AP News in Brief 08-06-18
In a change, Trump says meeting was for Clinton info
In a change, Trump says meeting was for Clinton info
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to change his story about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that is pivotal to the special counsel’s investigation, tweeting that his son met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to collect information about his political opponent.
“Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Trump wrote. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”
That is a far different explanation than Trump gave 13 months ago, when a statement dictated by the president but released under the name of Donald Trump Jr.,. read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.”
The misdirection came amid a series of searing tweets sent from his New Jersey golf club, in which he tore into two of his favorite targets, the news media and Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into possible links between the president’s campaign and Russia. Trump unleashed particular fury at reports that he was anxious about the Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and other senior campaign officials.
Trump’s critics immediately pounced on the new story, the latest of several versions of events about a meeting for which emails were discovered between the president’s eldest son and an intermediary from the Russian government offering damaging information about Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Betraying no surprise or misgivings about the offer from a hostile foreign power, Trump Jr. replied: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
Hiroshima marks 73rd anniversary of atomic bombing
TOKYO — Hiroshima marked the anniversary of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing with a somber ceremony Monday to remember the people killed and injured and a call to eliminate nuclear weapons amid hopes of denuclearizing North Korea.
Mayor Kazumi Matsui opened his peace address by describing the hellish scene of the blast that morning 73 years ago and the agony of the victims, telling the audience to listen “as if you and your loved ones were there.” He raised concerns about the rise of egocentric policies in the world and warned against the idea of nuclear deterrence as a threat to global security. Matsui urged leaders to steadily work toward achieving a world without atomic weapons.
“Certain countries are blatantly proclaiming self-centered nationalism and modernizing their nuclear arsenals, rekindling tensions that had eased with the end of the Cold War,” Matsui said, without identifying the countries. Nuclear deterrence and nuclear umbrellas are “inherently unstable and extremely dangerous” approaches that seek to maintain international order by only generating fear in rival countries, he said, urging world leaders to negotiate in good faith to eliminate nuclear arsenals instead.
The U.S. attack on Hiroshima killed 140,000 people, and the bombing of Nagasaki killed more than 70,000 three days later, leading to Japan’s surrender and ending World War II.
Venezuela detains 6 in failed drone attack on Maduro
CARACAS, Venezuela — Authorities detained six people suspected of using explosives-laden drones in a failed bid to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, officials said Sunday, in what one witness described as a terrifying attack that shook her apartment building.
The government alleged that opposition factions conspired with assailants in Miami and Bogota, although they offered no specific evidence. Opposition leaders decried Maduro for broadly singling out his political opponents, and they warned he may use it to further suppress his critics.
The thwarted attack comes as Venezuela is reeling from a worsening economic and humanitarian crisis and Maduro has grown increasingly isolated. Foreign nations, including the United States, are slapping economic sanctions against a growing list of high-ranking officials and decrying his government as an autocratic regime.
From wire sources
The assailants flew two drones each packed with 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of C-4 plastic explosive toward Maduro, his wife and other top leaders as he spoke Saturday evening at an event celebrating the 81st anniversary of the National Guard, said Interior Minister Nestor Reverol. One of the drones was to explode above the president while the other was to detonate directly in front of him, he added.
But the military managed to knock one of the drones off-course electronically and the other crashed into apartment building two blocks away from where Maduro was speaking to the hundreds of troops, Reverol said.
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Jobs boom favors Democratic counties, not Trump strongholds
MONACA, Pennsylvania (AP) — The United States is on pace to add about 2.6 million jobs this year under President Donald Trump’s watch. Yet the bulk of the hiring has occurred in bastions of Democratic voters rather than in the Republican counties that put Trump in the White House.
On average for the year-ended this May, 58.5 percent of the job gains were in counties that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to an Associated Press analysis of monthly government jobs data by county.
Despite an otherwise robust national economy, the analysis shows that a striking number of Trump counties are losing jobs. The AP found that 35.4 percent of Trump counties have shed jobs in the past year, compared with just 19.2 percent of Clinton counties.
The jobs data shows an economy that is as fractured as the political landscape ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. As more money pools in such corporate hubs as Houston, San Francisco or Seattle, prosperity spills over less and less to smaller towns and cities in America’s interior. That would seem to undercut what Trump sees as a central accomplishment of his administration — job creation for middle class and blue-collar workers in towns far removed from glitzy urban centers.
Job growth in Trump’s economy is still concentrated in the same general places as it was toward the end of Barack Obama’s presidency — when roughly 58.7 percent of the average annual job gains were in Democratic counties.
