BREAKING Another suspect arrested in Toronto Pearson airport gold heist: police
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
Hours before a nationwide eviction moratorium was set to expire, the U.S. Congress raced Friday to try to extend the ban in a longshot effort to prevent millions of Americans from being forced from their homes during a COVID-19 surge.
A House panel convened to consider emergency legislation to extend the ban, which expires Saturday, through Dec. 31. But approving an extension would be a steep climb in the narrowly split Congress.
More than 3.6 million Americans are at risk of eviction, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi implored colleagues to act, calling it a "moral imperative" to protect renters and also the landlords who are owed compensation.
Congress must "meet the needs of the American people: both the families unable to make rent and those to whom the rent is to be paid," Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues.
President Joe Biden announced Thursday the administration would allow the ban on evictions to expire. The White House argued its hands are tied after the Supreme Court signaled the moratorium would only be extended until the end of the month.
Not all lawmakers are on board with an extension, and the House is preparing to leave Friday for a scheduled recess. The Senate is also considering emergency legislation but passage in that 50-50 chamber would be even more difficult.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the Financial Services chairwoman who authored the emergency bill, urged her colleagues to act.
"Is it emergency enough that you're going to stop families from being put on the street?" Waters said as the Rules Committee met to consider the bill. "What the hell is going to happen to these children?"
But Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, of Washington, the top Republican on another panel handling the issue, said the Democrats' bill was rushed.
"This is not the way to legislate," she said.
Congress pushed nearly $47 billion to the states earlier during the COVID crisis to shore up landlords and renters as workplaces shut down and many people were suddenly out of work.
But lawmakers said state governments have been slow to distribute the money. On Friday they said only some $3 billion has been spent.
By the end of March, 6.4 million American households were behind on their rent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey.
The ban was initially put in place to prevent further spread of COVID-19 by people put out on the streets and into shelters.
The White House said Biden would have liked to extend the federal eviction moratorium due to spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. Instead, Biden called on Congress to do so.
The Supreme Court mustered a bare 5-4 majority last month, to allow the eviction ban to continue through the end of July. One of those in the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, made clear he would block any additional extensions unless there was "clear and specific congressional authorization."
Aides to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Sherrod Brown, the chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, said the two were working on legislation to extend the moratorium and are asking Republicans not to block it.
Waters spoke with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and urged her to push states to distribute some $47 billion in funding the Congress had already approved for housing aid during the coronavirus pandemic but which has been slow to reach renters and landlords.
"The public health necessity of extended protections for renters is obvious," said Diane Yentel, executive director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. "If federal court cases made a broad extension impossible, the Biden administration should implement all possible alternatives, including a more limited moratorium on federally backed properties."
Gene Sperling, who is charged with overseeing implementation of Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, said it was key that states and local authorities speed up distribution of the billions in rental assistance approved earlier by Congress.
Landlords, who have opposed the moratorium and challenged it repeatedly in court, are against any extension. They, too, are arguing for speeding up the distribution of rental assistance.
The National Apartment Association and several others this week filed a federal lawsuit asking for $26 billion in damages due to the impact of the moratorium.
"Any extension of the eviction moratorium equates to an unfunded government mandate that forces housing providers to deliver a costly service without compensation and saddles renters with insurmountable debt," association president and CEO Bob Pinnegar said, adding that the current crisis highlights a need for more affordable housing.
------
Casey reported from Boston. Associated Press Supreme Court reporter Mark Sherman and congressional reporter Kevin Freking contributed from Washington
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
Hailey and Justin Bieber are going to be parents. The couple announced the news on Thursday on Instagram, both sharing a video that showcases Hailey Bieber's growing belly.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre would not legislate on, nor use the notwithstanding clause, on abortion, his office says, as anti-abortion protesters gather on Parliament Hill.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Studies have shown that ultraprocessed foods can have a detrimental impact on health. But 30 years of research show they don’t all have the same impact.
Miss Teen USA resigned Wednesday, sending further shock waves through the pageant community just days after Miss USA said she would relinquish her crown.
For some immigrants, their dreams of permanently settling in Canada have taken an unexpected twist.
A video circulating on social media of a young girl being hit by a bike has some calling for better safety and more caution when designing bike lanes in the city. The video shows a four-year-old girl crossing Jeanne-Mance Street in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood to get on a school bus stopped on the opposite side of the street
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.