World Briefly: 3-23-17

BC-World Briefly/2077

AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT

5 dead in vehicle, knife attack at British Parliament

LONDON (AP) — A knife-wielding man went on a deadly rampage in the heart of Britain’s seat of power Wednesday, plowing a car into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge before stabbing a police officer to death inside the gates of Parliament. Five people were killed, including the assailant, and 40 others were injured in what Prime Minister Theresa May condemned as a “sick and depraved terrorist attack.”

Lawmakers, lords, staff and visitors were locked down after the man was shot by police within the perimeter of Parliament, just yards (meters) from entrances to the building itself and in the shadow of the iconic Big Ben clock tower. He died, as did three pedestrians on the bridge, and the police officer.

A doctor who treated the wounded from the bridge said some had “catastrophic” injuries. Three police officers, several French teenagers on a school trip, two Romanian tourists and five South Korean visitors were among the injured.

Police said they were treating the attack as terrorism. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief Mark Rowley said police believed there was only one attacker, “but it would be foolish to be overconfident early on.” He said an unarmed policeman, three civilians and the attacker died. Forty others, including three police officers, were injured.

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AP Exclusive: Before Trump job, Manafort worked to aid Putin

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before signing up with Donald Trump, former campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly worked for a Russian billionaire with a plan to “greatly benefit the Putin Government,” The Associated Press has learned. The White House attempted to brush the report aside Wednesday, but it quickly raised fresh alarms in Congress about Russian links to Trump associates.

Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putin’s government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse.

Manafort pitched the plans to aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.

“We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success,” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, “will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.”

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Wednesday that President Trump had not been aware of Manafort’s work on behalf of Deripaska.

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Manafort has served top US pols and a sketchy cast abroad

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pick any decade over the past half-century, and Paul Manafort has had a starring role in the rise (and maybe fall) of somebody big.

This lobbyist/political operative/hired gun has been there for prominent American politicians including Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush and, more recently, Donald Trump.

He’s also been at the service of a global cast of sketchier characters like Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos, Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and, more recently, leaders of Ukraine’s ruling pro-Russian political party.

Manafort, 67, was fired as Trump’s campaign chairman in August after word surfaced that he had orchestrated a covert lobbying operation on behalf of pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Manafort also represented a Russian billionaire a decade ago with the goal of advancing the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The latest disclosure adds new intrigue as the FBI investigates whether Russia attempted to influence last year’s U.S. presidential election in favor of Trump, and whether the Trump campaign cooperated in such an endeavor.

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Spying claim by Intel chair renews fight over Russia probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — Private communications of Donald Trump and his presidential transition team may have been scooped up by American intelligence officials monitoring other targets and improperly distributed throughout spy agencies, the chairman of the House intelligence committee said Wednesday — an extraordinary public airing of often-secret information that brought swift protests from Democrats.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes’ comments led the committee’s ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff, to renew his party’s calls for an independent probe of Trump campaign links to Russia in addition to the GOP-led panel’s investigation. Schiff also said he had seen “more than circumstantial evidence” that Trump associates colluded with Russia.

In back-to-back news conferences at the Capitol and then the White House — where he had privately briefed the president — Nunes said he was concerned by officials’ handling of the communications in the waning days of the Obama administration.

He said the surveillance was conducted legally and did not appear to be related to the current FBI investigation into Trump associates’ contacts with Russia or with any criminal warrants. And the revelations, he said, did nothing to change his assessment that Trump’s explosive allegations about wiretaps at Trump Tower were false.

Still, the White House immediately seized on his statements in what appeared to be a coordinated public display.

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Gorsuch to Democrats: No return to ‘horse and buggy’ era

WASHINGTON (AP) — Assured of support from majority Republicans, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch wrapped up two days of Senate questioning Wednesday to glowing GOP reviews but complaints from frustrated Democrats that he concealed his views from the American public.

Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver, refused repeated attempts to get him to talk about key legal and political issues of the day. But he did tell Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who worried that Gorsuch would vote to restrict abortion, that “no one is looking to return us to horse and buggy days.”

The Supreme Court itself threw one surprise Gorsuch’s way when it ruled unanimously Wednesday in a case involving learning-disabled students, overturning a standard for special education that Gorsuch had endorsed in an earlier case on the same topic.

The decision prompted sharp questioning from committee Democrats in the second of two days of testimony that spanned 20 hours.

“Why in your early decision did you want to lower the bar so low?” Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois asked.

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Facebook rape stirs questions about witnessing crimes online

CHICAGO (AP) — The case of a 15-year-old Chicago girl who authorities say was raped while around 40 people watched on Facebook raises questions that have come up before in other attacks: What’s the obligation of bystanders who see a crime unfolding? And why do they not intervene?

