In Brief: Nation & World: 5-3-17
Government ‘needs a good shutdown,’ frustrated Trump tweets
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared Tuesday the U.S. government “needs a good shutdown” this fall to fix a “mess” in the Senate, signaling on Twitter his displeasure with a bill to keep operations running. But Republican leaders and Trump himself also praised the stopgap measure as a major accomplishment and a sign of his masterful negotiating with Democrats.
On the defensive, Trump and his allies issued a flurry of contradictory statements ahead of key votes in Congress on a $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep the government at full speed through September. After advocating for a future shutdown, the president hailed the budget agreement as a boost for the military, border security and other top priorities.
“This is what winning looks like,” Trump said during a ceremony honoring the Air Force Academy football team. “Our Republican team had its own victory — under the radar,” Trump said, calling the bill “a clear win for the American people.” Late in the day, the White House said he would indeed sign the bill.
Yet Trump’s morning tweets hardly signaled a win and came after Democrats gleefully claimed victory in denying him much of his wish list despite being the minority party. They sounded a note of defeat, blaming Senate rules for a budget plan that merited closing most government operations.
But the White House then rallied to make the case to the public — and perhaps to a president who famously hates losing — that he actually had prevailed in the negotiations. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney briefed reporters twice within a few hours to adamantly declare the administration’s success. He was joined at his second briefing by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. And Trump himself used the normally non-political football ceremony to proclaim his own success.
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AP source: Yates to testify on warning White House on Flynn
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former acting attorney general Sally Yates is expected to testify to Congress next week that she warned the White House that President Donald Trump’s national security adviser’s contacts with the Russian ambassador could leave him compromised.
That’s according to a person who’s been briefed on that Jan. 26 conversation about Michael Flynn and who is knowledgeable about Yates’s plans for her testimony Monday.
The person says Yates will testify she alerted White House counsel Don McGahn about discrepancies between the administration’s statements on Flynn’s contact with the ambassador and what really transpired. The White House fired Flynn weeks later after concluding that he had misled them about his conversation.
Yates is to appear before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. It will be her first public account of her White House conversation.
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Trump, Putin signal new effort to cooperate on Syria
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled improving prospects for cooperation in Syria Tuesday in what the White House called a “very good” phone discussion that included a focus on setting up safe zones in the war-torn nation.
The Kremlin said the leaders also agreed to try to set up their first in-person meeting in July, on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany. The White House later confirmed that information.
Tuesday’s call marked the first time Trump and Putin have spoken since the U.S. launched missiles against an air base in Syria, an attack that outraged Russia, one of the Syrian government’s strongest backers. The U.S. military action sparked new tensions between Washington and Moscow, with top U.S. officials sharply condemning Putin’s continued support for embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
But the leaders appeared to again be edging toward closer cooperation following Tuesday’s call. The Kremlin said Trump and Putin agreed to bolster diplomatic efforts to resolve the Syrian civil war, which has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions more displaced. The White House announced it would send a top State Department official to Russian-led talks on Syria that begin Wednesday in Kazakhstan.
“President Trump and President Putin agreed that the suffering in Syria has gone on for far too long and that all parties must do all they can to end the violence,” the White House said. “The conversation was a very good one, and included the discussion of safe, or de-escalation, zones to achieve lasting peace for humanitarian and many other reasons.”
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White ex-officer pleads guilty in black man’s slaying
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A white former police officer whose killing of an unarmed black man running from a traffic stop was captured on cellphone video pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal civil rights charges that could send him to prison for decades.
The plea from Michael Slager, 35, came five months after a jury deadlocked on state murder charges against him in the 2015 shooting of Walter Scott. South Carolina prosecutors had planned to retry Slager, but as part of Tuesday’s plea bargain, they agreed to drop the murder case.
Slager admitted violating Scott’s civil rights by shooting him without justification. He could get up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing, though prosecutors agreed to ask for more than 20 years behind bars. No sentencing date was set.
A bystander’s grainy video of the shooting, viewed millions of times online, showed the 50-year-old motorist breaking away after struggling with Slager over the officer’s Taser. Slager then began firing at Scott’s back from 17 feet away. Five of eight bullets hit him.
The former North Charleston officer spoke little in court except to quietly answer the judge’s questions. Several of Scott’s relatives sat in the front row in the gallery as the prosecutor read a bare-bones description of the shooting. One of them closed his eyes tightly, while another hung his head.
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Clinton blames misogyny, FBI, Russia, herself for 2016 loss
NEW YORK (AP) — Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that she’s taking responsibility for her 2016 election loss but believes misogyny, Russian interference and questionable decisions by the FBI also influenced the outcome.
The former Democratic presidential nominee offered extensive comments about the election during the Women for Women International’s annual luncheon in New York. Clinton said she’s been going through the “painful” process of reliving the 2016 contest while writing a book.
