Impeachment trial plans in disarray as Congress heads home
WASHINGTON — Congress has headed home for the holidays leaving plans and a possible timeline for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in disarray.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Thursday that Senate Republicans must provide details on witnesses and testimony before she would send over the charges for Trump’s trial. No deal, replied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after meeting with his Senate Democratic counterpart.
“We remain at an impasse,” he said.
As darkness fell and lawmakers prepared to depart for the year, McConnell wondered from the Senate floor why in the world the Republicans should give ground to persuade House Democrats “to send us something we do not want.”
McConnell and the Democrats’ Senate leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, met for about 20 minutes in their first attempt to negotiate the contours of an agreement on running the rare Senate impeachment trial that was expected to start in January.
Reports indicate Michigan man may be baby abducted in 1964
CHICAGO — When a woman posing as a maternity-ward nurse snatched a newborn from its mother’s arms more than 55 years ago, the case made headlines nationwide and led to a massive search by FBI agents and police.
The mystery seemed solved two years later, when police found an abandoned child who appeared to be the missing boy and returned him to the parents, who raised him as their own. But 47 years after he came home, DNA tests showed that he was not related.
Now recent media reports say a man living in rural Michigan may be the child of Chester and Dora Fronczak who was abducted on April 26, 1964, from a Chicago hospital.
An FBI statement issued this week confirmed that the investigation remains open and agents continue to pursue leads. But the statement stopped short of confirming the reports — first by Las Vegas television station KLAS and then by Chicago’s WGN-TV.
The stations did not name the man or say where he lived in Michigan. And they did not elaborate about how he was identified as the kidnapped child, including whether DNA testing played a role.
In Nome, Alaska, review of rape ‘cold cases’ hits a wall
NOME, Alaska — The two cops — the cold case detective from Virginia and the evidence technician from Alaska — had a mission. Sift through more than a decade of grim stories from this small city set between the Bering Strait and Alaska’s western tundra.
Nome’s new police chief, another Virginia transplant, asked the two to untangle whether the city’s police department had failed hundreds of people — most of them Alaska Native women — who had reported they’d been sexually assaulted.
So they spent weeks inside the police station on the edge of town, squinting at computer screens and stacks of paper. What they found horrified them.
Again and again, the files showed, officers had failed to investigate rapes and other sexual crimes. In some cases, the two cops say, officers had never questioned the suspect.
In other cases, they say, dispatchers had taken distraught calls from women saying they’d been sexually assaulted, and no one from the department had bothered to go to talk to them.
North America trade pact deals rare setback to Big Pharma
A revamped North American trade deal nearing passage in Congress gives both the White House and Democrats a chance to claim victory and offers farmers and businesses clearer rules governing the vast flow of goods among the United States, Canada and Mexico.
But the pact leaves at least one surprising loser: the pharmaceutical industry, a near-invincible lobbying powerhouse in Washington.
To satisfy House Democrats, the Trump administration removed a provision that would have given the makers of ultra-expensive biologic drugs 10 years of protection from less expensive knockoffs. Democrats opposed what they called a giveaway to the industry that could have locked in inflated prices by stifling competition. Top examples of the injected drugs made from living cells include medications to fight cancer and immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis.
“This is one of the first times we’ve actually seen pharma lose,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who leads a subcommittee on trade.
From wire sources
“They have a remarkable track record because they are a huge political force. They spend lots of money on lobbying, on advertising, on campaign contributions. But we held firm, and we won on all counts.”
The removal of the provision also helped illustrate just how potent a political issue sky-high drug prices have become. It was a reminder, too, that President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged to work to lower drug prices.
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Canada court allows son of Russian spies to keep citizenship
TORONTO — Canada’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that he son of a Russian spy couple who lived clandestine lives in Canada and the United States can keep his Canadian citizenship.
Alexander Vavilov was born in Toronto, which would typically qualify him for Canadian citizenship. But authorities had ruled that Vavilov didn’t qualify because his parents were part of a notorious Russian spy ring in North America that was broken up by the FBI in 2010.
The high court rejected that finding, meaning Vavilov can reside permanently in the country where his parents once lived clandestine lives as deeply embedded spies who were the models for the TV show “The Americans.”
“With this victory comes the bitter realization of all the suffering I have had to endure to see my status as an ordinary Canadian restored,” Vavilov said in a statement through his lawyer. “For the better part of a decade I was forced into exile from Canada. I was forced onto the public stage unwillingly and deprived of my ability to pursue a normal life.”
“Having my citizenship finally respected brings me great joy,” he added. “I hope my long and litigious fight through the courts will at least bring some certainty and inspiration to other Canadians that may be defending their rights like I have had to.”
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Woman offers $7K reward, hires plane in search of stolen dog
SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco woman is offering a $7,000 reward and has hired a plane to fly over the city to search for her blue-eyed miniature Australian Shepherd stolen from outside a grocery store last weekend.
The plane, which cost an additional $1,200 will flying a banner with the website she set up to find her her dog, Jackson, which was stolen Saturday outside a grocery store in the Bernal Heights neighborhood.
Emilie Talermo said Thursday she has been doing everything she can to find her 5-year-old dog.
“I am just one person and I really need help getting the word out there,” Talermo said.
Surveillance video from the grocery store shows a man in a hoodie approaching the bench where Jackson was tied up.