AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

President Donald Trump’s advisory commission on election integrity has integrity questions of its own – with some of its own members raising concerns about its openness.

This past week, two members fired off letters to commission staff complaining about a lack of information about the panel’s agenda and demanding answers about its activities. That comes as Democratic U.S. senators are requesting a government investigation of the commission for ignoring formal requests from Congress.

The criticism from the commissioners was remarkable because it came from insiders – the very people who are supposed to be privy to its internal discussions and plans.

In a letter sent Oct. 17, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said it was clear he was not being made aware of information pertaining to the commission. He requested copies of all correspondence between commission members since Trump signed the executive order creating it in May.

“I am in a position where I feel compelled to inquire after the work of the commission upon which I am sworn to serve, and am yet completely uninformed as to its activities,” Dunlap wrote in his letter to Andrew Kossack, the commission’s executive director.

He said he had received no information about the commission’s research or activities since its last meeting, on Sept. 12. He also said he continued to receive media inquiries about commission developments “that I as a commissioner am blind to.”

A commissioner from Alabama, Jefferson County Probate Judge Alan L. King, said he sent a similar letter late last week. He said the only information he has received since the commission’s meeting more than a month ago was an email informing him of the death of a fellow commissioner, former Arkansas state lawmaker David Dunn.

“Here I am on this high-level government committee, and I don’t know when the next meetings are or how many meetings there will be,” he said in a telephone interview. “I am in the dark on what will happen from this point on, to tell you the truth.”

King and Dunlap are two of four Democrats on the 11-member commission.

Requests for comment sent to Kossack, the commission’s executive director, and the commission’s vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, were not returned.

J. Christian Adams, a commission member who was a Justice Department attorney under former President George W. Bush, said in an email that all commissioners were receiving the same information.

“Once upon a time election integrity was bipartisan,” Adams said in the email. “Apparently not all agree. That’s a shame.”

The commission has stirred controversy from the moment it was established last spring. Critics say Trump is using it to find support for his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud that cost him the popular vote during the 2016 election. Democrat Hillary Clinton received 2.8 million more votes nationwide than Trump.

While there have been isolated cases of voter fraud in the U.S., there is no evidence of it being a widespread problem, as Trump suggests.

Critics argue the commission is stacked with people who favor voting restrictions, rather than those who want to expand access, and that the commission has a predetermined agenda that will result in recommendations making it more difficult for people to register to vote, stay registered and cast ballots.

Its first significant action was to request a wide range of information about all registered voters in every state, including partial Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and voting history. The commission scaled back its response after stinging criticism. A tally by Associated Press reporters nationwide shows that 15 states denied the request, raising questions about how useful the information will be.

In August, the AP filed a records request with the commission under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The law specifies that agencies – including presidential commissions – have 20 business days to respond or 10 calendar days if the request was filed on an expedited basis, as the AP’s was. To date, the AP has received no response from the commission despite multiple attempts to get one.

The commission’s secrecy prompted a lawsuit by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which alleges the commission is violating federal open meetings and disclosure laws.

The group’s executive director, Kristen Clarke, said she was hard-pressed to think of another commission that had acted in such secrecy.

“We have found that, in every respect, this commission has been carrying out its activities in an almost covert fashion,” she said.

The lack of openness even applies to members of Congress.

Democratic senators have filed at least five separate requests for information with the commission since June, and a Sept. 12 follow-up letter noted that none of those had received a response.

“The Commission has not responded to a single letter from Senators with oversight jurisdiction over the Commission and continues to be rebuked for its questionable activities,” said the letter by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Last week, a group of three Democratic senators wrote the Government Accountability Office seeking an investigation into the commission because of its lack responsiveness and transparency. The letter signed by Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Klobuchar cited a lack of transparency on the commission and concern that its conclusions would diminish confidence in the democratic process.

“It is incredible that they are not responding to any of this stuff, and that’s why it’s appropriate for GAO to take a look,” Bennet said in an interview.

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Follow Christina Almeida Cassidy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP-Christina .

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s ruling coalition appeared headed to an impressive win in national elections on Sunday, in what would represent at least a partial comeback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

A victory would boost Abe’s chances of winning another three-year term next September as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. That could extend his premiership to 2021, giving him more time to try to win a reluctant public over to his longtime goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution.

