AP News in Brief 07-30-18

Cambodia’s Hun Sen coasts to win after opposition silenced

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia’s ruling party won an expected victory in an election Sunday widely considered illegitimate after the only credible opposition was silenced and which ensures that long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen will serve another five-year term.

Although 20 parties contested the election, the only one with the popularity and organization to mount a real challenge, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, was dissolved last year by the Supreme Court in a ruling generally seen as political.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith confirmed to The Associated Press that the Cambodian People’s Party had topped the polls. He did not say how many of the of the 125 seats in the National Assembly the CPP had captured, but preliminary totals broadcast on state television showed that the party had won at least 70 percent of the vote in each of the country’s 25 provinces. Under the election’s system of proportional representation, the party would likely grab more than 100 seats.

Local and foreign rights groups, along with several Western governments, had agreed that the election would not be credible.

Trump willing to shut down government over border security

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump said Sunday that he would consider shutting down the government if Democrats refuse to vote for his immigration proposals, including a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Republicans, trying to protect their majority in Congress, are playing down the chance of a shutdown as the November election nears. Trump, however, isn’t backing away from the idea.

“I would be willing to ‘shut down’ government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall!” Trump tweeted. “Must get rid of Lottery, Catch &Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT!

“We need great people coming into our Country!” Trump said.

Hope grows as deadly Northern California blaze slows down

REDDING, Calif. — The deadly Northern California wildfire that has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes slowed down Sunday after days of explosive growth, giving officials hope even as they announced the discovery of a sixth fatality.

Meanwhile officials said a second firefighter died fighting a huge blaze to the south near Yosemite National Park. The firefighter was treated for injuries at the scene Sunday but died before he could be hospitalized, said Mike Theune, a spokesman for the so-called Ferguson Fire. The firefighter was part of a crew removing brush and other fuel near the fire’s front lines, Theune said. He didn’t have additional details.

In Redding, officials stuck a hopeful tone for the first time in days.

“We’re feeling a lot more optimistic today as we’re starting to gain some ground rather than being in a defensive mode on this fire all the time,” said Bret Gouvea, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s incident commander on the blaze around Redding, a city about 230 miles north of San Francisco.

Gouvea spoke at a news conference with fire and law enforcement officials. Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said authorities found a sixth victim of the blaze at a home that was consumed by flames, though he declined to say where. The victim’s identity was not released.

Manafort trial to focus on lavish lifestyle, not collusion

WASHINGTON — The trial of President Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman will open this week with tales of lavish spending, secret shell companies and millions of dollars of Ukrainian money flowing through offshore bank accounts and into the political consultant’s pocket.

What’s likely to be missing: answers about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election, or really any mention of Russia at all.

Paul Manafort’s financial crimes trial, the first arising from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, will center on his Ukrainian consulting work and only briefly touch on his involvement with the president’s campaign.

But the broader implications are unmistakable.

The trial, scheduled to begin Tuesday with jury selection in Alexandria, Virginia, will give the public its most detailed glimpse of evidence Mueller’s team has spent the year accumulating. It will feature testimony about the business dealings and foreign ties of a defendant Trump entrusted to run his campaign during a critical stretch in 2016, including during the Republican convention. And it will unfold at a delicate time for the president as Mueller’s team presses for an interview and as Trump escalates his attacks on an investigation he calls a “witch hunt.”

Times publisher asks Trump to reconsider anti-media rhetoric

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — The publisher of The New York Times said Sunday he “implored” President Donald Trump at a private White House meeting this month to reconsider his broad attacks on journalists, calling the president’s anti-press rhetoric “not just divisive but increasingly dangerous.”

In a statement, A.G. Sulzberger said he decided to comment publicly after Trump revealed their off-the-record meeting to his more than 53 million Twitter followers on Sunday. Trump’s aides had requested that the July 20 meeting not be made public, Sulzberger said.

“Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times. Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media &how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, “Enemy of the People.” Sad!” Trump wrote.

Hours after that exchange, Trump resumed his broadside against the media in a series of tweets that included a pledge not to let the country “be sold out by anti-Trump haters in the … dying newspaper industry.”

Sulzberger, who succeeded his father as publisher on Jan. 1, said his main purpose for accepting the meeting was to “raise concerns about the president’s deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric.”