None of those who watched the sexual assault involving five or six men or boys called police. The girl knows at least one of her attackers, and investigators reported making good progress toward identifying the others. A closer look at what laws in the United States say about people who witness crimes:

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THE LAW IN GENERAL

There is no all-encompassing legal obligation in the United States that a bystander who sees an act of violence must intervene or call police. But there are exceptions to that idea, dubbed the no-duty rule. Many states have laws requiring intervention when the victim of an ongoing attack is a child. The relationship of the witness to the victim is also a factor in assessing criminal or civil liability: Bosses may have a duty to intervene on behalf of employees, teachers for students and spouses for spouses.

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Leaders need votes for health bill on eve of House showdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Republican legislative priority in peril, President Donald Trump dangled possible changes to the health care bill Wednesday aimed at placating conservatives threatening to torpedo the legislation. The White House seemed to make progress after GOP opposition had snowballed a day before a showdown House vote.

Trump huddled at the White House with 18 lawmakers, a mix of supporters and opponents, Vice President Mike Pence saw around two dozen and House GOP leaders held countless talks with lawmakers at the Capitol. The sessions came as leaders rummaged for votes on a roll call they can ill-afford to lose without diminishing their clout for the rest of the GOP agenda.

Most GOP opponents were conservatives asserting that the legislation demolishing former President Barack Obama’s health care law did not go far enough. They were demanding repeal of the law’s requirements that insurers pay for specified services like maternity care, prescription drugs and substances abuse treatment.

Late Wednesday night, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., met with moderate Republicans from Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maine and New York as well as members of leadership. Any changes on essential health benefits would likely trigger an immediate backlash from patient advocacy groups and doctors.

In early meetings with Trump and Pence and later discussions with the White House, talks focused on language addressing conservatives’ concerns that those coverage requirements drive up premiums. Details were unclear, but members of the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-line group spearheading the opposition, were expected at the White House early Thursday.

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Police: White sword killer went to NY to attack black people

NEW YORK (AP) — A white U.S. Army veteran from Baltimore bent on making a racist attack took a bus to New York, the “media capital of the world,” randomly picked out a black man who was collecting bottles on the street and killed him with a sword, police said Wednesday.

James Harris Jackson turned himself in at a Times Square police station early Wednesday, about 25 hours after Timothy Caughman staggered into a police precinct bleeding to death.

“I’m the person that you’re looking for,” Jackson told police, according to Assistant Chief William Aubrey.

Jackson, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, told police he’d harbored feelings of hatred toward black men for at least 10 years, authorities said. He traveled to New York on March 17 and had been staying in a Manhattan hotel.

“The reason he picked New York is because it’s the media capital of the world and he wanted to make a statement,” Aubrey said.

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LAPD: Latinos report fewer sex crimes amid immigration fears

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The police chief of Los Angeles, a city that is half Latino, found himself in the middle of the national immigration debate on Wednesday after saying there’s a correlation between the Trump administration’s call for stiffer immigration policies and a drop in the number of Hispanics reporting sexual abuse and domestic violence.

“Imagine your sister, your mother, not reporting a sexual assault for fear that their family will be torn apart,” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday.

Since the beginning of this year, sexual assaults reported by Latinos in Los Angeles have dropped 25 percent, and domestic violence reports by Latinos have decreased by 10 percent compared to the same period last year.

Crime statistics show there were 164 sexual assaults reported by Latinos in the first two months of 2016, compared to 123 in the first two months of 2017. There was also a decrease of 118 reports of domestic violence during the same periods among Latinos.

Beck said there was a “strong correlation” between the timing of the decreased reporting and fears about President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S.

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Serial numbers, game photos may help verify Brady jerseys

BOSTON (AP) — Now that authorities believe they have recovered the jersey stolen from Tom Brady’s locker following the Patriots’ Super Bowl win last month, the next step will be determining whether it is in fact the MVP quarterback’s missing grass-stained garment.

So how exactly does that happen?

Old-fashioned detective work.

Experts in the sports memorabilia industry, including one that has worked directly with NFL teams, say it is a tedious process that involves comparing photos and videos that captured degradation to the jersey during the game. They also compare the jersey to team-issued serial numbers and other player-specific customizations that authentic jerseys typically have.

“Every jersey is like a fingerprint. No two jerseys are alike,” said Barry Meisel, president of the MeiGray Group, which has authenticated game-worn sports memorabilia since 1997. “They’re hand-stitched, full of dirt, mud, helmet stains, turf skids and burns. When you look at jersey after a game it’s unique.”