Ex-aide: Franks offered $5m to carry his child
WASHINGTON — A former aide to Republican Rep. Trent Franks has told The Associated Press the congressman repeatedly pressed her to carry his child, at one point offering her $5 million to act as a surrogate mother.
The eight-term lawmaker abruptly resigned Friday, bowing to an ultimatum from House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Ryan told Franks that he would refer the allegations to the Ethics Committee and urged him to step aside.
The former staffer said the congressman at least four times asked if she’d be willing to act as a surrogate in exchange for money. Franks, in his statement announcing his resignation, said he and his wife, who have struggled with infertility, have twins who were carried through surrogacy.
The former aide said the conversations took place in private, sometimes in the congressman’s car, and that she repeatedly told him she wasn’t interested. She said she never filed a formal complaint because until recently she didn’t know where to go, but that his behavior had made her feel uncomfortable.
Angry worshippers lash out against Trump across Muslim world
JERUSALEM — Large crowds of worshippers across the Muslim world staged anti-U.S. marches Friday, some stomping on posters of Donald Trump or burning American flags in the largest outpouring of anger yet at the U.S. president’s recognition of bitterly contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In the holy city itself, prayers at Islam’s third-holiest site dispersed largely without incident, but Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops in several dozen West Bank hotspots and on the border with the Gaza Strip.
Israeli warplanes struck Hamas military targets in the Gaza Strip Friday in response to a rocket fired from the zone that Israel’s military said was intercepted by its Iron Dome missile-defense system.
The Palestinian health ministry said at least 15 people were injured in Friday’s air strikes.
Earlier, a 30-year-old Gaza man was killed by Israeli gunfire, the first death of a protester since Trump’s dramatic midweek announcement. Two Palestinians were seriously wounded, health officials said.
Court papers show Manafort drafting op-ed under house arrest
WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign, was heavily involved in the drafting of an opinion piece on Ukrainian politics even while under house arrest, according to documents released Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors.
Prosecutors said earlier this week that Manafort had ghost-written an op-ed with a colleague who they said was assessed to have ties to Russian intelligence. The disclosure was aimed at showing that Manafort had violated a judge’s order to refrain from trying his case in public.
The government on Friday revealed new details that showed that Manafort had made a line-by-line edit of the essay on Nov. 29. The op-ed was published this week in an English-language newspaper in Ukraine under the byline of a former Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman. Prosecutors also say that Manafort’s attorney had assured them the essay wouldn’t be published.
From wire sources
Also Friday, Mueller detailed hundreds of thousands of documents, including copies of data from 36 electronic devices, and the existence of 15 search warrants in the government’s case against Manafort and Rick Gates, his business associates and co-defendant.
The scope of the documents is outlined in a separate filing, which details what evidence the government collected in building its case against Manafort and Gates.
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Court: ‘Making a Murderer’ defendant’s confession stands
CHICAGO (AP) — A federal appeals court in Chicago narrowly overturned a ruling Friday that could have freed a Wisconsin inmate featured in the “Making a Murderer” series from prison, though one dissenting judge called the case “a profound miscarriage of justice.”
The full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed Brendan Dassey’s claims that investigators tricked him into confessing that he took part in raping and killing photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. Dassey was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 after telling detectives he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, rape and kill Halbach.
The 4-to-3 opinion conceded a ruling wasn’t obvious or easy, but said it came down to whether findings by Wisconsin state courts that Dassey wasn’t coerced into confessing were reasonable.
“The state courts’ finding that Dassey’s confession was voluntary was not beyond fair debate, but we conclude it was reasonable,” their 39-page ruling said.
But Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner strongly disagreed.
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Police: Gunman disguised himself, randomly killed at school
AZTEC, N.M. (AP) — A 21-year-old gunman who disguised himself as a student to get into a New Mexico high school where he killed two students had caught the attention of U.S. investigators more than a year ago, authorities said Friday.
William Atchison, a former student at small-town Aztec High School, had legally purchased a handgun at a local store a month ago and planned the attack, authorities said. He left a message on a thumb drive found on his body that detailed his plan to wait until the students got off buses and made their way to class.
He mingled with students, then walked into school with them and went into a second-floor bathroom to “gear up.” Atchison’s plan was to shoot up a classroom and then kill himself.
“Work sucks, school sucks, life sucks. I just want out of this (expletive),” he wrote.
More lives could have been lost had Francisco I. Fernandez not walked into the bathroom, authorities said. The gunman shot Fernandez, then walked out into the hallway and encountered the second victim, Casey J. Marquez. He immediately killed her.
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Polish govt gets more power over the courts, defying EU
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two bills Friday that give the ruling party greater power over the judiciary despite blunt warnings from European Union officials and others that the laws contravene democratic norms.
Supporters in the ruling conservative Law and Justice party said the changes would make Poland’s courts more efficient and more accountable to citizens by giving elected representatives a role in choosing judges.
Opponents said the ruling party, led by leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, was violating international law and Poland’s Constitution by infringing on judicial independence and the separation of powers.
Opposition lawmakers in a country that threw off decades of communist rule 28 years ago chanted “Dictatorship!” Friday before and after the votes in the lower house of parliament. Grzegorz Schetyna, head of the opposition centrist party Civic Platform, called it a “black day” for Poland’s judicial system.
With emotions running high, some opposition lawmakers even likened the actions to the way the Nazis took power in Germany in the 1930s.
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North Carolina steps in on child abuse cases involving sect
SPINDALE, North Carolina (AP) — In an unprecedented move, North Carolina’s state child welfare agency will participate in reviewing every new allegation of abuse and neglect involving a controversial church that has been the focus of an Associated Press investigation exposing years of physical and emotional mistreatment of congregants, including children.
Under North Carolina’s child welfare system, county agencies are responsible for investigating abuse allegations. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services provides oversight and training, but generally does not get involved in a county agency’s daily operations.
The state would not say what prompted the move, but it follows a series of AP stories that have cited dozens of former Word of Faith Fellowship members who say congregants are regularly beaten to “purify” sinners. Founded in 1979, the evangelical sect has grown to about 750 congregants in North Carolina and a total of nearly 2,000 other followers worldwide.
As part of a 2005 settlement of a federal lawsuit filed by Word of Faith against the Rutherford County Department of Social Services claiming religious persecution, investigators labor under a series of restrictions when looking into allegations of abuse within the sect.
The settlement placed limitations on what can trigger an investigation, including guaranteeing that inquiries no longer could be based solely on objections to such core practices as “blasting,” when congregants surround a church member and shriek, sometimes for hours, to expel demons. Dozens of former members have told the AP that such sessions often lead to slapping, punching and choking.