WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed legislation Thursday rebuking President Joe Biden’s decision to withhold some military assistance from Israel amid its ongoing war in Gaza.

The 224-187 vote (including a yes vote from South Dakota Republican Dusty Johnson) approved a bill released over the weekend by a handful of Republicans that, in part, “calls on the Biden Administration to allow all previously approved arms transfers to Israel to proceed quickly to ensure that Israel can defend itself and defeat threats from Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.”

The measure says withheld military assistance “shall be delivered to Israel not later than 15 days after” the bill becomes law and requires the secretaries of Defense and State to obligate all funding for Israel within 30 days of the bill becoming law.

The legislation now goes to the Senate, but it’s unlikely that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, will bring it up for a vote. The White House issued a veto threat for the bill.

“The president has already said he’d veto it, so it’s not going anywhere,” Schumer said Wednesday.

At a Thursday morning press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson accused Biden of emboldening Iran and “using his authority to defend himself politically.”

“Israel needs to finish the job and America needs to help Israel extinguish the flame of terror that is wrought by Hamas. It wasn’t that long ago when President Biden called for the elimination of Hamas. But he’s not doing that anymore. And now it’s clear that Biden and Schumer have turned their back on Israel. They’re carrying water for Iran and its proxies,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said.

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, of Oklahoma; Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, of California; State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mario Díaz-Balart, of Florida; and Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Joyce, of Ohio, released the nine-page bill this weekend.

Quiet pause

The legislation comes weeks after the Biden administration quietly paused one shipment of heavy bombs to Israel over concerns that more civilians in Gaza could be killed by U.S.-supplied weapons.

The death toll has reached more than 35,000 in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Biden is facing severe opposition from progressives, including high-profile protests on college campuses, over Israel’s continued offensive following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

The previously scheduled single shipment that was paused in late April contained 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, according to a Pentagon update on May 9.

Pentagon spokesman Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on May 9 that the administration has “not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment.”

“And as you know, we’ve provided billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel. We’ve supported their efforts to defend themselves, most recently (during) Iran’s unprecedented attack. So there should be no question that we will continue to stand by Israel when it comes to their defense,” Ryder said during a press conference.

The U.S. and allies shot down dozens of drones and missiles launched by Iran at Israel in mid-April, according to the Pentagon.

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of financial support from the U.S. since World War II, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Some House Democrats, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, expressed concern over the administration’s paused shipment, though she voted against the bill Thursday.

“President Biden has been ironclad in his commitment to Israel over the last seven months. His Administration must stay the course and avoid any impression that our support is wavering,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement Friday.

“Targeting remaining Hamas fighters while minimizing harm to civilians will require the best of our combined efforts. I share the President’s concern for Palestinian civilians used as human shields and understand the risks posed by a full-scale invasion of Rafah. However, we must remember that Hamas is eager to sacrifice as many Palestinian lives as possible and wants to maximize the civilian toll of this operation as part of their cowardly PR campaign,” she continued.

Numerous media reports are citing congressional aides who say the White House is poised to sign off on a $1 billion arms transfer to Israel.

When asked by reporters Thursday about the reported deal, Johnson criticized it as “window dressing” to provide Biden with “political cover.”

White House ‘strongly’ opposes bill

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday during the press briefing that the administration didn’t support the legislation.

“We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the president’s ability to deploy U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives,” she said.

Jean-Pierre added the Biden administration plans “to spend every last cent appropriated, consistent with legal obligations.”

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said during the same press briefing the administration had “paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs because we do not believe they should be dropped in densely populated cities.”

“We still believe it would be a mistake to launch a major military operation into the heart of Rafah that would put huge numbers of civilians at risk without a clear strategic gain,” Sullivan said. “The president was clear that he would not supply certain offensive weapons for such an operation, were it to occur.”

Sullivan said the Biden administration was working with the Israeli government “on a better way to ensure the defeat of Hamas everywhere in Gaza, including in Rafah.” He also noted that the U.S. is “continuing to send military assistance” to Israel.

The White House released a statement of administration policy on Tuesday further criticizing the legislation and issuing a veto threat.

