In Brief: Nation & World: 1-10-17
Trump son-in-law Kushner to take senior White House role
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s influential son-in-law Jared Kushner will join him in the White House as a senior adviser, transition officials said Monday, putting the young real estate executive in position to exert broad sway over both domestic and foreign policy, particularly Middle East issues and trade negotiations.
Trump has come to rely heavily on Kushner, who is married to the president-elect’s daughter Ivanka. Since the election, Kushner has been one of the transition team’s main liaisons to foreign governments, communicating with Israeli officials and meeting last week with Britain’s foreign minister. He’s also huddled with congressional leaders and helped interview Cabinet candidates.
His eligibility could be challenged. But Kushner lawyer Jamie Gorelick argued Monday that a 1967 law meant to bar government officials from hiring relatives does not apply to the West Wing. She cited a later congressional measure to allow the president “unfettered” and “sweeping” authority in hiring staff.
Kushner, who will not be taking a salary, will resign as CEO of his family’s real estate company and as publisher of the New York Observer, as well as divest “substantial assets,” Gorelick said. She said Kushner will recuse himself “from particular matters that would have a direct and predictable effect on his remaining financial interests.”
Ivanka Trump, who also played a significant role advising her father during the presidential campaign, will not be taking a formal White House position, transition officials said. She is the mother of three young children, and her immediate plans are focusing on her family’s move from New York to Washington, though officials said her role could change in the future.
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Airport shooting suspect gets public defender in court
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Iraq war veteran held in the fatal shooting of five people inside Fort Lauderdale’s airport was appointed a federal public defender on Monday after telling a judge that he has no job and only $5 or $10 in the bank.
Esteban Santiago, 26, spoke clearly during a brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia Valle, who ordered him held until his next hearings.
Shackled in a red jumpsuit in the heavily guarded federal courtroom, Santiago answered mostly yes or no to questions, and told the judge he understands the charges, which include committing violence against people at an international airport resulting in death, and two firearms offenses.
She told him the death penalty could apply.
“We are telling you the maximum penalty allowed by law so that you understand the seriousness of the charges,” the judge said.
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Manhunt underway for suspect in killing of Orlando officer
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — An Orlando police sergeant was shot and killed Monday after approaching a suspect wanted for questioning in the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, and a second law enforcement officer was killed in a motorcycle crash while responding to a massive manhunt for the suspect.
More than a dozen schools were placed in lockdown during the manhunt, and authorities were offering a $60,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Markeith Loyd, the 41-year-old suspect wanted for the murder of Master Sgt. Debra Clayton.
Officers and deputies focused their manhunt on an apartment complex in northwest Orlando, and dozens of residences had been searched. Residents who were evacuated from their homes sat on a sidewalk along a street with heavily armed officers and deputies and a parked SWAT team truck.
Clayton, 42, was killed outside a Wal-Mart store in northwest Orlando early Monday, and Orange County Sheriff’s Office Deputy First Class Norman Lewis was killed in a crash while responding to a manhunt for Loyd.
Another Orlando police officer also was involved in a crash while responding to the shooting but only had minor injuries.
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Storm floods vineyards, forces evacuations in Calif., Nevada
FORESTVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A massive storm system stretching from California into Nevada lifted rivers climbing out of their banks, flooded vineyards and forced people to evacuate after warnings that hillsides parched by wildfires could give way to mudslides.
Northern California’s Russian River rose to its highest level since 2006, and schools and roads were closed across the wine-making region of Sonoma County, where thousands of people were without power.
Avalanche concerns kept some California ski areas closed for a second day Monday in the Sierra Nevada. Forecasters said more snow and rain was on the way.
In Nevada near Reno, Nevada National Guard high-water vehicles were deployed to help people evacuate from a town.
The Russian River is prone to flooding, but this year’s flood has been particularly worrisome because it threatened to topple trees weakened by six years of drought.
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Analysis: After Rafsanjani, Iran at a political crossroads
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will be buried in the shrine of the ayatollah who led Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the same man who once proclaimed “the revolution is alive as long as Rafsanjani is alive.”
The direction of that revolution and Iran’s cleric-ruled political system looks less clear following Rafsanjani’s death Sunday at 82.
He long served as a balance in the extremes of Iranian political thought, a go-between for reformers who seek outreach to the world and hard-liners who press for confrontation with the West. Without his behind-the-scenes influence advocating pragmatism, some fear that one side may feel free to try to overcome the other — in particular, that hard-liners could take off the gloves against moderates who have made gains in recent years.
