AP News in Brief 02-23-19

Chicago prosecutors charge R. Kelly with abusing 4 victims

CHICAGO — R. Kelly, the R&B star who has been trailed for decades by allegations that he violated underage girls and women and held some as virtual slaves, was charged Friday with aggravated sexual abuse involving four victims, including at least three between the ages of 13 and 17.

In a brief appearance before reporters, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Kim Foxx announced the 10 counts against the 52-year-old Grammy winner. She said the abuse dated back as far as 1998 and spanned more than a decade. She did not comment on the charges or take questions.

The singer, who has consistently denied any sexual misconduct, was to appear in court Saturday. A message seeking comment from Kelly’s attorney, Steve Greenberg, was not immediately returned.

His arrest sets the stage for another #MeToo-era celebrity trial. Bill Cosby went to prison last year, and former Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein is awaiting trial.

Best known for hits such as “I Believe I Can Fly,” Kelly was charged a week after Michael Avenatti, the attorney whose clients have included porn star Stormy Daniels, said he recently gave Chicago prosecutors new video evidence of the singer with an underage girl. It was not immediately clear if the charges were connected to that video, which Avenatti said includes audio in which Kelly and the girl say several times that she is 14 years old.

Trump vows veto as Democrats try to block emergency order

WASHINGTON — Democrats controlling the House have teed up a vote next week to block President Donald Trump from using a national emergency declaration to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, accelerating a showdown in Congress that could divide Republicans and lead to Trump’s first veto.

The Democrats introduced a resolution Friday to block Trump’s declaration, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House would vote on the measure Tuesday. It is sure to pass, and the GOP-run Senate may adopt it as well. Trump quickly promised a veto.

“Will I veto it? 100 percent,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Any Trump veto would likely be sustained, but the upcoming battle will test Republican support for the president’s move, which even some of his allies view as a stretch — and a slap at lawmakers’ control over the power of the federal purse.

Venezuela opposition leader Guaido appears at aid concert

CUCUTA, Colombia — Defying orders banning him from leaving the country, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan made a surprise appearance at a star-studded aid concert in neighboring Colombia, joining thousands of other Venezuelans in pressuring President Nicolas Maduro into allowing the delivery of emergency food and medicine.

On the Venezuelan side, a much smaller crowd gathered for a rival, three-day “Hands Off Venezuela” festival being organized by Maduro. Even as several million Venezuelans flee the country and those who remain struggle to find basic goods like food and antibiotics, the embattled president claims the relief effort led by Guaido is a U.S. orchestrated ploy to oust him from power.

The optimistic mood at the Live Aid-style concert opened in the Colombian border city of Cucuta couldn’t mask underlying tensions a day before Maduro’s opponents embark on a risky strategy to undermine Maduro and bring in the aid being amassed along three of Venezuela’s borders. But the crowd reacted with joy when Guaido suddenly appeared.

He was greeted with shouts of: “Juan arrived! Juan arrived!”

From wire sources

Thousands of kilometers away, near a crossing with Brazil, a member of an indigenous tribe was killed and 22 more injured in clashes with security forces who enforced Maduro’s orders to keep out the aid.

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Criminal charges possible in North Carolina’s US House fight

RALEIGH, N.C. — With a new election ordered in North Carolina’s disputed congressional race, a key question remains unanswered: Who could face criminal charges after a state elections board hearing exposed evidence of ballot fraud?

Among those in potential legal trouble are the central figure in the scandal, political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless, and some of those working for him. According to testimony heard by the board, they illegally gathered up voters’ absentee ballots and, in some cases, filled in votes and forged signatures.

The Republican candidate for whom Dowless was working, Mark Harris, has denied knowledge of any illegal practices by those working for his campaign. But he, too, could come under legal scrutiny.

