AP News in Brief 08-04-18

Deadly California blaze spawned destructive fire tornado

SAN FRANCISCO — A deadly Northern California wildfire burned so hot in dry and windy conditions that it birthed a record-breaking tornado of flame, officials said Friday.

They also warned of worsening conditions throughout the region.

Winds in the “fire whirl” created July 26 near Redding reached speeds of 143 mph, a speed that rivaled some of the most destructive Midwest tornadoes, National Weather Service meteorologist Duane Dykema said. The whirl uprooted trees and tore roofs from homes, Dykema said.

The whirl measured a 3 on the five-level Enhanced Fujita scale, which scientists use to classify the strength of tornados, he said. California has not recorded a tornado of that strength since 1978.

That fire continues to burn about 100 miles south of the Oregon border as firefighters there and throughout Northern California brace for worsening conditions this weekend.

Commission finds no evidence of voter fraud

PORTLAND, Maine — The now-disbanded voting integrity commission launched by the Trump administration uncovered no evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud, according to an analysis of administration documents released Friday.

In a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who are both Republicans and led the commission, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said the documents show there was a “pre-ordained outcome” and that drafts of a commission report included a section on evidence of voter fraud that was “glaringly empty.”

“It’s calling into the darkness, looking for voter fraud,” Dunlap, a Democrat, told The Associated Press. “There’s no real evidence of it anywhere.”

President Donald Trump convened the commission to investigate the 2016 presidential election after making unsubstantiated claims that between 3 million and 5 million ballots were illegally cast. Critics, including Dunlap, reject his claims of widespread voter fraud.

The Trump administration last month complied with a court order to turn over documents from the voting integrity commission to Dunlap. The commission met just twice and has not issued a report.

Dunlap’s findings received immediate pushback Friday from Kobach, who acted as vice chair of the commission while Pence served as chair.

“It appears that Secretary Dunlap is willfully blind to the voter fraud in front of his nose,” Kobach said in a statement released by his spokesman.

Kobach said there have been more than 1,000 convictions for voter fraud since 2000, and that the commission presented 8,400 instances of double voting in the 2016 election in 20 states.

“Had the commission done the same analysis of all 50 states, the number would have been exponentially higher,” Kobach said.

In response, Dunlap said those figures were never brought before the commission, and that Kobach hasn’t presented any evidence for his claims of double voting. He said the commission was presented with a report claiming over 1,000 convictions for various forms of voter misconduct since 1948.

“The plural of anecdote is not data,” Dunlap said in his Friday letter to the shuttered commission’s leaders.

Pentagon redoing space defenses, but will Trump demand more?

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants a Space Force, a new military service he says is needed to ensure American dominance in space. But the idea is gaining little traction at the Pentagon, where the president’s defense chief, Jim Mattis, says it would add burdensome bureaucracy and unwanted costs.

The Pentagon acknowledges a need to revamp its much-criticized approach to defending U.S. economic and security interests in space, and it is moving in that direction. But it’s unclear whether this will satisfy Trump, who wants to go even further by creating a separate military space service.

The administration intends to announce next week the results of a Pentagon study that is expected to call for creating a new military command — U.S. Space Command — to consolidate space warfighting forces and making other organizational changes short of establishing a separate service, which only Congress can do. Any legislative proposal to create a separate service would likely not be put on the table until next year.

Mattis, who said prior to Trump’s “Space Force” announcement in June that he opposes creating a new branch of the military for space, said afterward that this would require “a lot of detailed planning.”

Mattis is allied on this with key Republicans on Capitol Hill including Sen. James Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who opposes a separate Space Force but is open to creating a Space Command. The command would coordinate the use of space forces of existing services, such as those that operate military satellites, but would not be a separate service.

From wire sources

A last showdown looms over Syrian opposition stronghold

BEIRUT — For nearly three years, green buses have filed into Syria’s Idlib province, bringing those evacuated from other opposition enclaves that fell to government forces — thousands of defeated rebel fighters, wanted activists and civilians who refused to go back under President Bashar Assad’s rule.

They now face what is likely to be the last showdown between Assad’s forces and the opposition. Assad has vowed to retake the province, and pro-government media promise the “mother of all battles.”

If it comes to an all-out assault, it could bring a humanitarian crisis. Filled with displaced from elsewhere, the province in Syria’s northwest corner is packed with some 3 million people, the most deeply irreconcilable with Assad’s government and including some of the world’s most radical militants. They have little option but to make a stand, with few good places to escape.

