Input: U.K. Sends Body Armor, Police Uniforms to Libya
London – Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague says the U.K. is sending body armor, police uniforms and communications equipment to the police force of Libya's opposition.

Hague said in a statement Thursday that the U.K. was offering 5,000 sets of body armor, 6,650 uniforms, 5,000 high-visibility vests and the communication tools.

The equipment is being supplied to Libya's Transitional National Council, based in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Hague said the provision would allow police to better protect opposition figures, international officials and nongovernmental groups based in Libya's eastern cities.
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It's about: Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague says the U.K. is sending body armor, police uniforms and communications equipment to the police force of Libya's opposition.

Q: Senate Democrats Block Zika Bill Over Planned Parenthood Provisions

WASHINGTON — As Congress returned from a seven-week recess on Tuesday, Senate Democrats again stymied a $1.1 billion plan to fight the Zika virus, demanding that Republicans drop an effort to block Planned Parenthood from receiving money to combat the mosquito-borne disease.

Democrats, who had essentially blocked the same legislation in late June, had enough votes Tuesday to prevent Congress from moving emergency funding public health experts say is desperately needed as they prepare for the possibility that Zika will spread to other states along the gulf coast. The vote was 52 to 46, and Republicans needed 60 votes to advance the bill.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, said that although efforts to fight the virus had produced encouraging results, the problem was far from over.

“It’s hard to explain why, despite their own calls for funding, Democrats would block plans to keep women and babies safe from Zika,” Mr. McConnell said before the vote.

Because of the standoff, lawmakers say they expect to address the funding issue by the end of the month as part of a must-pass, stopgap spending measure. That legislation would be intended to keep the government funded because it seems increasingly likely that Congress will not pass its annual spending bills by then.

Scientists increasingly believe that the Zika virus may cause birth defects in infants. Here’s why.

But that may not be soon enough, some health experts say. Calls for additional funding gained urgency last week when Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced that his agency has used almost all of the $222 million it was allocated to fight the virus. He warned that some plans, such as a mosquito control program in hard-hit Puerto Rico, would have to be axed without more money soon.

Florida, in particular, has been burning through funds quickly, undertaking the costly work of spraying and otherwise controlling the mosquito population, and health experts worry that another cluster of cases elsewhere might cost more money than they have.

The Republican-driven package was supposed to resolve the differences between a bipartisan Senate plan and a less Democrat-friendly House version. The bill would exclude Planned Parenthood from the list of providers that get new funding for contraception to combat spread of the virus, which can be sexually transmitted.

Democrats regard any restriction on Planned Parenthood as setting a dangerous example, and they have shown they are willing to risk looking as if they are blocking funding for a public health crisis to prevent that precedent.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Republicans had sabotaged efforts to address Zika by including the restrictions on Planned Parenthood.

“Now with this Zika virus frightening women all over America, they want to cut it off?” Mr. Reid said before the vote.

Such questions awaited lawmakers on both sides as they returned to their districts this summer, vexing those from Florida and other Southern states. NARAL Pro-Choice America, a prominent abortion rights group, released an ad Tuesday slamming Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is running for re-election, over the Planned Parenthood provisions in the bill.

As of late August, there were more than 16,800 Zika cases in the United States, including Puerto Rico, which had the most. Health experts were tracking more than 1,500 pregnant women who had been infected with Zika, and at least 17 babies have been born with severe birth defects. The potential remains for many more cases before peak mosquito season ends in November.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, said in a briefing last week that the administration was still holding out hope that a bipartisan agreement could be struck, particularly given the growing number of cases in Florida and Puerto Rico.

Florida announced seven new Zika cases Tuesday, bringing the total number of homegrown cases in Florida to 56, according to the state Department of Health. Six of the cases surfaced in an area in Miami Beach where the infection is circulating, the department said, and one elsewhere in Miami-Dade County.

“We need a bipartisan agreement,” Ms. Burwell said. “I believe that is possible and I think that can be done.”

Ms. Burwell emphasized the urgency of the situation, saying that the administration had been focused on juggling funding rather than conducting the research necessary to better understand Zika and its effects, such as the number of children who would be left deaf by the virus. She pointed out that Congress had allocated funding for other health emergencies, such as the Ebola and the H1N1 flu viruses.

“This is an emergency,” she said. “We did not know. It was not planned for. It is a national issue. For other kinds of emergencies we do it.”

A:
As Congress returned from recess, a stalemate resumed over a $1.1 billion plan to fight the virus even as public health experts warned that funding was desperately needed.