Experts on impeachment: Quid pro whoa
WASHINGTON — Alan Dershowitz delivered a stunning defense of President Donald Trump in the Senate that would essentially make it impossible to impeach a president for anything he might do to boost his reelection prospects. It was a contention quickly and forcefully denounced by a range of legal scholars and historians who said there were clear limits on presidential authority.
Dershowitz said on Thursday that his remarks have been misinterpreted, but Democrats seized on them as they pressed their case for Trump’s removal from office for tying the release of military aid to Ukraine to an investigation of his political rivals.
His starting point was the benign assertion that every politician believes his election is in the public interest, but he pivoted abruptly to Ukraine, and began to frame an argument that would rewrite most conventional understanding of the scope of presidential power.
As novel as it was, his premise in many ways tracked the views of Trump who has said he was not bound by some constitutional constraints that other presidents have readily accepted. And several Republican senators seemed to find merit in what Dershowitz said.
The person in the chamber who in other settings might have a lot to say about the matter, Chief Justice John Roberts, was instead rendered essentially a spectator as he watched the arguments play out.
Woman who says Trump raped her seeks his DNA
NEW YORK — Lawyers for a woman who accuses President Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s are asking for a DNA sample, seeking to determine whether his genetic material is on a dress she says she wore during the encounter.
Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers served notice to a Trump attorney Thursday for Trump to submit a sample on March 2 in Washington for “analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA present on the dress.”
Carroll filed a defamation suit against Trump in November after the president denied her allegation, saying he didn’t know and had never even met her. Her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, then had the black wool coat-style dress tested. A lab report with the legal notice says DNA found in skin cells on the outer surface of the sleeves was a mix of at least four people, at least one of them male.
Several other people were tested and eliminated as possible contributors to the mix, according to the lab report, which was obtained by The Associated Press. Their names are redacted, but the report indicates they were involved in a photo shoot where she wore the dress last year, the only time Carroll says she has donned the dress since the alleged assault.
“Unidentified male DNA on the dress could prove that Donald Trump not only knows who I am, but also that he violently assaulted me in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman and then defamed me by lying about it and impugning my character,” Carroll said in a statement Thursday.
Dating apps face US inquiry over underage use, sex offenders
SAN FRANCISCO — A House subcommittee is investigating popular dating services such as Tinder and Bumble for allegedly allowing minors and sex offenders to use their services.
Bumble, Grindr, The Meet Group and the Match Group, which owns such popular services as Tinder, Match.com and OkCupid, are the current targets of the investigation by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy.
In separate letters Thursday to the companies, the subcommittee is seeking information on users’ ages, procedures for verifying ages, and any complaints about assaults, rape or the use of the services by minors. It is also asking for the services’ privacy policies and details on what users see when they review and agree to the policies. It also seeks information on what data is collected on people, including sexual orientation, drug use and political views.
Although the minimum age for using internet services is typically 13 in the U.S., dating services generally require users to be at least 18 because of concerns about sexual predators.
“Our concern about the underage use of dating apps is heightened by reports that many popular free dating apps permit registered sex offenders to use them, while the paid versions of these same apps screen out registered sex offenders,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Illinois Democrat who heads the subcommittee, said in a statement.
From wire sources “Protection from sexual predators should not be a luxury confined to paying customers.”
AP PHOTOS: Irish border residents watch for Brexit fallout
BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The border was drawn in 1921, splitting communities and sometimes property, as the British government sought to create a home for the majority Protestant population of Northern Ireland at a time when the largely Catholic Republic of Ireland won its independence.
Today, that 310-mile (500-kilometer) frontier is largely invisible. The only way motorists know they have crossed into Northern Ireland is from the speed limit signs, which use miles per hour measurements, rather than the metric system used in the south. Keen observers might notice a slight change in the pavement as well.
As Brexit takes effect Friday, residents on both sides of the border are concerned about protecting the relative peace and prosperity after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. That accord helped end three decades of sectarian violence between paramilitary groups that wanted to reunify Ireland and those who insisted the six counties of Northern Ireland should remain part of the U.K.
