Investigators dig for bomb motive, warn more could be found
WASHINGTON — Investigators searched coast-to-coast Thursday for the culprit and motives behind the bizarre mail-bomb plot aimed at critics of the president, analyzing the innards of the crude devices to reveal whether they were intended to detonate or simply sow fear two weeks before Election Day.
Three more devices were linked to the plot — two addressed to former Vice President Joe Biden and one to actor Robert De Niro — bringing the total to 10 in an outbreak of politically loaded menace with little if any precedent. Authorities warned there might well be more.
Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that the devices, containing timers and batteries, were not rigged like booby-trapped package bombs that would explode upon opening. But they were still uncertain whether the devices were poorly designed or never intended to cause physical harm. A search of a postal database suggested at least some may have been mailed from Florida, one official said. Investigators are homing in on a postal facility in Opa-locka, Florida, where they believe some of the packages originated, another official said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation by name.
New details about the devices came as the four-day mail-bomb scare spread nationwide, drawing investigators from dozens of federal, state and local agencies in the effort to identify one or more perpetrators.
Saudi Arabia again changes its story on Khashoggi killing
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Signaling a major pivot in its narrative, Saudi Arabia on Thursday said evidence shows that the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was premeditated, an apparent effort to ease international outrage over the death of a prominent critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The Saudi prosecutors cited Turkish evidence that the slaying was planned, contradicting a Saudi assertion just days ago that rogue officials from the kingdom killed him by mistake in a brawl inside their Istanbul consulate. That earlier assertion, in turn, backtracked from an initial statement that Saudi authorities knew nothing about what happened to the columnist for The Washington Post, who vanished after entering the consulate Oct. 2.
The shifting explanations indicate Saudi Arabia is scrambling for a way out of the crisis that has enveloped the world’s largest oil exporter and a major U.S. ally in the Middle East. But a solution seems a long way off, partly because of deepening skepticism in Turkey and elsewhere that the brazen crime could have been carried out without the knowledge of Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s heir apparent.
At a conference in Riyadh on Wednesday, the crown prince said the killing was a “heinous crime that cannot be justified” and warned against any efforts to “manipulate” the crisis and drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which are regional rivals but also diplomatic and business partners.
From wire sources
On Thursday, Prince Mohammed attended the first meeting of a committee aiming to restructure the kingdom’s intelligence services after the killing of Khashoggi, the state-run Saudi Press Agency said.
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Trump says new proposal will lower some US drug prices
WASHINGTON — Less than two weeks before the midterm elections, President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a plan to lower prices for some prescription drugs, saying it would stop unfair practices that force Americans to pay much more than people in other countries for the same medications.
“We are taking aim at the global freeloading that forces American consumers to subsidize lower prices in foreign countries through higher prices in our country,” Trump said in a speech at the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Same company. Same box. Same pill. Made in the exact same location, and you would go to some countries and it would be 20 percent of the cost of what we pay,” said Trump, who predicted the plan will save Americans billions. “We’re fixing it.”
But consumers take note:
— The plan would not apply to medicines people buy at the pharmacy, just ones administered in a doctor’s office, as are many cancer medications and drugs for immune system problems. Physician-administered drugs can be very expensive, but pharmacy drugs account for the vast majority of what consumers buy.
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Typhoon crumbles homes, kills 1 in Northern Mariana Islands
The strongest storm to hit any part of the United States this year crumbled concrete houses, smashed cars and killed at least one person in the Northern Mariana Islands, shocking residents and officials used to riding out monster storms in the U.S. territory in the Pacific.
A day after Super Typhoon Yutu slammed into the territory home to 50,000 people, residents on Friday picked through destruction ranging from collapsed houses — including some built to withstand typhoon winds — to snapped utility poles blocking waterlogged roads. They braced for months without power or running water.
Maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (290 kph) were recorded around the eye of the storm, which passed over the islands of Tinian and Saipan early Thursday, the National Weather Service said.
A 44-year-old woman taking shelter in an abandoned building died when it collapsed in the storm, the governor’s office Facebook page said. Officials couldn’t immediately be reached for additional details.
Officials toured villages in Saipan, the most populated island, and saw new cars crushed under a collapsed garage, the ground ripped clean of vegetation and some people injured by spraying glass and other debris.
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AP Investigation: Hospital patients held hostage for cash
NAIROBI, Kenya — The Kenyatta National Hospital is east Africa’s biggest medical institution, home to more than a dozen donor-funded projects with international partners — a “Center of Excellence,” says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The hospital’s website proudly proclaims its motto — “We Listen … We Care” — along with photos of smiling doctors, a vaccination campaign and staffers holding aloft a gold trophy at an awards ceremony.
