US Army quietly discharging immigrant recruits
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.
The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.
“It was my dream to serve in the military,” said reservist Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian immigrant who filed a lawsuit against the Army last week. “Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military.”
Some of the service members say they were not told why they were being discharged. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.
Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the Army said that, due to the pending litigation, they were unable to explain the discharges or respond to questions about whether there have been policy changes in any of the military branches.
Trump closes in on Supreme Court pick; 3 judges top list
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he has narrowed down — to two or three — the list of contenders he’s considering to fill the vacancy for the Supreme Court seat held by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“I think I have it down to four people. And I think of the four people I have it down to three or two,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The president, who was traveling to a campaign rally in Montana, has wrapped up the interview process and is moving closer to picking his court nominee amid intense jockeying from various factions seeking to influence the choice.
Trump’s current top contenders are federal appeals court judges Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Raymond Kethledge, said a person familiar with Trump’s thinking who was not authorized to speak publicly.
With customary fanfare, Trump plans to announce his selection Monday night.
The administration is preparing roll-out plans for the leading contenders, and hopes to have a decision on the top one or two names in the next couple of days, so staff can conduct a deep-dive background ahead of the possible prime-time event, according to a senior administration official granted anonymity to discuss the plans.
___
UK town faces new reality: Another nerve agent poisoning
AMESBURY, England (AP) — In this normally pleasant town of 10,000 residents a stone’s throw from the mysterious Stonehenge monument, the new reality is sinking in: Novichok, again.
Four months had passed since the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter, and the collective nightmare seemed to be fading. No longer were forensics experts in oversize hazmat suits combing the area for an invisible killer developed by the Soviet Union in Cold War times.
Eager tourists, drawn by an unusually long spell of glorious summer weather, were back at Stonehenge, and England’s World Cup team was surging, buoying spirits. Then a local couple with no obvious connection to Russia or to espionage fell desperately ill and the government said Novichok was to blame.
Some are embracing the “keep calm and carry on” ethos that helped England through two world wars, but others were frightened by the seemingly random poisoning of two innocents who now lie critically ill in a local hospital.
“It’s shocking, and it’s scary,” said Elaine Read, a worker at The Kings Arms pub who used to occasionally share a pint with Dawn Sturgess, one of the victims. “Nobody expected it to happen again. Everyone was saying it was Russia, but now it’s just two … local people. They’re just like us.”
___
Silence in newsrooms as 5 slain at Maryland paper remembered
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Newsrooms across the country paused Thursday to observe a moment of silence for five employees of a Maryland newspaper who were killed a week ago in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history.
The Capital Gazette staff paused somberly at 2:33 p.m. as editor Rick Hutzell rang a bell for each person who died at the Annapolis paper exactly seven days earlier, The Baltimore Sun reported .
The staff traditionally convenes meetings by clanging a bell, and Hutzell said the act has taken on a new meaning.
“Every time we ring that bell, we’re going to think about our friends,” he said.
About a dozen people held hands and prayed next to a memorial near the building where the shootings happened. Cheryl Starr and her son, Sam, came to pay their respects.
___
Pompeo hopes to fill in details of North Korea agreement
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday he expects North Korea to be ready to “fill in some details” of the commitments on denuclearization made by Kim Jong Un at his historic summit with President Donald Trump last month.
Pompeo arrived for a refueling stop at Yokota Air Base in Japan on his way to Pyongyang for the third time since April and the first since the June 12 summit.
His mission is to translate the upbeat rhetoric following the first meeting between leaders of the U.S. and North Korea into concrete action that will eliminate the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear arsenal.
“Our leaders made commitments at the Singapore summit on the complete denuclearization of North Korea and outlined what a transformed US-DPRK relationship could look like,” he said, according to comments relayed to reporters on his plane by spokeswoman Heather Nauert. DPRK is the abbreviation of the authoritarian nation’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“Since the summit the consultations have continued. On this trip I’m seeking to fill in some details on these commitments and continue the momentum towards implementation of what the two leaders promised each other and the world. I expect that the DPRK is ready to do the same,” Pompeo said.
___
Statue of Liberty climber pleads not guilty to trespassing
NEW YORK (AP) — An unrepentant protester who climbed the base of the Statue of Liberty on a busy Fourth of July in what prosecutors called a “dangerous stunt” pleaded not guilty Thursday to misdemeanor trespassing and disorderly conduct.
Activists packed into a Manhattan courtroom cheered when a federal magistrate judge released Therese Okoumou without bail after she had spent the night behind bars. Okoumou responded by raising her fist and blowing kisses to her supporters.
Outside court, the naturalized U.S. citizen from Congo told reporters that she climbed the landmark as a spur-of-the moment protest over the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policies that resulted in the separation of immigrant children from parents accused of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
“When they go low, we go high and I went as high as I could,” Okoumou said, paraphrasing former First Lady Michelle Obama. “No children belong in a cage,” she added.
Okoumou, who goes by her middle name, Patricia, sported a T-shirt reading “White Supremacy is Terrorism” that she had worn inside-out in court.
