Defense budget set at $612 billion
- Share via
Troops would get a pay raise in a defense bill that Congress sent President Bush after lawmakers had backed away from an election-season showdown with the administration over Iraq.
Legislation approved by a voice vote in the Senate would set $612 billion in defense spending next year, increase pay by 3.9%, extend bonuses and provide money for family housing, tuition assistance and other programs.
The House approved the bill overwhelmingly on Wednesday. Bush is expected to sign the measure.
In the end, House-Senate bargainers dropped several provisions Bush opposed. Eliminated was language barring private interrogators from U.S. military detention facilities and giving Congress a chance to block a security pact with Iraq.
The legislation also lacks a call for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq -- something Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama long has called for and Republican nominee John McCain has opposed.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
The latest effort is coming from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. They just announced a $3 million program in conjunction with some nonprofits groups to test and clean the soil at homes still standing in the areas impacted by the Eaton Fire.
California once bet big on offshore wind to help power its clean-energy future, but the Trump administration is now paying developers billions to walk away from their projects. As California’s remaining offshore-wind leases hang in the balance, the state is fighting back in court.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