“Currently, all (opposition) from around Syria came to Idlib. The only solution is to fight. There is no alternative,” said Firas Barakat, an Idlib resident. The 28-year old said that for years he has dedicated himself to civilian opposition activities, but now he must take up arms.

The opposition capture of Idlib in 2015 signaled the low point for Assad’s government during the course of war that is now nearly 8 years old — a time when rebels controlled large parts of two main Syrian cities, major highways, border crossings, dams and oil resources.

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In waiting for answers, automakers stick to Obama-era rules

DETROIT — For all the drama surrounding the Trump administration’s attempt to undo Obama-era fuel economy requirements, automakers are likely to stick to them until they get some answers.

The administration on Thursday unveiled plans to freeze the requirements at 2020 levels through 2026, after which they will be revisited. That means the fleet of new vehicles would have to average about 30 miles per gallon in real-world driving from 2020 through the next six years. The previous fuel standards under President Barack Obama required about 37 mpg by 2025.

But much remains in flux. The Trump administration likely will challenge California’s ability to set its own stricter standards that now match the ones under Obama, and depending on who wins, the U.S. could wind up with two gas mileage standards. It could take years for courts to settle the dispute, or both sides could negotiate one standard. There’s also the looming 2020 presidential election, which could upend the requirements again if a Democrat takes over.

In the meantime, automakers aren’t sure what requirements they will have to meet in 2021, so most are proceeding as if the Obama-era requirements won’t change. They’re continuing to develop more efficient vehicles including electrics and hybrids.

“We’d like to get clarity as soon as we can,” General Motors President Dan Ammann said Friday on the sidelines of a cybersecurity conference in Detroit. “We’d be very much behind one national standard that we can work to plan, to deploy capital against.”

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Argentine group IDs 128th person taken during ‘Dirty War’

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — DNA tests have determined the identity of a person taken from his mother as a baby by Argentina’s former dictatorship, a human rights group said Friday, bringing the number of such cases to 128.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo said that the person who was identified only by the name Marcos is the biological son of Rosario del Carmen Ramos.

Former military and police authorities in the northern province of Tucuman kidnapped Ramos and her then five-month-old son and one of his half-brothers in 1976. Ramos was forcibly disappeared and was never found, while the two boys were taken to separate homes.

Marcos, who is now 42, found out the news about his true identity Thursday night and met with family members. The announcement was made at an emotional news conference attended by two of his half-brothers.

“It was an emotional shock,” said Camilo Suleiman, one of his half-siblings.

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Is JFK’s luster fading? Key memorabilia doesn’t sell

BOSTON — Is JFK losing his star power?

It’s probably too early to tell, but 55 years after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, an auction of some of the most iconic items associated with the Kennedy White House fell well short of the pre-sale hype.

A rocking chair JFK used to meet with world leaders in the Oval Office sold for $50,000, and a collection of pens he used to establish the Peace Corps and sign a landmark nuclear treaty sold for $60,000 at Friday’s auction on Cape Cod, not far from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

But a number of other intriguing items didn’t sell, including Kennedy’s last pencil doodles before his assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, and a tie clip in the shape of the PT-109 torpedo boat Kennedy commanded during World War II.

Other items that didn’t get the minimum bid included a charcoal drawing done as a study for the slain president’s official White House portrait; handwritten notes he jotted about Vietnam around 1953; his letter opener and crystal ashtray; and his personal stereo and Jackie Gleason records.

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Man who harassed Yellowstone bison arrested at Glacier park

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, Wyo. — An Oregon man who was caught on video harassing a bison in Yellowstone National Park was arrested in Glacier National Park in the third disturbance in less than a week at a national park, officials said Friday.

Rangers looking for Raymond Reinke of Pendleton, Oregon, found him causing a disturbance Thursday evening at the historic Many Glacier Hotel in the popular Montana park, the National Park Service said.

He remains jailed pending a hearing next week and has requested a court-appointed attorney. A message left at a phone listing for Reinke in Oregon was not immediately returned.

Reinke, 55, had been cited for drunken and disorderly conduct in a third national park, Grand Teton, last Saturday and was released on $500 bond that required him to follow the law and avoid alcohol.

Yellowstone rangers cited him three days later for not wearing a seat belt and noted that he appeared intoxicated, park officials said. They didn’t know of Reinke’s bond conditions at the time.