World Briefs: 3-12-17

Now-fired Preet Bharara boasts of ‘absolute independence’

NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan federal prosecutor who says “absolute independence” was his touchstone for over seven years as he battled public corruption announced he was fired Saturday after he refused a request a day earlier to resign.

Preet Bharara, 48, made the announcement on his personal Twitter account after it became widely known hours earlier that he did not intend to step down in response to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ request that leftover appointees of former President Barack Obama quit.

“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,” Bharara said in the tweet.

In a statement hours later, he said: “Serving my country as U.S. Attorney here for the past seven years will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life, no matter what else I do or how long I live. One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served.”

He said Joon H. Kim will serve as acting U.S. attorney in his absence.

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Pence appeals for complete GOP support for health overhaul

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence appealed for total GOP congressional support for a White House-backed health overhaul during a brief visit Saturday to Kentucky, where the Republican governor and junior senator are among the plan’s skeptics.

“This is going to be a battle in Washington, D.C. And for us to seize this opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare once and for all, we need every Republican in Congress, and we’re counting on Kentucky,” Pence said at an energy company where business leaders had gathered.

He said President Donald Trump would lean on House Republicans — including two Kentucky lawmakers in the audience, Reps. Andy Barr and Brett Guthrie — to vote to replace former President Barack Obama’s law.

Pence’s trip was part of an effort to reassure conservatives who have raised objections to the House plan. In a sign of the high stakes, Pence’s motorcade passed a long line of demonstrators who chanted, “Save our care.”

Almost at the time Pence landed in Louisville, Trump tweeted: “We are making great progress with health care. ObamaCare is imploding and will only get worse. Republicans coming together to get job done!”

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GOP acts fast on health care, aims to avoid ire Dems faced

WASHINGTON (AP) — It took former President Barack Obama and his Democrats more than a year to pass the Affordable Care Act, a slow and painstaking process that allowed plenty of time for a fierce backlash to ignite, undermining the law from the very start.

Republicans are trying to avoid that pitfall as they attempt to fulfill years’ worth of promises to repeal and replace Obama’s law.

After going public with their long-sought bill on Monday, House Republicans swiftly pushed it through two key committees. They hope to pass the legislation in the full House during the week of March 20 before sending it to the Senate and then, they hope, to President Donald Trump — all before Congress can take a recess that could allow town hall fury to erupt.

Democrats are crying foul, accusing Republicans of rushing the bill through before the public can figure out what it does. Republicans dispute the criticism, arguing that their legislation enshrines elements of a plan House Republicans worked on for months last year and campaigned on under House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

“We offered it up in June. We ran on it all through the election. And now we’ve translated it into legislation,” Ryan said.

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Gorsuch has ruled for police, and suspects, in crime cases

WASHINGTON (AP) — Judge Neil Gorsuch wasn’t convinced that a teenager who made burping sounds in a classroom should be arrested, handcuffed and taken to juvenile detention in a police car.

Gorsuch said the 13-year-old student from Albuquerque, New Mexico, should have been able to sue the arresting officer for excessive force. His powerful dissent in the case last year offers a glimpse of how Gorsuch — a favorite among conservatives — might be hard to pigeonhole on criminal justice issues if he is confirmed to the Supreme Court.

“Arresting a now compliant class clown for burping was going a step too far,” Gorsuch wrote, saying there is a difference “between childish pranks and more seriously disruptive behaviors.”

During a decade on the federal appeals court in Denver, Gorsuch has raised concerns about intrusive government searches and seizures that he found to violate constitutional rights. He generally has ruled against defendants appealing their convictions and those who claim they received unfair trials. But he also has warned in writings and speeches about the danger of having too many criminal laws on the books.

“What happens to individual freedom and equality when the criminal law comes to cover so many facets of daily life that prosecutors can almost choose their targets with impunity?” he said in a 2013 speech.

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Turkey-Dutch relations take dip after Turkish visits banned

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Turkey and the Netherlands sharply escalated a dispute between the NATO allies on Saturday as the Dutch blocked campaign visits by two Turkish ministers, prompting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call them fascists and “Nazi remnants.”

From keeping Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from landing in the Netherlands in the morning to Turkish officials closing off the Dutch Embassy in the evening and calling the Dutch ambassador no longer welcome, relations between the two sank ever deeper in the diplomatic standoff over the right of Turkish government officials to speak about their political plans at rallies in Europe.

The Dutch first withdrew the landing rights of the foreign minister because of objections to his intention to rally in Rotterdam for a Turkish referendum on constitutional reforms to expand presidential powers, which the Dutch see as a step backward from democracy.

And later, the Minister of Family and Social Policies Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya was kept out of the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam after traveling from Germany, insisting that the “Netherlands is violating all international laws, conventions and human rights by not letting me enter.”

