AP News in Brief 07-28-19

Trump proposal seeks to crack down on food stamp ‘loophole’

WASHINGTON — Residents signing up for food stamps in Minnesota are provided a brochure about domestic violence, but it doesn’t matter if they even read the pamphlet. The mere fact it was made available could allow them to qualify for government food aid if their earnings or savings exceed federal limits.

As odd as that might sound, it’s not actually unusual.

Thirty-eight other states also have gotten around federal income or asset limits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by using federal welfare grants to produce materials informing food stamp applicants about other available social services. Illinois, for example, produced a flyer briefly listing 21 services, a website and email address and a telephone number for more information.

The tactic was encouraged by former President Barack Obama’s administration as a way for states to route federal food aid to households that might not otherwise qualify under a strict enforcement of federal guidelines. Now President Donald Trump’s administration is proposing to end the practice — potentially eliminating food stamps for more than 3 million of the nation’s 36 million recipients.

The proposed rule change, outlined this past week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has highlighted the ideological clash between Trump’s attempts to tighten government entitlement programs and efforts in some states to widen the social safety net.

Hong Kong police tear gas protest against mob violence

HONG KONG — Hong Kong police on Saturday fired tear gas, swung batons and forcefully cleared out protesters who defied warnings not to march in a neighborhood where last weekend a mob apparently targeting demonstrators brutally attacked people in a train station.

Protesters wearing all black streamed through the Yuen Long area, even though police refused to grant permission for the march, citing risks of confrontations between demonstrators and local residents.

By nightfall, protesters and police were once again facing off in the streets, as they’ve done previously during the summer-long pro-democracy protests that are fueled by fears over the steady erosion of civil rights in the Chinese territory. Demonstrators threw objects and ducked behind makeshift shields, and police officers shot plumes of tear gas into the air.

Later, police wearing heavy-duty helmets and wielding batons suddenly charged into the train station where a few hundred protesters had taken refuge from the tear gas. Some officers swung their batons directly at demonstrators, while others appeared to be urging their colleagues to hang back. For the second week in a row, blood was splattered on the station floor.

Police said in a statement they arrested 11 men, aged between 18 and 68, for offenses including unlawful assembly, possession of offensive weapon and assault. At least four officers were injured.

Russian police arrest more than 1,000 in Moscow protest

MOSCOW — Russian police cracked down fiercely Saturday on demonstrators in central Moscow, beating some people and arresting more than 1,000 who were protesting the exclusion of opposition candidates from the ballot for Moscow city council. Police also stormed into a TV station broadcasting the protest.

Police wrestled with protesters around the mayor’s office, sometimes charging into the crowd with their batons raised. State news agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti cited police as saying 1,074 were arrested over the course of the protests, which lasted more than seven hours.

Along with the arrests of the mostly young demonstrators, several opposition activists who wanted to run for the council were arrested throughout the city before the protest. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail for calling an unauthorized protest.

The protesters, who police said numbered about 3,500, shouted slogans including “Russia will be free!” and “Who are you beating?” One young woman was seen bleeding heavily after being struck on the head.

From wire sources

Helmeted police barged into Navalny’s video studio as it was conducting a YouTube broadcast of the protest and arrested program leader Vladimir Milonov. Police also searched Dozhd, an internet TV station that was covering the protest, and its editor-in-chief, Alexandra Perepelova, was ordered to undergo questioning at the Investigative Committee.

Africa’s booming cities face a severe toilet crisis

MAKINDYE-LUKULI, Uganda — The darkening clouds are ominous for many in this urban neighborhood, promising rushing rainwaters stinking of human waste from overflowing septic tanks.

As Africa faces a population boom unmatched anywhere in the world, millions of people are moving to fast-growing cities while decades-old public facilities crumble under the pressure.

Sewage is a scourge for residents of this community on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital, Kampala. There are no public toilets for some 1,200 people. Mud tinged with feces washes into homes during heavy rains.

The sanitation crisis echoes that of cities across the developing world. Some 2.5 billion people, most of them in Africa or Asia, lack access to an adequate toilet, United Nations figures show. Governments are increasingly depending on private businesses and philanthropic groups to help manage human waste in cities that were never planned to handle so many people.

One of the fastest-growing cities in the world, Kampala is home to at least 1.5 million people but authorities say over 3 million pass through daily, usually for work. Yet there are fewer than 800 pay toilets and only 14 free ones, many of them dilapidated with walls often smeared with feces.

Trump attacks majority-black district represented by critic

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday denigrated a majority-black district represented by a congressional nemesis as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” broadening a campaign against prominent critics of his administration that has exacerbated racial tensions.

Trump lashed out in tweets against Rep. Elijah Cummings, the powerful House Oversight Committee chairman, claiming his Baltimore-area district is “considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States.” It was the president’s latest assault on a prominent lawmaker, and the people he represents, two weeks after he sparked nationwide controversy with racist tweets directed at four congresswomen of color.

His comments against Cummings, who leads multiple investigations of the president’s governmental dealings, drew swift condemnation from Democrats, including would-be presidential rivals. Statements from a spokesman for the state’s Republican governor and from the lieutenant governor defended Cummings’ district and its people.

Trump called Cummings a “brutal bully” after his public tongue-lashing of top Homeland Security officials over conditions for migrants detained along the southern border.

“As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient &well run, just very crowded,” Trump tweeted. “Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

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2 US teens jailed in Italy in policeman’s killing

ROME — Two American teenagers who were classmates at a California high school spent a second night in a Rome jail Saturday after they were interrogated for hours about their alleged roles in the murder of an Italian policeman.

Investigators contended in written statements Saturday that the pair had confessed to their roles in the grisly slaying. Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, a member of the storied Carabinieri paramilitary corps, was stabbed eight times, allegedly by one of the teens, leaving him bleeding on a street close to the teens’ upscale hotel near Rome’s Tiber River.

Italian authorities identified the two as Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, 18, and Finnegan Lee Elder, 19, and said they were born in San Francisco.

Police said they were apparently vacationing in the Italian capital without family members.

In the detention order, Elder is described as repeatedly stabbing the 35-year-old officer, who had just returned to duty a few days earlier from his honeymoon.

Plan halted to house migrant kids at Oklahoma Army base

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Trump administration no longer needs to detain migrant children at an Oklahoma Army base and preparations to house them there have stopped, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

“Over the last several weeks HHS has experienced a decrease in Department of Homeland Security referrals of unaccompanied alien children (UAC). Additionally, HHS has been placing UAC with sponsors at a historically high rate. As such, the UAC Program does not have an immediate need to place children in (holding) facilities,” said Evelyn Stauffer, spokeswoman for the agency’s Administration for Children and Families.

Stauffer, who did not immediately reply to messages seeking further information, said no children have been held at the base at Lawton, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City.

Homeland Security officials said earlier this month there was a 28% drop in the number of migrants encountered by Customs and Border Protection in June, amid a crackdown on migrants by Mexico.

There were 104,344 migrants in June, down from 144,278 the month before. Homeland Security officials said the numbers of single adults, families and unaccompanied minors at the border had all declined.