AP News in Brief 05-13-19

Saudi Arabia says 2 oil tankers damaged by sabotage attacks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia said Monday two of its oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in attacks that caused “significant damage” to the vessels, one of them as it was en route to pick up Saudi oil to take to the U.S.

Khalid al-Falih’s comments came as the U.S. issued a new warning to sailors and the UAE’s regional allies condemned the reported sabotage Sunday of four ships off the coast of the port city of Fujairah. The announcement came just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at the city’s port.

Emirati officials have declined to elaborate on the nature of the sabotage or say who might have been responsible. However, the reports come as the U.S. has warned ships that “Iran or its proxies” could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and as America is deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter alleged threats from Tehran.

Tensions have risen in the year since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, restoring American sanctions that have pushed Iran’s economy into crisis. Last week, Iran warned it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels in 60 days if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal.

In his statement, al-Falih said the attacks on the two tankers happened at 6 a.m. Sunday.

Top White House adviser admits US consumers pay tariffs

WASHINGTON — The White House’s top economic adviser acknowledged Sunday that U.S. consumers and businesses pay the tariffs that the Trump administration has imposed on billions of dollars of Chinese goods, even as President Trump himself insisted in a tweet, incorrectly, that China pays.

“Yes, I don’t disagree with that,” said Larry Kudlow, the head of the president’s National Economic Council, when Chris Wallace, host of “Fox News Sunday,” asked him, “It’s U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers who pay, correct?”

Kudlow added, “Both sides will pay,” but he stipulated that China “will suffer (economic) losses” from reduced exports to the U.S., not from paying the tariffs.

Kudlow’s admission contradicts many of Trump’s comments and tweets to the effect that Chinese companies pay the tariffs in what amounts, in the president’s view, to a massive transfer of wealth to the United States from China. Yet almost no economist has agreed with Trump’s view and fact-checkers routinely brand Trump’s assertion false and point out that American importers of goods from China pay the tariffs.

Trump has also asserted that trade wars are “easy to win,” but Kudlow accepted that they come with costs for the U.S. economy, though he downplayed the impact.

Violence, poverty reign in Honduran city where caravans form

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — In the dusty, dimly lit neighborhoods of San Pedro Sula, everyone knows the unwritten rules: There are places you don’t go without permission. If driving, roll down the windows so gang members and their lookouts can see who is inside. It’s safest to stay home after nightfall, leaving the streets to the enforcers and drug dealers who are armed and don’t hesitate to kill.

Honduras’ second biggest city is where caravan after caravan of migrants have formed in recent months to head north to Mexico and on toward the United States, fleeing violence, poverty, corruption and chaos. All of those are palpable on the city’s sweltering streets, a reminder of why thousands continue to flee despite the dangers and uncertain prospects for being able to stay even if they make it to the U.S.

The northern district of San Pedro Sula where Associated Press journalists accompanied police on a recent night is home to nearly 230,000 people with just 50 officers to patrol its 189 neighborhoods, including the most dangerous: Planeta, Lomas del Carmen and La Rivera Hernandez. Deputy police inspector Wilmer López says two drug labs were busted in the area in the last year. He has arrested gang members as young as 9.

Police officers carry handguns and are accompanied by soldiers with assault rifles. “They make us feel safer,” said López, who led the patrol.

He said nine separate gangs are known to operate in this part of town, including the internationally infamous 18th Street and Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. Both originated in Los Angeles decades ago and spread through deportations to Central America, evolving into hyper-violent transnational organizations.

From wire sources

that drive the high rates of killing and other crimes in Central America’s Northern Triangle countries — Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Their calling cards are in the graffiti scrawled on homes, and in the bodies they leave behind.

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Millions vote in Philippine elections crucial to Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — Filipinos began casting their vote Monday in midterm elections highlighted by a showdown between President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies who aim to dominate the Senate and opposition candidates fighting for checks and balances under a leader they regard as a looming dictator.

Nearly 62 million Filipinos have registered to choose among 43,500 candidates vying for about 18,000 congressional and local posts, including 81 governors, 1,634 mayors and more than 13,000 city and town councilors in 81 provinces, in one of Asia’s most rambunctious democracies.

Many see the elections as a crucial referendum on Duterte’s rise to power with a brutal crackdown on illegal drugs that has left thousands dead, his unorthodox leadership style, combative and sexist joke-laden outbursts and contentious embrace of China.

