Vox Sentences - Democrats notch a climate victory

Congress passes climate legislation; Hong Kong’s population declines amid Covid-19 restrictions.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

Congress passes historic climate bill

 Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• Friday, the House passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive climate, health, and tax package, ending over a year of negotiations on President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. [Reuters / By David Morgan, Moira Warburton, and Rose Horowitch]
• House Democrats advanced the IRA without any GOP support; every Democrat voted for the bill. [The Hill / Mychael Schnell]
• The bill pumps over $370 billion into clean energy and climate initiatives; it also allows Medicare to negotiate the cost of some drug costs, among other provisions. [New York Times / Emily Cochrane]
• It’s paid for mainly through government savings on health care, raising taxes on corporations, and beefing up IRS enforcement. [Associated Press / Alan Fram]
• Democrats say the legislation will help American families by lowering energy and health care costs. Still, analysts say the impact won’t be felt right away. [NPR / Juliana Kim]

Hong Kong's population shrinks

• Hong Kong suffered its steepest annual population decline as residents fled stringent Covid-19 restrictions and political turmoil. [CNN / Jessie Yeung and Kathleen Magramo]
• From mid-2021 to mid-2022, Hong Kong’s population shrank 1.6 percent to 7.29 million. All told, 121,500 people left, according to government statistics released Thursday. [Bloomberg /Kari Soo Lindberg]
• The report blames the exodus on Hong Kong’s strict pandemic border controls. It doesn’t mention how many residents left after China imposed a national security law cracking down on free speech. [AP]
• The financial hub saw years of growth until 2020, when the controversial national security law was signed. [Nikkei Asia / Takeshi Kihara] 

Author Salman Rushdie, 75, was attacked before a lecture Friday in New York. In the 1980s, Iranian religious authorities called for Rushdie’s death over his novel The Satanic Verses. [AP / Joshua Goodman]

• Ukraine and Russia are trading blame over shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The West is asking the Kremlin to remove its troops from the area. [Reuters / Natalia Zinets]
• The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents during the search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. [Wall Street Journal / Alex Leary, Aruna Viswanatha, and Sadie Gurman]
• Polio has been detected in New York City wastewater, which could mean the virus that causes the disease is circulating locally. [New York Times / Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Otterman]

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[House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the IRA legislation / Reuters]

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