World Briefs: 3-4-17

Trump tours private school in Florida, promoting choice

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump toured a private religious school in Florida on Friday, praising it as an ideal institution for “disadvantaged children” while re-emphasizing that his education agenda will focus on school choice.

Trump visited St. Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, dropping in on a fourth-grade classroom and shaking hands with students who said they were learning about the history of Florida. When one girl said she wanted to own her own business, he said with a smile that she’s “gonna make a lot of money. But don’t run for politics.”

The president, who was joined by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a longtime charter schools advocate, described St. Andrew as “one of the many parochial schools dedicated to educating some of our nation’s most disadvantaged children.”

“Education is the civil rights issue of our time,” said Trump, repeating a line from his address to Congress this week.

Teachers unions were quick to criticize the visit, saying it showed hostility by Trump toward public schools and an intention to turn education into a profit-making industry.

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Next in line to lead Russia probe: Rosenstein has respect

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some Democrats worry the appointment of a Jeff Sessions subordinate to oversee an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election won’t be a clean enough break from the embattled attorney general.

But the veteran prosecutor in line for the job may be uniquely politically palatable.

Rod Rosenstein, who faces his confirmation hearing next week for the role of deputy attorney general, was appointed top federal prosecutor in Maryland by George W. Bush and remained in the post for the entire Obama administration. That staying power, extraordinary for a position that routinely turns over with changes in the White House, lends weight to the reputation he’s cultivated as an apolitical law enforcement official.

“He is so well-respected. He cannot be influenced, he cannot be bought, he cannot be pressured because of outside political forces,” said Baltimore criminal defense attorney Steven Silverman, who has known Rosenstein for years.

Sessions recused himself from any Trump-Russia investigation Thursday after the Justice Department acknowledged he had spoken twice with the Russian ambassador last year and had failed to disclose the contacts during his Senate confirmation process. Sessions said he had not tried to mislead anyone but could have been more careful in his answers. He planned to file amended testimony on Monday, a Justice Department spokesman said.

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Pence fought against releasing records as Indiana governor

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence repeatedly stonewalled media requests to view public records when he was Indiana’s governor, including emails about state business distributed from a private AOL account that was hacked last year.

Revelations Pence used the account to discuss homeland security and other official matters, first reported Thursday by the Indianapolis Star, are just the latest in a series of transparency battles involving the Republican’s tenure as governor.

The Star obtained the AOL emails through an open records request after new Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb agreed to release 29 pages from his predecessor’s AOL account. The Associated Press filed a similar records request last July seeking the emails and followed up with a complaint against the governor’s office in January when there was no response.

Earlier this year, lawyers for Pence argued unsuccessfully in a civil case that Indiana courts had no authority to force him to comply with public records law. His administration also has repeatedly delayed or denied the release of records that could shed light on his tenure as governor.

Pence’s efforts stand in stark contrast to the image he had previously sought to cultivate, presenting himself as a champion of a free press and the First Amendment.

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Man charged with threatening Jewish centers to frame his ex

NEW YORK (AP) — A former journalist fired for fabricating details in stories made at least eight of the scores of threats against Jewish institutions nationwide, including a bomb threat to the Anti-Defamation League, as part of a bizarre campaign to harass and frame his ex-girlfriend, federal officials said Friday.

Juan Thompson was arrested in St. Louis and appeared there in federal court Friday on a cyberstalking charge. He politely answered questions and told the judge he had enough money to hire a lawyer.

A crowd of supporters who attended said Thompson had no criminal record. His lawyer didn’t comment.

Federal officials have been investigating 122 bomb threats called in to Jewish organizations in three dozen states since Jan. 9 and a rash of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries.

Thompson started making threats Jan. 28, a criminal complaint said, with an email to the Jewish History Museum in New York written from an account that made it appear as if it were being sent by an ex-girlfriend.

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Yellen signals the Fed will likely raise rates this month

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen signaled Friday that the Fed will likely resume raising interest rates later this month to reflect a strengthening job market and inflation edging toward the central bank’s 2 percent target.

Yellen also said in a speech in Chicago that the Fed expects steady economic improvement to justify additional rate increases. While not specifying how many rate hikes could occur this year, Yellen noted that Fed officials in December had estimated that there would be three in 2017.

Yellen’s signal of a likely rate hike this month reflects an encouraging conclusion by the Fed: That nearly eight years after the Great Recession ended, the U.S. economy has finally regained most of its health.

At a separate appearance Friday in New York, Vice Chair Stanley Fischer added his voice to a series of Fed officials who have indicated this week that they would likely favor raising rates at the Fed’s next meeting March 14-15.

