AP News in Brief 10-20-19

Trump outstripping Obama on pace of executive orders

WASHINGTON — It wasn’t too long ago that Donald Trump derided presidential executive orders as “power grabs” and a “basic disaster.”

He’s switched sides in a big way: In each year of his presidency, he has issued more executive orders than did former President Barack Obama during the same time span. He surpassed Obama’s third-year total just recently.

Back in 2012, Trump had tweeted: “Why Is @BarackObama constantly issuing executive orders that are major power grabs of authority?”

That criticism continued once he entered the presidential race.

“The country wasn’t based on executive orders,” Trump said at a South Carolina campaign stop in February 2016. “Right now, Obama goes around signing executive orders. He can’t even get along with the Democrats, and he goes around signing all these executive orders. It’s a basic disaster. You can’t do it.”

Impeachment inquiry puts spotlight on Perry, who shunned it

WASHINGTON — Long after more flamboyant colleagues flamed out of President Donald Trump’s favor amid ethics scandals, low-profile and folksy Rick Perry survived in the Cabinet in part by steering clear of controversy.

Until now.

The former Texas governor said Thursday he was quitting as energy secretary by year’s end. The announcement came as the House impeachment investigation highlighted his work in Ukraine, where he promoted U.S. natural gas and where Trump hoped to find dirt on Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Trump said that Perry, one of his longest serving Cabinet members, had planned for months to leave. But the timing of the announcement of Perry’s departure fits a Trump pattern, said governance expert Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution. Her work shows there has been more turnover in Trump’s Cabinet than under any president since at least Ronald Reagan.

“The more important the issue is to the president, the more likely you’re on the chopping block,” Tenpas said.

UK’s Johnson asks for Brexit delay, but argues against it

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson grudgingly asked the European Union late Saturday to delay Brexit after the British Parliament postponed a decision on whether to back his divorce deal. But the defiant Johnson also made clear that he personally opposed delaying the U.K.’s exit, scheduled for Oct. 31.

A law passed by Parliament last month set a late-night deadline for the government to send a letter asking the EU for a three-month postponement if lawmakers had not approved an agreement with the bloc by Saturday. An hour before the deadline, European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted: “The extension request has just arrived. I will now start consulting EU leaders on how to react.”

Johnson made clear he was making the request under duress. The letter requesting an extension was not signed. It was accompanied by a second letter, signed by Johnson, arguing that delay would “damage the interests if the U.K. and our EU partners.”

Earlier in the day, Johnson told lawmakers that “further delay would be bad for this country, bad for the European Union and bad for democracy.”

French President Emmanuel Macron seemed to agree. Macron’s office said he spoke to Johnson by phone and insisted on the need for “quick clarification of the British position on the accord.” The president’s office said Macron indicated to the British prime minister that “a delay would be in no one’s interest.”

In many parts of Mexico, government has ceded battle to drug cartels

EL AGUAJE, Mexico — The Mexican city of Culiacan lived under drug cartel terror for 12 hours as gang members forced the government to free a drug lord’s son, but in many parts of Mexico, the government ceded the battle to the gangs long ago.

The massive, rolling gunbattle in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, was shocking for the openness of the government’s capitulation and the brazenness of gunmen who drove armored trucks with mounted machine-guns through the streets.

But in state after state, the Mexican government long ago relinquished effective control of whole towns, cities and regions to the drug cartels.

“They are the law here. If you have a problem, you go to them. They solve it quickly,” said a young mother in the town of El Aguaje, in western Michoacan state. El Aguaje is so completely controlled by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel that the young wife of lime-grove worker – who would not give her name for fear of reprisals – can’t turn to police: They are too afraid to enter the town.

When a convoy of Michoacan state police did make a rare appearance in El Aguaje last Monday, they were ambushed and slaughtered by Jalisco cartel gunmen. Thirteen state police officers were shot or burned to death in their vehicles.

Move over, Honeycrisp: New apple to debut at grocery stores

SPOKANE, Wash. — They call it the Cosmic Crisp. It’s not a video game, a superhero or the title of a Grateful Dead song.

It’s a new variety of apple, coming to a grocery store near you Dec. 1

Cosmic Crisp is the first apple ever bred in Washington state, which grows the majority of the United States’ apples. It’s expected to be a game changer.

