What exactly is US Syria policy? Big questions for allies
LUCCA, Italy (AP) — Seeking support from abroad, the U.S. struggled Monday to explain a hazy Syria strategy that has yet to clarify key questions: whether President Bashar Assad must go, how displaced Syrians will be protected and when America might feel compelled to take further action.
Successive attempts by top Trump administration officials to articulate a plan have only furthered the appearance of a policy still evolving, even after the U.S. broke with precedent last week by attacking Assad’s forces. In the absence of answers, other countries seem to be moving ahead on their own terms.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, after a meeting in Italy with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, floated the possibility of new sanctions on both the Syrian and Russian militaries, an idea the U.S. has only briefly mentioned. In an unusual announcement for a foreign government, Johnson also said the U.S. could launch more cruise missiles into Syria like the ones President Donald Trump ordered last week in reaction to Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
“Crucially, they could do so again,” Johnson said.
Tillerson himself raised fresh expectations for aggressive U.S. action — and not only in Syria — as he visited Sant’Anna di Stazzema, a Tuscan village where the Nazis massacred more than 500 civilians during World War II. As he laid a wreath, he alluded to the Syria chemical attack.
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Whitehead’s ‘Underground Railroad’ wins fiction Pulitzer
NEW YORK (AP) — Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad,” his celebrated novel about an escaped slave that combined liberating imagination and brutal reality, has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Monday’s announcement confirmed the book as the literary event of 2016, an Oprah Winfrey book club pick and critical favorite which last fall received the National Book Award, the first time in more than 20 years that the same work won the Pulitzer and National Book Award for fiction. Whitehead, known for such explorations of American myth and history as “John Henry Days,” conceived his novel with what he calls a “goofy idea:” Take the so-called Underground Railroad of history, the network of escape routes to freedom, and make it an actual train. He wove his fantasy together with a too-believable story of a young girl’s flight from a plantation.
Whitehead finished “The Underground Railroad” well before Donald Trump’s election but now finds parallels with the present.
“I think the book deals with white supremacy as a foundational error in the country’s history and that foundational error is being played out now in the White House,” he told The Associated Press on Monday. “When I was writing the book I wasn’t thinking about current events, but I think you have to look at it differently now.”
Other winners announced Monday also touched upon race and class, in the present and in the past.
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Alabama governor resigns, pleads guilty to misdemeanors
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley resigned Monday rather than face impeachment and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor campaign violations that arose during an investigation of his alleged affair with a top aide.
In a remarkable fall, the mild-mannered 74-year-old Republican and one-time Baptist deacon stepped down as the sex-tinged scandal gathered force over the past few days. Legislators turned up the pressure by opening impeachment hearings Monday. Last week, the Alabama Ethics Commission cited evidence that Bentley broke state ethics and campaign laws and referred the matter to prosecutors.
“There’ve been times that I let you and our people down, and I’m sorry for that,” Bentley said in the old House chamber of Alabama’s Capitol after he pleaded guilty.
The violations were discovered during the investigation of his affair but were not directly related to it.
In court, Bentley appeared sullen and looked down at the floor. One misdemeanor charge against Bentley stemmed from a $50,000 loan he made to his campaign in November that investigators said he failed to report until January. State law says major contributions should be reported within a few days. The other charge stemmed from his use of campaign funds to pay nearly $9,000 in legal bills for political adviser Rebekah Caldwell Mason last year.
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Arkansas judge opens hearing on bid to stop 7 executions
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Lawyers for seven Arkansas inmates scheduled to die this month because a key execution drug will soon expire went to federal court Monday to argue that the state’s aggressive plan raises the risk that their deaths will be cruel and unusual.
Without court intervention, Arkansas will execute more than 20 percent of its 34 death row inmates by the end of the month, when a key sedative expires. The main arguments from lawyers for the condemned men are along two lines: legal teams that represent multiple clients are spread too thin to be effective and stress in the death chamber will be so high that executioners will make a mistake.
“The lawyers … are forced to make numerous choices between the interests of one client over another, thus creating multiple conflicts of interest,” the inmates’ lawyers said Monday in documents filed ahead of the hearing. The attorneys say later that scheduling so many executions in a short time “violates the evolved standards of decency in this country.”
Lee Rudofsky, representing the state of Arkansas, said the inmates’ arguments have been heard in other courts and that they aren’t entitled to an unlimited number of legal battles.
“Enough is enough,” he said. He told U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker that the inmates’ lawsuit — filed three weeks before the first execution next Monday — is “the smart play here” but asked her to let Arkansas conduct its first executions since 2005.
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9 life sentences in state case on Charleston church slayings
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof was given nine consecutive life sentences in prison after he pleaded guilty to state murder charges Monday, leaving him to await execution in a federal prison and sparing his victims and their families the burden of a second trial.
Judge J.C. Nicholson imposed the sentences following a hearing in which church members and Roof’s grandfather testified about the personal toll of the case.
The self-avowed white supremacist entered his guilty pleas while standing at the defense table with his attorneys, clad in a gray and white striped jail jumpsuit and handcuffed to a chain at his waist.
Roof’s plea deal with state prosecutors, who also had been pursuing the death penalty, came in exchange for a life prison sentence on the state charges.
Solicitor Scarlett Wilson called the plea deal “an insurance policy for the federal conviction.” With a new administration in Washington, Wilson said she’s more confident that a federal death sentence will be carried out.
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Police hunt for gun theft suspect with manifesto for Trump
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Before setting off a massive manhunt triggered by a gun shop break-in, authorities said Joseph Jakubowski first wanted to document the start of his self-proclaimed revolution against the government and law enforcement.
“To anybody that got this letter, you might want to read it,” the 32-year-old Jakubowski said as he walked in the parking lot of a southern Wisconsin post office, holding an oversized white envelope bearing multiple stamps and containing a 161-page manifesto addressed to President Donald Trump. “There it is, you see, it’s getting shipped. Revolution. It’s time for change.”
The scene comes from a 15-minute video shot before Jakubowski disappeared last week and subsequently released by Rock County Sheriff officials. Investigators have said Jakubowski’s manifesto details a long list of grievances against the government and law enforcement, and threatens attacks against schools and public officials.
Law enforcement have released few specifics about what Jakubowski wrote — and said little about what they believe he’ll do — but they’re devoting more than 150 state and federal officers in what’s become a national search. Authorities are urging the public to call with information of his whereabouts but they’re warning people not to approach him because he has more than a dozen firearms and he’s acquired a bulletproof vest and a helmet.
“Here we go guys. April 4th, 2017. It’s 5:43,” Jakubowski said showing the letter one last time before dropping it off in a mailbox. “Game time,” he said before walking away.