AP News in Brief 09-02-18

Trump visits golf course while Washington mourns McCain

STERLING, Va. — For President Donald Trump, it was just like any other Saturday.

As political dignitaries gathered in Washington to memorialize Sen. John McCain, the president tweeted familiar grievances and headed to the golf course.

McCain’s family had made clear the president was not welcome at the funeral for the six-term senator and decorated war veteran at the Washington National Cathedral. Seated in the pews were three former presidents, a host of lawmakers, and top officials from around the world. Speakers at the service did not mention Trump by name but repeatedly drew contrasts between McCain’s record of service and the divisive politics of the day.

The White House did not answer questions about whether Trump played golf or if he watched the service from afar. Dressed in a white polo shirt and baseball hat, Trump left the White House in the morning for Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.

At the service, Meghan McCain delivered a broadside against the uninvited president without mentioning his name.

“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness — the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” she said, her voice first choking back tears. Then, it rose in anger.

“The America of John McCain,” she added, with a reference to Trump’s trademark phrase, “has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”

Blasts from area of military airport shake Syrian capital

DAMASCUS, Syria — A string of powerful blasts from the direction of a military airport in Damascus lit up the skies and shook the capital city in the early morning hours on Sunday, residents and state TV reported.

The explosions were seen and heard coming from the direction of the Mezzeh airport, southwest of the capital. The airport has been targeted in a number of airstrikes in recent years that the government has blamed on Israel.

The state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV station showed what appeared to be hand-held footage shot by residents of the capital capturing a string of bright explosions lighting up the night sky.

The TV station reported, citing an unnamed military source, that the explosions did not come from inside the airport but from a nearby munitions depot. The station said an electrical short circuit was to blame, and reported that emergency services were at the scene.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the explosions came from inside the Mezzeh air base and said they were likely caused by an Israeli missile strike.

High court pick Kavanaugh and his carefully constructed life

WASHINGTON — Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s life seems as carefully constructed as the Supreme Court arguments he will hear if he is confirmed to the high court. He checks all the boxes of the ways of Washington, or at least the way Washington used to be.

He’s a team player — the conservative team — stepping up to make a play at key moments in politics, government and the law dating to the Bill Clinton era and the salacious dramas of that time.

Yet in a capital and a country where politics has become poisonously tribal, Kavanaugh has tried to cover his bases, as Washington insiders have long done. He’s got liberal friends, associates and role models. He was a complicated figure in the scandal-ridden 1990s, by turns zealous and restrained as an investigator.

If he wins confirmation, he’ll be seated with Justice Elena Kagan, the Obama-era solicitor general who hired him to teach at Harvard when she was dean of the law school, as well as with his prep school mate, Justice Neil Gorsuch. Kavanaugh’s law clerks have gone on to work for liberal justices. He’s served with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in mock trials of characters in Shakespeare plays, a night out from the real-life dramas.

Amateur athlete, doer of Catholic good works, basketball-coaching dad, Yale degrees, progression from lawyer to White House aide to judge — it’s all there in a rarefied life of talent and privilege, though strikingly not one of great personal wealth.

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Widow of slain reporter spreads his ashes at Nationals Park

WASHINGTON — The widow of a slain Maryland newspaper reporter has spread his ashes at Nationals Park.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Andrea Chamblee placed the ashes of John McNamara in a planter of begonias at the park Saturday. The planter is located where the stands meet the left-field wall.

The 56-year-old McNamara covered news and sports at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis. He was one of five staff members killed when a gunman entered the newsroom in late June.

The baseball stadium where the Washington Nationals play was a sacred place for McNamara. He had waited three decades for a big-league team to return to Washington and had rejoiced when the Nationals arrived in 2005.

Chamblee said her husband had jokingly asked in 2017 that she spread his ashes there.

Aretha’s lack of a will could make things rocky for heirs

LOS ANGELES — Aretha Franklin was so hard-nosed in her business dealings that she demanded to be paid in cash before performing. Her heirs won’t have it so simple.

Though she lived to 76 and was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer, the Queen of Soul died without a will.

As her four sons and other family members move on from Friday’s funeral in Detroit, they’re left with the potentially tall task of finding out how many millions she was worth, and divvying it up, a process that could take years and is likely to play out in public.

Estate law experts expressed surprise but not shock that a wealthy person like Franklin would put off making a will until it was too late. At least one of the singer’s attorneys says he urged her repeatedly over the years to draft one.

“I tried to convince her that she should do not just a will but a trust while she was still alive,” says Don Wilson, a Los Angeles lawyer who worked on entertainment matters for Franklin for nearly 30 years. “She never told me, ‘No, I don’t want to do one.’ She understood the need. It just didn’t seem to be something she got around to.”

From wire sources

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Amsterdam: ‘Terrorist motive’ alleged in attack on Americans

AMSTERDAM — A 19-year-old Afghan citizen had a “terrorist motive” for allegedly stabbing two Americans at the main train station in Amsterdam, city authorities in the Dutch capital said Saturday.

Amsterdam police shot and wounded the suspect after the stabbings Friday at Central Station. The local government said hours later it appeared the people injured weren’t targeted for a specific reason, but added that investigators had not ruled out terror as an aim or any other possibilities.

After the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands identified the victims as American tourists Saturday, Amsterdam City Hall gave an update.

“Based on the suspect’s first statements, he had a terrorist motive,” the city administration said in a statement that did not elaborate on what the statements were or how they showed intent.

The wounded Americans were recovering in a hospital from what police termed serious but not life-threatening injuries. Their identities have not been released. The suspect, who was identified only as Jawed S. in line with privacy rules in the Netherlands, also remained hospitalized.

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You’ve come a long way, baby: Wigstock now star-studded

NEW YORK — Neil Patrick Harris and his husband, chef and actor David Burtka, fired up what they call New York’s “last summer blowout” — a six-hour, 50-act drag-queen spectacle staged Saturday on a glitzy Manhattan pier.

It was the revival of a 1980s festival called Wigstock — an impromptu creation of unruly patrons in drag who stumbled out of an East Village club at about 2 a.m. to improvise for homeless people in garbage-strewn, rat-infested Tompkins Square Park. It was, of course, free of charge.

Saturday’s lower Manhattan show featured drag stars Lady Bunny, Bianca Del Rio and Latrice Royale. There were food, drinks and dancing on Pier 17 by the Brooklyn Bridge, with the audience wearing over-the-top attire for a shindig that kicked off with a cannon shooting out blue, orange and red wigs. Members of the crowd swarmed like bridesmaids angling for a bouquet.

Backstage, performers powdered their noses and ran through costume changes.

Tickets started at $95 and topped at $1,000 for the well-heeled at a VIP after-party with performers. A limited number of passes sold for $18.95.