In Brief: Nation & World: 6-27-17
Trump travel ban partly reinstated; fall court arguments set
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to forge ahead with a limited version of his ban on travel from six mostly Muslim countries to the U.S. Trump hailed the decision as a “victory for national security,” but it’s likely to set off a new round of court disputes over anti-terror efforts and religious discrimination.
The justices will hear full arguments in October in the case that has stirred heated emotions across the nation and pointed rebukes from lower courts saying the administration is targeting Muslims. Until then, the court said Monday, Trump’s ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can be enforced if those visitors lack a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
The ruling sets up a potential clash between the government and opponents of the ban over the strength of visitors’ ties to the United States. A senior official said plans already had been written to enforce the ban aggressively. But immigrant groups said relatively few people try to enter the United States without well-established ties. Those groups said they will be sending lawyers and monitors back to American airports, where the initial, immediate implementation of the ban in January caused chaos and confusion.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the ban would be implemented starting 72 hours after being cleared by courts. That means it will take effect Thursday morning.
The president has denied that the ban targets Muslims but says it is needed “to protect the nation from terrorist activities” committed by citizens of the six countries. All six have been designated as presenting heightened concerns about terrorism and travel to the United States.
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Q&A: Murkiness follows Supreme Court’s action on travel ban
SEATTLE (AP) — On again, off again, off again, off again and now, partly back on: That’s the peculiar route of President Donald Trump’s travel ban after a Supreme Court decision Monday allowing a limited version to take effect.
The high court said the president’s 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can be enforced pending arguments scheduled for October as long as those visitors lack a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
But much remains murky: What exactly is a bona fide relationship? Who gets to decide? Will the travel ban even still be an issue by the time the justices hear arguments?
Here’s a look at some key issues surrounding Trump’s executive order:
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Budget office: Senate health bill adds 22 million uninsured
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Republican health care bill would leave 22 million more Americans uninsured in 2026 than under President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Monday, complicating GOP leaders’ hopes of pushing the plan through the chamber this week.
Minutes after the report’s release, three GOP senators threatened to oppose a pivotal vote on the proposal this week, enough to sink it unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., can win over some of them or other GOP critics. The bill will fail if just three of the 52 Republican senators oppose it, an event that would deal a humiliating blow to President Donald Trump and Senate leaders.
The 22 million additional people without coverage is just a hair better than the 23 million who’d be left without insurance under the measure the House approved last month, the budget office has estimated. Trump has called the House version approved last month “mean” and told Senate Republicans to approve legislation with more “heart.”
In good news for the GOP, the budget office said the Senate bill would cut the deficit by $202 billion more over the coming decade than the House version. Senate leaders could use some of those savings to attract moderate support by making Medicaid and other provisions in their measure more generous, though conservatives would prefer using that money to reduce federal deficits.
The White House lambasted the nonpartisan budget office in a statement, saying it has a “history of inaccuracy” projecting coverage. Democrats said the report confirmed their own analysis of the GOP measure.
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Trump and Modi exchange hugs, herald stronger US-India ties
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hugging outside the White House Monday, President Donald Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi heralded an increasingly close strategic partnership as the U.S. branded a top militant from neighboring Pakistan as a “global terrorist.”
Trump declared he was “true friend” of India and said relations between the two largest democracies have never been better. But there were some tensions in the inaugural meeting between the two populist leaders. On trade, Trump demanded fewer barriers for American companies exporting to India.
Speaking in the Rose Garden after their talks, Trump said: “Both our nations have been struck by the evils of terrorism, and we are both determined to destroy terrorist organizations and the radical ideology that drives them. We will destroy radical Islamic terrorism.”
Modi, a Hindu nationalist but also leader of a nation with nearly 175 million Muslims, did not use the same, charged terminology. He stressed the importance of “doing away” with terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens, apparently reflecting Indian concerns about militants based in Pakistan, India’s historical archrival. He said the U.S. and India will enhance intelligence-sharing.
Hours before Modi’s arrival, the State Department imposed sanctions on Syed Salahuddin, the Pakistan-based leader of Hizbul Mujahideen, the main rebel group that fights against Indian control in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir. India’s foreign ministry hailed the move.
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‘Like bombs’: Bankrupt company’s air bags still out there
Takata’s lethally defective air bags proved to be the company’s undoing Monday. But it could take years to get the dangerous devices off the road in the U.S. and around the world.
Crushed by lawsuits, fines and recall costs, the Japanese auto parts supplier filed for bankruptcy in Tokyo and Delaware and will sell most of its assets for $1.6 billion to a rival company. A small part of Takata will continue to manufacture replacements for the faulty air bag inflators.
The problem, though, is that 100 million of the Takata inflators worldwide have been recalled, 69 million in the U.S. alone in the biggest automotive recall in American history. It will take the industry years to produce that many replacements.
In the meantime, millions of car owners are forced to nervously wait for someone to fix a problem blamed for at least 16 grisly deaths worldwide, 11 of them in the United States. Many owners have been put on waiting lists by their dealers until the parts arrive.
“The big problem is the air bags are still out there. They’re like bombs waiting to explode,” said Billie-Marie Morrison, the lawyer for a young Las Vegas woman grievously injured by an exploding air bag in March.
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Brazil’s crisis deepens as president accused of corruption
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s attorney general formally accused President Michel Temer of corruption on Monday, making him the first sitting president in Latin America’s largest nation to face criminal charges.
