AP News in Brief 01-07-18

Trump says he’s been ‘100 percent proper’ with Russia probe

THURMONT, Md. — President Donald Trump said Saturday that “everything I’ve done is 100 percent proper” regarding the special counsel’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and he insisted that his campaign didn’t collude with Moscow or commit any crime.

His team has been “open” with special counsel Robert Mueller and “done nothing wrong,” Trump told reporters at Camp David, where he was meeting with Republican congressional leaders and Cabinet members to discuss legislative strategy in the new year.

He bemoaned the unrelenting focus on alleged Russia ties, saying the probe is “very, very bad for our country. It’s making our country look foolish and this is a country that I don’t want looking foolish, and it’s not going to look foolish as long as I’m here.”

A number of news outlets, including The Associated Press, have reported that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to withdraw from the Justice Department’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Sessions’ decision to step away prompted Mueller’s appointment.

Pope on Epiphany: Don’t make money, career your whole life

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Saturday advised against making the pursuit of money, a career or success the basis for one’s whole life, urging in his Epiphany remarks to also resist “inclinations toward arrogance, the thirst for power and for riches.”

During a homily at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis said people “often make do” with having “health, a little money and a bit of entertainment.” He urged people to help the poor and others in need of assistance, giving freely without expecting anything in return.

Many Christians observe Epiphany to recall the three wise men who followed a star to find the baby Jesus. Francis suggested asking “what star we have chosen to follow in our lives?”

“Some stars may be bright, but do not point the way. So it is with success, money, career, honors and pleasures, when these become our lives,” the pope said, adding that path won’t ensure peace and joy.

Later, during an appearance from his studio window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, Francis urged tens of thousands of faithful gathered below not to be indifferent to Jesus.

Pot industry frets, then shrugs off Sessions’ new policy

SAN FRANCISCO — This week’s announcement that the U.S. Justice Department was ditching its hands-off approach to states that have legalized marijuana initially sent some in the industry into a tailspin, just days after California’s $7 billion recreational weed market opened for business.

But for long-term pot purveyors accustomed to changing regulatory winds, the decision was just another bump in a long and winding road to proving their business legitimacy.

Many in the industry said they’re keeping a wait-and-see attitude because the effect of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement depends on whether federal prosecutors crack down on marijuana businesses operating legally under state laws. Sessions provided no details other than saying individual U.S. attorneys are authorized to prosecute marijuana operators as they choose.

Stocks of publicly traded marijuana-related companies plunged Thursday after Sessions announced the Justice Department’s new policy. On Friday, though, many of those stocks recovered.

“The announcement was largely symbolic,” said Patrick Moen, general counsel of Privateer Holdings, a Seattle-based venture capital firm that invests in marijuana businesses. “This kind of stunt will not have a substantial effect on the industry.”

Trump says he’d be open to talking with North Korean leader

THURMONT, Md. — President Donald Trump, shelving comparisons about the size of a “nuclear button,” said Saturday he is open to talking with the North Korean leader he’s called “Little Rocket Man” and hopes some progress results from upcoming talks between the Koreas.

Trump, who last year lambasted his chief diplomat for talking about negotiations with the nuclear-armed North, told reporters at Camp David that some dialogue or direct conversation with Kim Jong Un was not beyond the realm of possibility.

“Sure, I always believe in talking,” Trump said. “Absolutely I would do that, I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all.”

But he was quick to add that any talks would come with conditions, which he did not specify.

The first formal talks between North and South in more than two years are set to take place in a border town Tuesday as the rivals try to find ways to cooperate on the Winter Olympics in the South and to improve their ties. Tensions are high because of the North’s nuclear and missile programs.

“Right now they’re talking Olympics. It’s a start, it’s a big start,” Trump said during a question-and-answer session after meetings with GOP leaders in Congress and Cabinet members on the administration’s 2018 legislative agenda.

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100 million people affected by East Coast’s deep freeze

NEW YORK (AP) — About 100 million people faced a new challenge after the whopping East Coast snowstorm: a gusty deep freeze, topped Saturday by a wind chill close to minus 100 on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington that vied for world’s coldest place.

