AP News in Brief 01-24-19

It’s off: Pelosi says no State of Union while govt shut

WASHINGTON — In a high-stakes case of dare and double-dare, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi served notice Wednesday that President Donald Trump won’t be allowed to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress next week. She took the step after Trump said he planned to show up in spite of Democratic objections to the speech taking place with big swaths of the government shut down.

Denied that grand venue, Trump promised to come up with some sort of alternative event. But the White House was scrambling to find something matching the gravitas of the traditional address from the rostrum of the House to lawmakers from both parties, Supreme Court justices, invited guests and a television audience of millions.

“I think that’s a great blotch on the incredible country that we all love,” Trump said. “It’s a great, great horrible mark.”

Fireworks over the speech shot back and forth between the Capitol and the White House as the month-long partial government shutdown showed no signs of ending and with about 800,000 federal workers facing the prospect of going without their second paycheck in a row come Friday.

Pelosi told Trump the House won’t approve a resolution allowing him to address Congress until the shutdown ends. Trump shot back that Pelosi was afraid of hearing the truth.

Police: 5 fatally shot inside Florida bank, suspect arrested

SEBRING, Fla. — A gunman opened fire inside a Florida bank Wednesday, killing five people before surrendering to a SWAT team, police said.

The shooter called police to report that he had fired shots inside the bank in Sebring, in central Florida. Negotiations failed to persuade the barricaded man to leave the building. The SWAT team then entered the bank, and the gunman eventually gave up, police said.

Investigators did not offer a possible motive, and a police spokesman said he did not know if the attack began as a robbery. The victims were not immediately identified.

“Today’s been a tragic day in our community,” Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund told a news conference. “We’ve suffered significant loss at the hands of a senseless criminal doing a senseless crime.”

Authorities identified the suspect as 21-year-old Zephen Xaver, who was arrested at the SunTrust branch, Hoglund said.

AP-NORC poll: Shutdown drags Trump approval to yearlong low

WASHINGTON — A strong majority of Americans blame President Donald Trump for the record-long government shutdown and reject his primary rationale for a border wall, according to a new poll that shows the turmoil in Washington is dragging his approval rating to its lowest level in more than a year.

Overall, 34 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance in a survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s down from 42 percent a month earlier and nears the lowest mark of his two-year presidency. The president’s approval among Republicans remains close to 80 percent, but his standing with independents is among its lowest points of his time in office.

“Trump is responsible for this,” said poll respondent Lloyd Rabalais, a federal contractor from Slidell, Louisiana, who’s not affiliated with either political party.

The 47-year-old has been furloughed for more than a month. He said he’d need to start drawing on his retirement savings next week to pay his bills if the shutdown continues.

“I do support a wall, but not the way he’s handling it,” Rabalais added. “Trump guaranteed everybody that Mexico would pay for the wall. Now he’s holding American workers like me hostage.”

Maduro foe claims Venezuela presidency amid protests

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s crisis quickly escalated Wednesday as an opposition leader backed by the Trump administration declared himself interim president in a direct challenge to embattled socialist Nicolas Maduro, who retaliated by breaking off relations with the United States, his biggest trade partner.

For the past two weeks, ever since Maduro took the oath for a second six-year term in the face of widespread international condemnation, the newly invigorated opposition had been preparing for nationwide demonstrations Wednesday coinciding with the anniversary marking the end of Venezuela’s last military dictatorship in 1958.

While Maduro has shown no signs of leaving, his main rival, National Assembly President Juan Guaido, upped the ante by declaring himself interim president before masses of anti-government demonstrators — the only way, he said, to rescue Venezuela from “dictatorship.” Outside the capital, seven demonstrators were killed amid disturbances during protests that rocked several cities.

In a seemingly coordinated action, the U.S. led a chorus of Western hemisphere nations, including Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, that immediately recognized Guaido, with President Donald Trump calling on Maduro to resign and promising to use the “full weight” of the U.S. economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuela’s democracy.

From wire sources

“The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law,” Trump said in a statement.

___

Dems prepare own border security package shunning Trump wall

WASHINGTON — House Democrats, feeling pressure to display their vision for border security, are preparing a package that would ignore President Donald Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for a wall with Mexico and would instead pay for other ideas aimed at protecting the border.

As the government slogged through a record 33rd day of its partial shutdown Wednesday, details of Democrats’ border security plan and its cost remained a work in progress, though some said it might match Trump’s $5.7 billion figure. Party leaders said it would include money for scanning devices and other technological tools for improving security at ports of entry and along the boundary, plus funds for more border agents and immigration judges.

“If his $5.7 billion is about border security, then we see ourselves fulfilling that request, only doing it with what I like to call using a smart wall,” said No. 3 House Democratic leader Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

Democrats’ movement toward producing a plan, which they said they expected to unveil this week, was significant because it underscored a growing uneasiness with letting Trump cast them as soft on border security. It came as the Senate prepared for Thursday votes on rival plans for reopening federal agencies and paying 800,000 federal workers who are days from missing yet another paycheck.

Republicans would couple ending the shutdown with financing Trump’s wall and revamping immigration laws. Democrats would reopen agency doors through Feb. 8 while bargainers seek an accord.

___

Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen delaying testimony to Congress

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will not testify before a House committee next month as scheduled, his adviser said Wednesday, depriving Democrats for now of a prime opportunity to scrutinize Trump, his links to Russia and payments to buy the silence of a porn star.

Cohen indefinitely delayed his Feb. 7 appearance before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. He blamed threats from Trump and the president’s attorney-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani, and cited his own ongoing cooperation in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Cohen adviser Lanny Davis said the decision was made on advice of Cohen’s lawyers.

“This is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first,” Davis said in a statement.

The statement did not detail the threats. But Trump and Giuliani have publicly urged the Justice Department to investigate Cohen’s father-in-law, insinuating he was part of some unspecific criminal activity. Trump, for example, told Fox News this month that Cohen “should give information maybe on his father-in-law, because that’s the one that people want to look at.”

___

Lawyer: No proof nurse raped Arizona patient who had baby

PHOENIX — A nurse who was supposed to be looking after an incapacitated woman at a long-term health care facility was charged Wednesday with raping her, weeks after she stunned her caregivers and family by giving birth to a baby boy.

Nathan Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse, has been arrested and charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse, according to court records.

“We owed this arrest to the victim. We owed this arrest to the newest member of our community — that innocent baby,” Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams said.

The surprise birth late last month triggered reviews by state agencies, highlighted safety concerns for patients who are severely disabled or incapacitated and led to disciplinary actions and resignations of staffers and managers. It also prompted authorities to test the DNA of all the men who worked at the Hacienda HealthCare facility.

Sutherland, 36, submitted his DNA sample under court order Tuesday and the results came back a few hours later, showing he was a match to the baby. He declined to speak with police and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, police spokesman Tommy Thompson said.

Iowa Sen. Ernst denies allegation of affair with soldier

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Sen. Joni Ernst on Wednesday denied allegations leveled by her ex-husband that she had an affair with a subordinate while she served in the military.

The Iowa Republican answered questions from reporters about that and other allegations at a town hall event on the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls, the Des Moines Register reported .

In the court documents, Ernst’s ex-husband, Gail Ernst, accused her of having an affair with one of her soldiers while she was deployed as a company commander. She said Wednesday that she cares “about all of my soldiers” that the allegation was not true.

Ernst also accused her ex-husband in divorce documents of having an affair and physically assaulting her during an argument before she was elected to the Senate.

Gail Ernst denied in court documents that he had an affair, but the abuse allegations were not addressed. A working phone number for him could not be found, and his attorney on Tuesday declined to comment.