“It wasn’t a perfect campaign. There is no such thing,” Clinton said in a question-and-answer-session with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “But I was on the way to winning until a combination of (FBI Director) Jim Comey’s letter on Oct. 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off.”
She reminded the enthusiastic audience packed with women that she ultimately earned 3 million more votes than President Donald Trump.
“If the election were on Oct. 27, I would be your president,” Clinton said.
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Lawmakers to airlines: Improve service or Congress steps in
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chief executive of United Airlines apologized Tuesday on Capitol Hill for an incident in which a passenger was dragged off a flight, calling it “a mistake of epic proportions” as frustrated lawmakers warned airline executives to improve customer service or face congressional intervention.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said carriers should use the notoriety of the violent event — and a separate incident in which a mother with a stroller was bullied by a flight attendant — to make long-needed improvements. If the airlines don’t make changes, Congress is likely to step in, Shuster and other lawmakers said.
“Seize this opportunity,” Shuster told United CEO Oscar Munoz and other airline executives at a hearing.
Otherwise, “we’re going to act and you’re not going to like it,” he said, predicting a “one-size-fits-all” solution that may serve some airlines but not others.
Shuster provided no specifics on what steps Congress would take to fix airline service. But several members of Congress have introduced legislation to ban the bumping of passengers if flights are overbooked.
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Chechen gays survive torture, flee to Moscow safe houses
MOSCOW (AP) — Anzor was lying on a dirty floor as a man in army boots jumped on his back. His agony worsened when his captors started torturing him with electric shocks.
“It’s a feeling like they are breaking every bone of every joint in your body at the same time,” he said.
Anzor is a gay man from Chechnya, the predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia where dozens of men suspected of being gay were reportedly detained and tortured, and at least three of them were allegedly killed.
After his ordeal, Anzor fled Chechnya and is now in hiding in Moscow, fearing not only for his own life but for the safety of his relatives. He spoke with The Associated Press on the condition of using only his first name.
Antipathy to homosexuality in Russia is widespread. Gay rights activists’ requests to hold rallies are routinely rejected by officials and any rallies that do take place are often attacked by anti-gay thugs. But “this anti-gay purge, sanctioned by top local authorities, is unprecedented,” said Tanya Lokshina, the Russia program coordinator for Human Rights Watch.
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Apple growing cash stash spurs talk of huge acquisition
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As Apple’s stash of cash grows, so does the possibility that the world’s most valuable company will use some of the money for a huge acquisition that would expand its empire beyond iPhones and other gadgets.
The company currently holds more than a quarter-trillion dollars it could use to go shopping. So far, the guessing game has primarily focused on possible targets such as Netflix and Tesla Motors. Either deal could make sense, given Apple’s long-running interest in providing a TV service to consumers and its more recent work on self-driving cars .
But in recent months the takeover talk has swirled around whether Apple might do something even more dramatic by making a bid for Walt Disney Co.
THE MOUSE AND THE APPLE
Such a combination would create the world’s first company worth $1 trillion. Beyond that, an Apple-Disney marriage would unite some of the world’s most successful brands in technology and entertainment — a list that includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac computer, Mickey Mouse, Disneyland, ESPN, Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel.
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Science Says: Kimmel baby’s heart defect is common, fixable
The hole-in-the-heart problem that plagues comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s newborn son is one of the most common heart-related birth defects, and it usually can be fixed with surgery.
Some people even live with it for several years before it’s detected although the Kimmel baby’s is the most severe form and was noticed just a few hours after his birth in Los Angeles on April 21.
On his show Monday night, the comedian tearfully described the emergency operation needed after his son, William John, was found to have tetralogy of Fallot (teh-TRALL-oh-jee of fall-OH.) A quick take on the condition.
THINGS NOT WHERE THEY SHOULD BE
Tetralogy means four, a cluster of that many defects. The main one is a hole or opening in the wall separating the two sides of the heart. In a normal heart, the right side pumps oxygen-depleted, or blue blood from other parts of the body to the lungs to get more oxygen. The left side then pumps this oxygen-rich, red blood to the rest of the body.
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Red Sox apologize for fans’ racial taunts toward Adam Jones
BOSTON (AP) — Boston Red Sox President Sam Kennedy is apologizing to Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones after fans at Fenway Park taunted him with racial slurs.
Kennedy apologized Tuesday after Jones said someone also threw peanuts at him during Monday night’s game. Kennedy said the organization is “sickened by the conduct of an ignorant few.”
Jones, who is black, said he was “called the N-word a handful of times” in quotes reported by USA Today Sports and The Boston Globe.
“It’s unfortunate that people need to resort to those type of epithets to degrade another human being,” Jones said.
Red Sox spokesman Kevin Gregg said a total of 34 fans were ejected from Monday’s game. He said one fan was ejected for using “foul language” toward a player on the field, but it is unknown if that was directed at Jones. The fan that hurled the peanuts also was ejected. Gregg didn’t specify why the other fans were ejected.
