Nation & World briefs: 11-27-17

Senators consider automatic tax hikes if revenue falls short

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are considering a trigger that would automatically increase taxes if their sweeping legislation fails to generate as much revenue as they expect. It’s an effort to mollify deficit hawks who worry that tax cuts for businesses and individuals will add to the nation’s already mounting debt.

The effort comes as a second Republican senator, Steve Daines of Montana, announced Monday that he opposes the tax bill in its current form. Previously, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he opposed the bill, leaving Senate Republicans no room for error as they hope to vote on the bill this week.

Both senators complained that the tax bill favors large corporations over small businesses. Republicans have only two votes to spare in the Senate, where they hold a 52-48 edge and anticipate Vice President Mike Pence breaking a tie.

At the White House, President Donald Trump maintained that the bill would help all Americans.

“I think it’s going to benefit everybody,” the president said. “It’s going to mostly benefit people looking for jobs more than anything else, because we’re giving great incentives.”

White House official: Trump won’t campaign for Roy Moore

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will not campaign for Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore before the Dec. 12 special election, a White House official said Monday.

The president had held the door open to campaigning for Moore last week, when he all but endorsed his candidacy while attacking his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones. Trump also made public statements in which he raised doubts about the accounts of women who have accused Moore of sexual misconduct decades ago, when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

The White House official told The Associated Press that Trump would not travel to Alabama on Moore’s behalf. The official was not authorized to discuss the president’s plans publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Over the weekend, Trump took to Twitter to bash Jones, saying that electing him as Alabama’s next senator “would be a disaster” and warning of damage to his legislative agenda.

“The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is WEAK on Crime, WEAK on the Border, Bad for our Military and our great Vets, Bad for our 2nd Amendment, AND WANTS TO RAISES TAXES TO THE SKY,” Trump wrote from Florida, referring to Democrats’ congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

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Royal romance: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle to wed next year

LONDON — Newly engaged Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Monday lifted the secrecy that had shrouded their 18-month romance, revealing they met on a blind date, bonded during a camping trip under the stars in Botswana and that Harry proposed over a roast chicken dinner at their London home, getting down on one knee to pop the question.

Speaking just hours after the couple’s engagement was announced by palace officials acting on behalf of Prince Charles, Harry said he was thrilled when she said yes, and he placed an engagement ring of his own design on her finger that included two diamonds that had belonged to his mother, Princess Diana, set alongside a large central diamond from Botswana.

“Just an amazing surprise,” said the 36-year-old Markle, an American actress known for her role in the TV legal drama “Suits.” ”It was so sweet and natural and very romantic.”

Did she hesitate? Not if Harry can be trusted.

“She didn’t even let me finish,” the 33-year-old prince said of his betrothed. “She said ‘Can I say yes, can I say yes?’ And then there were hugs and I had the ring in my finger and I was like ‘Can I, can I give you the ring?’ She goes, ‘Oh yes, the ring.’”

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2 fight for control of consumer watchdog; court to weigh in

WASHINGTON — With emails, tweets and doughnuts, the two dueling acting directors battled for control of the nation’s top financial watchdog agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on Monday.

Leandra English, who was elevated to interim director of the bureau late last week by its outgoing director, sent staff an email offering Thanksgiving wishes. President Donald Trump’s choice for the role — White House budget director Mick Mulvaney — then emailed staff to tell them to “disregard” any instructions from English.

Laying down markers in what has quickly become a war of optics, both signed their missives “Acting Director.”

English has filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to block Mulvaney from taking over the bureau. Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee approved recently by the Senate, will hear arguments on the case late Monday afternoon.

Mulvaney, speaking to reporters at the bureau, announced he was imposing a 30-day freeze on hiring and new rulemaking. Despite previous comments calling the agency a “joke” and an example of bureaucracy run amok, he said the bureau would remain functioning.

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Trump, honoring Navajos, revives ‘Pocohontas’ jab at Warren

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump returned to his own kind of code talking Monday by deriding Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” at a White House event honoring Native American war heroes.

“You were here long before any of us were here,” Trump said as he honored three Navajo code talkers from World War II. And then he added, without naming Warren: “We have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas. But you know what, I like you.”

In fact, Trump deployed that nickname for the Massachusetts senator repeatedly during the 2016 presidential campaign and, as president, as recently as a Nov. 3 tweet. Native American leaders have called Trump’s past attacks on Warren offensive and distasteful. Some Democrats have called the nickname racist.

