AP News in Brief 12-19-19

Court: Part of ‘Obamacare’ invalid, more review needed

NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court on Wednesday struck down “Obamacare’s” now-toothless requirement that Americans carry health insurance but sidestepped a ruling on the law’s overall constitutionality. The decision means the law remains in effect for now.

The 2-1 ruling handed down by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans means the ultimate fate of the rest of the Affordable Care Act including such popular provisions as protections for those with pre-existing conditions, Medicaid expansion and the ability for children under the age of 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance remains unclear.

The panel agreed with Texas-based U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s 2018 finding that the law’s insurance requirement, the so-called “individual mandate,” was rendered unconstitutional when Congress, in 2017, reduced a tax on people without insurance to zero.

The court reached no decision on the big issue — how much of the Affordable Care Act must fall along with the insurance mandate.

“It may still be that none of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate, even after this inquiry is concluded. It may be that all of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate. It may also be that some of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate, and some is not,” Judge Jennifer Elrod wrote.

Chinese national arrested for illegally entering Mar-a-Lago

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Chinese national trespassed at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club Wednesday and was arrested when she refused to leave, police said, the second time this year a woman from that country has been charged with illicitly entering the Florida resort.

Jing Lu, 56, was confronted by the private club’s security officers and told to leave, but she returned to take photos, Palm Beach police spokesman Michael Ogrodnick said in an email. Palm Beach officers were called and arrested her. It was determined she had an expired visa, Ogrodnick said.

Lu was charged with loitering and prowling and was being held late Wednesday at the Palm Beach County jail.

The president and his family were not at the club — he held a rally in Michigan on Wednesday as the U.S. House voted to impeach him. The Trumps are expected to arrive at Mar-a-Lago by the weekend and spend the holidays there.

Lu’s arrest is reminiscent of the March arrest of Yujing Zhang, a 33-year-old Shanghai businesswoman, who gained access to Mar-a-Lago while carrying a laptop, phones and other electronic gear. That led to initial speculation that she might be a spy, but she was never charged with espionage and text messages she exchanged with a trip organizer indicated she was a fan of the president and wanted to meet him or his family to discuss possible deals.

1 dead, 3 hurt in stabbings at Oregon shopping center, town

BEAVERTON, Ore. — A 20-year-old attacker carried out a series of stabbings and carjackings at a suburban Portland shopping center and in a nearby town Wednesday, killing one person and wounding three others before being arrested, authorities said.

Police in the city of Beaverton said two people were stabbed inside a Wells Fargo bank and a man was stabbed at a gym next door.

After the stabbings, the assailant stole the man’s car and drove into the suburb of Tigard, where he stole another woman’s car and stabbed her, Officer Matt Henderson said at a news conference. He eventually got out of the car and ran from officers before being caught, police said.

A woman who was killed was a bank customer, Wells Fargo spokesman David Kennedy said. Another woman was critically injured there, and the two people whose cars were stolen had serious injuries, authorities said.

“This was a horrific crime, and our hearts go out to those victims and their families,” Beaverton Police Chief Ronda Groshong told reporters. “This is an ongoing investigation with several crime scenes. … It’s going to take a while to process.”

Uber to pay $4.4 million to end federal harassment probe

SAN FRANCISCO — Uber Technologies Inc. will establish a $4.4 million fund to settle a federal investigation into allegations that the San Francisco company allowed a rampant culture of sexual harassment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Wednesday.

The agreement ends an investigation launched in 2017 in which the commission found reasonable cause to believe the ride-hailing tech company “permitted a culture of sexual harassment and retaliation against individuals who complained about such harassment.”

A claims administrator will send notices to women who worked at Uber between Jan. 1, 2014, and June 30, 2019. The commission will determine which claimants may be eligible for money from the $4.4 million fund.

From wire sources

The company has also agreed to create a system to identify serial offenders and managers who fail to respond to concerns about sexual harassment in a timely manner.

The commission initiated the investigation after a former Uber engineer wrote a widely circulated blog post exposing sexual harassment at the company, including propositions from her boss. Susan Fowler said her complaints to human resources were ignored.

