In Brief: Nation & World: 1-17-17

Trump, in flap with civil rights icon, meets with MLK’s son

NEW YORK (AP) — Days before taking office, President-elect Donald Trump attempted to navigate the fallout of his flap with a civil rights leader and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while also losing a member of his incoming administration to accusations of plagiarism.

Trump on Monday met with one of King’s sons on the holiday marking the life of the slain American icon just days after the president-elect attacked Rep. John Lewis on Twitter. Lewis and the elder King were among the Big Six leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Trump accused Lewis, D-Ga., for being “all talk” after Lewis questioned the legitimacy of Trump’s election. The president-elect also advised the veteran congressman to pay more attention to his “crime ridden” Atlanta-area district. Trump’s comments drew widespread criticism and have done little to reassure those uneasy about the transition from the nation’s first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most nonwhite voters.

Martin Luther King III downplayed the slight, saying that “in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides.” King, who said he pressed Trump on the need for voting reform to increase participation, deemed the meeting “constructive.” King said that while he disagreed with the president-elect’s comments, he believed “at some point in this nation we’ve got to move forward.”

“He said that he is going to represent all Americans. He said that over and over again,” King told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower after the nearly hourlong meeting. “I believe that’s his intent, but I think we also have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure. It doesn’t happen automatically.”

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King Day highlights transition from Obama to Trump

ATLANTA (AP) — As Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nation’s first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most non-white voters.

In more than one venue Monday, speakers and attendees expressed reservations about President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration, some even raising the specter of the Ku Klux Klan.

“When men no better than Klansmen dressed in suits are being sworn in to office, we cannot be silent,” said Opal Tometi, a Black Lives Matter co-founder, told a crowd in Brooklyn.

King’s daughter offered a less direct message, encouraging 2,000 people at her father’s Atlanta church to work for his vision of love and justice “no matter who is in the White House.”

Bernice King spoke at Ebenezer Baptist hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, met privately with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. The younger King described the meeting as “productive.”

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Gene Cernan, last astronaut to walk on the moon, dies at 82

HOUSTON (AP) — Astronaut Gene Cernan traced his only child’s initials in the dust of the lunar surface. Then he climbed into the lunar module for the ride home, becoming the last person to walk on the moon.

It was a moment that defined the Apollo 17 commander in both the public eye and his own.

“Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make,” Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. “I didn’t want to go up. I wanted to stay a while.”

His family said his devotion to lunar exploration never waned, even in the final year of his life. Cernan died Monday at age 82 at a Houston hospital following ongoing heath issues, family spokeswoman Melissa Wren told The Associated Press.

“Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation’s leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon,” his family wrote in a statement released by NASA.

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Reports: Istanbul nightclub attacker who killed 39 captured

ISTANBUL (AP) — A gunman suspected of killing 39 people during a New Year’s attack on an Istanbul nightclub has been caught in a police operation, Turkish media reports said early Tuesday.

The suspect was captured in a special operations police raid on a house in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district, private NTV television reported. The broadcaster said he had been staying in the house belonging to a friend from Kyrgyzstan.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the nightclub massacre, saying the attack in the first hours of Jan. 1 was in reprisal for Turkish military operations in northern Syria. The man identified as the suspect had been on the run since the attack.

Hurriyet newspaper and other media have identified the gunman as Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbekistan national. The suspect was to undergo medical checks before being taken to police headquarters for questioning, the paper said in its online edition.

Dogan news agency published what it said was the first image of the attacker. It showed a bruised, black-haired man in a grey, bloodied shirt being held by his neck. Private NTV television said the gunman had resisted arrest.

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Officials: FBI arrests widow of Orlando nightclub shooter

WASHINGTON (AP) — The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter, who was extensively questioned by federal agents in the days after the massacre, has been arrested by the FBI in connection with the attack, authorities said Monday.

Noor Salman was taken into custody Monday morning in the San Francisco Bay area and is facing charges in Florida including obstruction of justice. A Twitter post from the United States attorney’s office in Orlando said Salman will make her initial court appearance Tuesday morning in Oakland, California.

Noor Salman moved to California after her husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members during the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

FBI agents repeatedly questioned Salman in the aftermath of the shooting about whether she had advance knowledge of her husband’s plans. Salman told The New York Times in an interview published last fall that she knew her husband had watched jihadist videos but that she was “unaware of everything” regarding his intent to shoot up the club. She also said he had physically abused her.

“Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night,” her attorney, Linda Moreno, said in a statement.

