In Brief: Nation & World: 5-31-17

FAA seeks $435,000 fine against United over plane inspection

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is seeking a $435,000 penalty against United Airlines, saying the carrier failed to inspect a repair job before putting a plane back into service.

The FAA said Tuesday that United mechanics replaced a fuel pump pressure switch on a Boeing 787 in 2014, and the plane was used on 23 flights before the required inspection was performed. The FAA said United used the plane on two flights after being told the inspection had been skipped.

Airlines can appeal proposed penalties. A spokesman for Chicago-based United says the airline took action after identifying the issue and is working with the FAA to review the matter.

Men probing Ivanka Trump supplier in China arrested, missing

SHANGHAI (AP) — An advocacy group says a man investigating working conditions at a Chinese company that produces Ivanka Trump-brand shoes has been arrested and two other men are missing.

The wife of Hua Haifeng says he was accused of illegal surveillance. She says the police called her Tuesday afternoon, gave her no details but told her she would not be able to see, speak with or receive money from her husband, the family’s breadwinner.

China Labor Watch executive director Li Qiang says he assumes the men must be held either by the factory or the police to be unreachable. For 17 years, his group has investigated working conditions at suppliers to some of the world’s best-known companies. But Li said his work has never attracted such scrutiny from China’s state security apparatus.

Top Trump aide exiting: First shoe to drop in wider shuffle?

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top communications aide to President Donald Trump is exiting the White House as the embattled president considers a broader shake-up amid rising anxiety over investigations into his campaign’s contacts with Russia.

Fresh off Trump’s first official trip abroad, White House communications director Michael Dubke announced his resignation Tuesday in what many inside and outside the White House see as the first shoe to drop. A wider overhaul is expected, aimed at more aggressively responding to allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and revelations of possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.

Dubke said in a statement it had been an honor to serve Trump and “my distinct pleasure to work side by side, day by day with the staff of the communications and press departments.”

However, Trump has privately and publicly pinned much of the blame for his administration’s woes on the communications effort.

“In terms of messaging, I would give myself a C or a C plus,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel early in his term. “In terms of achievement, I think I’d give myself an A. Because I think I’ve done great things, but I don’t think I have — I and my people, I don’t think we’ve explained it well enough to the American public.”

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Cop who killed Tamir Rice fired for job application omission

CLEVELAND (AP) — The police officer who shot and killed Tamir Rice was fired Tuesday for failing to disclose that he had been forced out of another department before Cleveland hired him, while his partner was suspended for driving too close to the 12-year-old seconds before the boy was killed.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams announced the discipline against officers Timothy Loehmann, who shot the boy, and Frank Garmback, who was driving the cruiser.

Tamir, who was black, was shot outside a recreation center in November 2014 as he held a pellet gun that the white officers mistook for a real firearm. The killing became part of a national outcry about police violence against black boys and men. The officers weren’t charged criminally, but Tamir’s mother settled a federal civil rights lawsuit with the city for $6 million.

Loehmann was fired because the department concluded he wasn’t truthful on his job application, failing to reveal that a suburban department had allowed him to resign instead of being fired at the end of a six-month probationary period. An evaluation in the suburban department’s file had said Loehmann had a “dismal” handgun performance, broke down in tears at the gun range and was emotionally immature.

Garmback was suspended for 10 days for violating a tactical rule for his driving that day, with a disciplinary letter saying he drove too close to Tamir. Video of the shooting shows the patrol car skidding to a stop just feet from the boy.

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Woods found asleep at the wheel, no alcohol in his system

Police found Tiger Woods asleep at the wheel on the side of a six-lane Florida road in the dark of morning, the engine running and his right blinker flashing. His speech was slow and slurred, though there was no alcohol in his system and he didn’t know how far away he was from home.

The details contained in a police affidavit released Tuesday did little to clear up the curious circumstances of his whereabouts on Memorial Day morning, only to confirm Woods’ statement that he had not been drinking before being arrested for suspicion of DUI.

Police described Woods as “cooperative as much as possible,” saying he had trouble keeping his eyes open.

The affidavit was released a day after Woods spent nearly four hours in the Palm Beach County jail on a DUI charge. His mug shot from the jail provided a stark illustration of how much Woods’ mystique has been shattered since his decade of domination that golf had never seen.

In a statement Monday evening, Woods attributed the arrest to an “unexpected reaction” to prescription medicine.

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Coldplay, Bieber to join Ariana Grande at Manchester concert

NEW YORK (AP) — Justin Bieber, Coldplay and Katy Perry will join Ariana Grande at a charity concert in Manchester, England, on Sunday.

Grande announced Tuesday that the “One Love Manchester” show will be held at the city’s Old Trafford cricket ground just under two weeks after a bomber killed 22 people at the pop singer’s concert in Manchester.

