Tens of thousands join gay pride parades around the world
MEXICO CITY — Tens of thousands of people turned out for gay pride celebrations around the world on Saturday, including a boisterous party in Mexico and the first pride march in North Macedonia’s capital.
Rainbow flags and umbrellas swayed and music pounded as the march along Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma avenue got underway, with couples, families and activists seeking to raise visibility for sexual diversity in the country.
Same-sex civil unions have been legal in Mexico City since 2007, and gay marriage since 2009. A handful of Mexican states have also legalized same-sex unions, which are supposed to be recognized nationwide. But pride participants said Mexico has a long way to go in becoming a more tolerant and accepting place for LGBTQ individuals.
“There’s a lot of machismo, a lot of ignorance still,” said Monica Nochebuena, who identifies as bisexual.
Migrant aid ship rams Italian police boat; captain arrested
LAMPEDUSA, Sicily — The German captain of a humanitarian rescue ship with 40 migrants aboard has been arrested after she rammed her vessel into an Italian border police motorboat while docking at a tiny Mediterranean island Saturday in defiance of Italy’s anti-migrant interior minister.
Jeering onlookers shouted “handcuffs, handcuffs” as Carola Rackete, the 31-year-old captain, was escorted off the boat at Lampedusa, which is closer to north Africa than to the Italian mainland.
The migrants, meanwhile, hugged personnel of the German Sea-Watch charity who helped them during their 17 days at sea. Some kissed the ground after disembarking from Sea-Watch 3 at dawn’s break.
The migrants had been rescued from an unseaworthy vessel launched by Libya-based human traffickers but Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had refused to let them disembark on Lampedusa until other European Union countries agreed to take them. Five nations so pledged to do on Friday: Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal.
Trump says Kim wants to meet him at Korean DMZ border
SEOUL, South Korea — President Donald Trump said Sunday he believes North Korea’s Kim Jong Un wants to meet for a handshake at the Demilitarized Zone separating the North and South, a day after issuing the unprecedented invitation and expressing willingness to cross the border for what would be a history-making photo op.
Speaking during a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump said, “Chairman Kim wants to do it, I’d like to do it.” He told Korean business leaders earlier that any meeting with Kim would be “very short,” he said. “Virtually a handshake, but that’s OK. A handshake means a lot.”
Officials were working out the details, Trump said alongside Moon. “It’s very complicated from the standpoint of logistics and security.”
The invitation, while long rumored in diplomatic circles, still came across as an impulsive display of showmanship by a president bent on obtaining a legacy-defining nuclear deal. North Korea responded by calling the offer a “very interesting suggestion.”
From wire sources
Presidential visits to the DMZ are traditionally carefully guarded secrets for security reasons. White House officials couldn’t immediately say whether Kim had agreed to meet with Trump. The president himself claimed before flying from Japan to South Korea that he wasn’t even sure Kim was in North Korea to accept the invitation.
Oregon Republican senators end walkout over carbon bill
SALEM, Ore. — Republican lawmakers returned to the Oregon Senate on Saturday, ending an acrimonious nine-day walkout over a carbon emissions bill that would have been the second such legislation in the nation.
The boycott had escalated when the Democratic governor ordered the state police to find and return the rogue Republicans to the Senate so the chamber could convene, and a counter-threat by one GOP senator to violently resist any such attempt. Senate Republicans fled the state to avoid being forcibly returned by the Oregon State Police, whose jurisdiction ends at the state line.
Democrats have an 18 to 12 majority in the Senate but need at least 20 members — and therefore at least two Republicans — present to vote on legislation.
Nine minority Republicans returned to the Senate on Saturday after Senate President Peter Courtney said the majority Democrats lacked the necessary 16 votes to pass the legislation, a statewide cap on carbon that allows companies to trade pollution credits. Shortly after convening, senators quickly voted 17-10 to send the climate proposal back to committee, essentially killing it for the session.
Sen. Sara Gelser, a Democrat from the college town of Corvallis, said the demise of the cap-and-trade bill has deeply upset many constituents.
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Roberts’ Supreme Court defies easy political labels
WASHINGTON — Just hours after Chief Justice John Roberts handed Republicans a huge victory that protects even the most extreme partisan electoral districts from federal court challenge, critics blasted him as worthy of being impeached, a politician who should run for office and a traitor.
But the attacks came from President Donald Trump’s allies and their anger was directed not at the Supreme Court’s partisan gerrymandering ruling, but at the day’s other big decision to keep a citizenship question off the 2020 census, at least for now. Trump tweeted from Japan that the census citizenship decision was “ridiculous.”
What good is a high court conservative majority fortified by two Trump appointees, the critics seemed to be saying, if Roberts is not prepared to use it?
That’s not how Roberts would characterize the court he now leads in name and as the justice closest to the center of a group otherwise divided between conservatives and liberals. He has talked repeatedly about the need to counter perceptions that the justices are just politicians in black robes, beholden to the president who appointed them.
The flurry of action came at the end of a Supreme Court term in which the court welcomed a new justice, Brett Kavanaugh, who narrowly survived the most tumultuous confirmation hearings in nearly 30 years. The justices now begin a three-month summer recess.
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Hiker missing for a week in California mountains found alive
LA CRESCENTA, Calif. — A hiker who was missing in the mountains north of Los Angeles for a week was found Saturday and has apparently survived in the wilderness by drinking water from a creek, authorities said.
A helicopter crew found Eugene Jo, 73, in a canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains and hoisted him to safety, Sgt. Greg Taylor with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department said.
The crew flew him to a hospital to be examined.
The Montrose Search and Rescue team tweeted that Jo was “walking and speaking” despite not having had eaten in at least five days. He survived by drinking water from a creek. Temperatures have been mild in the mountains.
Jo was hiking with a group to the 8,000-foot (2,438-meter) summit of Mount Waterman on June 22 when he became separated from them.
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Trump administration agrees to delay health care rule
SAN FRANCISCO — The Trump administration has agreed to postpone implementing a rule allowing medical workers to decline performing abortions or other treatments on moral or religious grounds while the so-called “conscience” rule is challenged in a California court.
The rule was supposed to take effect on July 22 but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its opponents in a California lawsuit mutually agreed Friday to delay a final ruling on the matter until Nov. 22.
The agency called it the “most efficient way to adjudicate” the rule.
A federal judge in San Francisco permitted the change on Saturday.
A California lawsuit alleges that the department exceeded its authority with the rule, which President Trump announced in May.
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Contractor says suspect in killing wanted secret room
SALT LAKE CITY — A construction contractor says the primary suspect in the killing of University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck approached him in April about building a secretive and soundproof room under a front porch.
Brian Wolf told the Desert News that the construction request from homeowner Ayoola A. Ajayi made him uneasy and included hooks mounted high on a concrete wall for reasons that didn’t make sense. Wolf turned the job down and reported the encounter to Salt Lake City police after seeing news reports Friday of Ajayi’s arrested in Lueck’s death.
Salt Lake City Police spokeswoman Christina Judd confirmed Saturday that Wolf recounted the story to detectives.
“We don’t have any reason to discount his story,” she said. “We actually really appreciate it.”
A SWAT Team arrested Ajayi on Friday. Police said he will be charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a body in the death of 23-year-old Lueck.