Trump’s path: He needs big night to stay on track to clinch
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump needs another big night Tuesday to stay on track to clinch the Republican presidential nomination by the end of the primaries.
Five states are voting. Trump can afford to lose only one.
There are a total of 172 delegates up for grabs. If Trump can win Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut and Delaware, he can walk away with 92. He can pick up even more if things go just right in Pennsylvania’s quirky delegate primary.
He can afford to lose Rhode Island because the delegates are awarded proportionally, so even the losers can get delegates.
Trump’s path to the nomination is narrow. By no means is it a sure thing. He heads into Tuesday’s contests with 845 delegates. That’s 392 short of the 1,237 needed to win the Republican nomination.
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Prosecutor: Hundreds of pot plants grown where 8 were killed
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Four days after the calculated killings of eight people in rural Ohio, a prosecutor revealed Monday that marijuana was found at some of the crime scenes, including a grow-house sheltering hundreds of plants.
“It wasn’t just somebody sitting pots in the window,” Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk told The Columbus Dispatch.
The victims — all members of an extended family — were fatally shot in the head, including a young mother whose newborn baby was sleeping beside her Friday morning. That baby, another infant and a toddler were spared.
The victims were remembered on Monday as loyal and caring people. More than a dozen counselors, clergy and psychologists arrived at the local high school to help friends and neighbors handle their grief.
Dana Rhoden, who was killed along with her three children, her ex-husband, and three other relatives, “always wanted what was best for her kids,” Scioto Valley Local School District Superintendent Todd Burkitt said Monday.
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Obama boosts Islamic State fight, asks Europe to do the same
HANNOVER, Germany — Evoking history and appealing for solidarity, President Barack Obama on Monday cast his decision to send 250 more troops to Syria as a bid to keep up “momentum” in the campaign to dislodge Islamic State extremists. He pressed European allies to match the U.S. with new contributions of their own.
Obama’s announcement of the American troops, which capped a six-day tour to the Middle East and Europe, reflected a steady deepening of U.S. military engagement, despite the president’s professed reluctance to dive further into another Middle East conflict. As Obama gave notice of the move, he said he wanted the U.S. to share the increasing burden.
Obama discussed the IS fight with British Prime Minster David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minster Matteo Renzi.
The president formally announced the new troop deployment in a speech about European unity and trans-Atlantic cooperation — a running theme of his trip. Speaking in Germany, he evoked the continent’s history of banding together to defeat prejudice and emerge from the “ruins of the Second World War.”
“Make no mistake,” Obama said. “These terrorists will learn the same lessons as others before them have, which is, your hatred is no match for our nations united in the defense of our way of life.”
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‘Individual A’ sues Hastert, alleging unpaid hush money
CHICAGO — A man who alleges he was sexually abused by former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and later promised $3.5 million to stay quiet filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit Monday, saying he’s owed more than half the money Hastert promised.
The man, identified in court documents as Individual A, filed the lawsuit in Yorkville, the northern Illinois city where Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach when, prosecutors believe, he molested at least four boys decades ago.
Prosecutors said the statute of limitations on the sex crimes ran out long ago, so they could only charge the 74-year-old Republican with dodging banking regulations when he withdrew the hush money. Hastert pleaded guilty to the federal banking charges in October and is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in Chicago. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Hastert’s attorneys, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday.
Individual A’s attorney Kristi L. Brown said a settlement proposal was sent to Hastert’s attorneys.
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Appeals court: QB Tom Brady must serve ‘Deflategate’ penalty
NEW YORK — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady must serve a four-game “Deflategate” suspension imposed by the NFL, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, overturning a lower judge and siding with the league in a battle with the players union.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled 2-to-1 that Commissioner Roger Goodell did not deprive Brady of “fundamental fairness” with his procedural rulings. The split decision may end the legal debate over the scandal that led to months of football fans arguing over air pressure and the reputation of one of the league’s top teams.
It also fuels a fresh round of debate over what role, if any, the quarterback and top NFL star played in using underinflated footballs at the AFC championship game in January 2015. The Patriots won the contest over the Indianapolis Colts, 45-7, and then won the Super Bowl.
Soon after the ruling, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump opened a campaign rally in Rhode Island by sticking up for Brady, a longtime friend and golfing buddy.
“First of all let’s start by saying leave Tom Brady alone. Leave him alone. Leave him alone he’s a great guy,” Trump said. “It’s enough. It’s enough.”
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Cleveland settles lawsuit over Tamir Rice shooting for $6M
CLEVELAND — The city on Monday reached a $6 million settlement in a lawsuit over the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy shot by a white police officer while playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center.
An order filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland said the city will pay out $3 million this year and $3 million the next. There was no admission of wrongdoing in the settlement.
Family attorney Subodh Chandra called the settlement historic but added: “The resolution is nothing to celebrate because a 12-year-old child needlessly lost his life.”
The wrongful death suit filed by his family and estate against the city and officers and dispatchers who were involved alleged police acted recklessly when they confronted the boy on Nov. 22, 2014.
Video of the encounter shows a cruiser skidding to a stop and rookie patrolman Timothy Loehmann firing within two seconds of opening the car door. Tamir wasn’t given first aid until about four minutes later, when an FBI agent trained as a paramedic arrived. The boy died the next day.
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Saudi Arabia outlines reform plan for oil-addicted economy
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia unveiled a bold reform plan on Monday aimed at weaning the country off its “addiction” to oil in a bid to prepare the next generation of Saudi leaders for the domestic pressures of youth unemployment and revenues eroded by lower oil prices.
The project, which includes plans to float a stake in the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, and set up one of the world’s biggest government investment funds, is meant to provide a blueprint for sweeping reforms to steer the OPEC kingdom away from its decades-long reliance on cheap-to-produce oil.
King Salman said in a televised announcement that the Cabinet approved the plan, known as Vision 2030, and called on Saudis to work together to ensure its success.
But it was left to the king’s powerful son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to spell out details in an interview aired shortly after the announcement on Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya.
The 30-year-old second-in-line to the throne also serves as the country’s defense minister and chairs a committee to oversee economic policymaking. That committee, the Council on Economic and Development Affairs, has been focused on reorienting the kingdom away from its heavy reliance on fossil fuels, creating jobs and boosting foreign investment.
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Dubai pushes the pedal to the metal on driverless cars
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Already home to the world’s biggest skyscraper, Dubai has another tall order to fill: By 2030, its leader wants 25 percent of all trips on its roads to be done by driverless vehicles.
Monday’s announcement by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum came without warning and with few details, as is sometimes the case with the many aspirations of the leadership of the United Arab Emirates.
In this car-crazed city-state of over 1.5 million registered vehicles, it’s not unusual to see Ferraris idling alongside Lamborghinis at traffic lights. And Dubai already is home to a driverless Metro rail system, which carried 178 million riders in 2015.
Smart-car technology is being used in some of the world’s luxury vehicles, and it is advancing rapidly enough for the plan to become a reality — or a nightmare for the thousands of taxi drivers who now plying the streets among the sleek skyscrapers in the UAE’s commercial capital.
In a statement carried by the state-run WAM news agency, Sheikh Mohammed said the plan would cut down on costs and traffic accidents. The project would be a joint venture by Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority and the Dubai Future Foundation, he said, without offering how it would be funded in the oil-rich nation.