Attorney General Rodrigo Janot’s accusation is the latest salvo in an intensifying showdown between Temer and justice officials who are building a corruption case that reaches to the highest levels.
The case now goes to the lower Chamber of Deputies in Congress, which must decide whether it has merit. If two-thirds of the legislature decides that it does, then the president will be suspended for up to 180 days while a trial is conducted. House Speaker Rodrigo Maia, an ally of Temer, would be president in the interim.
In his decision, Janot said that Temer at some point between March and April of this year took a bribe of around $150,000 offered by Joesly Batista, former chairman of meat-packing giant JBS.
Janot opened an investigation last month into Temer for corruption, obstruction of justice and being part of a criminal organization. A recording emerged that apparently captured Temer, in a late-night conversation with Batista earlier this year, endorsing hush money to former House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a former Temer ally who is serving a 15-year sentence for corruption. Batista reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
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CNN accepts resignations of 3 involved in retracted story
NEW YORK (AP) — CNN accepted the resignations Monday of three journalists involved in a retracted story about a supposed investigation into a pre-inaugural meeting between an associate of President Donald Trump and the head of a Russian investment fund.
The story was posted on the network’s website on Thursday and was removed, with all links disabled, Friday night. CNN immediately apologized to Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump transition team member who was reported to be involved in the meeting.
The story’s author, Thomas Frank, was among those who resigned, according to a network executive who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss personnel issues. Also losing their jobs were Eric Lichtblau, an assistant managing editor in CNN’s Washington bureau, and Lex Harris, head of the investigations unit.
CNN, in initially taking down the story, said it didn’t meet its editorial standards. The episode is a damaging blow for a network that Trump has frequently derided as “fake news,” and for a story that never even made it onto any of CNN’s television networks.
The story had been quickly questioned both internally and externally, including by the conservative site Breitbart News. It was determined that the story was posted without going through the expected checks and balances for a story of such sensitivity, the executive said.
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London’s fire symptomatic of larger safety issues globally
LONDON (AP) — The deaths of 79 people in a London apartment tower have triggered emergency inspections, evacuations and soul searching among British officials who failed to prevent the tragedy.
But fire-safety experts say governments and builders around the world should take notice, because the fire at Grenfell Tower is just the latest in a string of deadly blazes that demonstrate how building regulations have failed to keep up with changing materials and cuts in inspections and oversight mean problems aren’t spotted until it is too late.
The Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, California, made headlines in December, when 36 people were killed in a warehouse that had been illegally converted into living spaces and a music venue. In September, 33 people died in a fire at a packaging plant in Bangladesh.
“They are a collective example of how, either intentionally or accidentally, the fire prevention and protection system has been broken,” said Jim Pauley, president of the National Fire Protection Association, which develops fire codes used in the U.S. and around the world. “A system that the public believes exists and counts on for their safety — through complacency, bad policy and placing the economics of construction over safety — has let them down.”
The aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire shows that the faults that led to the disaster are not isolated.
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Philando Castile’s family reaches $3M settlement in death
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The mother of Philando Castile, a black motorist killed by a Minnesota police officer last July, has reached a nearly $3 million settlement with the city that employed the officer, avoiding a federal wrongful death lawsuit that attorneys said could have taken years to resolve.
The settlement to be paid to Valerie Castile, who is the family’s trustee, was announced Monday and comes less than two weeks after officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of manslaughter and other charges connected to her son’s death.
Castile, a 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker, was shot five times by Yanez during a traffic stop after Castile informed the officer he was armed. Castile had a permit for his gun. The shooting gained widespread attention after Castile’s girlfriend, who was in the car with her then-4-year-old daughter, livestreamed its gruesome aftermath on Facebook.
The acquittal of Yanez, who is Latino, prompted days of protests, including one in St. Paul that shut down Interstate 94 for hours and ended with 18 arrests.
The $2.995 million settlement for Valerie Castile will be paid by the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, which holds the insurance policy for the city of St. Anthony. The plan for distribution of funds requires approval by a state court, which could take several weeks.
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No immediate ruling on fate of Texas’ ‘sanctuary cities’ law
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A federal judge Monday questioned the reach of a new Texas “sanctuary cities” law supported by the Trump administration but that four of the nation’s largest cities, some police chiefs and immigrant-rights groups are trying to stop taking effect in September.
Hundreds of protesters, waving flags and carrying signs that read “Stop Separation of Families,” packed the plaza outside a San Antonio courthouse where U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia will decide whether Texas can carry out the law that President Donald Trump’s Justice Department says is in-line with its crackdown on immigration.
A daylong court hearing about the constitutionality of the law — the first hearing since Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill known as SB4 in May — ended without Garcia ruling whether he will let Texas enforce the law. He did not set a timetable for a decision.
The law allows police officers to question people about their immigration status during routine stops and threatens police chiefs and elected officials with jail time and removal from office if they don’t comply with federal immigration requests to detain immigrants in the country illegally.
The four largest cities in Texas — San Antonio, Austin, Houston and Dallas— are suing to block the measure and their attorneys told Garcia that his ruling could determine if other states to pursue copycat measures. Lawyers for the Texas attorney general’s office responded that the new law has less teeth than Arizona’s “Show Me Your Papers” measure in 2010 that the was partially struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
