In Brief: Nation & World: 7-3-17
Trump tweets mock video showing him beating man labeled CNN
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — In his latest jab at the media, President Donald Trump on Sunday tweeted a mock video that shows him pummeling a man in a business suit — his face obscured by the CNN logo — outside a wrestling ring.
It was not immediately clear who produced the brief video, which appears to be a doctored version of Trump’s 2007 appearance on World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. The 28-second clip was posted on Trump’s official Twitter account, with the message: “#FraudNewsCNN #FNN.”
The president in the past has branded the media as “the opposition party” and “the enemy of the American people.” He has taken particular aim at CNN, calling the network “fake news.”
Trump stayed on the attack later in the day, stating on Twitter that “the dishonest media will NEVER keep us from accomplishing our objectives on behalf of our GREAT AMERICAN PEOPLE!”
Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, condemned the video as a “threat of physical violence against journalists.” He said Trump’s tweet was “beneath the office of the presidency.”
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Trump makes push on health bill; repeal-only vote an option
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is making a weekend push to get a Republican Senate bill to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law “across the finish line,” Trump’s top legislative aide said Sunday, maintaining that a repeal-only option also remained in play if Republicans can’t reach agreement.
Marc Short, the White House’s legislative director, said Trump was making calls to wavering senators and insisted they were “getting close” on passing a bill.
But Short said Trump continues to believe that repeal-only legislation should also be considered after raising the possibility last Friday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has dismissed that suggestion and said he intended to proceed with legislation being negotiated over the July 4 recess.
“We hope when we come back, the week after recess, we’ll have a vote,” Short said. But he added: “If the replacement part is too difficult for Republicans to get together, then let’s go back and take care of the first step of repeal.”
Trump on Friday tweeted the suggestion of repealing the Obama-era law right away and then replacing it later, an approach that GOP leaders and the president himself considered but dismissed months ago as impractical and politically unwise. But the tweet came amid continuing signs of GOP disagreement among moderates and conservatives over the bill. Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate. Just three GOP defections would doom the legislation, because Democrats are united in opposition.
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Airstrikes propel Mosul gains, despite toll on civilians
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi forces say their recent territorial gains against the Islamic State group in Mosul’s Old City have largely been propelled by airstrikes, despite a spike in allegations of civilian casualties and warnings from human rights groups of the dangers of using large munitions in the dense, highly-populated area.
As strikes pummeled the Old City Sunday, hundreds of civilians fled. Many were badly injured and had to be carried out over mounds of rubble by family members. Deeper inside the district, narrow alleyways were littered with bodies.
Special forces Lt. Col. Muhanad al-Timimi said over the past three days his forces have carried out about 20 airstrikes a day on IS-held territory within there are of operation — a portion of the Old City measuring about one square kilometer (0.6 square miles) in size.
“It’s because we have a lot of enemy forces here,” he said, conceding the number of munitions used was relatively high.
Half buried in a mound of rubble beside a strike crater, limbs protruded, darkened by dust and rotting in the summer heat. The pile of rocks was once a brightly painted house with a courtyard garden.
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Damascus rocked by suicide blast, 2 others foiled
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Security forces chased three explosive-laden vehicles through Damascus Sunday, intercepting two of them at checkpoints but failing to stop the third before it exploded in the city center, killing at least eight people, state media and others reported.
The rare attack in the heart of Syria’s capital unfolded ahead of the morning commute on the first work day after a major Muslim holiday.
The Interior Ministry said security forces tracked all three cars and intercepted two of them at checkpoints on the airport road. The third made it into the city center, where the driver blew himself up near Tahreer Square.
The Syrian Minister of Local Administration, Hussein Makhlouf, said the response marked a “major success in foiling a plot” to cause mass casualties.
There were conflicting casualty reports.
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Rapper held on unrelated charges after Little Rock shooting
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A rapper whose concert in Little Rock was the site of a shooting that left 28 people injured was arrested early Sunday on unrelated assault charges while outside an Alabama club where he was performing just 24 hours later, and authorities said several firearms were recovered during the arrest.
Ricky Hampton, 25, of Memphis, Tennessee, also known as Finese 2Tymes, was arrested on outstanding charges of aggravated assault with a gun out of Forrest City in eastern Arkansas, the U.S. Marshals Service said. A second man also was taken into custody, and two handguns and an assault rifle were seized from the Mercedes in which the two men were riding, said Cliff LaBarge with the U.S. Marshals Service in Alabama.
The firearms will be sent to a crime lab in Arkansas to determine whether they match shell casings found at the scene of the shooting early Saturday at the Power Ultra Lounge, said Little Rock Police Lt. Steven McClanahan.
McClanahan described Hampton as a “person of interest” and said the rapper will be extradited to Arkansas so that police can interview him.
