In Brief: Nation & World: 9-14-16

As Syria truce holds. al-Qaida affiliate denounces it

BEIRUT (AP) — With much of Syria calm for the past 24 hours, a powerful al-Qaida-linked group sharply criticized the U.S.-Russian-brokered cease-fire, saying Tuesday its real aim was to keep President Bashar Assad in power.

The extremist group was in talks with other rebel factions for a possible merger, a move that could dash Washington and Moscow’s hopes of distancing it from the wider insurgency and sabotage the truce.

The denunciation of the deal came as activists and state media said the truce, which took effect at sunset Monday, was holding despite some violations. The Syrian army said it would abide by the cease-fire until midnight Sunday, while maintaining its right to defend itself against any violations.

The truce excludes al-Qaida’s affiliate, known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and the more powerful Islamic State group, which are both designated terrorist organizations by the United Nations. The first week will be crucial: During that time, all fighting between Assad’s forces and the rebels is to stop, although Assad’s forces can continue airstrikes against IS and al-Qaida-linked militants.

If the calm holds for seven days, the U.S. and Russian militaries would then set up a new center to coordinate strikes against IS and the al-Qaida affiliate, previously known as the Nusra Front.

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Syrian cease-fire holds as Aleppo awaits relief

BEIRUT (AP) — A cease-fire brokered by the U.S. and Russia brought calm across much of Syria on Tuesday as residents of the northern city of Aleppo awaited an expected aid shipment.

Insurgent groups have expressed misgivings about the cease-fire, which would allow for strikes against a powerful al-Qaida-linked group that fights alongside the rebels. That group, formerly known as the Nusra Front, has condemned the truce, saying the deal is aimed at keeping President Bashar Assad in power.

SCATTERED VIOLATIONS

The Russian military said U.S.-backed rebels have repeatedly violated the cease-fire, with six people killed and 10 wounded in Aleppo since the truce began. It said two Syrian soldiers were killed and another wounded in a separate attack in Aleppo.

Syrian state media reported nearly two dozen violations by insurgents, mostly mortar attacks and sniper shots. It said insurgents attacked power lines in the southern Quneitra region, causing a province-wide blackout.

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Political risk for all in Trump-Clinton ‘deplorables’ debate

WASHINGTON (AP) — A war of words over Donald Trump’s “deplorables” is intensifying as Republicans and Democrats fight for political points over Hillary Clinton’s claim that many of the New York billionaire’s supporters are racist, sexist and homophobic.

Trump and his allies across the country insisted Tuesday that the Democratic presidential nominee’s comments reflect an out-of-touch elitist who looks down on working-class voters, akin to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s assertion that 47 percent of Americans would never vote for him because they were dependent on the government. Democrats — and even some Republicans — however, warned that this debate could backfire on Trump, drawing new attention to white supremacists and hate groups attracted by his “America first” message.

Indeed, former KKK leader David Duke offered fresh praise for the way that Trump and running mate Mike Pence are handling the controversy. But not all Republicans were pleased.

“Let’s remember that, weird as it may seem, a lot of voters are only just now tuning in, so they may not be aware of the fact that David Duke, various KKK organizations, the alt-right en masse, Vladimir Putin and other foreign authoritarian enemies of America — people who really are deplorable — are supporting Trump,” said Liz Mair, a Washington-based Republican operative and a vocal Trump critic.

Speaking to donors in New York City on Friday, Clinton had said that half of Trump’s supporters were in “a basket of deplorables,” a crowd she described as racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic. Clinton later said she regretted applying that description to “half” of Trump’s backers, but stuck by her assertion that the GOP nominee has given a platform to “hateful views and voices.”

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Syria ceasefire deal rife with legal, liability questions

WASHINGTON (AP) — The deal crafted by the U.S. and Russia to halt the Syrian civil war and focus efforts on rooting out extremists in the country is rife with legal and liability questions that are fueling Pentagon skepticism about military cooperation between the two powers, senior U.S. officials said.

The first hurdle is that Congress has enacted a law prohibiting any military cooperation with Moscow in the wake of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine. That means the deal that Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to last week in Geneva first needs a waiver from a skeptical Defense Secretary Ash Carter to be legal.

Another nagging question revolves around whether America could be held responsible if a Russian airstrike — approved by the U.S. as part of the military cooperation that is at the heart of the deal — kills civilians. Military and defense leaders question whether Russia will be able to force the Syrian government to uphold the ceasefire. And they worry that Moscow’s lack of precision targeting could result in civilian casualties, even if Russia is attempting to strike Islamic State militants in Syria.

“We conduct military operations with our allies and partners, and Russia is neither,” said Evelyn Farkas, former U.S. deputy assistant defense secretary who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “So, it makes this very fraught with all kinds of risk for us — military and political.”

Neither U.S. nor Russian officials have released the plan, so details are sketchy. But senior U.S. officials said military and intelligence officials and other segments of the administration have serious doubts that Russia will be able to live up to its commitments in the deal, despite Moscow’s long-held desire for military cooperation with the U.S.

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Clinton has history of ignoring health — and paying a price

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — The White House was submerged in scandal. Democrats faced tough midterm elections. And Hillary Clinton, far more popular than her embattled husband, had become a one-woman campaign machine.

But the non-stop travel in 1998 took a toll. Clinton developed a blood clot behind her right knee, prompting the White House doctor to recommend hospitalization and a week of bedrest.

