AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT
Posted July 29, 2019 12:04 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Coats out as national intel director, clashed with Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, will leave his job next month, President Trump announced Sunday, after a turbulent two years in which Coats and the president were often at odds over Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump announced Coats’ departure as Aug. 15 in a tweet that thanked Coats for his service. He said he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to the post and that he will name an acting official in the coming days. Ratcliffe is a frequent Trump defender who fiercely questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller last week during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Coats often appeared out of step with Trump and disclosed to prosecutors how he was urged by the president to publicly deny any link between Russia and the Trump campaign. The frayed relationship reflected broader divisions between the president and the government’s intelligence agencies.
Coats’ public, and sometimes personal, disagreements with Trump over policy and intelligence included Russian election interference and North Korean nuclear capabilities. Trump had long been skeptical of the nation’s intelligence agencies, which provoked his ire by concluding that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of getting him elected.
In a letter of resignation released Sunday night, Coats said serving as the nation’s top intelligence official has been a “distinct privilege” but that it was time for him to “move on” to the next chapter of his life. He cited his work to strengthen the intelligence community’s effort to prevent harm to the U.S. from adversaries and to reform the security clearance process.
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Stepping up feud, Trump assails Cummings as ‘racist’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing growing accusations of racism over his incendiary tweets, President Donald Trump on Sunday tried to deflect the criticism by labeling a prominent minority congressman as himself racist and accusing Democrats of trying to “play the race card.”
Trump assailed Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., as a racist after the president’s criticisms of the congressman’s majority-black district in the Baltimore area as a “rodent-infested mess” where “no human being would want to live” drew widespread condemnation from Democrats as race-baiting.
Trump insisted there was nothing racist about his criticism and tweeted back, “If racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership.”
“His radical ‘oversight’ is a joke!” Trump added. He offered no detail to back up his accusation of racism against Cummings.
The president’s comments capped a weekend of attacks on Cummings, the powerful chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and marked his latest rhetorical shot against non-white lawmakers, exacerbating racial tensions. Two weeks ago, Trump caused a nationwide uproar with racist tweets directed at four Democratic congresswomen of colour.
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3 killed, 12 injured in shooting at festival, official says
GILROY, Calif. (AP) — Three people were killed and 12 others injured after a shooting at an annual festival in Northern California.
Gilroy Councilman Dion Bracco told The Associated Press those are preliminary figures following Sunday’s shooting.
Witnesses reported confusion and panic as shots rang out at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in the city of 50,000 located about 80 miles (176 kilometres) southeast of San Francisco.
The shooting occurred during the annual garlic festival, a three-day celebration featuring food, cooking competitions and music that attracts more than 100,000 people. Sunday was the final day of this year’s event
Stanford Medical Center has two patients being treated from the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, spokeswoman Julie Greicius said. She had no details on their injuries or conditions. Santa Clara Valley Medical Center received five victims, spokeswoman Joy Alexiou said. She also had no information on their conditions.
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Woman set to replace Puerto Rico’s governor doesn’t want job
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The woman who is supposed to replace Puerto Rico’s embattled governor announced Sunday that she doesn’t want the job as the U.S. territory reels from political crisis.
Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez said in a Twitter post that she hopes Gov. Ricardo Rosselló will appoint a secretary of state before resigning Aug. 2 as planned.
Former Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marín would have been next in line as governor, according to the U.S. territory’s constitution. But he is one of more than a dozen officials who have resigned in recent weeks since someone leaked an obscenity-laced chat in which Rosselló and close advisers insulted people including women and victims of Hurricane Maria.
Rosselló on Wednesday announced that he would step down following nearly two weeks of massive protests amid anger over the chat, corruption charges against several former government officials and a 13-year recession. In the chat, the 40-year-old Democrat and son of a governor called a female politician a “whore,” referred to another as a “daughter of a bitch,” and made fun of an obese man with whom he posed in a photo.
Rosselló became the first governor to resign in the modern history of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 3.2 million American citizens. He is more than halfway through his four-year term.
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NYC police seek 2 shooters in Brooklyn playground shooting
NEW YORK (AP) — A popular community festival was coming to a close when gunfire erupted in a Brooklyn neighbourhood, leaving one man dead, another person in critical condition and 10 others wounded, authorities said Sunday as they searched for two shooters they believe were involved.
New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said the shooting late Saturday in the borough’s Brownsville section “was a tragic end to a wonderful weekend” that involved thousands of people gathering to take part in the annual Old Timers Event, which featured musical performances from former residents and current local talent.
The crowd at the celebration was dispersing when gunshots rang out from a playground area in the park where it was taking place, officials said.
