AP News in Brief 12-12-19

Judiciary panel takes first steps toward impeachment vote

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee took the first steps Wednesday evening toward voting on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, beginning a marathon two-day session to consider the historic charges with a lively prime-time hearing at the Capitol.

Democrats and Republicans used the otherwise procedural meeting to deliver sharp, poignant and, at times, personal arguments for and against impeachment. Both sides appealed to Americans’ sense of history — Democrats describing a strong sense of duty to stop what one called the president’s “constitutional crime spree” and Republicans decrying the “hot garbage” impeachment and what it means for the future of the country.

Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island asked Republicans standing by Trump to “wake up” and honor their oath of office. Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana responded with his own request to “put your country over party.” Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., shared his views in both English and Spanish.

One Democrat, Rep. Val Demings of Florida, told the panel that, as a descendant of slaves and now a member of Congress, she has faith in America because it is “government of the people” and in this country “nobody is above the law.” Freshman Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia emotionally talked about losing her son to gun violence and said that while impeachment was not why she came to Washington, she wants to “fight for an America that my son Jordan would be proud of.”

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said Democrats are impeaching because “they don’t like us,” and read out a long list of Trump’s accomplishments.

Watchdog caught in political crossfire on his Russia report

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s internal watchdog was caught in a political tug of war Wednesday as Republican and Democratic senators used his report on the origins of the Russia investigation involving Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign to support their views that it was a legitimate probe or a badly bungled farce.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his findings that while the FBI had a legitimate basis to launch the investigation and was not motivated by political bias in doing so, there were major flaws in how that investigation was conducted.

The hearing was the latest reflection of Washington’s intense politicization. Senators from both parties praised a detailed, nuanced report by a widely respected, nonpartisan investigator, while pressing him to call attention to findings that back their positions.

Horowitz himself tried to strike a balance.

He noted, on one hand, his conclusion that there was a proper basis to open the investigation and that that decision did not appear motivated by political bias. And under questioning from Democrats, he acknowledged the absence of evidence for some of the most sensational claims by Trump and his supporters: that the investigation into ties between his presidential campaign and Russia had been opened for political reasons, that agents had infiltrated his election bid or that former President Barack Obama had directed a wiretap of the Republican candidate.

Impeachment trial: Trump wants drama, GOP wants it over

Washington — Donald Trump wants more than acquittal. He wants vindication.

With impeachment by the House appearing certain, the president has made clear that he views the next step, a trial in the GOP-controlled Senate, as his focus. The president sees the senators not just as a jury deciding his fate, but as partners in a campaign to discredit and punish his Democratic opponents. His Senate allies aren’t so sure that’s a good idea.

In recent weeks, Trump has devised a wish list of witnesses for the Senate trial, relishing the opportunity for his lawyers to finally cross-examine his accusers and argue the case that his actions toward Ukraine, including the July 25 call when he asked for a favor, were “perfect.”

Trump and his allies have been building up the likely Senate trial, an effort to delegitimize the Democrat-controlled House’s impeachment process by contrast. In the Senate, the Trump team has argued, the president would get the opportunity to challenge witnesses and call some of his own, such as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the still-anonymous intelligence community whistleblower, or even Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.

He sees that as a chance to embarrass Democrats, including the former vice president and 2020 Democratic rival, and use the friendlier ground to portray himself as the victim of a partisan crusade.

New Zealand planning retrieval of bodies on volcanic island

WHAKATANE, New Zealand — New Zealand officials said they’ll begin Friday to recover eight victims’ bodies believed to remain on a small island since a volcanic explosion there earlier this week.

Continuing volcanic activity has delayed the retrieval of the eight bodies from ash-covered White Island, where an eruption occurred Monday as 47 tourists were exploring the landscape. Eight people were confirmed killed and dozens were severely burned in the blast of steam and ash.

New Zealand medical staff were working around the clock to treat the injured survivors in hospital burn units.

The enormity of the task was clear when Dr. Peter Watson, a chief medical officer, said at a news conference that extra skin has been ordered from American skin banks. Hospital personnel anticipated needing an extra 120 square meters (1,300 square feet) of skin for grafting onto the patients, Watson said.

White Island is the tip of a mostly underwater volcano that’s about 50 kilometers (30 miles) off New Zealand’s North Island and has been a popular attraction visited by thousands of tourists each year.