Other performers will include Pharrell Williams, Miley Cyrus, Usher, Niall Horan and Take That. Proceeds will go to an emergency fund set up by the city of Manchester and the British Red Cross.

Tickets go on sale Thursday.

“We will not quit or operate in fear. We won’t let this divide us. We won’t let hate win,” Grande said in a statement. “Our response to this violence must be to come closer together, to help each other, to love more, to sing louder and to live more kindly and generously than we did before.”

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Pentagon declares success for key test of missile defense

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon scored an important success Tuesday in a test of its oft-criticized missile defense program, destroying a mock warhead over the Pacific Ocean with an interceptor that is key to protecting U.S. territory from a North Korean attack.

Vice Adm. Jim Syring, director of the Pentagon agency in charge of developing the missile defense system, called the test result “an incredible accomplishment” and a critical milestone for a program hampered by setbacks over the years.

“This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat,” Syring said in a written statement announcing the test result.

Despite the success, the $244 million test didn’t confirm that under wartime conditions the U.S. could intercept an intercontinental-range missile fired by North Korea. Pyongyang is understood to be moving closer to the capability of putting a nuclear warhead on such an ICBM and could develop decoys sophisticated enough to trick an interceptor into missing the real warhead.

Syring’s agency sounded a note of caution.

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AP Explains: Kushner and the back story of back channels

WASHINGTON (AP) — Smart diplomacy or inappropriate and possibly illegal?

Jared Kushner’s reported attempt to establish a “back-channel” line of communication between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential transition team is proving divisive, even if such talks aren’t unusual.

Supporters of the president say it’s laudable that Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a trusted adviser, was working even before the inauguration to foster better relations with Russia.

Critics say it’s a matter of context and timing. They call it a giant and arrogant step over the line — perhaps even treasonous — for a private citizen to try to set up covert communications with a hostile power like Russia, particularly after U.S. intelligence agencies accused Moscow of trying to interfere in the 2016 election to help Trump.

A look at what constitutes back-channel diplomacy, some examples from history and the risks and benefits of such informal communications.

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Allegations of abuse, mismanagement shadow gains against IS

BEIRUT (AP) — As the U.S.-led coalition ratchets up operations in Syria, there are concerns that it will result in a rerun of what happened in Iraq, where $1 billion in weapons supplied to local fighters are unaccounted for.

Weapons, training and airstrikes by the coalition have aided ground forces in both Iraq and Syria, allowing Iraq’s military, Iraqi Kurdish fighters and Syrian Kurdish fighters to retake some 55,000 square miles of territory from the Islamic State extremists in the nearly three-year fight.

However, many in both countries are concerned about how the forces bolstered by the coalition will leverage their influence and arms once the militants are vanquished. Numerous Iraqi groups who benefited from the training and arms have been accused of human rights violations.

The Trump administration’s decision to provide Syria’s Kurds with more advanced weapons has raised concerns among the various players in Syria’s complicated battlefield. U.S. officials have said new weapons to be supplied would include heavy machine guns, ammunition, mortars and possibly TOW anti-tank missiles.

Coalition spokesman Col. John Dorrian said the weapons will not be reclaimed after the specific missions are completed but the U.S. will “carefully monitor” where and how they are used.

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It’s primetime at Amazon.com … shares hit $1,000

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon, the internet goliath that revolutionized the way much of the world buys books, toilet paper and TVs, hit a new milestone Tuesday. Its stock surpassed the $1,000 mark for the first time.

That price put Amazon’s market value at about $478 billion, double that of the world’s biggest traditional retailer, Wal-Mart, and more than 15 times the size of Target. A $1,000 investment on Amazon’s first day of trading in 1997 would be worth more than $500,000 today.

Not only has Amazon changed the retail landscape since it became a public company 20 years ago, it’s now part of a small cadre of high-flying stocks belonging to companies that have defied Wall Street and shunned stock splits.

Those splits make the stock more affordable and generate brokerage fees. But companies like Amazon have chosen to reward its long-term investors.

The last time Amazon has split its stock was nearly 18 years ago, according to financial research firm FactSet.

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3 Mile Island owner threatens to close ill-fated plant

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Cheap natural gas could do what the worst commercial nuclear power accident in U.S. history could not: put Three Mile Island out of business.

Three Mile Island’s owner, Exelon Corp., announced Tuesday the plant that was the site of a terrifying partial meltdown in 1979 will close in 2019 unless the state of Pennsylvania comes to its financial rescue.

Nuclear power plants around the U.S. have been struggling in recent years to compete with generating stations that burn plentiful and inexpensive natural gas to produce electricity.

The Chicago-based energy company’s announcement came after what it called more than five years of losses at the single-reactor plant and Three Mile Island’s recent failure to be selected as a guaranteed supplier of power to the regional electric grid.

Exelon wants Pennsylvania to give nuclear power the kind of preferential treatment and premium payments that are extended to renewable forms of energy, such as wind and solar. It has not said how much it wants.