1 dead, 1 injured in cougar attack in Washington state
NORTH BEND, Wash. — One man was killed and another seriously injured when they encountered a cougar Saturday while mountain biking in Washington state, officials said.
Authorities said the two men were on a morning bike ride in the foothills near North Bend when the attack occurred. The town is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Seattle.
The mountain lion ran into the woods and officers with the Washington Department of Fish and Game later tracked it down and shot and killed it, said Capt. Alan Myers of the state’s Fish &Wildlife Police.
The 31-year-old survivor was taken to a hospital in Seattle. He was initially listed in serious condition in the emergency room but was alert and talking; his condition was later upgraded to satisfactory, The Seattle Times reported.
A search and rescue team was dispatched to recover the body of the deceased man.
In deadly school shooting, a confession but no clear motive
SANTA FE, Texas — The mother of one of the 10 people killed at a Texas high school said her daughter recently rejected the romantic advances of the 17-year-old charged in the shootings, a possible motive for the violent tragedy.
Sadie Rodriguez said her daughter, Shana Fisher, had made clear that she was not interested in the suspect.
“He continued to get more aggressive,” Rodriguez told The Associated Press in an interview conducted Saturday via Facebook. “She finally stood up to him and embarrassed him.”
The incident took place one week before the shooting, Rodriguez said. Police have not yet said what might have motivated the attack.
Asked about Rodriguez’s allegation, a lawyer for the suspect’s family said he hadn’t heard about any such interaction between the suspect and any of the victims and therefore couldn’t comment.
Immigration a fraught issue for GOP as midterms approach
WASHINGTON — The chaos among House Republicans this past week on immigration shows just how problematic and risky the issue is for a party that badly needs unity heading into the elections in November that will decide control of Congress.
GOP leaders thought they had found a way by Friday morning to make the party’s warring conservative and moderate wings happy on an issue that has bedeviled them for years.
Conservatives would get a vote by late June on an immigration bill that parrots many of President Donald Trump’s hard-right immigration views, including reductions on legal immigration and opening the door to his proposed wall with Mexico. Centrists would have a chance to craft a more moderate alternative with the White House and Democrats and get a vote on that, too.
But it all blew up as conservatives decided they didn’t like that offer and rebelled. By lunchtime Friday, many were among the 30 Republicans who joined Democrats and scuttled a sweeping farm and food bill, a humiliating setback for the House’s GOP leaders, particularly for lame-duck Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
The conservatives essentially took the agriculture bill hostage.
Not all GOP candidates want Trump to stump
NEW YORK — He is the Republican Party’s most powerful political weapon. Yet as the GOP fights to defend its delicate House and Senate majorities, President Donald Trump is not welcome everywhere.
Some Republican candidates fear that the unscripted and relatively unpopular president could do more harm than good should he campaign on their behalf. Leading party strategists want Trump to focus his time and energy on a handful of Senate contests in deep-red states where Democratic incumbents are particularly vulnerable. In swing states — especially across America’s suburbs, where the House majority will be decided — some would prefer that he stay away.
“I would like the president to do his job and I’ll do mine,” Dan David, a Republican congressional hopeful fighting to preserve a GOP-held seat in suburban Philadelphia, said when asked if he’d like Trump to visit his district.
“I win or lose on my team’s merits,” David said. “I think that the president has a very, very full plate with foreign affairs and special prosecutor investigations.”
This aversion to Trump is something the White House needs to take into account as it decides how best to deploy the president in the months leading up to the November midterm elections. But it’s unclear how much Trump will heed strategists’ guidance, or candidates’ wishes, as he picks his targets.