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WHO sees tobacco drop among men, but vaping effects unclear

NEW YORK — Worldwide, the number of men using traditional tobacco products has finally started to decline, health officials said Thursday.

Four out of five tobacco users globally are men, so declines among males “mark a turning point in the fight against tobacco,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said in a statement.

The agency’s new report covers an array of tobacco use, including cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco. But the WHO did not count electronic cigarettes as tobacco products, and officials could not say what impact the growing popularity of vaping devices has had in diverting people from traditional smoking.

WHO officials said they plan to release a report on e-cigarette use early next year.

Researchers previously reported declines in male and female smoking rates internationally, but the drop wasn’t enough to offset the growth in world population. The number of female tobacco users did shrink since 2000, but the number of male tobacco users continued to edge up, bringing the total to more than 1.3 billion people.

2020 Democrats prepare to debate in shadow of impeachment

LOS ANGELES — A winnowed field of Democratic presidential contenders takes the debate stage Thursday for a sixth and final time in 2019, as candidates seek to convince anxious voters that they are the party’s best hope to deny President Donald Trump a second term next year.

The televised contest ahead of Christmas will bring seven rivals to heavily Democratic California, the biggest prize in the primary season and home to 1-in-8 Americans. And, coming a day after a politically divided U.S. House voted to impeach the Republican president, the debate will underscore the paramount concern for Democratic voters: Who can beat Trump in November?

With voters distracted by the holidays and the impeachment proceedings in Washington, the debate in Los Angeles could turn out to be the least watched so far. Viewership has declined in each round though five debates, and even campaigns have grumbled that candidates would rather be on the ground in early voting states than again taking the debate stage.

The lack of a clear front-runner reflects the uncertainty gripping many voters. Would Trump be more vulnerable to a challenge from the party’s liberal wing or a candidate tethered to the centrist establishment? Should the pick be a man or a woman, or a person of color? The Democratic field is also marked by wide differences in age, geography and wealth, and the party remains divided over issues including health care and the influence of big-dollar fundraising.

There will be a notable lack of diversity onstage compared to earlier debates. For the first time this cycle, the debate won’t feature a black or Latino candidate.

Defiant Trump rallies supporters as House impeaches him

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — Defiant in the face of a historic rebuke, President Donald Trump labeled his impeachment by the House of Representatives on Wednesday “a suicide march” for the Democratic Party.

“Crazy Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats have branded themselves with an eternal mark of shame,” Trump told the crowd at a campaign rally in battleground Michigan, where he took the stage just minutes before becoming only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. “It’s a disgrace”

It was a dramatic and discordant split-screen moment, with Trump emerging from a mock fireplace like Santa Claus at the Christmas-themed rally as the impeachment debate in Washington was underway.

As he spoke — seemingly unaware of the unfolding votes for a stretch — the House voted to impeach him on two counts. The first charges him with abuse of power for allegedly pressuring the president of Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rivals while crucial U.S. security aid was being withheld. The second charges him with obstruction of Congress for stonewalling investigative efforts.

While Trump and his aides have tried to brush off the significance of the vote — noting there is little chance he will be convicted by the Republican-controlled Senate and removed from office — allies say Trump has been fuming over the stain that impeachment will leave on his legacy.

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Among public, a great divide at moment of Trump impeachment

We interrupt the holiday spirit to bring you the impeachment of a president.

In festive haunts, buzzing stores and rush-hour frenzy, Americans absorbed the moment Donald Trump became only the third president branded with the mark of impeachment, the Constitution’s gravest political indictment.

Depending whom you ask in this deeply polarized country, Americans saw the House vote Wednesday night as a just expression of the nation’s founding document, or a gross distortion of it. They saw Trump getting what he deserves, or being hunted by witches.

They reflect the polling that finds a great divide over whether Trump should be driven from office. On this, though, they might agree with Mark McQueen, a state government worker in Tallahassee, Florida: “Tensions are high across the land.”

The Associated Press asked people about the impeachment in a half-dozen states important in the 2020 election or in the primaries that will choose Trump’s Democratic rival.

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