“President Duterte’s name is not on the ballot but this is very much a referendum on his three years of very disruptive yet very popular presidency,” Manila-based analyst Richard Heydarian said.

The outcome of the polls would show whether the Filipino populace affirms or rejects Duterte’s authoritarian-style leadership in an Asian bastion of democracy, Heydarian said.

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2 hurt as magnitude 6.1 earthquake shakes northern Panama

PANAMA CITY — A strong earthquake struck a lightly populated area of Panama near its border with Costa Rica on Sunday, causing some wooden porches to collapse and products to shake from store shelves.

Panamanian authorities said at least two people had been injured in a village but gave no details. Sigifredo Perez, head of operations for Costa Rica’s National Commission of Emergencies, said no major damage or injuries had been reported in his country.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a 6.1 preliminary magnitude and was centered seven kilometers (four miles) southeast of the town of Plaza de Caisan. The quake occurred at a depth of about 37 kilometers (22 miles).

Images posted on social media showed simple wooden homes that partially collapsed in rural areas, deep fissures in tightly packed beach sand and entire grocery store shelves that spilled containers of processed food and bottled beverages on the floor.

“I was in the supermarket and everything swayed,” Carla Chavez said by phone from David, the capital of Panama’s Chiriqui province near the quake’s epicenter. “Merchandise fell on the floor. Everything happened so fast.”

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AP EXPLAINS: Why send a US aircraft carrier to the Gulf?

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group is being deployed to the Persian Gulf to counter an alleged but still-unspecified threat from Iran, the latest in a long line of such deployments to the strategic region.

It comes as Iran has started backing away from its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision last year to withdraw from the accord and restore crippling sanctions.

A look at the aircraft carrier strike group and how it may fit into Washington’s strategy.

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A CITY AT SEA

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Leonard hits bouncer at buzzer, Raptors beat 76ers in Game 7

TORONTO — Kawhi Leonard bounced, bounced, bounced, bounced the Philadelphia 76ers out of the playoffs.

Leonard hit a shot from the corner over Joel Embiid at the buzzer that bounced off the rim four times before falling to give the Toronto Raptors a 92-90 victory over the 76ers on Sunday night in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series. It was the first winning buzzer-beater in a Game 7 in NBA history.

“It was great,” Leonard said. “That’s something I never experienced before, Game 7, a game-winning shot. It was a blessing to be able to get to that point and make that shot and feel that moment.”

After Philadelphia’s Jimmy Butler tied it with a driving layup with 4.2 seconds left, Toronto used its final timeout to draw up a play for Leonard, who dribbled toward the right corner and launched the high-arching shot.

It bounced to the top of the backboard, hit the near side of the rim again, then the other side twice before going through, setting off a wild celebration as the Raptors advanced to the conference finals for the second time in four seasons. They will open the conference finals Wednesday night at Milwaukee.

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5 years later, officer faces reckoning for chokehold death

NEW YORK — The deadly confrontation five summers ago flickers in Gwen Carr’s mind, competing for attention with warm, happy memories of her late son Eric Garner’s life. For all the smiles and laugher they shared, there are flashes of Garner being grabbed by a New York City police officer and crying out: “I can’t breathe.”

Carr said she has been reliving what she pointedly calls “my son’s murder” every day since his July 2014 death : Her first born succumbing to cardiac arrest after a white officer wearing plainclothes, Daniel Pantaleo, restrained her 34-year-old son with what she contends is an illegal chokehold and what Pantaleo’s lawyer argues is an approved technique.

A long-delayed internal disciplinary trial that could lead to Pantaleo’s firing is slated to begin on Monday. A ruling late last week requires the police watchdog agency bringing the case prove not only that Pantaleo violated department rules, but that his actions fit the criteria for criminal charges. Pantaleo does not actually face criminal charges.

“It has been five long years,” Carr told The Associated Press last week. “Pantaleo and all those other officers who actually murdered my son that day, they are still collecting their salaries. They still go home every day and it’s business as usual with them. But with me, we relive this every day.”

Video of the struggle on a Staten Island street corner quickly went viral, amplifying Garner’s plaintive pleas of “I can’t breathe” into a rallying cry in the face of police brutality against unarmed black men and women.