But there are no pictures of Robert Wanyonyi, shot and paralyzed in a robbery more than a year ago. Kenyatta will not allow him to leave the hospital because he cannot pay his bill of nearly 4 million Kenyan shillings ($39,570). He is trapped in his fourth-floor bed, unable to go to India, where he believes doctors might help him.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: First in a two-part series on hospitals that detain patients if they cannot pay their bills.
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Sex offender lurked for days before killing Utah student
SALT LAKE CITY — A sex offender parolee who killed a University of Utah student and track athlete had been lurking on campus for days trying to confront the woman who had broken up with him weeks earlier when she discovered his criminal background, authorities said Thursday.
Melvin Rowland, 37, spent the hours before the fatal shooting Monday in victim Lauren McCluskey’s dorm building socializing with her friends, university police chief Dale Brophy said.
He later confronted the 21-year-old McCluskey in the parking lot, dragged her into a car and shot her multiple times in the back seat, Brophy said at a news conference.
Rowland killed himself hours later in a church as police closed in.
The killing of McCluskey came weeks after she broke off her month-long relationship with Rowland and filed a complaint with campus police alleging he had demanded money in exchange for not posting compromising pictures of the couple online. She had sent $1,000 to an account in hopes of preserving her reputation, Brophy said.
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Megyn Kelly absent from show following blackface comments
NEW YORK — Megyn Kelly was absent from her NBC News morning show on Thursday following this week’s controversy over her comments about blackface, amid indications that her time at the network could be ending after less than two years.
An NBC spokeswoman said that “given the circumstances,” the network was airing repeats of “Megyn Kelly Today” on Thursday and Friday.
During a segment about Halloween costumes on Tuesday, Kelly defended the use of blackface while discussing a character on “Real Housewives of New York City” who darkened her face for a Diana Ross costume. She said it was acceptable when she was a kid when portraying a character.
Social media condemnation was swift, and Kelly apologized to fellow NBC staffers in an email later in the day. Yet both NBC’s “Nightly News” and the “Today” show did stories on their colleague’s comment. Al Roker said “she owes a big apology to people of color across the country.”
She opened Wednesday’s show by saying she was wrong and sorry for what she said.
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Buckle up: Wall Street volatility is back with a vengeance
NEW YORK — If you’re an investor who was lulled to sleep by the stock market’s calm, steady gains this summer, you’re wide awake by now.
Stocks have swooned over the last three weeks as investors worried about a sea of troubles, including rising interest rates, the trade tensions between the U.S. and China and slowing economies outside the U.S. All of which could impair profit growth for U.S. companies.
As of Thursday, the S&P 500 index had plunged 7.5 percent in about three weeks, with two separate six-day losing streaks. It hadn’t had a streak of losses that long since right before the November 2016 presidential election. There have been a few big gains recently, including Thursday, but with four trading days left in October the index is on track for its worst month in seven years.
Another big loss could push the index into what Wall Street calls a “correction” — a drop of 10 percent or more from the latest high.
The recent turbulence in financial markets is a contrast to what investors have grown accustomed to in a bull market that has lasted more than 10 years, the longest in history. A hallmark of the past decade has been ultra-low interest rates, which the Federal Reserve used to promote growth in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
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Trump sends troops to border, an issue that fires up base
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to dispatch at least 800 active duty troops to the southern border at the direction of a president who has sought to transform fears about immigration into electoral gains in the midterms as a caravan of thousands of migrants makes its way through Mexico.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is expected to sign an order sending the troops to the border, bolstering National Guard forces already there, an official said Thursday. The action comes as President Donald Trump has spent recent days calling attention to the caravan of Central Americans slowly making their way by foot into southern Mexico, but still more than 1,000 miles from U.S. soil.
Trump, who made fear about immigrants a major theme of his 2016 election campaign, has been eager to make it a top issue heading into the Nov. 6 midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. The president and senior White House officials have long believed the issue is key to turning out his base of supporters.
The additional troops would provide logistical and other support to the Border Patrol, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a plan that had not been finalized and formally announced.
It’s not unusual for the National Guard to help with border security. Active duty troops, however, are rarely deployed within the United States except for domestic emergencies like hurricanes or floods. Fears of militarizing the border were fanned by a May 1997 incident in which a Marine on a counter-narcotics mission shot to death an 18-year-old who was herding goats in Redford, Texas.