Erdogan told a rally in Istanbul that the Dutch “do not know politics or international diplomacy.” He compared them to “Nazi remnants, they are fascists.”

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As incivility hits new depths, many are working to combat it

NEW YORK (AP) — In state capitals, lawmakers attend workshops on how to avoid demonizing their opponents. On a college campus, students re-enact hard-fought debates that led to great compromises at the country’s founding. Even a summer camp is aiming to give children the tools to show respect in the face of disagreement.

Americans alarmed and disheartened by a coarsened culture and incivility in politics — especially following a brutal presidential campaign season that bared new lows in both — are fighting back with a range of initiatives around the U.S. to restore some semblance of decorum.

“It’s incumbent on us to be the adults who push back against what we’re getting in the popular culture and the political rhetoric,” said Mary Evins, who directs the American Democracy Project for Civil Learning at Middle Tennessee State University. That’s where students have staged classroom role-plays of compromises from the 1787 Constitutional Convention, assuming the parts of the Founding Fathers to act out the give-and-take required to reach agreement on crucial but difficult decisions, such as how large and small states would share power.

“There’s so many people with a difference of opinion,” said Brendon Holloway, who participated in various Democracy Project initiatives at Middle Tennessee State, including voter registration drives. “It’s really important to bridge the gap.”

The school is training faculty to incorporate civic learning across disciplines, holding a lecture series on rhetoric, and hosting former members of Congress to talk about respectful dialogue. Evins says it’s all part of addressing not just college and career, but citizenship.

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Trump praises arrest of ‘troubled person’ at White House

POTOMAC FALLS, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. Secret Service did a “fantastic job” apprehending a “troubled person” who got onto the White House grounds after climbing a fence on the east side of the property while Trump was inside the executive mansion.

It was the first known security breach at the White House since Trump took office nearly two months ago.

Washington, D.C., police identified the intruder as 26-year-old Jonathan Tran of Milpitas, California.

When approached by a Secret Service officer on the south grounds about 11:38 p.m. Friday and asked whether he had a pass authorizing him to be in the restricted area, Tran replied, “No, I am a friend of the president. I have an appointment,” the police report said. Asked how he got there, he said he “jumped the fence.”

The Secret Service said in a statement that the intruder, whom it did not identify, had climbed an outer perimeter fence near the Treasury Department and East Executive Avenue. He was arrested without further incident and no hazardous materials were found in his backpack, the agency said.

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Cardboard boxes as cribs? Safety sleep program expands

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Cardboard boxes certainly aren’t new technology. But when they’re linked to a practice that started in Finland decades ago to help babies sleep safely, they’re taking on a new purpose as so-called baby boxes make their way to the U.S.

Parents are beginning to take baby boxes home from hospitals along with their newborns. A Los Angeles-based company has partnered with health officials to give the boxes away for free and an online initiative offers advice aimed at reducing sudden unexpected infant deaths. New Jersey and Ohio were the first to participate statewide in the program.

“To new moms: (SUID) was one of my biggest fears and then it happened,” said 35-year-old Chauntia Williams, of Maple Heights, Ohio.

Williams is an advocate for safe sleeping and the boxes after she unexpectedly lost her 33-day-old daughter Aaliyah nine years ago. Williams said her daughter went to sleep in a crib with cushiony bumpers, stuffed animals and an added blanket beneath the fitted sheet and never woke up. She said the coroner determined the bedding caused the death.

She now uses a box with her son, Bryce, though he’s getting a little too big for it. Her message to new parents: Educate yourselves on safe sleep habits.

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Dream on, but just make it somewhat snappier this weekend

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dream on. Just make it snappier this weekend.

In most of the United States, you’re on the clock to lose an hour’s sleep Saturday night. The trade-off: gaining more evening light in the months ahead, when the weather warms and you want to be outdoors.

Daylight saving time officially was re-emerging at 2 a.m. local time Sunday.

No time change is observed in Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Standard time returns Nov. 5.

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Sheriff: drunk man steals Keys forklift, ‘needed to drive’

MARATHON, Fla. (AP) — Florida Keys authorities say a drunken man from Rhode Island stole a forklift and crashed into a gate, telling deputies he lost his car keys and needed something to drive.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that 44-year-old Edward Quinton of Greenwich, Rhode Island told deputies he was in the Keys helping friends move.

Quinton was quoted as saying that after he lost his keys Thursday night, he needed a vehicle and took the forklift from a Marathon marina because he knew how to drive one. Quinton also told deputies he thought he could fix the damaged gate.

Breath tests showed Quinton’s blood-alcohol level was twice Florida’s legal limit. He faces drunk-driving, criminal mischief, burglary and grand theft charges.

Jail records listed no attorney for Quinton.