Vice President Mike Pence met with people reeling under the rampage caused by Hurricane Harvey in the US state of Texas and promised them of full support by his government until the state is back on its feet.

Mr. Pence along with several cabinet officials met the people in Corpus Christi yesterday before heading to the town of Rockport.

“The American people are with you,” he told a crowd outside a Rockport church that was damaged by the tropical storm.

“We are here today, we will be here tomorrow and we will be here every day until this city and this state and this region is rebuilt bigger and better than ever before,” he said.

Taking stock of the damage caused by catastrophic floods brough by Harvey, Mr. Pence vowed over and over that Washington will invest whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to ensure a full recovery of the state.

“We promise you, we’re going to stay with you every step until we bring Southeast Texas back bigger and better than ever before,” he said.

About 21,000 federal workers have been mobilised in response to the storm and the Congress is expected to debate passage of a multi billion-dollar emergency aid package in the coming weeks.

Harvey, now a tropical depression, made the second landfall on Wednesday, slamming into the Louisiana coast near the Texas border hitting the region with record-breaking rainfall and devastating floods.

Harvey has brought the heaviest rainfall in US history, soaking Texas with more than 52 inches since it first made landfall last Friday.

At least 38 people have been killed as a result of the devastating floods and that number was climbing as water receded, revealing the storm’s awful toll, officials were quoted as saying by the New York Times.

Storm-battered Texans faced a worrying new threat as potentially harmful smoke spewed from a swamped chemical plant near Houston, as Harvey’s floodwaters began to recede in America’s fourth-largest city.

President Donald Trump, who visited the area early this week, is expected to return Saturday.

On his visit to Texas after Hurricane Harvey, Mr. Pence hugged the survivors, prayed with them and even pitched in to help haul away debris from a damaged home.

“I think the scope is truly breathtaking,” Mr. Pence told ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl in an interview in Rockport.

“We’re gonna be here today, tomorrow, until it’s done. It’s not months, it’s years,” he added.

The vice president pledged unwavering the support from the government as he stood by the president’s threat of forcing a government shutdown later this month if Congress does not approve of funding for a new border wall along the southern border of the US.

“If we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall,” Mr. Trump had said during a campaign rally last week in Arizona.

Mr. Pence said, “the president has made clear that we’re going to stand firm and we’re going to build a wall and secure our border.

“But I will tell you, president Trump’s made it very clear that our top priority right now is dealing with Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath,” he said.

Mr. Pence said they will make sure that people of Texas and the region have the resources and the support that they need to rebuild their lives.

Congress has until the end of the month to come up with a plan to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a government default, and pass a spending budget.

Mr. Pence’s visit came just two days after Trump visited Corpus Christi and Austin and met with state and local officials.

“You’ve inspired the nation by your resilience and by your courage and we just came here to commend you and to encourage you and to assure you that we will be there,” Mr. Pence told people of Rockport.

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Thursday acquitted five Taliban members accused of assassinating former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi.

Two senior police officials have been sentenced to 17 years in prison for their criminal negligence in washing the crime scene immediately after the murder.

The court has declared former president and military ruler General Pervez Musharraf as absconder in the case for repeatedly failing to appear before it.

Judge Mohammed Asghar Khan of the Anti-Terrorist Court announced the decision in the high-security Adiala prison.

The judge’s reader later told the media about the ruling.

The two police officials convicted by the court are former Rawalpindi Police Chief Saud Aziz and SSP Operations Khurram Shahzad. They were arrested after the judge announced the ruling as they were out on bail earlier.

Justice not done, says PPP

The Pakistan People’s Party expressed disappointment and shock over the verdict in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case announced on Thursday by the Anti-Terrorism court in Rawalpindi.

It said justice has not been done, nor seems to have been done.

The acquittal of Al Qaeda/Taliban terrorists against whom evidence had been provided was most surprising and raised several questions. On its face it seemed a triumph of Al Qaeda militants, the party said.

Two police officers have been convicted and sentenced. But the question as to who had ordered them to wash the place of occurrence and destroy crucial evidence had not been addressed. The conviction of the police officers will remain weak unless those giving orders to them were also tried and convicted.

The prosecutor in the case Chaudhry Zulfiqar was assassinated just when he had reached the critical stage and set to oppose the bail application of General (Retired) Pervez Musharraf

The FIR in the case was registered by the Punjab police without consulting the family and without making the PPP a party to it.

The Party recalled the apprehensions expressed by Benazir about the plot to assassinate her. It is common knowledge and she had stated it in so many words that Gen. Musharraf had threatened her that if she returned to Pakistan before the elections her life would be in danger.

Since the PPP was not a party to the case it demanded that the government immediately file an appeal against the verdict. The PPP would also employ legal instruments to mount its claim to become a party to the case and file an appeal against the verdict.

The Party will give a detailed response after the full judgment has been made public.

Those acquitted by the anti-terrorism court on Thursday were Taliban members Rafqat Hussain, Hasnain Gul, Abdul Rashid, Sher Zaman and Aitzaz Shah. Former Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was believed to have hatched the conspiracy to kill Benazir Bhutto. Mehsud was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistani tribal agency South Waziristan in August 2009.

The two-time Prime Minister was killed on December 27 2007 after she concluded her election rally in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi. Her car was attacked by a suicide bomber and a shooter. But investigations said she was killed after she fell inside her sun-roof and hit the ledge. Many still believe she was shot in her head.

A United Nations-led investigation team by Scotland Yard also concluded that she was killed but did not probe the cause of her death or her killers or their objective as it was not in its mandate.

J Y Pillay, an Indian-origin veteran civil servant, was today appointed as Singapore’s acting president until a new head of state is sworn in later this month.

Mr. Pillay, 83, took over from Tony Tan Keng Yam who completed a six-year term on Thursday.

Mr. Pillay, chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA), will act as the president until after polling day on Septemeber 23 — or after nomination day on September 13, if a candidate is elected unopposed.

When the office of President is vacant, the first in line to exercise its powers is the CPA chairman, followed by the Speaker of Parliament, The Straits Times said.

This is the first time the office has fallen vacant since the elected presidency was introduced in 1991, according to the report.

Mr. Pillay is no stranger to exercising the powers of the president. He has been the acting president every time the president goes on an overseas trip.

He acted as president in May, when Tan made state visits to Europe.

Mr. Pillay has served for more than 60 such “stints” — the longest of which was 16 days in April and May of 2007, when then president S R Nathan visited Africa.

Three candidates of Malay origins are expected to stand for election for the president’s post is reserved this time for a minority group representation at the highest office of the land.