Determined to stay on the campaign trail, Clinton settled on an alternative: A nurse would travel with her to administer the medicine needed to monitor her health. She kept her condition a secret from nearly everyone but her Secret Service detail, alerted only because an injury could have been life-threatening.

“Very few people knew about it at the time,” recalled Dr. Connie Mariano in her autobiography. “Her staff thought she had pulled a muscle exercising.”

Nearly two decades later, Clinton’s desire to work through illness — and penchant for keeping her health secret — has helped cause the most damaging 48-hour period in her presidential campaign and given fresh ammunition to GOP rival Donald Trump. The incident has also stoked long-simmering conservative conspiracy theories about her health and questions about her commitment to openness.

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Witnesses refuse to testify in hearing on Clinton’s email

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three witnesses ordered to testify Tuesday before a House committee investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server asserted their constitutional rights against self-incrimination and did not appear or refused to answer questions.

Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department computer specialist tasked with setting up Clinton’s server, did not attend the Republican-led hearing. His attorneys said in a letter to the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Pagliano will continue to assert his constitutional right not to testify.

Pagliano spoke previously to the FBI under immunity, telling the bureau there were no successful security breaches of the server. But he said he was aware of many failed login attempts that he described as “brute force attacks.”

Pagliano also refused to answer questions last year before a House panel investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

“He has never made any statement or taken any action that would constitute a waiver of his constitutional rights and there is no reason for anyone to believe he might suddenly depart from that position,” Pagliano’s lawyers wrote in the Sept. 13 letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the Oversight committee chairman.

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Israel’s Peres hospitalized after stroke

JERUSALEM (AP) — Former Israeli President Shimon Peres suffered a “major stroke” on Tuesday and experienced heavy bleeding in the brain, a hospital official said, as doctors raced to stabilize the 93-year-old Nobel laureate.

Dr. Itzik Kreiss, director of the Sheba Medical Center, told reporters outside the hospital near Tel Aviv that Peres experienced “lots of bleeding” as a result of the stroke. He said he had undergone a battery of tests, and that doctors planned to hold another assessment in a few hours.

Standing alongside Kreiss, Peres’ son Chemi said the situation was “not simple,” but that the family was trying to stay positive.

“My father is very special. I am keeping optimistic. Hoping for the best. But these hours are not easy,” he said.

He thanked the Israeli public for offering its support and prayers.

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NCAA turns up pressure on North Carolina over bathroom law

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The NCAA’s decision to pull seven championships out of North Carolina ratchets up the pressure on this college sports-crazy state to repeal its law on bathroom use by transgender people.

Unlike the recent one-time cancellations by the NBA and various rock stars, the move by college sports’ governing body could make moderate and conservative voters question whether the price tag for the law has finally become too high.

Economic development officials said the effect of the NCAA’s action goes well beyond the projected $20 million in lost revenue from the cancellation of the 2016-17 basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, lacrosse and golf events.

“College sports is part of the fabric of North Carolina. It’s part of the culture. I can say with confidence that there’s no other state in the country that loves its college sports more than North Carolina. That’s why it hits so hard and feels so personal,” said Scott Dupree, executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance, which was coordinating four of the events being moved.

The law passed in March requires transgender people to use restrooms in schools and state government buildings that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate. It also excludes gender identity and sexual orientation from statewide antidiscrimination protections.

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Prosecutor: Refuge occupiers practiced hand-to-hand combat

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The armed occupiers who seized a remote bird sanctuary in Oregon’s high desert early this year were divided into squads and drilled in hand-to-hand combat, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday as the trial began for seven people accused in the standoff.

During his opening statement, Geoffrey Barrow dismissed claims by group leader Ammon Bundy and others that the takeover was a legitimate protest of federal land management. Bundy and his brother Ryan, who’s also on trial, are part of a Nevada ranching family embroiled in a long-running dispute over land use.

“Everyone in this great nation has a right to his or her beliefs. We are not prosecuting the defendants because we don’t like what they think or said,” Barrow told jurors. “We are prosecuting them because of what they did.”

The occupation drew national attention to the decades-old fight between the federal government and Western states over land policy. After the land was seized, the government left the group alone for weeks until the last few holdouts abandoned the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after 41 days.

The seven on trial are charged with conspiring to impede Interior Department employees from doing their jobs through intimidation or threats. Five also are charged with possession of a firearm in a federal facility.

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Americans got raise last year for first time since 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a long-awaited sign that middle-class Americans are finally seeing real economic gains, U.S. households got a raise last year after seven years of stagnant incomes. Rising pay also lifted the poorest households, cutting poverty by the sharpest amount in nearly a half-century.

Higher minimum wages in many states and tougher competition among businesses to fill jobs pushed up pay, while low inflation made those paychecks stretch further. The figures show that the growing economy is finally benefiting a greater share of American households.

The median U.S. household’s income rose 5.2 percent in 2015 to an inflation-adjusted level of $56,516, the Census Bureau said Tuesday . That is the largest one-year gain on data stretching back to 1967. It is up 7.3 percent from 2012, when incomes fell to a 17-year low.

Still, median incomes remain 1.6 below the $57,423 reached in 2007. The median is the point where half of households fall below and half are above.

The report “was superb in almost every dimension,” Larry Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said on a conference call with reporters. “This one year almost single-handedly got us out of the hole.”