Lisa Partridge, a 28-year-old tour operator raised in a British military family, remembers how it was “completely normal to check under the family car for a bomb every morning before you went to school.”
“Nobody would want to go back to that life,” she said.
___
US finds ally in Mexico as asylum policy marks first year
TIJUANA, Mexico — The Perla family of El Salvador has slipped into a daily rhythm in Mexico while they wait for the U.S. to decide whether to grant them asylum.
A modest home has replaced the tent they lived in at a migrant shelter. Their 7- and 5-year-old boys are in their second year of public school, and their third son is about to celebrate his second birthday in Tijuana.
They were among the first migrants sent back to Mexico under a Trump administration policy that dramatically reshaped the scene at the U.S.-Mexico border by returning migrants to Mexico to wait out their U.S. asylum process. The practice initially targeted Central Americans but has expanded to other nationalities, excluding Mexicans, who are exempt. The Homeland Security Department said Wednesday that it started making Brazilians wait in Mexico.
Today, a year after the policy began, many other migrants have given up and gone back to the home countries they fled. Others, like the Perlas, became entrenched in Mexican life. The system known as the Migrant Protection Protocols helped change Washington’s relationship with Mexico and made the neighbor a key ally in President Donald Trump’s efforts to turn away a surge of asylum seekers.
The Perlas are faring better than most of the roughly 60,000 asylum-seekers, many of whom live in fear of being robbed, assaulted, raped or killed. Human Rights First, a group critical of the policy, has documented 816 public reports of violent crimes against those who were returned to Mexico. Late last year, the body of a Salvadoran father of two was found dismembered in Tijuana. A Salvadoran woman was kidnapped into prostitution in Ciudad Juarez.
___
Ginni Rometty, 1st female CEO at IBM, to step down in April
ARMONK, N.Y. — Ginni Rometty, the first female CEO in IBM’s century-long history, is leaving the helm in April.
Rometty, 62, will remain IBM’s executive chairwoman until the end of the year. Her departure, announced Thursday, caps nearly 40 years with a technology giant famous for its conservative corporate culture. Rometty became IBM CEO eight years ago after previously overseeing sales and marketing.
As of this month, Rometty was one of 29 female CEOs leading S&P 500 companies, according to data from Catalyst, a nonprofit for women in business. That’s less than 6%.
IBM said the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion advanced under Rometty’s leadership. This includes extending parental leave and making it easier for women to return to work after taking time off to care for children.
IBM said in a statement that Rometty “reinvented more than 50% of IBM’s portfolio” during her tenure, building a $21 billion cloud business while also advancing the company’s initiatives in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain technology.
___
Jennifer Lopez and Shakira vow ‘empowering’ halftime show
MIAMI — Jennifer Lopez and Shakira said their Super Bowl halftime show will pay homage to Latino culture, promising a joint performance that has an empowering message and also one that will remember NBA icon Kobe Bryant.
Lopez and Shakira on Thursday held a press conference before Sunday’s big game in Miami, telling media they worked hard to put together an eye-popping, high-energy 12-minute performance before the San Francisco 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs at Hard Rock Stadium.
“When I was living in Barranquilla, my hometown, as a little girl no one would have thought that I would be performing at the Super Bowl,” Colombian singer Shakira said. “It would be so hard to believe. And it’s a reality today, now. I think that this is a palpable example of how anything is possible really and I think what matters is the size of dreams.”
Shakira and Lopez have separately released a number of chart-topping hits that dominated both the pop and Latin charts in the last two decades. While rehearsing days ago, Lopez said her beau Alex Rodriguez came to her in tears to let her know Bryant, a friend of his, had passed away. Lopez said Thursday she wanted to send love and support to Bryant’s wife and family.
“We have to love people when they’re here and not wait,” said Lopez “I think about Vanessa as a mom and losing her best friend and partner and losing her child, you know, how awful that must be for her right now, and I just wanted to send the message and praying God guides her through every moment because she has three more babies to take care of.”