AP News in Brief 12-01-17

GOP tax bill gains support; Senate leaders work on holdouts

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders wrangled with the last few GOP holdouts Thursday as they pushed toward passing the first major rewrite of the nation’s tax code in more than three decades, a package that would impact rich and the poor as well as businesses big and small.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he expected a final vote late Thursday or early Friday on a $1.4 trillion package that would slash the corporate tax rate, offer more modest cuts for families and individuals and eliminate several popular deductions.

Lawmakers would then try to reconcile the Senate package with one passed by the House in the hope of delivering a major legislative accomplishment to President Donald Trump by Christmas. Republicans have cast passage of a tax overhaul as a political imperative to ensure they hold their House and Senate majorities in next year’s midterm elections.

“We’re heading down the homestretch,” McConnell told reporters on Thursday.

The package would add $1 trillion to the budget deficit over the next decade, much less than previously projected, according to a congressional analysis released Thursday.

Jim Nabors, TV’s homespun Gomer Pyle, dies at 87

HONOLULU — Jim Nabors, the Alabama-born comic actor who starred as TV’s dim but good-hearted Southern rube Gomer Pyle and constantly surprised audiences with his twang-free operatic singing voice, died Thursday. He was 87.

Nabors, who underwent a liver transplant in 1994 after contracting hepatitis B, died peacefully at his home in Hawaii after his health had declined for the past year, said his husband, Stan Cadwallader, who was by his side.

“Everybody knows he was a wonderful man. And that’s all we can say about him. He’s going to be dearly missed,” Cadwallader said.

The couple married in early 2013 in Washington state, where gay marriage had recently been made legal. Nabors’ friends had known for years that he was gay, but he had never said anything to the media.

“It’s pretty obvious that we had no rights as a couple, yet when you’ve been together 38 years, I think something’s got to happen there, you’ve got to solidify something,” Nabors told Hawaii News Now at the time. “And at my age, it’s probably the best thing to do.”

Trump weighs plan to oust Tillerson, put CIA’s boss at State

WASHINGTON — After months of clashes on policy and personality, President Donald Trump is considering ousting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replacing him with hard-nosed CIA Director Mike Pompeo following less than a year on the job, senior U.S. officials said Thursday as turmoil within Trump’s national security team burst into the open.

The White House plan, which Trump has not yet signed off on, would force a major realignment early in his term, also creating a vacancy atop the CIA that officials said could be filled by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. The overhaul could produce a significant shift in both the tone and direction of the president’s foreign policy, removing it from the understated former oil man whose style has never fit well with Trump’s.

It is exceedingly rare for a secretary of state, America’s face on the global stage, to be fired or to serve for a year or less. Nor is it common for presidents to have such a significant Cabinet revamp so soon after taking office. Too much churn could fuel the perception of chaos in the Trump White House — perhaps one reason he has yet to pull the trigger.

Tillerson’s likely ouster loomed awkwardly over an Oval Office meeting Thursday between Trump and the visiting Bahraini crown prince. Asked by a reporter whether he wanted Tillerson to stay on the job, Trump was coy, merely pointing out that Tillerson was in fact in the building.

“He’s here. Rex is here,” the president said.

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Midler to Rivera: Apologize for alleged sexual assault

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bette Midler renewed an allegation of 1970s sexual misconduct against Geraldo Rivera on Thursday, a day after Rivera called the news business “flirty” amid Matt Lauer’s dismissal by NBC.

In the tweet posted by the actress-singer and confirmed by her publicist, she included a video from the 1991 interview with Barbara Walters in which Midler made the allegation against Rivera.

“Tomorrow is my birthday. I feel like this video was a gift from the universe to me. Geraldo may have apologized for his tweets supporting Matt Lauer, but he has yet to apologize for this,” Midler posted, adding the harassment-solidarity hashtag “#MeToo.”

A representative for Rivera didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Fox News Channel, which currently employs Rivera but didn’t in the ’70s, didn’t immediately comment on Midler’s post.

In the clip, Midler hesitates in recounting what she alleges happened with Rivera during his visit to interview her in the early 1970s, saying it will get her in trouble. “Get in a little trouble,” Walters encourages her.

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As sex allegations roil Congress, Senate opens Franken probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — As allegations of sexual misconduct against powerful lawmakers roil Congress, a Senate ethics panel is opening a preliminary inquiry into Minnesota Sen. Al Franken.