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Rising backlash as US firms seek Trump’s steel tariff waiver

WASHINGTON — U.S. companies seeking to be exempted from President Donald Trump’s tariff on imported steel are accusing American steel manufacturers of spreading inaccurate and misleading information, and they fear it may torpedo their requests.

Robert Miller, president and CEO of NLMK USA, said objections raised by U.S. Steel and Nucor to his bid for a waiver are “literal untruths.” He said his company, which imports huge slabs of steel from Russia, has already paid $80 million in duties and will be forced out of business if it isn’t excused from the 25 percent tariff. U.S. Steel and Nucor are two of the country’s largest steel producers.

“They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” said Miller, who employs more than 1,100 people at mills in Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Miller’s resentment, echoed by several other executives, is evidence of the backlash over how the Commerce Department is evaluating their requests to avoid the duty on steel imports. They fear the agency will be swayed by opposition from U.S. Steel, Nucor and other domestic steel suppliers that say they’ve been unfairly hurt by a glut of imports and back Trump’s tariff.

U.S. Steel said its objections are based on detailed information about the dimensions and chemistry of the steel included in the requests. “We read what is publicly posted and respond,” said spokeswoman Meghan Cox. Nucor did not reply to requests for comment.

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Old ballplayer tweets highlight team fears of social media

As MLB pitchers Sean Newcomb and Josh Hader face up to racist, sexist and homophobic tweets they sent as teenagers, publicist Lauren Walsh recalls how she dealt with a football player who had offensive Facebook posts years before he prepared for the NFL draft.

She went through his whole social media history, taking down any posts that even raised an eyebrow.

Scrubbing tweets, Instagram posts and other comments, captions and status updates has grown into a top priority for LW Branding, Walsh’s company that has helped 40 NFL athletes with image control in the past 3½ years.

“Any client that we take on, that’s generally the first step we do in the process,” Walsh said. “This can take someone down in an instant. All it takes is one tweet. Now, he’s going to be known for this. This is what people are talking about.”

Newcomb of the Atlanta Braves is just the latest high-profile athlete to burn himself with reckless posts from years past. The 25-year-old nearly threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers on Sunday — a career defining moment that took a turn when he called reporters back into the clubhouse to apologize for offensive tweets sent in 2011 and 2012, when he was 18.

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Death toll from Greek wildfire reaches 91 as village grieves

MATI, Greece — Fire officials in Greece raised the death toll from a wildfire that raged through a coastal area east of Athens to 91 and reported that 25 people were missing Sunday, six days after Europe’s deadliest forest fire in more than a century.

Before the national fire service updated the official number of fatalities, it stood at 86 as hundreds of mourners attended a Sunday morning memorial service for the victims in the seaside village hardest-hit by the blaze.

The fire sped flames through the village of Mati, a popular resort spot, without warning on July 23. A database maintained by the Centre for the Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels shows it as the deadliest wildfire in Europe since 1900.

The vast majority of victims died in the fire itself, though a number drowned in the sea while fleeing the flames. Until Sunday night, Greek officials had not provided a tally of the people reported missing.

Hellenic Fire Service spokeswoman Stavroula Malliri provided a breakdown that illustrated why the death toll continued to expand and the list of people thought to be missing was difficult to draw up with precision.

3 dead, 7 wounded after gunmen in New Orleans fire on crowd

NEW ORLEANS — Two armed individuals walked up to a crowd gathered Saturday evening outside a strip mall in New Orleans and opened fire, killing three people and wounding seven more, the police chief said.

The shooting happened on a busy thoroughfare about 3 miles (4.83 kilometers) from the French Quarter, police said.

Police chief Michael Harrison, speaking to reporters late Saturday in televised comments, said the two suspects believed to be wearing hoodies had a rifle and a handgun. He said they appeared to have fired indiscriminately into the crowd, striking ten people. Before fleeing they took time to stand over one person.

“We believe that they actually stood over one of the individuals and fired multiple rounds and then after that fled,” he said.

Police responding to the shooting found three victims – two men and one woman – who were pronounced dead at the scene. Seven other victims – five men and two women – were taken to two separate hospitals. Four of them were driven in private vehicles, and three were transported by ambulance.