Trump hails ‘righteous cause of American self-government’
JAMESTOWN, Va. — President Donald Trump on Tuesday marked the 400th anniversary of the rise of American democracy by celebrating four centuries of commitment to the “righteous cause” of self-government, in a Jamestown speech that was boycotted by black state legislators and bracketed by Trump’s comments in Washington continuing to disparage a black member of Congress and his majority-black district.
In his speech, Trump noted that 1619 also was the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in the colonies, saying, “We remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage.”
Trump said the United States has had many achievements in its history, but “none exceeds the triumph that we are here to celebrate today.”
“Self-government in Virginia did not just give us a state we love — in a very true sense it gave us the country we love, the United States of America,” he said.
Against the backdrop of Trump’s policy of detaining migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, he was briefly interrupted by a Muslim state lawmaker, Del. Ibraheem Samirah. Samirah, a Democrat, stood and held laminated signs that said “Deport Hate,” ”Reunite My Family” and “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home.” Samirah later told The Associated Press in an interview that he wanted to protest Trump’s policies and rhetoric. The audience chanted “Trump,” ”Trump,” ”Trump,” as Samirah was led out of the speech site, a tent on the lawn of a history museum near the site of the original Jamestown colony.
Democrats’ liberal wing takes center stage at 2020 debate
DETROIT — The preeminent faces of the Democratic Party’s emboldened progressive wing — and their ideas to bring transformational change in many aspects of Americans’ lives — take prominence at Tuesday night’s presidential debate as they face off for the first time.
Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, will appear alongside progressive firebrand Elizabeth Warren. Both are known for their unapologetic embrace of aggressive plans to overhaul health care, higher education, child care and the economy — ambitious and expensive steps that may be popular among many Democrats but give President Donald Trump and his Republican allies ample opportunity to cast all Democrats as extreme.
The fight for the political left is just one subplot as the first wave of 10 candidates meets in Detroit. A second group of 10 that features early front-runner Joe Biden as well as Kamala Harris convenes Wednesday night. The groupings were chosen by debate host CNN at random.
The first votes in the Democratic primary won’t be cast for six more months, yet there is an increasing sense of urgency for many candidates who are actively fighting for survival. More than a dozen could be blocked from the next round of debates altogether — and effectively pushed out of the race — if they fail to reach new polling and fundraising thresholds implemented by the Democratic National Committee.
Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who is participating in the first debate, is likely to qualify, even as he tries to stop his sharp slide in the polls. But those especially at risk among Tuesday’s lineup include Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, the only governors in the running, and Midwestern natives such as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan. Also on stage: former Maryland Rep. John Delaney and author and activist Marianne Williamson.
Despite polls, Trump says blacks like his Baltimore remarks
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is claiming a groundswell of African American support in response to his comments denigrating Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings and the congressman’s majority-black Baltimore district, despite polling showing consistently negative numbers.
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House on Tuesday, Trump claimed the building had been flooded with thousands of letters, emails and phone calls after his criticism of Baltimore thanking him for “getting involved” and exposing corruption.
“They really appreciate what I’m doing, and they’ve let me know it,” said the Republican president. The White House did not immediately provide any evidence backing up Trump’s claims.
Trump’s comments came in response to fierce backlash against his earlier remarks lashing out at Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and calling his district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Trump also is under fire for his ongoing attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color, who he tweeted should “go back” to their countries — even though three of the four were born in the United States and all are U.S. citizens.
But Trump on Tuesday nonetheless declared himself “the least racist person” in the world, despite his recent comments and racist tweets. And he said “African American people love the job” he’s doing, despite the fact that numerous polls have shown African Americans are overwhelmingly negative in their assessments of his performance.
China: Most people in Xinjiang camps reintegrated to society
BEIJING — Officials from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region said Tuesday that most of the people detained in the area’s contentious re-education centers have been moved out of the facilities and have signed “work contracts” with local companies, but those assertions have been challenged by accounts from Uighurs and Kazakhs who say their relatives remain missing.
The United States, human rights groups and independent analysts estimate that about 1 million Muslims have been arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang’s heavily guarded internment camps, which the Chinese government calls vocational training centers.
The Xinjiang region is home to an estimated 12 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities who have long reported persecution at the hands of the Han Chinese, the country’s ethnic majority. In recent years, Xinjiang has been blanketed with high-tech surveillance cameras and police checkpoints that single out Uighurs for identification checks.
Former detainees and their family members have said in interviews with The Associated Press that the re-education centers resembled prisons where they were forced to renounce their faith and swear loyalty to China’s ruling Communist Party. They said they were subject to repeated political indoctrination and often did not understand why they were being held in the facilities.
Traveling abroad, speaking to relatives in other countries and growing a long beard are all acts that might land someone in detention, according to Uighurs and Kazakhs who have fled the region.
Immigrants taking sanctuary in churches hit with huge fines
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Devotional candles to St. Jude, the Holy Trinity and the Virgin of Guadalupe sit on a bookshelf by the door of a classroom in a United Methodist church. A sewing machine is a few feet away between a bed and a set of wicker furniture. In a corner, an electric skillet warming chicken thighs acts as a kitchen.
It is from these makeshift quarters that Maria Chavalan-Sut, an indigenous woman from Guatemala, has spent 10 months staving off a deportation order to a country that she says has scarred her life with violence, trauma and discrimination. Her fight for asylum could now cost her at least $214,132.