Already, growers have planted 12 million Cosmic Crisp apple trees, a sign of confidence in the new variety. While only 450,000 40-pound (18-kilogram) boxes will be available for sale this year, that will jump to more than 2 million boxes in 2020 and more than 21 million by 2026.

The apple variety was developed by Washington State University. Washington growers, who paid for the research, will have the exclusive right to sell it for the first 10 years.

From wire sources

___

Video shows coach disarming, embracing Oregon student

PORTLAND, Ore. — Authorities have released a video that shows part of a former Oregon football star’s successful effort to disarm a student who brought a shotgun to a Portland high school.

The video released Friday by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office shows Keanon Lowe and the student emerge from a classroom and into a hallway at Parkrose High School with Lowe in possession of the shotgun.

Lowe recalled lunging at the armed student on May 17 as other students ran screaming out a back door.

The video shows Lowe hand the gun to a teacher and then wrap the student in a hug. Lowe works as a coach and security guard at the school.

The suspect, 19-year-old Angel Granados-Diaz, pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm in a public building.

Turkey wants Syrian forces to leave border areas, aide says

ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Syrian government forces to move out of areas near the Turkish border so he can resettle up to 2 million refugees there, his spokesman told The Associated Press on Saturday. The request will top Erdogan’s talks next week with Syria’s ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Arrangements along the Syrian-Turkish border were thrown into disarray after the U.S. pulled its troops out of the area, opening the door to Turkey’s invasion aiming to drive out Kurdish-led fighters it considers terrorists.

Abandoned by their American allies, the Kurds — with Russia’s mediation — invited Damascus to send troops into northeastern Syria as protection from Turkish forces. That has complicated Turkey’s plan to create a “safe zone” along the border, where it can resettle Syrian refugees now in Turkey. Most of those refugees fled Syria’s government.

Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin said Ankara does not want either Syrian forces nor Kurdish fighters in the border area because refugees would not go back to areas under their control.

Turkey has said it wants to oversee that area.

___

Nestor heads into Georgia after tornados damage Florida

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Nestor rushed into Georgia on Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone after the former tropical storm spawned a tornado that damaged homes and a school in central Florida but spared an area of the Florida Panhandle devastated one year ago by Hurricane Michael.

The storm made landfall on St. Vincent Island, a nature preserve just off Florida’s northern Gulf Coast in a lightly populated area of the state, the National Hurricane Center said.

Nestor is now expected to bring 1 to 3 inches of rain to inland areas as it moves northeast across Georgia and then heads Sunday into the Carolinas before exiting into the Atlantic Ocean. All tropical storm and surge warnings had been canceled by Saturday afternoon.

The storm, however, spun off at least three tornadoes in Florida as it moved north through the Gulf that caused damage.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said several homes were damaged and Kathleen Middle School had a large section of its roof torn off when the tornado hit late Friday near Lakeland, about an hour’s drive southwest of Orlando.

___

‘I am back,’ Bernie Sanders tells supporters at NYC rally

NEW YORK — Storming past questions about his health, Bernie Sanders vowed that he’s “more ready than ever” to fight for a political revolution — with a little help from new friends — at a rally Saturday that drew thousands to a New York City park. The rally offered a pointed reminder to skeptics in both political parties that the 78-year-old democratic socialist is still very much a force in the 2020 presidential race.

Sanders opened his remarks by apologizing that he secured a permit for only 20,000 people. His campaign, he said, was forced to close the gates on many more people who were trying to enter the Queens park just across the river from Manhattan.

“To put it bluntly, I am back,” Sanders declared, sparking chants of, “Bernie is back” from the massive crowd.

“I am happy to report to you that I am more than ready — more ready than ever — to carry on with you on the epic struggle that we face today,” he added. “I am more than ready to assume the office of president of the United States.”

The event marked Sanders’ formal return to the campaign trail less than three weeks after he suffered a heart attack that threatened both his life and political future. Even before that, he was in danger of falling out of the top-tier in the 2020 Democratic primary field. Polls suggest he’s lagging behind liberal rival Elizabeth Warren and establishment favorite Joe Biden.

___