AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST

US: Trump’s ex-lawyer deserves prison despite co-operation

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, deserves a substantial prison sentence despite his co-operation in a hush money payment case that implicated the president, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Court filings by prosecutors from both New York and the Trump-Russia special counsel’s office laid out for the first time details of the co-operation of a vital witness who once said he’d “take a bullet” for the president but who in recent months has become a prime antagonist. He is to be sentenced next week.

They filings reveal that Cohen told prosecutors he and Trump discussed a potential meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in 2015, shortly after Trump announced his candidacy for president.

In a footnote, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team writes that Cohen conferred with Trump “about contacting the Russia government before reaching out to gauge Russia’s interest in such a meeting,” though it never took place.

An additional filing was expected later Friday in the case of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who prosecutors say lied to them even after agreeing to co-operate.

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House GOP asked more about Clinton emails, Comey says

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans interviewed James Comey behind closed doors Friday, hauling the former FBI director to Capitol Hill one final time before they cede power to Democrats in January. GOP lawmakers who stepped outside while the questioning was underway indicated they weren’t satisfied and will bring him back later this month.

Comey wasn’t pleased either, telling reporters, “We’re talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails, for heaven’s sake, so I’m not sure we needed to do this at all.”

A transcript of the interview “will bore you,” Comey said after the six-hour interview with two House committees.

President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that Comey was apparently told by Justice Department attorneys not to answer some questions. Trump called that “total bias and corruption at the highest levels of (the) previous Administration,” adding that lawmakers should force Comey to answer questions under oath.

Republicans say Comey and other Justice Department officials were biased against Trump as they investigated his campaign’s ties with Russia in 2016 and cleared Clinton in a separate probe into her email use.

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Man who drove into crowd convicted of first-degree murder

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A man who drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Virginia was convicted Friday of first-degree murder for killing a woman in an attack that inflamed long-simmering racial and political tensions across the country.

A state jury rejected arguments that James Alex Fields Jr. acted in self-defence during a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017. Jurors also convicted Fields of eight other charges, including aggravated malicious wounding and hit and run.

Fields, 21, drove to Virginia from his home in Maumee, Ohio, to support the white nationalists. As a large group of counterprotesters marched through Charlottesville singing and laughing, he stopped his car, backed up, then sped into the crowd, according to testimony from witnesses and video surveillance shown to jurors.

Prosecutors told the jury that Fields was angry after witnessing violent clashes between the two sides earlier in the day. The violence prompted police to shut down the rally before it even officially began.

Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and civil rights activist, was killed, and nearly three dozen others were injured. The trial featured emotional testimony from survivors who described devastating injuries and long, complicated recoveries.

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Trump prods McConnell on sentencing bill: ‘Go for it Mitch!’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s reluctance to hold a vote on a popular criminal justice bill has angered top Republican senators and created an unusual rift with a longtime GOP ally, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. And on Friday, it also brought on a tweet from President Donald Trump.

“Hopefully Mitch McConnell will ask for a VOTE on Criminal Justice Reform,” Trump tweeted. “It is extremely popular and has strong bipartisan support. It will also help a lot of people, save taxpayer dollars, and keep our communities safe. Go for it Mitch!”

Minutes later Grassley tweeted that he and the president had spoken about “the growing support” for the legislation.

“Pres Trump told me he wants it done THIS CONGRESS,” Grassley tweeted.

Grassley has spent years working to build a coalition around the bill and is pushing for a year-end vote. Grassley says more than two-thirds of the Senate supports it. But McConnell is refusing to bring the legislation forward in a standoff that’s dividing the Republican majority and putting President Donald Trump on the spot.

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In darkness and chaos, deputy killed by friendly fire

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — As terrified people scrambled out of broken windows, screaming and bleeding and fleeing a mass shooting inside a California bar, Sgt. Ron Helus and a highway patrolman decided to try to stop the gunman, running in together with assault-style rifles to what turned out to be an ambush.

Almost immediately inside the dark and smoky bar, the gunman fired on the officers, hitting Helus five times. They retreated and returned fire.

What happened next is every officer’s worst nightmare: One of the patrolman’s bullets hit his fellow policeman, piercing his heart and killing him.

That Helus was killed by friendly fire emerged for the first time at a sombre news conference Friday, exactly one month since 28-year-old Ian David Long attacked country-music lovers at the Borderline Bar and Grill in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks, killing 12 and wounding 22 others.

Long, who wasn’t hit by either officer’s gunfire, fatally shot himself after the firefight.