Chavalan-Sut is among a number of immigrants taking sanctuary at houses of worship who have received letters from immigration authorities threatening them with huge fines under the latest move by the Trump administration. It’s unclear how many immigrants have been targeted, but Church World Service, an organization that supports refugees and immigrants, is aware of at least six who’ve received letters.
“Where am I going to get (money) from? I don’t know,” said Chavalan-Sut, who worked for a while at a restaurant after arriving in Virginia more than two years ago but hasn’t been able to hold a job since seeking sanctuary. “God still has me with my hands to work, and they’re the only thing I have. If God thinks that with my hands I can pay that, give me a job.”
Chavalan-Sut began living at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church on Sept. 30, the day she was told to report to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for deportation. She crossed the border into the U.S. and was detained in November 2016 near Laredo, Texas, after a weekslong journey that started in Guatemala’s capital. She said her decision to emigrate and leave her four children behind came after her house was set ablaze.
Congo officials say 2nd Ebola case confirmed in city of Goma
KINSHASA, Congo — Officials in Congo on Tuesday said a second Ebola case had been confirmed in Goma, the city of more than 2 million people whose first confirmed case in this yearlong outbreak was reported earlier this month.
There appeared to be no link between the man’s case and the previous one in Goma, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a local Ebola response coordinator, told reporters. He arrived on July 13 from a mining area in northeastern Congo’s Ituri province and started showing symptoms on July 22. He is now isolated at an Ebola treatment center. Ebola symptoms can start to occur between two and 21 days from infection, health experts say.
Goma is on Congo’s heavily traveled border with Rwanda and has an international airport. For months health officials had feared that an Ebola case would be confirmed there. Days after the first Goma case was announced, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak a rare global emergency.
This has become the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, with more than 1,700 people killed despite the widespread use of an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine. Containing the outbreak faces unprecedented challenges amid attacks by rebel groups and resistance by wary community residents in a region of Congo that had never experienced an Ebola outbreak before.
Muyembe and other officials on Tuesday sought to reassure both Goma residents and neighboring countries that measures were being taken to strengthen surveillance for Ebola at border posts and elsewhere. Neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan began vaccinating health workers weeks or months ago. WHO says the risk of regional spread remains “very high.”
Pentagon nominee denies sexual misconduct allegations
WASHINGTON — The Air Force general nominated to be the nation’s number two military officer flatly denied allegations of sexual misconduct Tuesday, and appeared headed for confirmation after answering pointed questions from senators for more than two hours.
With his wife of 32 years sitting behind him and his accuser looking on from a short distance away, Air Force Gen. John Hyten told senators that “all the allegations are completely false.” Most of the senators on the Armed Services Committee appeared to support him, including Sen. Martha McSally, R-Az., a former fighter pilot who has publicly described her own sexual assault.
Hyten’s forceful denial comes after several months delay in the nomination process as senators held five classified sessions, poured over thousands of pages of the investigation and interviewed Hyten and Army Col. Kathryn Spletstoser, the officer who made the allegations.
Spletstoser says Hyten, who has been nominated to be the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, subjected her to a series of unwanted sexual advances in 2017.
“Nothing happened. Ever,” Hyten told the committee, adding that the allegations were shown to be false after a “fair and extensive investigation.”
10-year-old drags toddler to safety as gunfire erupts
GILROY, Calif. — A gunman cut through a fence at a popular California garlic festival and turned to a tent where the Honey Ladies were selling their habanero and garlic honey. He shot and wounded the business owner and her husband, but thanks to a 10-year-old girl, their young son escaped harm, witnesses say.
Candice Marquez and another woman had stepped away from the stand they were working Sunday with her boss, Wendy Towner, and Towner’s husband, Francisco. She heard what she thought were fireworks, then saw a gunman heading toward their tent.
“We were the only ones right there. He had a straight shot for both of us. I’ve never been so scared,” Marquez told The Associated Press.
More terrifying, children were still in the tent. But Marquez said her niece sprang into action, dragging her boss’ 3-year-old son out of harm’s way.
“She was brave. She grabbed him and put him under a table,” she said.
US presidential envoy sent to Sweden for A$AP Rocky’s trial
HELSINKI — American rapper A$AP Rocky pleaded not guilty to assault as his trial in Sweden opened Tuesday, a month after a street fight that landed him in jail and became a topic of U.S.-Swedish diplomacy.
Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, is accused with two others of beating a 19-year-old man in Stockholm on June 30. Prosecutors played video footage in court that showed Mayers throwing a young man to the ground.
Wearing sweatpants and a green T-shirt in court, Mayers, 30, pleaded not guilty to an assault charge that carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison. He says he acted in self-defense.
The Grammy-nominated artist’s extended detention prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to personally intervene on his behalf earlier this month. Mayers nevertheless remained behind bars, angering Trump.
Swedish news agency TT said Trump sent the U.S. special presidential envoy for hostage affairs to Stockholm to monitor the court proceedings and to show support for Mayers.
SKorea says NKorea has fired unidentified projectiles
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says North Korea has fired several unidentified projectiles off its east coast.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says the launches were done Wednesday from the North’s northeastern area.
It wasn’t immediately known exactly what North Korea fired.
The launches came after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea last Thursday in an apparent effort to ramp up pressure on the United States ahead of a possible resumption of nuclear diplomacy between North Korea and the U.S.