Trump hurls invective at reporters yet again, at Pennsylvania rally

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Thundering that the media is the “fake, fake disgusting news,” President Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of grievances Thursday at a Pennsylvania campaign rally in which he cast journalists as his true political opponent.

Trump barnstormed in a state that he swiped from the Democrats in 2016 and that is home to a Senate seat he is trying to place in the Republicans’ column this fall. But the race between GOP U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta and two-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey took a back seat to Trump’s invectives against the media, which came amid a backdrop of antagonism to journalists from the White House and hostility from the thousands packed into a loud, overheated Wilkes-Barre arena.

“What ever happened to the free press? What ever happened to honest reporting?” Trump asked, pointing to the media in the back of the room. “They don’t report it. They only make up stories.”

Time and time again, Trump denounced the press for underselling his accomplishments and doubting his political rise.

He tore into the media for diminishing what he accomplished at his Singapore summit with North Korea leader Kim Jung Un. He complained about the tough questioning he received in Helsinki when he met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin last month. And he began his rally speech with a 10-minute remembrance of his 2016 election night victory, bemoaning that Pennsylvania wasn’t the state to clinch the White House for him only because “the fake news refused to call it.”

“They were suffering that night, they were suffering,” Trump said of the election-night pundits. He then promised that the Keystone State would deliver his margin of victory “next time.”

“Only negative stories from the fakers back there,” the president declared.

With each denunciation, the crowd jeered and screamed at the press in the holding pen.

The inflammatory performance came just hours after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to distance herself from Trump’s previous assertions that the media is the “enemy” of the American people. Pressed during a White House briefing on the issue, Sanders said Trump “has made his position known.”

Atlantic hurricane season looking less active with El Nino brewing in Pacific

PHILADELPHIA — After getting off to a precocious start, with a tropical storm and two hurricanes already on its resume by July 8, the Atlantic hurricane season has been on hiatus.

And that might bode well for residents and property owners along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as well as U.S. taxpayers.

During last year’s historically active, ferocious and deadly season, Harvey and Irma alone caused close to $200 billion in damages, according to ICAT, the catastrophe insurance concern.

But the atmosphere is sending strong signals that this season won’t be nearly as active in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and might even finish below average in terms of hurricane numbers.

Last year saw the development of 17 named storms — those with winds of at least 39 mph — and 10 hurricanes, winds of 74 mph or better. The long-term seasonal averages are 11 named storms, and six hurricanes.

This season’s brisk start evidently wasn’t a harbinger, however.

The storm traffic for the rest of the season, which ends officially on Nov. 30, won’t be nearly as robust, Philip Klotzbach, hurricane specialist at Colorado State University, which pioneered long-range tropical storm forecasting, said Thursday.

Colorado State expects just three hurricanes for the remainder of the season, which would be half of normal: On average, all hurricanes occur from Aug. 10 on.

While in long line, 18-year-old pushed boy off Minnesota water slide platform

MINNEAPOLIS — An 18-year-old has been charged with pushing an 8-year-old boy off a water slide in Apple Valley, Minn., sending the youngster plummeting more than 30 feet to the concrete and suffering many broken bones.

Roman A. Adams, of Maple Grove, was jailed and charged Wednesday in Dakota County District Court with felony third-degree assault in connection with the incident Tuesday afternoon at the Apple Valley Aquatic Center. Adams has since been released ahead of his first court appearance, scheduled for Sept. 17.

Adams and the boy, whose identity has yet to be disclosed, were waiting in line about 1:35 p.m. to slide down when Adams picked up the boy and pushed him over the rail of the platform, sending the boy 31.9 feet to impact with the concrete, according to the criminal complaint.

Adams told a police officer at the scene that his wait in line was taking a long time, so he pushed the boy and saw him fall, the complaint continued. Police and witnesses said the two did not know each other and had not spoken while in line.

The boy was conscious and breathing when police arrived. He suffered numerous broken bones in his feet, a broken thigh and shattered bones in one shoulder, according to the complaint.

Police Capt. Nick Francis said the boy “will have to go through a number of surgeries.”

Police believe Adams may be developmentally delayed, Francis said, but “when we spoke with him, he was able to tell us that he knew what he did, he knew what he did was wrong, he knew what he did was going to hurt someone.”

From wire sources

Anti-violence protest briefly shuts down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago

CHICAGO — After days of speeches and anticipation, about 150 protesters took over Lake Shore Drive near Belmont Avenue on Thursday for an anti-violence demonstration designed to disrupt the evening rush hour. Chicago police shut down both the northbound and southbound lanes of the drive for a time, although northbound traffic resumed within an hour of the march’s start.

Protesters shouting “Shut it down! Shut it down!” walked from the grassy area west of the drive onto the southbound lanes about 4:15 p.m. as dozens of police officers looked on.

Protest organizers are calling for the resignations of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson. “There are too many killings in Chicago, there are too many police-involved killings in Chicago,” said one of the demonstration’s organizers, Tio Hardiman. “It’s time to change the narrative in Chicago.”

Demonstrators wrote messages in chalk onto the asphalt of Lake Shore Drive.

Pope’s decision to make death penalty ‘inadmissible’ may face opposition from conservative Roman Catholics

ROME — A new ruling by Pope Francis published Thursday saying that the death penalty is “inadmissible” in all circumstances, and that the church must try to abolish it, may generate opposition by conservative Roman Catholics in the U.S. and other countries.

The Vatican announced Francis had updated the catechism of the Catholic Church — which represents official Catholic teaching — to exclude the death penalty, a move that reflects Francis’ focus on mercy. Before the pope’s update, the church accepted capital punishment under some circumstances, a position supported by many of its more than 1 billion members worldwide.

“Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good,” the updated section of the catechism says.

It then adds that the church now views the death penalty as “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” and that it will work for its “abolition worldwide.”

Francis has opposed capital punishment for years and his predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II, also argued against it. But Francis decided to leave no room for doubt in the catechism during a meeting this year with Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the head of the church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The change reflects the “clearer awareness of the church for the respect due to every human life,” Ladaria said in an open letter Thursday. The church wanted to energize the campaign against the death penalty, he wrote.

—Los Angeles Times

———

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.