Five women in the last two weeks have accused the Democrat of misconduct in years past. On Thursday, a woman told CNN that Franken cupped her right breast when she stood next to him for a photo in December 2003.

Senators on the bipartisan ethics panel say in a statement that they are aware of the allegations and are opening the inquiry into Franken’s alleged misconduct.

Franken has apologized and said he welcomes an ethics investigation.

Before the ethics committee announcement, his spokesman released a statement saying that Franken “has never intentionally engaged in this kind of conduct.”

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Failing to address harassment allegations can cost employers

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — When it comes to sexual harassment allegations, no employer wants to find itself in the position an Indiana university was in during the 1990s, when a woman complained to a senior administrator that the school’s chancellor had groped her.

“Oh, no, not again,” said the administrator at Indiana University’s South Bend campus.

A jury awarded the woman $800,000.

Although a judge later slashed that to $50,000, the message was clear: Failing to address allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace can have expensive legal consequences for employers.

“You don’t have to fire people necessarily, but doing nothing is usually not helpful,” said Camille Hebert, an employment discrimination professor at the Ohio State law school.

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Lauer apologizes, NBC looks to move on but questions linger

NEW YORK (AP) — Even as Matt Lauer apologized for sexual misconduct and NBC prepared for life without him at the “Today” show Thursday, questions lingered about who knew about his behavior and whether women at the network could have been protected.

Lauer was fired late Tuesday after an NBC employee detailed what NBC News chief Andrew Lack described as Lauer’s “inappropriate sexual behavior” that began at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Two other women came forward Wednesday with complaints, with one telling The New York Times that Lauer had sexually assaulted her in his office in 2001. A Variety magazine investigation outlined a pattern of alleged salacious behavior, including three women who said Lauer harassed them.

Lauer’s first public response to his firing was read by his former co-host, Savannah Guthrie, on “Today” Thursday.

“I regret that my shame is now shared by the people I cherish dearly,” Lauer said in the statement. “Repairing the damage will take a lot of time and soul searching and I’m committed to beginning that effort. It is now my full-time job.”

Lack said Monday’s complaint was the first one management had received about Lauer. In private meetings with NBC staff, he and top deputy Noah Oppenheim — former executive producer at “Today” — stressed they were unaware of the activity. According to Variety, several women said they complained to NBC executives about Lauer’s behavior, but their concerns “fell on deaf ears” because the show — which consistently ranks 2nd among the morning lineups — is so important to the network financially. The women spoke to the magazine under condition of anonymity.

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Garrison Keillor firing prompts backlash from his fans

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Outraged Garrison Keillor fans deluged Minnesota Public Radio Thursday with complaints about the firing of the humorist over alleged workplace misconduct.

Some say they will no longer support MPR, one of the nation’s largest public radio operations, which depends heavily on financial contributions.

MPR said Wednesday it was cutting ties with Keillor, creator and former host of the popular public radio show “A Prairie Home Companion,” over an allegation of workplace misconduct. The network did not give details, but Keillor told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he had put his hand on a woman’s bare back while trying to console her.

Minnesota Public Radio News said that dozens of people planned to cancel their MPR memberships in response to the Keillor firing.

Bridget George of Anoka says she wants a fuller explanation from the network. She said Keillor spoke at a fundraiser at her church last year and is a “kind, caring, compassionate person.”

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Possible deal for Flynn? Washington reading tea leaves

WASHINGTON (AP) — The few public signs emanating from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation increasingly raise the prospect that former national security adviser Michael Flynn is looking to cut a deal.

But many questions remain about what charges, if any, Flynn would face and whether Mueller’s prosecutors are focused on his private business dealings and truthfulness with federal agents, or if they’re looking for a bigger fish like the president himself or those who remain in his inner circle.

A plea would certainly be a Washington bombshell, putting a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and close friend of the president in a criminal courtroom and planting the sprawling investigation led by the no-nonsense former FBI director squarely in the White House.

In recent days, White House lawyers have downplayed the significance of Flynn’s legal troubles for the president, drawing a clear line between Flynn’s personal baggage and his work on the Trump campaign and the administration.

The extreme secrecy of Mueller’s investigation — including the ability to keep the lid on the arrest of a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser for months — has left even those who regularly interact with his prosecutors reading tea leaves. And it’s made sorting out the significance of recent events surrounding Flynn an amorphous — and at times partisan — exercise.

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