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Senate poised
FROM PAGE 16
Four Republican votes are needed to allow new witnesses but Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who had been considered a possible swing vote, issued a statement late Thursday saying there was no need for more evidence.
“It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation,” Alexander said.
“But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate,” he said.
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she would support the call for witnesses, and Utah Senator Mitt Romney has said he was “very likely” to do so.
Another wavering Republican -- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- has said she plans to announce her decision in the morning.
In the event of a 50-50 tie, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, could be called upon to end the deadlock. If he declines to vote, the motion calling for witnesses would fail.
PARTISAN IMPEACHMENT
Chief Democratic prosecutor Adam Schiff, in a last-ditch bid on Thursday to win over Republican senators wary of a drawn-out process, proposed a one-week time frame to secure new witness testimony.
“Let’s have a reasonable accommodation here,” the California lawmaker told the 100 senators sitting as jurors at the historic trial. “We’ll take one week, and you’ll continue with the business of the Senate.”
Trump’s defence team rejected the Democratic calls for more witnesses.
“They said for weeks it was an overwhelming case,” said White House deputy counsel Patrick Philbin. “If that’s their position, why do they need more witnesses?”
White House counsel Pat Cipollone argued for an early acquittal, saying it “would be the best thing for our country.”
“We’re dealing with a purely partisan impeachment,” Cipollone said, accusing Democrats of using impeachment “as a political weapon.”
Voters -- not the Senate -- should decide Trump’s fate in the November presidential election, he said.
Cipollone and Schiff made their remarks during an occasionally testy Senate session during which Democratic and Republican senators directed questions to the House prosecutors and White House defence team.
House impeachment managers expressed outrage over an assertion by one of Trump’s lawyers, Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, that a president can do almost anything he wants if he believes his re-election was “in the public interest.”
Schiff said the claim echoed the Watergate case of disgraced president Richard Nixon 45 years ago.
“What we have seen in the last couple of days is a descent into constitutional madness,” Schiff said.
“Almost half a century ago, we had a president who said, ‘Well, when the president does it that means it is not illegal.’”
“Have we learned nothing in the last half century?” Schiff asked.
“That is the normalization of lawlessness,” he said. “I would hope that every American would recognize that it’s wrong to seek foreign help in an American election.”
DISGRACE
Trump’s defence team has argued alternatively that the impeachment is politically driven, that Trump did not tie Ukraine aid to the investigations he sought, that he had reason to seek a probe into his political rival and that he had the legal right to do so as president.
The president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, calling the entire process a politically driven “witch hunt” and a “disgrace.”
Speaking at a campaign rally on Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, Trump said, “We’re having the best years in the history of our country and I just got impeached.”
Democrats are to hold their first vote in Iowa on Monday in the process of selecting a candidate to face Trump in November’s presidential election.

US gender wage gap narrowed significantly since 1980: study
Afp, Washington
American women are catching up to men, at least in terms of wages, according to a study published Thursday showing the pay gap between the sexes has narrowed considerably since 1980.
Wage gains for women have been driven by the rapid increase in jobs requiring “social” skills and higher skills, such as critical thinking, where women now represent a majority, according to the report by the Pew Research Center, an independent American research institute.
In less than 40 years, the average hourly wages of women have jumped 45 percent, to $22 dollars in 2018 from $15, while pay for men increased 14 percent in that period.
But men’s wages remain above what women earn at $26 an hour, and women still comprise a smaller share of the workforce.
“The growing presence of women in higher-skill occupations has contributed to more rapid wage growth for them in recent decades compared with men, and this helped to narrow the gender wage gap,” the report said.
Women are better represented in the most demanding jobs requiring social skills (coaching, therapists) and “fundamental” or critical thinking skills (neuropsychologists, science teachers, lawyers), careers that grew rapidly during this period.
The report attributes the persistent, though narrower, gender pay gap to a variety of factors, some of which are measurable, like job skills, education level, work experience, union membership and hours worked.
“Others such as discrimination, differences in professional networks, and responsibilities associated with motherhood and caregiving are difficult to measure,” the report said.
And while the gender wage gap has faded, in 2018 the labor force participation rate of prime age women (25-54) was 75.3 percent compared to 89 percent for men, according to the Labor Department.