AP News in Brief 08-19-19

US talks secretly to Venezuela socialist boss

BOGOTA, Colombia — The U.S. has opened up secret communications with Venezuela’s socialist party boss as members of President Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle seek guarantees they won’t face retribution if they cede to growing demands to remove him, a senior U.S. administration official has told The Associated Press.

Diosdado Cabello, who is considered the most-powerful man in Venezuela after Maduro, met last month in Caracas with someone who is in close contact with the Trump administration, said the official. A second meeting is in the works but has not yet taken place.

The AP is withholding the intermediary’s name and details of the encounter with Cabello out of concern the person could suffer reprisals. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the talks, which are still preliminary. It’s not clear whether the talks have Maduro’s approval or not.

Cabello, 56, is a major power broker inside Venezuela, who has seen his influence in the government and security forces expand as Maduro’s grip on power has weakened. But he’s also been accused by U.S. officials of being behind massive corruption, drug trafficking and even death threats against a sitting U.S. senator.

The administration official said that under no circumstances is the U.S. looking to prop up Cabello or pave the way for him to substitute Maduro.

Islamic State claims bombing at Kabul wedding that killed 63

KABUL, Afghanistan — The suicide bomber stood in the middle of the dancing, clapping crowd as hundreds of Afghan children and adults celebrated a wedding in a joyous release from Kabul’s strain of war. Then, in a flash, he detonated his explosives-filled vest, killing dozens — and Afghanistan grieved again.

The local Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack in the capital this year, with 63 killed and 182 wounded, while outraged Afghans questioned just how safe they will be under an approaching deal between the United States and the Taliban to end America’s longest war.

Stunned families buried the dead, some digging with their bare hands. One wounded survivor, Mohammad Aslim, still wore his bloodied clothes the day after the blast late Saturday. He and his friends had already buried 16 bodies, among them several close relatives, including a 7-year-old boy.

Aslim looked exhausted, and said he was waiting to bury more. Nearby, a man named Amanullah, who lost his 14-year-old son, said in anguish that the explosion had mangled the boy’s face so badly he could no longer recognize it.

“I wish I could find the pieces of my son’s body and put them as one piece into the grave,” he cried.

Iranian tanker sought by US heads to unknown destination

GIBRALTAR — An Iranian supertanker hauling $130 million worth of light crude oil that the U.S. suspects to be tied to a sanctioned organization lifted its anchor and begun moving away from Gibraltar late on Sunday.

The trail left by GPS data on Marinetraffic.com, a vessel tracking service, showed the Iran-flagged Adrian Darya 1, previously known as Grace 1, moving shortly before midnight. The tanker slowly went south before steering eastwards toward a narrow stretch of international waters separating Morocco and the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

Iran’s ambassador to Britain, Hamid Baeidinejad, confirmed in a post on Twitter that the oil tanker was headed to international waters. Questions to the embassy about where it was going were not immediately returned.

The vessel had been detained for a month in the British overseas territory for allegedly attempting to breach European Union sanctions on Syria. Gibraltar authorities rejected an eleventh-hour attempt by the United States’ to reseize the oil tanker on Sunday, arguing that EU regulations are less strict than U.S. sanctions on Iran.

The tanker’s release comes amid a growing confrontation between Iran and the West after President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers over a year ago.

Epstein’s purported madam now a focus in sex abuse cases

MIAMI — She’s been called Jeffrey Epstein’s madam, the woman who recruited girls for his sexual appetites, and at times his social planner and household organizer in places ranging from New York to Palm Beach, Florida.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of a British publishing magnate who died under mysterious circumstances, is one of the most prominent figures left from the Epstein orbit after his suicide in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

And she could well be a co-conspirator now in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors, who have made clear the case is far from over.

“If I were drafting an indictment against her, it would be the same conspiracy to traffic in underage minors,” said David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami. “That’s what it is. That’s what the conspiracy would be.”

An attorney for Maxwell did not respond Friday to a request for comment.

From wire sources

Wildlife roam where US once made nuclear and chemical arms

DENVER — From a tiny Pacific island to a leafy Indiana forest, a handful of sites where the United States manufactured and tested some of the most lethal weapons known to humankind are now peaceful havens for wildlife.

An astonishing array of animals and habitats flourished on six obsolete weapons complexes — mostly for nuclear or chemical arms — because the sites banned the public and other intrusions for decades.

The government converted them into refuges under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service management, and they now protect black bears and black-footed ferrets, coral reefs and brushy steppes, rare birds and imperiled salmon.

But the cost of the conversions is staggering, and some critics say the sites have not been scrubbed well enough of pollutants to make them safe for humans.

The military, the U.S. Department of Energy and private companies have spent more than $57 billion to clean up the six heavily polluted sites, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press from military and civil agencies.

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Trump dismisses worries of recession, says economy is strong

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. — President Donald Trump dismissed concerns of recession on Sunday and offered an optimistic outlook for the economy after last week’s steep drop in the financial markets.

“I don’t think we’re having a recession,” Trump told reporters as he returned to Washington from his New Jersey golf club. “We’re doing tremendously well. Our consumers are rich. I gave a tremendous tax cut and they’re loaded up with money.”

A strong economy is key to Trump’s re-election prospects. Consumer confidence has dropped 6.4% since July. The president has spent most of the week at his golf club in New Jersey with much of his tweeting focused on talking up the economy.

Aides sought to reinforce that message during a series of appearances on the Sunday talk shows.

Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, dismissed fears of a looming recession and predicted the economy will perform well in the second half of 2019. He said that consumers are seeing higher wages and are able to spend and save more.

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Trade war’s losers could include microchips, energy, banks

NEW YORK — Looking across the stock market, it’s hard to find a company that isn’t vulnerable in some degree to the U.S.-China trade war.

Stocks of companies that do lots of business with China, such as chipmakers and other technology companies, are obvious candidates for investors to sell when trade worries rise. They have fallen more than the rest of the market whenever President Donald Trump sends out a tweet or speaks about tariffs.

But investors are also looking beyond these first-order effects as they pick out which stocks look susceptible to the trade war. Those picks now include many companies that have no significant ties to China but are still at risk.

That’s why all but 2% of the stocks in the S&P 500 fell on Aug. 5, when worries ratcheted higher after China let its currency devalue to its lowest level in a decade.

The damage has been widespread since Trump shocked investors on Aug. 1 by saying he planned soon to extend tariffs across virtually all Chinese imports.

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Funeral for lost ice: Iceland bids farewell to glacier

OKJOKULL GLACIER, Iceland — It was a funeral for ice.

With poetry, moments of silence and political speeches about the urgent need to fight climate change, Icelandic officials, activists and others bade goodbye to what once was a glacier.

Icelandic geologist Oddur Sigurðsson pronounced the Okjokull glacier extinct about a decade ago. But on Sunday he brought a death certificate to the made-for-media memorial.

After about 100 people made a two-hour hike up a volcano, children installed a memorial plaque to the glacier, now called just “Ok,” minus the Icelandic word for glacier.

The glacier used to stretch six square miles (15 square kilometers), Sigurdsson said. Residents reminisced about drinking pure water thousands of years old from Ok.