In Brief: Nation & World: 2-14-17

California dam managers dismissed flood concern 12 years ago

Environmental activists and local government officials warned more than a decade ago about the risk of catastrophic flooding below a major Northern California dam — the very scenario that threatened to unfold over the weekend, forcing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people downstream.

State and federal regulators dismissed those fears at the time, saying they were confident the hillside that helps hold back billions of gallons of water was stable and did not need to be reinforced with concrete.

That decision has come under scrutiny now that the hillside — or emergency spillway, as officials call it — has been put to its first test in the Oroville Dam’s nearly 50-year history.

Over the weekend, water from the storm-swollen reservoir behind the dam spilled down the unpaved slope, causing such heavy erosion that authorities feared a huge breach could open and send a 30-foot-high torrent down the Feather River, devastating thousands of homes. The dam is about 70 miles north of Sacramento.

The danger appeared to ease slightly on Monday as the water level behind the dam dropped, but more rain was in the forecast, and residents as far as several dozen miles downriver in Yuba City were not allowed back into their homes.

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Officials repeatedly said spillway safe before evacuations

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — For six days, amid rising waters and heavy rain, officials assured Northern California residents living downstream from a damaged dam that they were safe. Then on Sunday afternoon, a few hours after once again being told they were safe, the alarm was sounded: evacuate immediately. A portion of the dam never tested before was on the brink of failing, sending a 30-foot wall of water rushing down the Feather River and imperiling about 200,000 residents ordered to flee to higher ground.

Here’s a timeline of what officials told the public, and how quickly their statements went from “no threat” to “evacuate…this is not a drill.”

TUESDAY: The department announces it halted flows from the Oroville dam spillway around noon after engineers notice damage to a spillway. “There is no anticipated threat to the dam or the public.”

WEDNESDAY: The department says it plans to release water through the damaged spillway for two hours to determine how much flow it can handle. “The dam is sound,” the Department of Water Resources states, “and no imminent threat to the public exists.”

THURSDAY: The department says the test release of water further damaged the spillway. Nonetheless, officials say they plan a bigger release of water to make room in the reservoir for coming rains. “There is no imminent or expected threat to public safety or the integrity of Oroville Dam,” the agency states.

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Security Council strongly condemns North Korea missile test

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned North Korea late Monday over its latest ballistic missile launches and warned of “further significant measures” if Pyongyang doesn’t stop nuclear and missile testing.

A council statement agreed to by all 15 members followed strong condemnation by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of the latest launch and U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to deal with North Korea “very strongly.”

The Security Council condemned Saturday’s launch and a previous test Oct. 19, saying North Korea’s activities to develop its nuclear weapons delivery systems violate U.N. sanctions and increase tensions. It called on all U.N. members “to redouble their efforts” to implement U.N. sanctions.

North Korea has repeatedly flouted six Security Council resolutions demanding an end to its nuclear and ballistic missile activities and imposing increasing tougher sanctions.

The latest missile test is seen as an implicit challenge to Trump, who has vowed a tough line on North Korea but has yet to release a strategy for dealing with a country whose nuclear ambitions have bedeviled U.S. leaders for decades.

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Drivers see higher premiums after not-at-fault crashes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most drivers don’t expect to be hit with a rate hike on their auto insurance after a car accident that wasn’t their fault. But a consumer group says it happens, and it’s a problem.

The Washington-based Consumer Federation of America says it found rate hikes on annual premiums as high as $400, in some cases.

In the report released Monday, the group analyzed premium quotes in 10 cities, including New York and Chicago, from five of the nation’s largest auto insurers. The researchers found that Progressive aggressively used a not-at-fault penalty, surcharging drivers in eight of the 10 selected cities. Rates in Oklahoma City and Los Angeles did not change. Oklahoma and California prohibit not-at-fault penalties.

The group said GEICO and Farmers raised rates in some states by 10 percent or more. Allstate had occasional penalties. State Farm was the exception, with no increases on premiums for not-at-fault accidents.

“Most people know that if they cause an accident or get a ticket they could face a premium increase, but they don’t expect to be punished if a reckless driver careens into them,” said Bob Hunter, CFA’s director of insurance and the former insurance commissioner of Texas.

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Senate confirms former banker Mnuchin as Treasury secretary

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bitterly divided Senate on Monday confirmed Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary despite strong objections by Democrats that the former banker ran a “foreclosure machine” when he headed OneWest Bank.

Republicans said Mnuchin’s long tenure in finance makes him qualified to run the department, which will play a major role in developing economic policy under President Donald Trump.

“He has experience managing large and complicated private-sector enterprises and in negotiating difficult compromises and making tough decisions — and being accountable for those decisions,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Finance Committee.

Votes on President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks have exposed deep partisan divisions in the Republican-controlled Senate, with many of the nominees approved by mostly party-line votes.

The vote on Mnuchin followed the same pattern. He was confirmed by a mostly party-line vote of 53-47. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia joined the Republicans.