Trump made the comment as he stood near a portrait of President Andrew Jackson, which he hung in the Oval Office in January. Trump admires the seventh president’s populism. But Jackson also is known for signing the Indian Removal Act of 1830, in which the Cherokee Nation was removed from its lands in what is now known as the “trail of tears.”

The Navajo Nation suggested Trump’s remark Monday was an example of “cultural insensitivity” and resolved to stay out of the “ongoing feud between the senator and President Trump.”

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Effort to oust Trump name, management in luxury Panama hotel

WASHINGTON — Owners of the Trump International Hotel in Panama are working to strip President Donald Trump’s name from the 70-story building and fire the hotel management company run by Trump’s family. The property once paid at least $32 million to associate with Trump.

The uprising by Panama hotel owners — following news that Trump was effectively being paid to end a similar management contract for the Trump Soho hotel in New York — points to continued struggles for the Trump brand outside strongholds like Mar-a-Lago in Florida and the Trump Hotel in Washington.

The Trump Organization acknowledged to The Associated Press the effort to strip away the Panama property’s management and brand. It said it believed the move was a contract violation.

“Not only do we have a valid, binding and enforceable long-term management agreement, but any suggestion that the hotel is not performing up to expectations is belied by the actual facts,” the Trump Organization said in a statement.

Located on Panama City’s waterfront, the Trump hotel is within a 70-story tower in the shape of a wind-filled sail. Despite lavish amenities — visitors can sip drinks next to a 65th-floor, edgeless pool that appears to float above the ocean — it has struggled with poor occupancy.

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Weeks after Election Day, Virginia House still in dispute

RICHMOND, Va. — A Democratic tidal wave on Election Day in Virginia three weeks ago has left chaos in its wake, with control of the House of Delegates still undecided and no end in sight to the dispute.

Lawsuits, threats and recriminations are flying as the state wrestles with the tricky question of what to do about the 147 voters in and around a crucial district who were given the wrong ballots.

Depending on what happens to that seat and two others, the 100-member House could fall into Democratic hands for the first time in nearly 20 years or find itself evenly divided and perhaps paralyzed.

It’s the Virginia version of the “hanging chad” debacle in Florida that threw the 2000 presidential election into confusion. As in that race, it could take several weeks and the intervention of the courts to determine the outcome.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Virginia Board of Elections Chairman James Alcorn.

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Powell, in prepared remarks, backs further slow rate hikes

WASHINGTON — Jerome Powell says that if confirmed as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, he expects the Fed to continue raising interest rates gradually to support its twin goals of maximum employment and stable prices.

Under his leadership, Powell says, the Fed would consider ways to ease the regulatory burdens on banks while preserving the key reforms Congress passed to try to prevent another financial crisis like the one that erupted in 2008.

Powell’s comments came in prepared testimony he will deliver Tuesday at the start of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee. Powell, a member of the Fed’s board since 2012, is expected to win confirmation to succeed Janet Yellen, whose term as chair expires in February.

In his remarks, Powell sought to send the reassuring message that he would represent a figure of stability and continuity at the Fed, while remaining open to making certain changes as appropriate.

On banking regulations, Powell said, “We will continue to consider appropriate ways to ease regulatory burdens while preserving core reforms … so that banks can provide the credit to families and businesses necessary to sustain a prosperous economy.”

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At Capitol, Franken apologizes and sees long fight for trust

WASHINGTON — Sen. Al Franken apologized Monday to voters, aides and “everyone who has counted on me to be a champion for women” as the Minnesota Democrat fought to bolster his support with his first Capitol public appearance since being drawn into a wave of sexual harassment accusations buffeting Congress.

Franken spoke as lawmakers began returning from an extraordinary weeklong Thanksgiving break that saw sexually tinged problems engulf two other legislators as well: Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Joe Barton, R-Texas. Those revelations were on top of allegations that Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and sought romantic relationships with other teenagers when he was in his 30s four decades ago, which he has denied.

With harassment charges recently bringing down big names in the worlds of entertainment and journalism, Congress was adding widespread complaints about how it handles such incidents to its pile of year-end work.

In a brief appearance before reporters, Franken stopped short of specifying how his memory differs from four women’s accounts of separate incidents in which he allegedly initiated improper sexual contact. He said he recalls “differently” one woman’s allegation that he forcibly kissed her but provided no detail, and said he doesn’t remember three other times women assert he grabbed their buttocks, citing “tens of thousands” of people he meets annually.

“But I feel that you have to respect, you know, women’s experience,” he said.

By wire sources