Asked whether there had been a conscious effort by Fed officials to signal a probable rate hike at that meeting, Fischer said, “If there has been a conscious effort, I’m about to join it.”

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Fillon going it alone amid defections over his candidacy

PARIS (AP) — The once promising presidential bid of French conservative Francois Fillon, already seriously hobbled by pending corruption charges, was coming unraveled Friday with the resignation of his campaign director and his campaign spokesman, adding momentum to a stream of defections and panicking his party.

Fillon appeared increasingly alone with the resignation of two key officials, and other high-profile supporters following them out. But he did not balk. He looked past the pressure, counting on a support rally planned for Sunday near the Eiffel Tower and tweeting a video plea for people to show up in force “to show everyone what the will of the militants of France looks like.”

A poor showing at the support rally would impact Fillon’s legitimacy, which has been based on his win in the primary held by conservatives and centrists.

As Fillon’s fortunes fell, former Prime Minister Alain Juppe again was being mentioned as a potential Plan B for The Republicans party, which could find itself without a candidate as the April 23 first round of the presidential election nears. A runoff between the top two candidates is May 7. Juppe had refused filling in for Fillon in the past.

“Don’t let anyone deprive you of your choice. I ask you to resist,” Fillon said in his tweeted video, an apparent reference to the defections and behind-the-scenes maneuvering to replace him.

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Mexico launches nationwide effort in US to help migrants

MIAMI (AP) — Not only is the Mexican government not building a wall; it’s spending $50 million to beef up its legal aid to migrants who fear deportation, a response to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

All 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. on Friday launched legal assistance centers to form partnerships with nonprofit groups and tap lawyers to help those fearing Trump’s policies.

The diplomatic effort comes as the two countries are in a rift over Trump’s plans for a border wall. While Trump says Mexico will pay for it one way or another, Mexico says it won’t. It was also unveiled less than two weeks after new guidelines came out aimed at aggressively detaining and deporting immigrants by increasing the number of federal agents and strengthening cooperation with local law enforcement.

Miami’s Mexican consul general, Jose Antonio Zabalgoitia, said Friday that these centers would become “authentic advocates of the rights of Mexican migrants.”

“What changes today is that we are prioritizing legal matters over everything. Previously, we didn’t have the need to seek so much legal support for our people,” he said. “But now, we need to protect them against an eventual deportation.”

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US snuffs pot fans’ plans to party on Indian land near Vegas

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A federal prosecutor has snuffed out plans by pot fans to celebrate Nevada’s new recreational marijuana law by lighting up on an Indian reservation near Las Vegas.

U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden took a hard line in a letter to organizers of a weekend cannabis festival, saying federal law applies and pot smokers could be prosecuted.

Bogden wouldn’t comment Friday beyond referring to the Feb. 16 letter he sent to the Moapa Band of Paiutes.

The warning from the top federal prosecutor in Nevada came while several U.S. senators are airing concerns about the possibility of a Trump administration crackdown on marijuana use in states that have legalized pot for recreational or medicinal purposes.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada joined nine other Democrats and one Republican, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, in signing a Thursday letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

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Oh Snap! Silicon Valley school makes $24M off of investment

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Bake sales and car washes?

Not for one Silicon Valley parochial high school that hit it big this week and, by doing so, highlighted anew gaping economic disparities in the region.

St. Francis High School in Mountain View parlayed a $15,000 investment in the company that developed the Snapchat app into a windfall of at least $24 million, capitalizing on a unique venture capital fund set up by the school’s investment-savvy parents.

The fund paid off when Snap Inc. began selling shares to the public Thursday and the school sold about 1.4 million of the 2.1 million shares at $17 each. It’s holding the remaining 700,000 shares, which were valued at about $19 million Friday.

“Silicon Valley is a pretty amazing place to live,” school President Simon Chiu said. “This obviously couldn’t have happened anywhere else.”

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Uber deploys secret weapon against undercover regulators

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Uber has been wielding a secret weapon to thwart authorities who have been trying to curtail or shut down its ride-hailing service in cities around the world.

The program included a feature nicknamed “Greyball” internally that identified regulators who were posing as riders while trying to collect evidence that Uber’s service was breaking local laws governing taxis.

To stymie those efforts, Uber served up a fake version of its app to make it appear the undercover regulators were summoning a car, only to have the ride canceled. The San Francisco company mined the data that it collects through its real app to pinpoint the undercover agents.

The New York Times revealed Greyball’s existence in a story published Friday based on information provided by four current and former Uber employees who were not named.

Uber acknowledged it has used Greyball to counter regulators working with the company’s opponents to entrap its drivers.