the crisis left Croatia, one of the poorest countries in the European Union, squeezed between the blockades thrown up by Hungary and Slovenia and the unending flood of people flowing north from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though sympathetic to their plight, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic demanded that the EU step forward and take responsibility for the people in transit through this country of 4.2 million. More than 20,000 have arrived since Wednesday.

"We're flooded, local communities are flooded, the numbers of refugees in some areas is far greater (than) the number of local residents," she told The Associated Press. "So we need to control, we need to stop the flow, we need to get reassurances from European Union what happens to these people who are already in Croatia, and those who still want to transit through Croatia."

Mindful of people crossing cornfields and forests to transit her country, Kitarovic stressed further measures would be taken to secure Croatia's borders. Underscoring that Croatia itself has only recently begun to recover from the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Kitarovic said that migrants were also in danger of stepping on mines leftover from the conflict.

"I will advise highly anyone to use official crossings, but we have to take further measures to insure stability on the border, and that there are no breaches through the corn fields, or forests or any other areas that are not controlled or cleared," she said.

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Migrants queue up for buses after they arrived at the border between Austria and Hungary near Heilig …

The thousands seeking sanctuary as doors close behind them are camping in the open, sleeping on streets, exposed to heat in the day and cold in the night.

Police in Slovenia say more than 1,000 migrants have entered the country, but hundreds more are waiting at the border as they let in only limited numbers.

As temperatures dipped overnight, hundreds of migrants at the Obrezje crossing set up tents camping there without food and water.

Ammar Jessem, 24, a dentist from Baghdad, said the migrants had heard the border was open and were disappointed after walking through Croatia in hopes of going north.

"We don't want to stay here. We want to go to Austria. From Austria we go everywhere," he said.

"It is a small country and we can go by walking," he added, undeterred. "It is no problem for us."

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Kirka reported from Zagreb, Croatia. Dalton Bennett contributed to this story.

Washington (AFP) - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has tried to reassure a skeptical American public that when crowds in Tehran chant "Death to America!" they don't mean it personally.

In an interview with the CBS show "60 Minutes" to be broadcast Sunday in the United States, the Iranian president said the famous Friday ritual is a reaction to previous Washington policy decisions that hurt Iran.

In April, US President Barack Obama's administration signed a deal with Rouhani's government to release Iran from many of the economic sanctions harming its economy in return for tight controls on its nuclear program.

But many in the United States are still convinced that Iran, which is ultimately led not by Rouhani but by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remains bent on their country's destruction.

In the fierce domestic American debate over the deal, opponents have often cited the regular appearance of chanting anti-American crowds as evidence of Tehran's true intentions.

But Rouhani, seen as a moderate reformer by the standards of the Islamic republic, attempted to reassure his CBS interviewer Steve Kroft and the wider audience.

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A picture released by the official website of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shows him waving to t …

"This slogan that is chanted is not a slogan against the American people. Our people respect the American people," he insisted, in an extract from the interview released Friday.

"The Iranian people are not looking for war with any country," he said.

"But at the same time the policies of the United States have been against the national interests of Iranian people, it's understandable that people will demonstrate sensitivity to this issue.

"When the people rose up against the Shah, the United States aggressively supported the Shah until the last moments. In the eight-year war with Iraq, the Americans supported Saddam.

"People will not forget these things. We cannot forget the past, but at the same time our gaze must be towards the future."

Iran rose up against its pro-Western monarch Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979. After the revolt, Iranian radical students took 52 US embassy workers hostage and held them for more than a year.