World Briefly: 3-24-17

BC-World Briefly/1814

AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT

White House, in gamble, demands make-or-break health vote

WASHINGTON (AP) — Abandoning negotiations, President Donald Trump demanded a make-or-break vote on health care legislation in the House, threatening to leave “Obamacare” in place and move on to other issues if Friday’s vote fails.

The risky move, part gamble and part threat, was presented to GOP lawmakers behind closed doors Thursday night after a long and intense day that saw a planned vote on the health care bill scrapped as the legislation remained short of votes amid cascading negotiations among conservative lawmakers, moderates and others.

At the end of it the president had had enough and was ready to vote and move on, whatever the result, Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney told lawmakers.

“‘Negotiations are over, we’d like to vote tomorrow and let’s get this done for the American people.’ That was it,” Rep. Duncan Hunter of California said as he left the meeting, summarizing Mulvaney’s message to lawmakers.

“Let’s vote,” White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said as he walked out.

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Analysis: Trump the dealmaker struggles to seal the deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump often points to his best-selling book, “The Art of the Deal,” as proof of his persuasive powers. But his deal-making abilities are being put to the ultimate test.

House Republican leaders announced Thursday they would delay a planned vote on the GOP-backed health care bill embraced by Trump, placing the legislation on the brink of failure and jeopardizing the new president’s vow to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law.

In the weeks leading up to Thursday, Trump did his best to arm-twist resistant conservatives and moderates opposed to the legislation. He revived his campaign rallies to remind the voters, and their representatives, of the GOP’s promises. He invited Republican lawmakers to the White House, having his advisers join them for bowling and pizza nights and cajoling them over the phone. Famous for his lack of sleep, the president called lawmakers late into the night Wednesday in search of votes.

On Thursday, the president met with the hard-line House Freedom Caucus at the White House — but the lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill without a deal. White House officials met with House Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday night and a vote on the proposal was expected Friday.

Trump dismissed the deadlock as pure “politics.” But, even allies noted, politics is his new business and he may still have a learning curve.

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10 Things to Know for Friday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:

1. WHITE HOUSE: TIME FOR TALK HAS PASSED

Abandoning negotiations, Trump demands a make-or-break vote on health care legislation in the House, threatening to leave “Obamacare” in place and move on to other issues if Friday’s vote fails.

2. AUTHORITIES ID UK ATTACKER

The 52-year-old Briton who was shot dead during the rampage near Parliament had a long criminal record and once was investigated for extremism — but was not on a terror watch list.

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White House defends GOP lawmaker’s decision to brief Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Thursday defended the House intelligence committee chairman’s extraordinary decision to openly discuss and brief President Donald Trump on typically secret intelligence intercepts, even as Rep. Devin Nunes privately apologized to his congressional colleagues.

The decision to disclose the information before talking to committee members outraged Democrats and raised questions about the independence of the panel’s probe of Russian interference in the election.

“It was a judgment call on my part,” Nunes told reporters shortly after the closed-door committee meeting. “Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the wrong decision.”

Frustrated Democrats questioned whether Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, was working in coordination with the White House, a charge the White House disputed.

Still, White House spokesman Sean Spicer claimed, inaccurately, that Nunes was “vindicating” the president’s unproven assertion that President Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election. Nunes specifically stated that the new information he received did not support the president’s explosive allegations.

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London defiant as IS claims attack by British ex-con, 52

LONDON (AP) — Authorities on Thursday identified a 52-year-old Briton as the man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament in London, saying he had a long criminal record and once was investigated for extremism — but was not currently on a terrorism watch list.

As millions of Londoners returned to work a day after a rampage that killed four victims and injured at least 30, British Prime Minister Theresa May had a message for other attackers: “We are not afraid.”

“Today we meet as normal — as generations have done before us, and as future generations will continue to do,” she said to lawmakers’ cheers in the House of Commons.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, which police said was carried out by Khalid Masood, a U.K.-born resident of the West Midlands in central England. Masood plowed a rented SUV into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing an American man and a British woman and injuring more than 30 people of almost a dozen nationalities. He then fatally stabbed a policeman inside the gates of Parliament before being shot to death by an officer.

A 75-year-old victim on the bridge died late Thursday of his wounds, police said.

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Maryland high school thrust into immigration debate

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — A Maryland high school has been thrust into the national immigration debate after a 14-year-old student said she was raped in a bathroom there by two classmates, including one who authorities said came to the U.S. illegally from Central America.