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Oregon police chief orders review of use of force at protest
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Portland police were accused Sunday of being heavy-handed against people protesting a rally by extreme-right demonstrators, reportedly injuring some counter-protesters and prompting the city’s new police chief to order a review of officers’ use of force.
Police in riot gear tried to keep the two groups apart, many of whom had come on Saturday dressed for battle in helmets and protective clothing. Dozens of the extreme-right protesters were bussed to Portland, one of America’s most liberal cities, from nearby Vancouver, Washington.
Saturday’s clashes were the most recent of several this year in the city as right-wing militants converged, met by counter-protesters, including members of anti-fascist, or “antifa,” groups. City officials have struggled with striking a balance between free speech and keeping events from spiraling out of control.
But on Saturday, some said police seemed to act mostly against those protesting the presence of the extreme-right demonstrators, using stun grenades and what appeared to be rubber bullets against them.
Police “targeted Portland residents peacefully counter-protesting against racist far-right groups, including white supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazi gangs,” the Oregon chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America said in a statement. It called on officials to investigate.
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Message led to discovery of 11 kids in New Mexico compound
TAOS, N.M. (AP) — A message that people were starving, believed to come from someone inside a makeshift compound in rural northern New Mexico, led to the discovery of 11 children living in filthy conditions.
Taos County Sheriff’s officials said Saturday the children ranging in age from 1 to 15 were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia — 145 miles (233 kilometers) northeast of Albuquerque and in an isolated high-desert area near the New Mexico-Colorado border. They were then turned over to state child-welfare workers.
Two men were arrested during the search. Siraj Wahhaj was detained on an outstanding warrant in Georgia alleging child abduction. Lucas Morten was jailed on suspicion of harboring a fugitive, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said.
It was not immediately clear Sunday if either had retained an attorney.
A 3-year-old boy reported missing from Georgia’s Clayton County since December 2017 was not among the 11 children found at the compound.
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Amid James flap, Melania Trump again charts her own course
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — A deliberately crafted statement. A conspicuous fashion choice. A sudden silence or withdrawal from the public eye.
First lady Melania Trump’s move to distance herself from President Donald Trump’s criticism of NBA superstar LeBron James was the latest instance of her quiet but seemingly concerted effort to subtly create space between herself and her husband, careful not to criticize him directly while making clear she does not agree with him.
She took to Twitter to announce her disappointment with the Trump administration’s policy of forced family separations at the border and later made a pair of trips there to visit the displaced children, a step the president had not taken. She vanished from sight amid renewed scrutiny of her husband’s alleged affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels. And her spokeswoman made clear that the first lady will watch whatever TV station she wants, even a cable news station that is frequently on the receiving end of the president’s scorn.
If not full-fledged acts of defiance, the first lady’s moves to chart her own course have drawn attention and made her, to some on the left, an unlikely and hidden symbol of the “Resistance.” But to others, they translate as empty acts and do nothing to absolve her from her deep association with the president and his unpopular policies.
Her response to Trump’s broadsides on James was illustrative to the path she has more frequently taken. Trump, watching a replay of the Ohio native’s interview with CNN, derided the intelligence of one of the nation’s most prominent African-American men in a tweet. Trump has long denounced the media and rarely lets a slight go unanswered. But the attack on James, who was critical of Trump while being interviewed by another black man, to some resembled a racial dog whistle.
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‘60 Minutes’ exec named in misconduct article delays return
NEW YORK (AP) — The executive producer of the CBS news show “60 Minutes” is delaying his return from vacation until an investigation into sexual misconduct claims at the network wraps up.
Meanwhile, CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl told reporters on Sunday that CBS isn’t saying it’s perfect and that there’s room for improvement in any large company.
The executives are dealing with fallout from a scandal after allegations against the executive producer, Jeff Fager, and CBS CEO Les Moonves appeared in a New Yorker article last month.
CBS hired two outside law firms to investigate claims of sexual misconduct from several women spanning three decades at the company. While most of the article focused on Moonves, the article also contained allegations of inappropriate behavior by Fager.
Fager has denied any wrongdoing.
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Pop star Demi Lovato vows to keep fighting addiction
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In her first public comments since an overdose put her into the hospital, singer Demi Lovato says she remains committed to overcoming addiction.
“I will keep fighting,” Lovato wrote Sunday in a post on Instagram.
She also thanked her fans, family, team and staff at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. She reportedly overdosed on drugs at her Hollywood Hills home on July 24.
She said she’s learned that the illness of addiction doesn’t fade and is something she “must continue to overcome,” and needs time to heal and focus on her sobriety and recovery.
The singer-actress has spoken about her struggles with an eating disorder, self-mutilation, and drugs and alcohol. She has become a role model for young women and men who have faced their own issues.