Fears mount that New Jersey shooting was anti-Semitic attack

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Fears that a deadly shooting at a Jewish market in Jersey City was an anti-Semitic attack mounted on Wednesday as authorities recounted how a man and woman deliberately pulled up to the place in a stolen rental van with at least one rifle and got out firing.

A day after the gunbattle and standoff that left six people dead — the two killers, a police officer and three people who had been inside the store — state and federal law enforcement officials warned they have not established the motive for the attack.

“The why and the ideology and the motivation — that’s what we’re investigating,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said, adding that authorities are also trying to determine if anyone else was involved.

But Mayor Steve Fulop said surveillance video of the attackers made it clear they targeted the kosher market, and he pronounced the bloodshed a hate crime against Jews, as did New York’s mayor and governor.

From wire sources

Also, investigators believe the two dead attackers — who were thought to be a couple — identified themselves in the past as Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement whose members have been known to rail against whites and Jews, according to a law enforcement official who was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Weinstein reaches tentative $25M deal with accusers

NEW YORK — A tentative $25 million settlement revealed Wednesday to end nearly every sexual misconduct lawsuit brought against Harvey Weinstein and his former film studio’s board was praised by a plaintiff and some lawyers but criticized by others who say those who opt out are punished.

Louisette Geiss, a plaintiff in a Manhattan federal court class-action lawsuit, said the settlement was “our way to hold all women up. We are trying to create a new reality where this type of behavior is not accepted.”

In a statement, she said the lawsuit was intended as “a wake-up call for all companies that they will be held accountable if they protect predators in their midst.”

“Now that The Weinstein Company is in bankruptcy and Harvey is about to stand to trial, this settlement will ensure that all survivors have the chance for recovery and can move forward without Harvey’s damaging lock on their careers,” Geiss said.

The New York Times first reported the deal, which was confirmed to The Associated Press by several lawyers for plaintiffs.

Leaders scramble for final votes as UK’s ugly election ends

LONDON — Britain’s election has been like the country’s late-autumn weather: chilly and dull, with blustery outbursts.

On the last day of the campaign, political leaders dashed around the U.K. on Wednesday trying to win over millions of undecided voters who will likely determine the outcome.

Opinion polls suggest Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have a lead over the main opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn ahead of Thursday’s election. But all the parties are nervous about the verdict of a volatile electorate fed up after years of Brexit wrangling.

Truck driver Clive Jordan expressed a weariness that could be heard up and down the country during the five-week campaign.

“Basically I just want it over and done with now,” he said. “Nobody’s doing what they said. Everybody’s lying.”

More Americans are dying at home rather than in hospitals

For the first time since the early 1900s, more Americans are dying at home rather than in hospitals, a trend that reflects more hospice care and progress toward the kind of end that most people say they want.

Deaths in nursing homes also have declined, according to Wednesday’s report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“It’s a good thing. Death has become overly medicalized over the last century” and this shows a turn away from that, said the lead author, Dr. Haider Warraich of the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System.

Betsy McNair, a tour guide who now lives in Mexico, is proud of the ending she helped give her father. Robert McNair was 83 when he died at home in Belle Haven, Virginia, in 2009, six weeks after learning he had lung cancer.

“I made him exactly what he wanted to eat, whenever he wanted it. He had a scotch every night, he had a very high quality of life. If he woke up at 2 o’clock in the morning and wanted to have coffee and pie, that’s what we did,” she said.

How streaming, diversity, #MeToo shaped TV decade of change

LOS ANGELES — “Game of Thrones” was both an unprecedented achievement and old-school role model in the TV decade that’s rolling its final credits.

Installments of the elaborately produced hit were doled out one at a time by an established outlet, premium cable channel HBO. That was standard TV operating procedure until, suddenly, it wasn’t. The new era arrived in 2013 when a full season’s worth of “House of Cards” popped up amid Netflix’s on-demand movies and old TV shows.

The drama’s unexpected home appeared simply to be an option to the 500-channel universe born in the 1990s. But “House of Cards” foreshadowed a streaming gold rush and volume of programming dubbed Peak TV in 2015 — and with no drop in altitude in sight.

The result: Nothing is the same, whether it’s how much television we consume; how and where we do it; who gets to make it, and the level of respect given the creatively emboldened small screen. We don’t just watch TV, we binge it until we’re bleary-eyed if not sated. We still change channels with a remote control, but more often we’re logging in to watch shows on our phones or other devices and on our schedules, not network-dictated appointment TV.

Consumers have embraced the change in their media world, said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television &Popular Culture.