Protesters on both sides of the debate converged on a nearby elementary school Thursday during a visit by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. And the White House has weighed in, saying the president has made a crackdown on illegal immigration a priority “because of tragedies like this.”

The Montgomery County school system has been besieged by hundreds of racist and xenophobic calls. In response, schools beefed up police presence in an attempt to reassure the anxious community.

“Now we’re starting to receive calls that are threatening, saying they’re going to shoot up the illegals in our school,” said Derek Turner, a school system spokesman. He noted that the calls marked “a whole new level of vitriol that we haven’t seen before.”

The latest flashpoint in the immigration debate started out as a sexual assault case. Last Friday, 18-year-old Henry Sanchez and 17-year-old Jose Montano were charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual offense.

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Israel arrests hacker linked to threats on US Jewish centers

JERUSALEM (AP) — A 19-year-old American-Israeli Jew was arrested Thursday as the prime suspect in a wave of bomb threats against U.S. Jewish community centers, a startling turn in a case that had stoked fears of rising anti-Semitism in the United States.

The surprising arrest of the man, a hacker who holds dual Israeli and American citizenship, came after a trans-Atlantic investigation with the FBI and other international law enforcement agencies. U.S. Jewish groups welcomed the breakthrough in the case, which drawn condemnation from President Donald Trump.

Israeli police described the suspect as a hacker, but said his motives were still unclear.

“He’s the guy who was behind the JCC threats,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, referring to the scores of anonymous threats phoned in to Jewish community centers in the U.S. over the past two months.

Police banned publication of his name, but said he was a dual citizen and would remain in custody until at least March 30. During the arrest raid, they said he tried to grab an officer’s gun but was stopped by another officer.

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Police: Random racist violence ends in death of black man

NEW YORK (AP) — One was a neighborly black man who lived in a rooming house in New York’s Garment District, liked to collect autographs outside Broadway’s theaters, struck up a Twitter friendship with a Hollywood actress and took photos of himself with Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce.

The other was a white Army veteran from outside Baltimore who was raised in what was described as a churchgoing and liberal family and served in Afghanistan.

Late Monday night, officials say, their paths crossed tragically on the streets of New York in a cold-bloodedly random act of racist violence by the white man.

As 66-year-old Timothy Caughman bent over a trash bin around the corner from his home, gathering bottles to recycle, James Harris Jackson attacked him from behind with a 2-foot sword and walked off, prosecutors say. A bleeding Caughman staggered into a police station and later died at a hospital.

On Thursday, Jackson, 28, was charged with murder as a hate crime. He said nothing in court.

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Utah getting toughest drunken driving limit in the US

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah’s governor signed legislation Thursday giving the predominantly Mormon state the strictest drunken driving threshold in the country, a change that restaurant groups and representatives of the ski and snowboard industry say will hurt tourism.

Republican Gov. Gary Herbert said lowering the blood alcohol limit for most drivers to 0.05 percent from 0.08 percent will save lives.

The change means a 150-pound man would be over the 0.05 limit after two beers, while a 120-pound woman could exceed it after a single drink, though that can be affected by a number of factors, including how much food a person has eaten, according to the American Beverage Institute, a national restaurant group.

Opponents, including the group, had urged Herbert to veto the bill , saying it would punish responsible drinkers and burnish Utah’s reputation as a Mormon-centric place unfriendly to those who drink alcohol.

“People are going to try to say this is a religious issue. And that is just absolutely false. This is a public safety issue,” the governor, who is Mormon, said at a news conference.

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1-seeds Kansas, Gonzaga top Thursday’s NCAA Sweet 16 slate

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Top seeds Gonzaga and Kansas are among the teams preparing to play in Thursday’s Sweet 16 games of the NCAA Tournament.

The Jayhawks are the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region, which holds its semifinals in Kansas City, Missouri. The Jayhawks will face fourth-seeded Purdue, while No. 3 seed Oregon meets surging 7-seed Michigan in the region’s other game.

Gonzaga tops the West bracket and faces No. 4 seed West Virginia in games set for San Jose, California. The other regional semifinal features No. 2 seed Arizona and 11-seed Xavier, the lowest-seeded team left in the field.

The winner of Thursday’s games advance to the Elite Eight and will play Saturday for a trip to the Final Four.