Dam with mine waste collapses in Brazil; 7 dead, 200 missing
SAO PAULO — A dam that held back mining waste collapsed Friday in Brazil, inundating a nearby community in reddish-brown sludge, killing at least seven people and leaving scores of others missing.
Parts of the city of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Local television channel TV Record showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste.
Photos showed rooftops poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and an administrative office for Brazilian mining company Vale SA, where employees were present.
“‘I’ve never seen anything like it,” Josiele Rosa Silva Tomas, president of Brumadinho resident’s association, told The Associated Press by phone. “It was horrible … the amount of mud that took over.”
Silva Tomas said she was awaiting news of her cousin, and many people she knew were trying to get news of loved ones.
Trump confidant Stone charged with lying about hacked emails
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s confidant Roger Stone was charged with lying about his pursuit of Russian-hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election bid, with prosecutors alleging that senior Trump campaign officials sought to leverage the stolen material into a White House win.
The self-proclaimed dirty trickster, arrested by the FBI in a raid before dawn Friday at his Florida home, swiftly blasted the prosecution as politically motivated. In a circus-like atmosphere outside the courthouse, as supporters cheered him on and jeering spectators shouted “Lock Him Up,” Stone proclaimed his innocence and predicted his vindication.
“As I have said previously, there is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself,” Stone said.
The seven-count indictment, the first criminal case in months in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates in the summer of 2016 actively sought the disclosure of emails the U.S. says were hacked by Russia and then provided to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. It alleges that an unidentified senior Trump campaign official was “directed” to keep in contact with Stone about when stolen emails relating to Clinton might be disclosed.
Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser charged by Mueller and the 34th person overall. The nearly 2-year-old probe has exposed multiple contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign and transition period and revealed efforts by several to conceal those communications.
Dueling Venezuela leaders dig in defending presidency claims
CARACAS, Venezuela — The Venezuelan opposition leader who has declared himself interim president vowed Friday he would remain on the streets until the South American country has a transitional government, while President Nicolas Maduro dug in and accused his opponents of orchestrating a coup.
In dueling press conferences, Juan Guaido urged his followers to stage another mass protest next week, while Maduro pushed his oft-repeated call for dialogue. Each man appeared ready to defend his claim to the presidency no matter the cost, with Guaido telling supporters that if he is arrested they should “stay the course” and peacefully protest.
But the standoff could set the scene for more violence and has plunged troubled Venezuela into a new chapter of political turmoil that rights groups say has already left more than two dozen dead as thousands take to the street demanding Maduro step down.
“They can cut a flower, but they will never keep spring from coming,” Guaido told supporters Friday, alluding to a similar phrase from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.
From wire sources
Guaido’s talk with reporters in a plaza in Caracas turned into a de facto rally as thousands gathered after hearing he would speak in public for the first time since taking a symbolic oath Wednesday proclaiming himself the nation’s rightful leader.
APNewsBreak: Undercover agents target cybersecurity watchdog
NEW YORK — The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found.
Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded.
Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert described the stunts as “a new low.”
“We condemn these sinister, underhanded activities in the strongest possible terms,” he said in a statement Friday. “Such a deceitful attack on an academic group like the Citizen Lab is an attack on academic freedom everywhere.”
Who these operatives are working for remains a riddle, but their tactics recall those of private investigators who assume elaborate false identities to gather intelligence or compromising material on critics of powerful figures in government or business.
Roger Stone: Political trickster long in Trump’s orbit
NEW YORK — It was vintage Roger Stone: The longtime Republican operative flashed a Nixonesque double-armed victory sign after being indicted Friday for lying to federal investigators.
Stone, with his self-professed political dirty tricks and the tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, has long lurked in the shadows of Donald Trump’s world and was instrumental in guiding him on his first steps to the White House.
Stone was only officially on the president’s campaign for a few months, but would spin reporters, peddle conspiracies and, according to prosecutors, collaborate with WikiLeaks to release damaging information about Hillary Clinton in the final stretch of the 2016 campaign. He was arrested Friday for lying to investigators and trying to tamper with a witness.
Stone has a knack for commanding attention: He sports impeccably tailored suits and close-cropped bleach blond hair and is willing to say just about anything. He has known Trump for decades, pushing him to run for president as far back as 1998 after seeing in the New York celebrity developer the potent political combination of charisma, money and controversy.
Stone on Friday denied any wrongdoing, flashing Nixon’s famous “victory” sign as he stood outside a Florida courthouse hours after he was arrested by FBI agents who moved on his house before dawn. He decried his arrest as motivated by the president’s political enemies and as an example of overreach by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating 2016 election interference and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
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Travel groups praise deal on shutdown after flight delays
Politicians couldn’t overcome their differences and end the government shutdown over five weeks. Six air traffic controllers might have given them the final nudge they needed.
Six of the 13 controllers who normally staff a critical air traffic center in Virginia didn’t come to work Friday. That center handles air traffic in and out of the mid-Atlantic region and the New York City area.
Their absence contributed to a slowdown in air traffic and massive delays along the East Coast on Friday. LaGuardia Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were particularly affected, and delays rippled outward from there — about 3,000 late flights by midafternoon.
Negotiations to end the shutdown had been gaining speed Thursday night. The air-traffic mess added urgency to the talks — by emphasizing how, for the first time, millions of ordinary Americans were affected.
On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump went to a lectern in the Rose Garden and announced a deal to end — at least for three weeks — the partial government shutdown that had forced air traffic controllers and airport screeners to work without pay.