By Mayank Bhardwaj NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Abattoirs in India called off a four-day strike after the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, gave assurances that mainly Muslim-run, unlicensed slaughter houses would not be shut down or attacked. Separately, in Modi's western home state of Gujarat, lawmakers of his ruling party stiffened the punishment for cow slaughter to life imprisonment, the toughest such measure aimed at protecting cows, widely considered holy by Hindus. State elections are due by year-end in Gujarat, where 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in 2002 after a wave of Hindu-Muslim riots when Modi was chief minister.
For the second time on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence took the rare step of breaking a tie in the U.S. Senate, as he cast the deciding vote in rolling back protections for federal funds for family planning and reproductive health. In a 51-50 vote, senators approved killing a rule intended to keep federal grants flowing to clinics that provide contraception and other services in states that want to block the funding. Earlier in the day, Pence was called upon to end the deadlock over advancing the resolution to a final vote.
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