“The bill is a misguided reaction to a deliberate distortion of the Administration’s approach to Israel,” it states. “The President has been clear: we will always ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself.”

Charlie Adelson, who’s serving a life sentence in the 2014 plot to kill Florida State law professor Dan Markel, has been moved again apparently — this time 1,800 miles or more from the scene of the crime.

Florida Department of Corrections online records show Adelson, a once-successful traveling periodontist from Fort Lauderdale, as being incarcerated somewhere in South Dakota. No other details are listed.

The 47-year-old Adelson was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation last November, after an eight-day trial at the Leon County Courthouse.

He had been held at the Wakulla Correctional Institution Annex outside Crawfordville, but was moved in February to the Columbia Correctional Institution Annex in Lake City.

The Florida Department of Corrections did not respond immediately to questions about Adelson’s incarceration.

State has moved prisoners out of state for safety reasons

The department has a history of moving inmates in particularly notorious cases to out-of-state prisons for safety and security reasons.

Zachary Wester, a former Jackson County deputy convicted of planting drugs on unsuspecting drivers, was moved in 2021 to the custody of Hawaii, which houses its prisoners in Arizona. Wester now is incarcerated in Colorado.

Markel, Adelson’s former brother-in-law and the father of his two nephews, was fatally shot by hired hitmen July 18, 2014, in the garage of his Betton Hills home. The murder occurred as Markel was feuding with his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, and her family, including Charlie Adelson, her brother.

The hit men, Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia, and Charlie Adelson’s ex-girlfriend, Katie Magbanua, were convicted in the murder. Charlie Adelson’s mother, Donna Adelson, was arrested in connection with the murder plot shortly after her son’s conviction. Her trial is set to start in September, court records show.

Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-222-1697.

Editor’s note: This is the ninth in a series of stories on children that Jackie Hendry, producer and host of SDPB’s “South Dakota Focus” is writing for South Dakota News Watch. Each month, she previews the upcoming show.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Thousands of South Dakota high schoolers are planning their first steps into adulthood this graduation season. Some may follow relatives into the family business of farming, law or teaching. Others, like Cordelia Rieck of Sioux Falls, plan to join the family business of raising families.

The number of day cares in South Dakota has almost halved since 2009, from 1,195 to 646 in 2020, according to the Kids Count Data Center. As conversations about the lack of child care access and affordability intensify across the state, the Rieck family is among the dozens of families in South Dakota that run in-home or family day cares. That journey began years before Cordelia was born.

After Karen Rieck and husband Justin moved to Sioux Falls, they went to see a movie. Karen had a few years of experience with child care at that time.

“Oddly enough, we had gone to see ‘Daddy Day Care’ in the theater,” said Karen. “And that’s what got my brain going. Like, ‘Really, you can do this. You can do child care out of your home. You don’t have to run a center.’”

A week later, the Riecks were creating a business plan. That was 21 years ago.

Today, Mrs. Karen’s House Childcare and Preschool is a state-registered family day care with capacity for a dozen children. When the “South Dakota Focus” team visited in April, the children’s ages ranged from 6 years to a pair of 5-month-old twins. Karen said the in-home setting emphasizes a feeling of family, which was attractive when she and her husband started the venture.

“Family in general is important to us, and we want to be able to instill that with the kids that we help raise,” she said.

In fact, a connection made through one of their clients helped the Riecks expand their own family. They’d previously been told having children would be difficult, if not impossible, based on some health complications. Then, in the early days of their child care operation, they watched the child of a pharmacy assistant.

“She’s the one who introduced me to a physician who was able to figure out what was wrong,” Karen remembered with a smile. “Needed some help, but I have four kids now.”

‘I’ve always had somebody to play with!’

Those kids have grown up alongside the kids who attend Mrs. Karen’s House Childcare and Preschool. The Reicks’ firstborn is Cordelia. She graduates from Sioux Falls Roosevelt High School this month.

“She was born into family child care,” said Karen. “We literally had her on a Thursday at 6:27 p.m. and our doors were open on Monday.”

