In Brief: Nation & World: 1-18-17

Obama commutes most of Chelsea Manning’s sentence

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning on Tuesday, allowing the convicted Army leaker to go free nearly three decades early as part of a sweeping move to offer clemency in the final days of his administration.

Manning, who will leave prison in May, was one of 209 inmates whose sentences Obama was shortening, a list that includes Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez-Rivera. Obama also pardoned 64 people, including retired Gen. James Cartwright, who was charged with making false statements during a probe into disclosure of classified information.

“These 273 individuals learned that our nation is a forgiving nation,” said White House counsel Neil Eggleston, “where hard work and a commitment to rehabilitation can lead to a second chance, and where wrongs from the past will not deprive an individual of the opportunity to move forward.”

Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, has been serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified government and military documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. She asked Obama last November to commute her sentence to time served.

Manning has spent more than six years behind bars. She was convicted in military court in 2013 of six violations of the Espionage Act and 14 other offenses for leaking more than 700,000 documents and some battlefield video to WikiLeaks.

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Putin: Obama administration trying to undermine Trump

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin took a parting shot at the Obama administration Tuesday, accusing it of trying to undermine Donald Trump’s legitimacy with fake allegations and “binding the president-elect hand and foot to prevent him from fulfilling his election promises.”

In his first public remarks about an unsubstantiated dossier outlining unverified claims that Trump engaged in sexual activities with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel, Putin dismissed the material as “nonsense.”

“People who order such fakes against the U.S. president-elect, fabricate them and use them in political struggle are worse than prostitutes,” Putin said. “They have no moral restrictions whatsoever, and it highlights a significant degree of degradation of political elites in the West, including in the United States.”

Separately, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, was a “rude provocation.” The diplomat contemptuously called its author a “runaway swindler from MI6,” Britain’s foreign intelligence agency. Trump has rejected the sexual allegations as “fake news” and “phony stuff.”

The statements by Putin and Lavrov reflected the Kremlin’s deep anger at President Barack Obama’s administration in a culmination of tensions that have built up over the crisis in Ukraine, the war in Syria and allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

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18 million more uninsured if Obamacare killed, not replaced

WASHINGTON (AP) — Insurance premiums would soar for millions of Americans and 18 million more would be uninsured in just one year if Republicans scuttle much of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul without a replacement, Congress’ budget analysts said Tuesday.

Spotlighting potential perils for Republicans, the analysts’ report immediately became a flashing hazard light for this year’s effort by Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to annul Obama’s law and — in a more complicated challenge — institute their own alternative.

It also swiftly became political fodder in what is expected to be one of this year’s biggest battles in Congress.

Republicans have produced several outlines for how they’d redraft Obama’s 2010 statute, but they’ve failed to unite behind any one plan. In fact, President-elect Trump and GOP congressional leaders have at times offered clashing descriptions of a top goal, so eventual success is hardly guaranteed.

Tuesday’s evaluation came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, joined by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.

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Interior nominee Zinke disputes Trump on climate change

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s choice to head the Interior Department on Tuesday rejected the president-elect’s claim that climate change is a hoax, saying it is indisputable that environmental changes are affecting the world’s temperature and human activity is a major reason.

“I don’t believe it’s a hoax,” Rep. Ryan Zinke told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at his confirmation hearing.

“The climate is changing; man is an influence,” the Montana Republican said. “I think where there’s debate is what that influence is and what can we do about it.”

Trump has suggested in recent weeks he’s keeping an open mind on the issue and may reconsider a campaign pledge to back away from a 2015 Paris agreement that calls for global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

In contradicting Trump, Zinke cited Glacier National Park in his home state as a prime example of the effects of climate change, noting that glaciers there have receded in his lifetime and even from one visit to the next.

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Nigerian air force bombs refugee camp, more than 100 dead

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian air force fighter jet on a mission against Boko Haram extremists mistakenly bombed a refugee camp on Tuesday, killing more than 100 refugees and aid workers and wounding 200, a government official and doctors said.

Military commander Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor confirmed an accidental bombardment in the northeastern town of Rann, near the border with Cameroon, saying “some” civilians were killed.

It was believed to be the first time Nigeria’s military has acknowledged making such a mistake in a region where villagers have in the past reported civilian casualties in the near-daily bombings targeting the Islamic militants.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari expressed deep sadness and regret at “this regrettable operational mistake.”