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Mexican resort shooting kills 5, panics festival-goers

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico (AP) — Gunfire broke out in a crowded beachfront nightclub throbbing with electronic music before dawn Monday, causing five deaths and setting off a bloody stampede by screaming concertgoers at an international festival in this Caribbean resort.

At least one person died in the crush to escape and some of the 15 people wounded or injured were hurt in the rush out, authorities said.

Quintana Roo state Attorney General Miguel Angel Pech ruled out any terror attack, and the state’s governor said it involved a personal dispute. Pech said the shooting erupted when security personnel tried to stop a man from entering the Blue Parrot club with a gun.

Three of those killed were part of the security detail at the 10-day BPM electronic music festival, Pech said. State officials said the dead included two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian. The gunman apparently fled.

“I was thinking it was the same thing that happened in Paris, some guy just walking in and shooting people at a restaurant, bang bang bang, a terrorist attack,” said New Zealand tourist Tyler Klee, who was outside the club when shots rang out.

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Teen slain in ‘rape-murder fantasy’ was friend to the lonely

GLENSIDE, Pa. (AP) — The smiles radiate from photos posted online by friends: Grace Packer sporting an impish grin as a toddler, floating happily in a pool as a young teen, leaning in to talk to a friend at her school lunch table.

But the 14-year-old posted a more haunting picture, a forlorn selfie taken in a dimly lit room, when she opened a Facebook account last year and invited people to comment on it. No one did.

At the time, police believe, Grace’s adoptive mother and the mother’s boyfriend were plotting to kill her.

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Grace, who moved a lot and had a learning disability, looked out for the lonely kids at school. She befriended Jackie Horst’s autistic son, eating lunch with him at Abington Junior High.

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Ethics watchdog investigating Canadian PM’s vacation

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Canada’s ethics commissioner said Monday she is launching an investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent family holiday at the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson said Trudeau may have violated the federal ethics code during his holiday with the Aga Khan, a family friend, philanthropist and hereditary spiritual leader to the world’s approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims. It’s the first time the ethics commissioner has opted to investigate the actions of a sitting prime minister.

In a letter to opposition Conservative lawmaker Blaine Calkins, who was among those who filed formal complaints, Dawson said she is looking into both Trudeau’s stay at the island and his use of the Aga Khan’s private helicopter to get there.

The vacation included Trudeau, his family, Liberal lawmaker Seamus O’Regan and Liberal party president Anna Gainey, all of whom took part in the chopper flight from Nassau to get to the secluded island.

Both the Conflict of Interest Act and Trudeau’s own ethics guidelines bar the use of sponsored travel in private aircraft, allowing it only for exceptional circumstances.

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This time, inaugural fashion is intertwined with politics

NEW YORK (AP) — What’ll she be wearing?

It’s a question that fascinates fashion-watchers — and lots of others — every four years: Which designer will the new U.S. first lady choose to wear on Inauguration Day and, more importantly, on Inauguration Night?

This year as never before, the question is a loaded one. Dressing the first lady has long been considered a great honor for a designer — and a huge business boon. But in an industry that leaned heavily toward Hillary Clinton, a number of designers have indicated they have no interest in dressing Melania Trump. So the question is not merely whom she’ll be choosing — if she doesn’t simply buy off the rack — but also, in a sense, who’ll be choosing her.

And the first lady’s inaugural attire is not the only example of how political concerns have seeped into fashion lately in unexpected ways.

The fashion choices of Ivanka Trump, the daughter who many believe will serve as a quasi-first lady, have also come under scrutiny. She recently announced she’s leaving her executive position at the Ivanka Trump clothing and accessories brand, calling it a “formal leave of absence” as she and her husband, Jared Kushner, head to Washington, where he will be a senior adviser to President Donald Trump.

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Steelers downplay Tomlin’s description of Patriots

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Antonio Brown wanted to let the world in on the party when he live streamed the giddy celebration in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ locker room after an 18-16 playoff win over Kansas City.

The All-Pro wide receiver also happened to catch coach Mike Tomlin indelicately describing the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh’s opponent in the AFC Championship game.

Tomlin’s word choice — an expletive — didn’t bother his players as Brown’s decision to throw back the curtain on what is usually a private moment.

“Personally I’d like some of that stuff sacred,” long snapper Greg Warren said Monday. “But this is a changing world, a changing environment. I can’t be some old guy stuck under a rock, that’s for sure.”

Brown’s 17-minute video collected more than 900,000 views in a few hours before being removed (though it lives on through YouTube).