Twelve people were hit — seven men and five women between the ages of 21 and 55. A 38-year-old man died from a bullet wound to the head. His name was not immediately released.
Six of the wounded had been released from the hospital by midday Sunday, O’Neill said.
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Police fire tear gas, rubber bullets at Hong Kong protesters
HONG KONG (AP) — Police repeatedly fired tear gas and rubber bullets to drive back protesters blocking Hong Kong streets with road signs and umbrellas Sunday in another night of pitched battles as protests for democracy in the Chinese territory escalate.
It was the second night in a row that tear gas was used against protesters. Their demonstrations began early last month in opposition to an extradition bill that has since been suspended, but the movement has become a broader push for full democracy.
Protesters occupied two areas at opposite ends of central Hong Kong on Sunday following a midafternoon rally against police use of tear gas at a demonstration the previous weekend.
On the western end of Hong Kong Island, one group blocked areas near the Chinese government’s liaison office and began to move forward as night fell. Police issued warnings, and protesters threw eggs at them. Officers fired tear gas to halt the advance.
Police then embarked on an hourslong effort to push the protesters eastward and get them to disperse.
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Attorney: Hunger-striking immigrants forced to hydrate
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Three Indian nationals seeking asylum in the U.S. have been forced to receive IV drips at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas as they approach their third week of a hunger strike, according to their attorney.
Lawyers and activists who spoke with the men fear that force-feeding may be next.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed orders with federal judges last week that relate to non-consensual hydration or feeding for four men, according to a court official. Linda Corchado, the lawyer for three of the four men named in the court orders, said the fourth man is also Indian and is represented by another attorney. It’s unclear if that man was also forced to accept an IV.
The men have been locked up for months — one for more than a year — and they are trying to appeal or reopen asylum claims that were denied, according to Corchado. As of Sunday, they had gone 20 days without food, she said.
“My clients made the decision to begin a hunger strike to protest prolonged detention and what they believe were biased and discriminatory practices by the immigration court toward their cases,” Corchado said.
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Italy: Teen held in officer’s death ‘illegally blindfolded’
ROME (AP) — An American teenager was illegally blindfolded before he was interrogated as a suspect in the slaying of a newlywed police officer in Rome, an Italian police commander said Sunday after the emergence of a photo showing the young tourist restrained with handcuffs and with his head bowed.
Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, 18, was blindfolded “for a very few minutes, four or five” on Friday just before he taken to the interrogation in a police station about the fatal stabbing, Rome Provincial Cmdr. Francesco Gargaro told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
Natale-Hjorth and another suspect from California, 19-year-old Finnegan Lee Elder, remained jailed while Italians lined up outside a chapel to pay respects to Deputy Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega. The 35-year-old officer had recently returned to duty on the Carabinieri paramilitary police force after a honeymoon.
The officer was attacked with a knife on a street close to the teens’ upscale hotel in Rome. An autopsy showed he had been stabbed 11 times.
“Whoever killed him is an animal,” said the mayor of the officer’s hometown, Somma Vesuviana. Mayor Salvatore Di Sarno spoke after leaving a wake for the officer in a chapel close to the police station in Rome where he had worked for years.
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Venezuela migrants propel billion-dollar delivery app
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — It’s six in the morning and Samuel Romero is already pulling his bicycle out of a small garage.
The 21-year-old Venezuelan migrant turns on his phone and logs on to Rappi, an app through which freelance cyclists get paid to make deliveries around Bogota, a traffic-clogged city of 8 million. He checks his brakes and rides into the chilly streets. It’s the beginning of a 15-hour workday, in which Romero is hoping he can make around $15 — the equivalent of Venezuela’s monthly minimum wage but barely enough to get by in costlier Colombia.
“I am grateful to have some work” says Romero, who arrived in Colombia last year. “But you really have to devote tons of time to this to make any decent money.”
Around the world, immigrants are flocking to digital platforms like Uber, Doordash or Rappi for freelance work, because they offer a quick chance to earn cash in places where newcomers struggle to find regular jobs.
But the gig economy can also be perilous for migrants, who end up working long hours in occupations that provide modest pay, no benefits and few opportunities for career advancement.
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Montana searchers find body of missing Oregon child
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — The body of a missing Oregon boy whose parents died in an apparent murder-suicide is believed to have been found in a remote area of Montana, police said.
Police in Medford, Oregon, said Montana authorities reported finding the body Sunday thought to be that of 2-year-old Aiden Salcido, the son of Daniel Salcido and Hannah Janiak.
The family formerly lived in Medford.
Aiden was the subject of an intense search after his parents were found dead Wednesday in Kalispell, Montana.
Police stopped them following a chase because they had felony burglary warrants for their arrest.
The Associated Press