Jaw-clenching temperatures to start the weekend throughout the Northeast hit Burlington, Vermont, at minus 1 and a wind chill of minus 30. Both Philadelphia and New York were shivering at 8 degrees.

And in Hartford, Connecticut, a brutal cold of 10 degrees yielded a wind chill of minus 20.

On Saturday, winds of more than 90 mph swirled Mount Washington, the Northeast’s highest peak, at a temperature of minus 37 degrees and a wind chill of minus 93. It tied for second place with Armstrong, Ontario, as the coldest spot in the world.

Boston, at a relatively balmy 11 degrees, was wrangling with a different kind of challenge: a shortage of plumbers as the weather wreaked havoc on pipes that froze and cracked, Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh reported.

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump and team on air safety, vets, pollution

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s been a week of bogus boasting by President Donald Trump and members of his administration as they took unearned credit for airline safety, pollution cleanup and major advances in care for veterans.

The president ignored fatality-free years in aviation during the Obama administration when he declared 2017 the safest year on record and suggested that was because he’s kept a sharp eye on airlines.

He represented routine and ceremonial proclamations recognizing a day in remembrance of Pearl Harbor and a month in honor of military families as substantive achievements that improved care for veterans.

And his Environmental Protection Agency took credit for completing work on seven Superfund sites even though the actual cleaning was done by President Barack Obama’s EPA.

Here’s a look:

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NASA: Legendary astronaut, moonwalker John Young has died

Legendary astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon and later commanded the first space shuttle flight, has died, NASA said Saturday. Young was 87.

The space agency said Young died Friday night at home in Houston following complications from pneumonia.

NASA called Young one of its pioneers – the only agency astronaut to go into space as part of the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs, and the first to fly into space six times. He was the ninth man to walk on the moon.

“Astronaut John Young’s storied career spanned three generations of spaceflight,” acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said in an emailed statement. “John was one of that group of early space pioneers whose bravery and commitment sparked our nation’s first great achievements in space.”

Young was the only spaceman to span NASA’s Gemini, Apollo and shuttle programs, and became the first person to rocket away from Earth six times. Counting his takeoff from the moon in 1972 as commander of Apollo 16, his blastoff tally stood at seven, for decades a world record.

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Hurricane Harvey survivors feel grief, distress months later

DALLAS (AP) — Deb Eberhart couldn’t sleep and was easily moved to tears as she worked to coordinate repairs to her Houston home in the months after flooding from Hurricane Harvey besieged it with 3 feet (0.91 meters) of water.

She clenched her jaw so hard that it hurt. She couldn’t eat.

“I thought: ‘Well, I’m not handling things as well as I should be,’” the 69-year-old retired teacher said.

Eberhart realized she needed help that had nothing to do with construction crews and insurance adjustors. So she joined storm survivors seeking help from therapists in the wake of the destructive winds and heavy rains in August that caused more than 80 deaths and an estimated $150 billion in damage in Texas.

Experts say the emotional distress caused by such an event can take many forms — grief, anxiety, depression, even fear of storms — and progress through several stages over a year or longer. Even months after the storm hit, new patients have been coming to free counseling being offered by private and government-funded programs.

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Malaysia OKs new search by private company for missing plane

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s government said Saturday that it has approved a new attempt by a private company to find the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, nearly four years after its disappearance sparked one of aviation’s biggest mysteries.

The Houston, Texas-based company Ocean Infinity dispatched a search vessel this past week to look in the southern Indian Ocean for debris from the plane, which disappeared March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew members.

The governments of Malaysia, China and Australia called off the nearly three-year official search last January. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s final report on the search conceded that authorities were no closer to knowing the reasons for the Boeing 777’s disappearance, or its exact location.

“The basis of the offer from Ocean Infinity is based on ‘no cure, no fee,’” Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Saturday, meaning that payment will be made only if the company finds the wreckage.

“That means they are willing to search the area of 25,000 square kilometers (9,653 square miles) pointed out by the expert group near the Australian waters,” he said.

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