McClanahan said no arrests have been made in the shooting in which 25 people between the ages of 16 and 35 suffered gunshot wounds, and three others were hurt afterward. He said police did not recover any weapons at the scene of the shooting, which authorities believe may have been gang-related.
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Man facing murder charges in road-rage slaying of woman, 18
WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania man was in custody Sunday for what a prosecutor called the “savage” and “senseless” death of a recent high school graduate shot in the head during a road-rage confrontation as the two tried to merge in a single lane.
David Desper, 28, of Trainer, turned himself in accompanied by an attorney early Sunday, and police said he was charged with first- and third-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime, and reckless endangering in the death of 18-year-old Bianca Roberson in West Goshen Township.
Desper and Roberson, who had just graduated from Bayard Rustin High School in West Chester and was planning to attend Jacksonville University in Florida this fall, were trying to merge into a single lane Wednesday as a two-lane road narrowed, Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan said.
“They jockeyed for position, and he wasn’t happy, so he pulled out a gun and shot Bianca in the head, killing her instantly,” he said.
After Roberson was shot, her car veered off the road, struck a tree and was found in a ditch. The shooter fled in a red pickup, driving partly along the shoulder of the highway until exiting the road. Authorities tracked the suspect vehicle on surveillance video and sorted through hundreds of tips from the public, calling on the suspect to turn himself in for his own sake and for the sake of the family.
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Doctor has no idea why he’d be hospital shooter’s target
NEW YORK (AP) — A doctor who appears to have been the target of a former physician who started shooting at a hospital, killing one person and injuring six, said he has no idea why he would have been singled out.
Dr. Kamran Ahmed told the New York Post he wasn’t the only one Dr. Henry Bello had a problem with.
However, “he never argued with me,” Ahmed said. “I don’t know why he put my name.”
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Bello arrived at Bronx Lebanon Hospital in the Bronx on Friday with an assault rifle, which was bought in upstate New York about a week earlier, hidden under his lab coat and asked for a doctor he blamed for his having to resign, but the doctor wasn’t there at the time. The law enforcement official wasn’t authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Ahmed, who specializes in the early detection and treatment of dementia, said Bello “had a problem with almost everybody, so I’m not the only one. That’s why they fired him, because so many people complained.”
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July Fourth holiday brings mixed feelings for minorities
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — As many in the United States celebrate the Fourth of July holiday, some minorities have mixed feelings about the revelry of fireworks and parades in an atmosphere of tension on several fronts.
How do you celebrate during what some people of color consider troubling times?
Blacks, Latinos and immigrant rights advocates say the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, recent non-convictions of police officers charged in the shootings of black men, and the stepped-up detentions of immigrants and refugees for deportation have them questioning equality and the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the United States.
Filmmaker Chris Phillips of Ferguson, Missouri, says he likely will attend a family barbecue just like every Fourth of July. But the 36-year-old black man says he can’t help but feel perplexed about honoring the birth of the nation after three officers were recently cleared in police shootings.
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Congress is cool to Trump’s proposal to end heating aid
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The summer air is sizzling as the Fourth of July approaches, yet 86-year-old Richard Perkins already worries about how he’s going to stay warm this winter.
President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating heating aid for low-income Americans, claiming it’s no longer necessary and rife with fraud. People needn’t worry about being left in the cold, he says, because utilities cannot cut off customers in the dead of winter.
But he is wrong on all counts.
The heating program provides a critical lifeline for people like Perkins, and officials close to the program don’t see any widespread fraud. Guidelines for winter shutoffs by utilities vary from state to state and don’t apply to heating oil, a key energy source in the brittle New England winter.
“It’s beyond my thinking that anyone could be that cruel,” said Perkins, a retired restaurateur who relies on the program to keep warm in Ogunquit, Maine.
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Top Colombian rebel leader in intensive care after stroke
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The top commander of Colombia’s largest rebel movement was hospitalized Sunday following a stroke and remains in intensive care, just days after his group handed over the last of its individual weapons as part of a historic peace deal.
Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, checked himself into a hospital emergency room in the city of Villavicencio shortly after 8 a.m. with slurred speech and numbness in his arm, doctors said in a news conference. They said he remains in intensive care as a precautionary measure but his speech and mobility have already recovered 90 percent from what they described as a temporary blockage of blood to his brain.
Doctors said if there are no complications the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia could be released in the next 24 to 48 hours.
“Of course he’s conscious and making jokes,” another rebel leader known by his alias Pastor Alape said at the press conference.
Londono, who is in his 50s, has suffered a number of health scares of late, the result partly of a lifetime in jungle trenches. Recently the FARC confirmed that in 2015 Londono suffered a heart attack during peace negotiations in Cuba, and earlier this year, after the deal was inked, had another unspecified medical setback for which he received treatment on the communist-run island.