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Chinese executive facing US extradition appears in court

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — A Canadian prosecutor urged a Vancouver court to deny bail to a Chinese executive at the heart of a case that is shaking up U.S.-China relations and worrying global financial markets.

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei and daughter of its founder, was detained at the request of the U.S. during a layover at the Vancouver airport last Saturday — the same day that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China agreed over dinner to a 90-day ceasefire in a trade dispute that threatens to disrupt global commerce.

The U.S. alleges that Huawei used a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It also says that Meng and Huawei misled American banks about its business dealings in Iran.

The surprise arrest, already denounced by Beijing, raises doubts about whether the trade truce will hold and whether the world’s two biggest economies can resolve the complicated issues that divide them.

“I think it will have a distinctively negative effect on the U.S.-China talks,” said Philip Levy, senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and an economic adviser in President George W. Bush’s White House. “There’s the humiliating way this happened right before the dinner, with Xi unaware. Very hard to save face on this one. And we may see (Chinese retaliation), which will embitter relations.”

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Ex-inmates: Torture rife in prisons run by Yemen rebels

MARIB, Yemen (AP) — Farouk Baakar was on duty as a medic at al-Rashid hospital the day a bleeding man was brought into the emergency room with gunshot wounds and signs of torture. He’d been whipped across the back and hung by his wrists for days.

The patient, Baakar learned, had been left for dead by the side of a highway after being held captive in a prison run by the Houthi rebels who control northern Yemen.

Baakar spent hours removing bullets and repairing ruptured intestine. He tended to the patient’s recovery for 80 days and, at the end, agreed to pose for a selfie with him.

Weeks later, Houthi security officials grabbed the man again. They searched his phone and found the photo.

Then they came for Baakar.

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France girds for weekend protests, fearing more violence

PARIS (AP) — Anticipating a fourth straight weekend of violent protests, France on Friday mobilized armoured vehicles and thousands of police, cordoned off Paris’ broad boulevards and made plans to shut down tourist sites like the Eiffel Tower and Louvre.

The heavy security will put central Paris in a virtual lockdown Saturday against what the interior minister called “radicalized and rebellious people,” who authorities believe will join members of the “yellow vest” movement that has been holding anti-government demonstrations.

Nationwide, about 89,000 police will fan out in the streets, an increase from 65,000 last weekend, when more than 130 people were injured and over 400 arrested as the protests degenerated into the worst street violence to hit the French capital in decades.

Fearing increasing violence, hundreds of businesses planned to close Saturday, preferring to lose a key holiday shopping day rather than have stores smashed and looted, like they were a week ago when protests over rising taxes turned into a riot. Workers hammered plywood over the windows of shops and businesses, making the plush Champs-Elysees neighbourhood appear to be bracing for a hurricane.

“According to the information we have, some radicalized and rebellious people will try to get mobilized tomorrow,” Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told a news conference. “Some ultra-violent people want to take part.”

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Stocks drop 4 per cent in rocky week on trade, growth worries

Wall Street capped a turbulent week of trading Friday with the biggest weekly loss since March as traders fret over rising trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and signals of slower economic growth.

The latest wave of selling erased more than 550 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, bringing its three-day loss to more than 1,400. For the week, major indexes are down more than 4 per cent.

Worries that the testy U.S.-China trade dispute and higher interest rates will slow the economy has made investors uneasy, leading to volatile swings in the market from one day to the next.

On Monday, news that the U.S. and China had agreed to a 90-day truce in their escalating trade conflict drove stocks sharply higher, adding to strong gains the week before. The next day, as doubts mounted over the likelihood of a swift resolution to the trade dispute, stocks sank. On Friday, another early rally faded into another sharp drop.

“We’re in a market where investors just want to sell any upside that they see,” said Lindsey Bell, investment strategist at CFRA. “The volatility we’ve seen the last couple of weeks has been pretty extreme in both directions.”

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Hart’s fallout raises questions about Oscars, social media

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The dust is still settling from the fallout of comedian Kevin Hart’s short stint as host of the 91st Academy Awards.

Hart announced on Thursday night that he was bowing out of the gig after public outrage over old anti-gay tweets reached a tipping point.

Faced with declining ratings and a critical viewership, hosting the Oscars is referred to by many in Hollywood as the most thankless job in town.

Now, everyone is speculating as to who will take on the hosting duties for the Feb. 24 telecast. Names being proposed include Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Hanks and Ellen DeGeneres, who hosted one of the highest rated Oscars shows in recent years.

It’s just the latest storm for the organization that puts on the Academy Awards, which has been combating declining ratings for its marquee event. The Academy also has been weathering the pressure of being a focal point for the shortcomings of the entertainment industry at large.

The Associated Press