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Canada’s Trudeau talks trade with Trump at White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — A political odd couple, President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resolutely played up their similarities at their first meeting Monday, even as obvious differences lurked behind their public smiles.

After their White House meeting, the North American neighbors emerged to hail their close ties, with Trump promising to “build upon our very historic friendship” and Trudeau noting the “special” bond between the countries.

But it was hard to escape their contrasting worldviews.

Speaking to reporters, Trump defended his restrictive refugee and immigration orders, saying that “we cannot let the wrong people in.” Trudeau, on the other hand, said Canada continues to “pursue our policies of openness.”

Trudeau later acknowledged that there are times when the two countries differ. But he said, “The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves.”

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Trump ‘evaluating the situation’ involving Flynn, Russia

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is “evaluating the situation” regarding his embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn’s conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., the White House said Monday, deepening the uncertainty surrounding Flynn’s future in the new administration.

Flynn apologized privately for the controversy to Vice President Mike Pence, according to a White House official. Pence, relying on information from Flynn, publicly vouched that the retired Army lieutenant general did not discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia in calls late last year. Flynn has since told the White House that sanctions may have come up.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was consulting with Pence about his conversations with the national security adviser. Asked whether the president had been aware that Flynn might discuss sanctions with the Russian envoy, Spicer said, “no, absolutely not.”

Trump, who comments on a steady stream of issues on his Twitter feed, has been conspicuously silent about the matter since The Washington Post reported last week that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy. A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the day the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking, as well as at other times during the transition.

Earlier Monday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump had “full confidence” in Flynn, though her assertions were not backed up by other senior Trump aides. Spicer would say only that Flynn was continuing to carry out “his daily functions.”

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Trump presidency gets social with detailed posts, photos

WASHINGTON (AP) — There was President Donald Trump, in the middle of his Mar-a-Lago resort, conferring with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on decisions with national security implications over iceberg wedge salads. The Florida club members snapped photos and posted them to Facebook with detailed narratives about what they were seeing.

“HOLY MOLY !!! It was fascinating to watch the flurry of activity at dinner when the news came that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of Japan,” Richard DeAgazio wrote on his public Facebook page.

Welcome to the social media presidency — and all of the security and ethical challenges it poses.

DeAgazio also posed for a photo with a man whom he said carries the “nuclear football” for the president. He’s since deleted his account, but not before CNN and other news outlets wrote about what seemed to be an open-air situation room — based on his and other social media accounts. Trump was conducting national security business in an area accessible to the public. DeAgazio did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Democrats said the scene at Mar-a-Lago seemed to pose security risks. Trump spent much of his campaign hammering opponent Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server to conduct business while she was secretary of state — something Trump said was not nearly secure enough.

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Evacuees might not go home until dam spillway is repaired

OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Nearly 200,000 people who were ordered to leave their homes after a damaged California spillway threatened to unleash a 30-foot wall of water may not be able to return until significant erosion is repaired, authorities said Monday.

The officials who issued the hasty evacuation order defended their decision, saying it was necessary to ensure public safety in the region downstream from the nation’s tallest dam, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco. Engineers spotted a hole in the spillway, which they feared could have failed within an hour.

The water level of the massive reservoir known as Lake Oroville dropped Monday, slightly easing fears of a catastrophic collapse. But with more storms on the horizon, crews raced to assess what happened and began dumping large boulders and sandbags into the spillway to prevent any more erosion.

The acting head of the state’s Department of Water Resources said he did not know if anything had gone wrong and was unaware of a 2005 report that recommended fortifying the earthen emergency spillway with concrete for just such an event. The spillway had never been used in the dam’s nearly 50 years of operation, and it was not near capacity when it began to fail.

“I’m not sure anything went wrong,” Bill Croyle said. “This was a new, never-having-happened-before event.”

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump aide pushes false story of vote fraud

WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidential adviser Stephen Miller peddled discredited theories about voter fraud during a round of TV appearances Sunday that won praise from his boss but brought no new evidence to light.

Miller mischaracterized research about wrongly registered voters and spread a debunked claim that busloads of Democrats came into New Hampshire and voted improperly in the November election. His Sunday morning performance on news shows earned him a “Good job!” on Twitter from President Donald Trump, who alleged days earlier that he lost New Hampshire in November only because “thousands” of people came by bus to vote against him.

A look at a few of the senior policy adviser’s statements on ABC’s “This Week.”

MILLER: “I can tell you that this issue of busing voters in to New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics. It’s very real, it’s very serious. This morning on this show is not the venue for me lay out all the evidence.”

The accusation that people from more liberal Massachusetts crossed state lines in buses and voted was made shortly before the election by Republican Chris Sununu, who won election as governor. Sununu quickly backed down, saying his talk about busloads of illegal voters was “more a figure of speech” — in other words, not reality. Actual cases of voter fraud detected in New Hampshire have been in the single digits over recent elections.