Harris led Democrat Dan McCready by just 905 votes out of about 280,000 cast last fall in the district along the southern edge of the state. But the state refused to certify the outcome because of suspicions Dowless tampered with mail-in absentee ballots in rural Bladen County. Under state law, only voters and their close relatives can handle completed ballots, a measure intended to guard against tampering.

On Thursday, the five-member elections board unanimously ordered a do-over election after Harris abruptly reversed course and called for a new one. No date has been set.

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Trump sets up abortion obstacles, barring clinic referrals

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday set up new obstacles for women seeking abortions, barring taxpayer-funded family planning clinics from making abortion referrals. The new policy is certain to be challenged in court.

The final rule released Friday by the Health and Human Services Department also would prohibit federally funded family planning clinics from being housed in the same locations as abortion providers, and require stricter financial separation. Clinic staff would still be permitted to discuss abortion with clients.

The move was decried by women’s groups and praised by religious conservatives, but it could be some time before women served by the federal family program feel the full impact.

Women’s groups, organizations representing the clinics, and Democratic-led states are expected to sue to block the policy from going into effect. Administration officials told abortion opponents on a call Friday that they expect legal action, according to a participant.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman.

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Social media provides fuel for Jussie Smollett story

CHICAGO — The story Jussie Smollett told police had it all: racism, homophobia, politics, celebrity — all tied up with a hangman’s noose. There was no question the news coverage was going to be massive.

In many ways, that coverage is an object lesson in the foibles of modern reporting. The story showed where news outlets teeter on the line between driving social media and being driven by it, between healthy skepticism and cautious credulity.

“We have the combination of social media and a polarized country converging here,” said Charles Whitaker, interim dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Everyone is seeing events “from their political lens. No one is really good at distancing themselves.”

The story began as an account of a hate crime that went viral instantly.

A star of the hit Fox television show “Empire,” Smollett reported that he had been attacked around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29 on his way home from a sandwich shop. Smollett — who, like his character, is black and gay — said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and placed a rope around his neck.

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Virginia Republicans invite Fairfax’s accusers to testify

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia House Republicans announced plans Friday to hold a public hearing where Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and the two women who have recently accused him of sexual assault can testify, a move that will likely inflame a partisan battle over the General Assembly’s role in investigating the allegations.

Republican Del. Rob Bell said the House Courts of Justice Committee will invite Vanessa Tyson, Meredith Watson and Fairfax to a hearing at an unspecified future date.

“This will give all parties a chance to be heard,” Bell said in brief remarks on the House floor.

He added that Republicans believe they have a duty to investigate the allegations made against the lieutenant governor.

Democratic House members have said they don’t believe the General Assembly is the best place to investigate the allegations at this time and said they don’t want to impede possible criminal investigations.

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A bumpy road to the Oscars could end in triumph for Netflix

LOS ANGELES — The most tumultuous Oscar season in memory might pale in comparison to the aftermath.

The best picture race to Sunday’s 91st Academy Awards remains unpredictable, but odds makers peg Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” as the film most likely to triumph at the end of the night. That would hand Netflix, the insurgent streaming service, the most prestigious honor in a movie business it has thoroughly disrupted.

Change is everywhere at this year’s Academy Awards, from the nominees to the show, itself. For the second time in 30 years, there will be no host at Sunday’s show, which begins airing live on ABC at 8 p.m. EST. The lead-up to the Oscars has been dominated by dispute over the academy’s own attempts at innovation to counter last year’s record-low ratings. But after uproar from academy members, those plans — not showing some awards live, introducing a “best popular film” category — were abandoned.

Even if the Oscars end up proceeding more conventionally, the winners promise to be untraditional. Marvel stands to win its first Oscar for either “Black Panther” (up for six Oscars including best picture) or the animated favorite, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse.” Spike Lee, aiming for his first competitive Oscar, could become the first black filmmaker to win best director.

“Roma,” which comes in with a co-leading 10 nominations, is favored to win best picture, best director, best cinematography and best foreign language film. If “Roma” won best picture, it would be the first foreign language movie ever to do so.