“Well, I’ve never had a bad experience of going to somebody else’s day care,” Cordelia explained matter-of-factly. “I always had somebody to play with!”

Cordelia still plays and helps with the day care kids before and after school.

“I come back and all of them, they bombard me at the stairs. I don’t even make it up the stairs, and they’re just all over me. It’s great,” she said.

When it came time to decide what to do after high school, Cordelia knew one thing for sure: “I just wanted to help people. I didn’t care how.”

As a child, she’d considered being a doctor or veterinarian. Today, she shudders at the math and science involved.

“And I was like, ‘You know, I want to help people. I can help children.’ Because first of all, I love children and children usually love me because I am a child,” Cordelia joked.

Few early childhood degree options

South Dakota does not require child care providers to hold higher education credentials for licensing purposes. But research demonstrates a relationship between a child’s earliest years and their future learning outcomes, so many providers and parents want to see child care staff with some level of specialized education.

Are government subsidies the solution to the child care crisis? Lawmakers weigh options.

Legislative leaders agree that the ongoing child care crisis in South Dakota represents a significant workforce problem. Advocates are worried they lack a sense of urgency.

Some child care and preschool providers have begun requiring a one-year Child Development Associate as a minimum credential to lead a classroom, though there are more intensive options.

South Dakota State University in Brookings offers the only four-year degree specialization in early childhood education in the state. Northern State University in Aberdeen began offering a two-year associate degree in early childhood education last year, along with scholarships sponsored by the state Department of Social Services.

Ultimately, Cordelia decided on an early childhood specialist associate degree from Southeast Technical College in Sioux Falls.

“I wanted to stay here because I wanted to help here,” she explained.

Cordelia acknowledges that none of her high school classmates are considering a career in child care.

“They go, ‘I’m not having kids, so why does that pertain to me?’” she said. “It’s really irritating sometimes because sometimes they’re really arrogant about it.”

Recent coverage of low wages for child care providers likely doesn’t help.

In 2021, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said child care workers earn in the bottom 2% of occupations in the nation. That has contributed to staff burnout, which perpetuates the lack of child care providers. A 2022 report from South Dakota’s Department of Social Services put the turnover rate of direct care staff at 88 percent. However, that same report shows the lowest turnover rate among group family day care providers, at 60 percent. It’s unclear the turnover rate for registered family day cares like the Riecks’.

Karen Rieck believes her daughter has seen both the challenges and the benefits of running a family day care.

“Having Justin and I both home all the time, she actually got to have us here,” she explained. “She had that friend group here that she grew up with. … I think she also sees on those days when it’s 30-below and we’re standing here with our hot cup of coffee and people are coming to us, and we didn’t have to go out in that. There’s perks to that.”

As excited as Karen is to have Cordelia follow in her footsteps, she’s also excited for her to blaze her own trail.

“To go from being someone who never thought I would have kids, to Cordelia … we thought we were losing her at 12 weeks,” Karen said through tears. “I’ve seen her grow up and just become an amazing person, and even when she turned 18, that was so hard for me. She doesn’t need her mommy anymore! Part of that moving into the child care world, she’s still gonna need me, but I want her to do her own thing and create who she is.”

In the meantime, Cordelia looks forward to high school graduation and the next steps – even if few of her peers are working toward the same goal.

“The average teenager does not care at all. It’s kind of sad because they don’t have any of the childlike experiences after their childhood. I get to experience them every single day,” she said.

South Dakota’s teacher shortage a matter of pay and pipeline

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While the Legislature works to address teacher pay, groups like Educators Rising tap current students to consider a future career in education

How to watch ‘South Dakota Focus’ on SDPB

The next episode of “South Dakota Focus” airs on Thursday, May 23, at 8 p.m. Central time / 7 p.m. Mountain time. It can be viewed on SDPB-TV 1, Facebook, YouTube and SD.net.

The episode includes:

• A Build Dakota scholarship winner graduating from the surgical tech program
• A youth center in Fort Thompson providing job and mentorship opportunities
• Stories from South Dakota high schoolers on what’s next after graduation