A Borno state government official, who was helping to coordinate the evacuation of wounded from the remote area by helicopters, said more than 100 refugees and aid workers were among the dead. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

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Prosecutor: Orlando gunman’s widow knew about the attack

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The widow of the Orlando nightclub gunman knew about the attack ahead of time, prosecutors said Tuesday as she appeared in court to face charges of aiding and abetting her husband in the months before the rampage last June that left 49 people dead.

Noor Salman, 30, stood before a federal judge under tight security, looking downcast and bewildered. She did not enter a plea. When she was led back to jail, she locked eyes with her tearful uncle.

“She knew he was going to conduct the attack,” federal prosecutor Roger Handberg told the judge. Handberg did not disclose any more details and would not comment after the 15-minute hearing, held in a courtroom packed with security officers.

Outside court, Salman’s uncle Al Salman said his niece was innocent and did nothing to help her husband, Omar Mateen, plan the June 12 attack on the Pulse, a gay nightclub in Florida.

“She’s a very soft and sweet girl,” Salman said. “She would not hurt a fly.”

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Trump’s America: Families differ as Reagan country changes

WESTMINSTER, Calif. (AP) — The week after Donald Trump was elected president, Dr. Mai-Phuong Nguyen and two dozen other Vietnamese-Americans active in liberal causes gathered in a circle of folding chairs, consoling one another about an America almost beyond comprehension.

Now, days before Trump takes the oath of office, Nguyen sits in a restaurant booth in Orange County’s neon-lit Little Saigon and studies perhaps the most confounding face of the divide exposed by the election — her father’s.

“All I know is, if a man makes $100 million he is really something,” Son Van Nguyen, 76, says of Trump.

Here in a county transformed by waves of newcomers, the elder Nguyen — a government translator airlifted from South Vietnam with his family in 1975 as Communist forces pressed in on the capital — built a new life as a record-setting life insurance salesman, watching people strive and struggle.

“And I know a lot of people out there sit there and wait for welfare,” he says, explaining his hopes that Trump will rein in such spending and create jobs.

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Pence promises big investment in infrastructure

NEW YORK (AP) — Vice President-elect Mike Pence is pledging to a group of mayors that the Trump administration will make a serious investment in infrastructure.

Speaking Tuesday to a meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, Pence said President-elect Donald Trump told him to pass on that “we’re going to do an infrastructure bill and it’s going to be big.”

Trump, who consistently lamented the state of American bridges, roads and airports on the campaign trail, has promised to invest $1 trillion in transportation and infrastructure spending, though he has provided few details.

Pence also said the new administration will work with cities as partners. He looked ahead to Friday’s inauguration, saying it will mark “the dawn of a new era for our country, it’s an era of growth and opportunity and renewed greatness for America.”

Trump was set to make his first Washington trip in weeks Tuesday, as his inauguration festivities approach.

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Markets cheer, EU wary as UK PM May signals ‘clean Brexit’

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s future outside the European Union became much clearer Tuesday: It’s so long to the single market, goodbye to the European Court of Justice and farewell to the freedom of movement for workers.

In a long-awaited speech, Prime Minister Theresa May finally revealed the U.K’s hand as it prepares to start EU exit talks. She said the U.K. wants to free itself from EU governance and stop paying millions into its coffers, but still remain friends, allies and tariff-free trading partners with the soon-to-be 27 nation bloc.

“We want to buy your goods and services, sell you ours, trade with you as freely as possible, and work with one another to make sure we are all safer, more secure and more prosperous through continued friendship,” May said in a speech to diplomats and dignitaries beneath the gilded paintwork and chandeliers of a Georgian London mansion.

“You will still be welcome in this country as we hope our citizens will be welcome in yours,” she said.

Pro-Brexit British politicians praised the speech, and the pound rallied from recent lows as May provided more details of the path ahead for the split with the EU — and vowed that Britain would remain “a great global trading nation” open to business and talent from around the world.

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Texas, 13 other states sue to block Obama coal mining rule

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas and 13 other states have asked a federal court to block final rules from President Barack Obama’s administration designed to reduce coal mining’s impact on streams.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioned a Washington-based appeals court for an injunction Tuesday.

Paxton said in a statement that the “Stream Protection Rule” imposes “mandatory, one-size-fits-all” regulations that violate states’ rights.

Joining Texas are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Last month, North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem filed a separate lawsuit challenging the rule there.