President Hassan Rouhani’s nuclear detente with world powers is seen as embodying Rafsanjani’s realist vision. Rouhani is all but certain to stand for re-election in May. With Rafsanjani’s death, that vote now takes on an even greater importance — as does the decision looming in the coming years on who will replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The political gravitas that Rafsanjani had went beyond political factions,” said Adnan Tabatabai, an Iran analyst based in Germany who is the CEO of the Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient. “He was one of the pillars, one of the powerbrokers that everyone knew that as long as he’s there, somehow there will be a balance preserving the system.”
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White policeman suspended but not fired after video incident
DALLAS (AP) — A white Texas policeman was suspended without pay for 10 days, but will not be fired, after an incident in which he was caught on video wrestling a black woman and her daughter to the ground, Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald announced Monday.
Fitzgerald said the officer, identified by department officials as William Martin, violated policy, is sorry for his behavior and is eager to resume active duty at the end of the suspension. He said he has asked Martin, who will also be required to undergo additional training, to go back into the same community when the suspension ends “to repair relationships.”
“We are not sanctioning bad behavior … People make mistakes. We have levels of mistakes that every police officer makes,” Fitzgerald said. “Some things deserve punishment; some do not. Some deserve termination and some do not.”
The incident on Dec. 21 happened after Jacqueline Craig complained that a neighbor choked her 7-year-old son for allegedly littering in his yard. One of her daughters filmed the interactions between Craig and Martin.
In the video, Martin questions why Craig hadn’t taught her son not to litter and later asks why the neighbor shouldn’t have put his hands on her son. One of Craig’s daughters tries to push her mother away from Martin, but the officer forces Craig and the daughter to the ground. He thrusts a stun gun into Craig’s back and later points it at the daughter telling her to stay back.
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Overrated or not, Streep’s speech has galvanizing effect
NEW YORK (AP) — Speaking in a hoarse voice that quivered with emotion, Meryl Streep silenced a boisterous Golden Globes crowd and sparked a clamor heard around the country, all the way to Trump Tower.
Streep’s impassioned speech against Donald Trump while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award at Sunday’s awards has been heard like a battle cry in a left-leaning Hollywood that has been trying to reconcile itself to a Trump presidency it overwhelmingly didn’t vote for. Her speech has also further intensified the divide between Hollywood and Trump supporters, who call Streep another example of media elite on a soapbox.
Though Trump is yet to take office, the arts and the President-elect are increasingly on a collision course. Trump has criticized the cast of “Hamilton,” which voiced its concerns about inclusion to Vice President-elect Mike Pence when he went to see the show on Broadway. Seeing political parallels in its story of underdog rebellion, some Trump supporters called for a boycott of the “Star Wars” film “Rogue One.” And now, following Streep’s remarks, he on Monday called the most decorated actress in Hollywood “overrated.”
With such institutions as “Star Wars” and Streep in the crosshairs, the culture wars have gone nuclear. Battle lines and boycotts are being formed ahead of the Jan. 20 Inauguration, at which some entertainers have refused to perform. Some conservatives have already vowed on social media not to watch the Feb. 26th Academy Awards, which promises to be rife with political protest.
How the growing discord will affect the tenor in the arts for the next four years remains to be seen. But what was clear Monday in the wake of Streep’s galvanizing speech is that the clash is just getting started. In a night where the song-and-dance ode to musicals “La La Land” set a Globes record with seven wins, including best picture, musical or comedy, Streep’s speech had the largest impact.
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Christie emerges empty-handed, his ratings at home dismal
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — As the last of the top jobs in the Trump administration are handed out in Washington, Gov. Chris Christie is looking increasingly like the guy in “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” who is told: “You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!”
With his own failed presidential campaign behind him and his support of Donald Trump unrewarded with a high-level post, Christie instead faces his eighth and final year as governor of New Jersey, where his approval ratings are a dreadful 19 percent.
His numbers have been dragged down by resentment over his national ambitions, his embrace of Trump and the George Washington Bridge traffic-jam scandal.
On Tuesday, Christie will deliver his annual State of the State Address, during which the 54-year-old Republican will lay out his agenda — and no doubt begin trying to salvage his legacy — to an electorate that would rather see him go.
“Gov. Christie has reached the nadir of both his popularity and his power, and, at this point, it appears there are few remaining opportunities to further his political career in any predictable way,” said Montclair State University political science professor Brigid Harrison. “That said, this is a politician who has consistently written his own script.”
