AP News in Brief 12-16-19

Democrats seek Bolton, Mulvaney for impeachment trial

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are proposing a weekslong Senate impeachment trial seeking testimony from four new witnesses including John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney over President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine, according to a detailed outlined released Sunday.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York proposed the structure for a “fair and honest” trial in a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, an attempt to launch negotiations ahead of House voting this week.

Trump faces two charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden while withholding military aid to the ally. The president faces likely impeachment in the House, where Democrats have control, but he is expected to be acquitted in a trial in the Senate, where Republicans have the majority. McConnell has signaled his preference for a speedy trial.

“This trial must be one that is fair, that considers all of the relevant facts, and that exercises the Senate’s ‘sole Power of Impeachment’ under the Constitution with integrity and dignity,” Schumer wrote. “The trial must be one that not only hears all of the evidence and adjudicates the case fairly; it must also pass the fairness test with the American people.”

Trump has expressed interest in a robust trial that would not only clear him of the charges in the Senate but also vindicate him, but his desire for a lengthy proceeding is something Senate Republicans are hoping to avoid.

Purdue Pharma’s foreign affiliate now selling overdose cure

The gleaming white booth towered over the medical conference in Italy in October, advertising a new brand of antidote for opioid overdoses. “Be prepared. Get naloxone. Save a life,” the slogan on its walls said.

Some conference attendees were stunned when they saw the company logo: Mundipharma, the international affiliate of Purdue Pharma — the maker of the blockbuster opioid, OxyContin, widely blamed for unleashing the American overdose epidemic.

Here they were cashing in on a cure.

“You’re in the business of selling medicine that causes addiction and overdoses, and now you’re in the business of selling medicine that treats addiction and overdoses?” asked Dr. Andrew Kolodny, an outspoken critic of Purdue who has testified against the company in court. “That’s pretty clever, isn’t it?”

As Purdue Pharma buckles under a mountain of litigation and public protest in the United States, its foreign affiliate, Mundipharma, has expanded abroad, using some of the same tactics to sell the addictive opioids that made its owners, the Sackler family, among the richest in the world. Mundipharma is also pushing another strategy globally: From Europe to Australia, it is working to dominate the market for opioid overdose treatment.

Protests turn violent for 2nd day in Lebanon’s capital

BEIRUT — Lebanese security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons Sunday to disperse hundreds of protesters for a second straight day, ending what started as a peaceful rally in defiance of the toughest crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in two months.

The violence comes on the eve of a meeting between the president and parliamentary blocs in which resigned Prime Minister Saad Hariri is widely expected to be renamed to the post. The tension also reflects deepening divisions in the country that is grappling with a severe liquidity and foreign currency crunch.

Hariri resigned Oct. 29 amid nationwide protests that have accused the entire political elite of corruption and mismanagement amid Lebanon’s worst economic crisis in decades. The protesters say they won’t accept Hariri as prime minister, demanding an independent head of government not affiliated with existing parties.

“Saad, Saad, Saad, don’t dream of it anymore,” protesters chanted Sunday.

From wire sources

After weeks of bickering, the political parties failed to put forward independent names, most of them insisting on keeping their political share in the government.

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Comey: ‘Real sloppiness’ in Russia probe but no misconduct

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged Sunday that a Justice Department inspector general report identified “real sloppiness” in the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide and said he was wrong to have been “overconfident” about how the Russia investigation was handled.

But Comey also insisted he was right to feel some measure of vindication because the report did not find evidence for the most sensational of President Donald Trump’s claims, including that he had been wiretapped and illegally spied on and that the FBI had committed treason in investigating ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign.

“Remember how we got here,” Comey said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “The FBI was accused of criminal misconduct. Remember, I was going to jail, and lots of other people were going to jail.”

The inspector general, he added, “did not find misconduct by FBI personnel, did not find political bias, did not find illegal conduct.” The significant mistakes the inspector general identified are “not something to sneeze at” but also not evidence of intentional misconduct, Comey said.

In a tweet Sunday, Trump called for an apology from Comey, now that he “got caught red handed.”

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Horse-trading Iran hawks seize on Pompeo’s Senate interest

WASHINGTON — In recent days, Iran hawks in Congress leveraged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s interest in a Senate run to win a key concession from the Trump administration that could help their bid to kill the nuclear deal with Tehran.

Late last week, the State Department agreed to release a portion of an internal legal opinion that says the U.S. has the right to demand that all U.N. sanctions on Iran be reinstated, despite President Donald Trump pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear deal. In exchange, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, lifted his hold on the nomination for Stephen Biegun to serve as the State Department’s No. 2 official, according to an administration official and a congressional aide.

Cruz’s hold on Biegun not only put his nomination in jeopardy, but it also risked upending a relatively seamless transition at the State Department if Pompeo soon steps down to run for Senate in Kansas. Without Biegun in place, the top job at State would have likely gone on an interim basis to a David Hale, a career official who testified in the impeachment inquiry into Trump.

The behind-the-scenes drama raises new questions about Pompeo’s future as the nation’s top diplomat. A former congressman and Trump’s CIA director, Pompeo has been weighing a Senate campaign in his home state for months, though officials say no final decision has been made.

The matter also highlights the extent to which some Republicans in Washington are still pushing to dismantle remaining elements of the Iran nuclear accord more than a year after the U.S. withdrew. The State Department legal opinion will be used by Cruz and others in the coming weeks to argue that Washington can still force the reimposition of U.N. sanctions set to expire next year.

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Greta Thunberg, German railway company in tweetstorm

BERLIN — Climate activist Greta Thunberg and Germany’s national railway company created a tweetstorm Sunday after she posted a photo of herself sitting on the floor of a train surrounded by lots of bags.

The image has drawn plenty of comment online about the performance of German railways.

Thunberg posted the tweet late Saturday with the comment “traveling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home!”

But German railway company Deutsche Bahn suggested that Thunberg may not have spent the whole time sitting on the floor. And the 16-year-old Swedish activist later sought to draw a line under the matter by tweeting that she eventually got a seat and that overcrowded trains are a good thing.

Some Twitter users expressed pity for Thunberg for not being able to get a proper seat on the train for the long ride home from Madrid, where she was attending the U.N. climate change conference. Others wished her a safe trip home after months of traveling by trains and boats to different climate events in Europe and the United States.

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Under pressure, Hallmark pulls gay-themed wedding ads

NEW YORK — Under pressure from a conservative advocacy group, The Hallmark Channel has pulled ads for a wedding-planning website that featured two brides kissing at the altar.

The family-friendly network, which is in the midst of its heavily watched holiday programming, removed the ads because the controversy was a distraction, a spokesperson said in an interview Saturday.

“The debate surrounding these commercials on all sides was distracting from the purpose of our network, which is to provide entertainment value,” said a statement provided by Molly Biwer, senior vice president for public affairs and communications at Hallmark.

In an interview, she added: “The Hallmark brand is never going to be divisive. We don’t want to generate controversy, we’ve tried very hard to stay out of it … we just felt it was in the best interest of the brand to pull them and not continue to generate controversy.”

There was immediate criticism on Twitter. Ellen DeGeneres asked Hallmark: “Isn’t it almost 2020? What are you thinking? Please explain. We’re all ears.”