In the immediate term, a victory likely means a continuation of the policies Abe has pursued in the nearly five years since he took office in December 2012 – a hard line on North Korea, close ties with Washington, including defense, as well as a super-loose monetary policy and push for nuclear energy.

Japanese media projected shortly after polls closed that Abe’s LDP and its junior partner Komeito might even retain their two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament.

In unofficial results late Sunday night, the ruling coalition had won 264 seats in the 465-seat lower house, and other parties had 109 seats, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said. Final results may not be tallied until Monday.

Abe said the results indicate that voters support his policies and want to see his political leadership continue.

“I think the results reflected the voters’ preference for a solid political foundation and their expectations for us to push polices forward and achieve results,” Abe told NHK.

Abe’s support ratings had fallen to around 30 percent in the summer after accusations of government favoritism to people connected to him, sparking talk that he might be vulnerable as leader of his party and prime minister.

“I will humbly face the victory and continue to work humbly and sincerely,” he told NHK, noting lingering public distrust over the scandals.

Abe dissolved the lower house less than a month ago, forcing the snap election. The lower house chooses the prime minister and is the more powerful of the two chambers of parliament.

Analysts saw Abe’s move as an attempt to solidify his political standing at a time when the opposition was in disarray and his support ratings had improved somewhat.

His plan was briefly upstaged by the launch of a new opposition party by populist Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, but initial excitement faded and Koike herself decided not to run for parliament.

NHK projected that her Party of Hope would win just 38 to 59 seats.

Koike called the results “very severe” in a televised interview from Paris, where she is attending a conference of mayors. She said some of her remarks might have been taken negatively by voters, and that she would take the blame.

Projections indicated that another new party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, could outpoll the Party of Hope and become the biggest opposition grouping. The Constitutional Democrats are liberal-leaning, while both the Party of Hope and Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party are more conservative.

Abe’s party and its nationalist supporters have advocated constitutional revisions for years. They view the 1947 constitution as the legacy of Japan’s defeat in World War II and an imposition of the victor’s world order and values. The charter renounces the use of force in international conflicts and limits Japan’s troops to self-defense, although Japan has a well-equipped modern military that works closely with the U.S.

Any change to Japan’s constitution, which has never been amended, requires approval first by two-thirds of parliament, and then in a public referendum. Polls indicate that the Japanese public remains opposed to amendment.

—

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the hurricane relief concert attended by a five living ex-presidents (all times local):

8:35 p.m.

The five living former presidents have attended a concert to benefit victims of hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Barack Obama, George W. Bush, George H.W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter called on Americans to donate to the appeal that has raised $31 million so far. They avoided politics in their remarks and none of them mentioned President Donald Trump.

President George H.W. Bush did not address the crowd but smiled and waved from the stage. The 93-year-old elder Bush suffers from a form of Parkinson’s disease and appeared in a wheelchair at the event.

Grammy award winner Lady Gaga made a surprise appearance at the concert.

—

8 p.m.

An appeal to help hurricane victims backed by the five living former presidents has raised $31 million since it began on Sept. 7.

Jim McGrath, spokesman for former president George H.W. Bush, confirmed the figure Saturday. The former presidents all attended a concert in College Station, Texas on the campus of Texas A&M University as part of the appeal.

They have joined together to raise money after devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

—

7:05 p.m.

A hurricane relief concert has begun in Texas featuring the five living former U.S. presidents appearing together for the first time since 2013.

Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama were on stage at the start of the concert in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University, where the elder Bush’s presidential library is located.

They are joining together to raise money to help victims of devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

—

6 p.m.

President Donald Trump has recorded a video message for the hurricane relief concert that five former U.S. presidents are attending Saturday night.

Trump says in the video that the American people “came together as one” in the wake of a series of devastating hurricanes that hit Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in recent weeks.

He’s also thanking presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – frequent subjects of his wrath- for helping to spearhead the effort, calling them “some of America’s finest public servants.”

He says: “This wonderful effort reminds us that we truly are one nation under God, all unified by our values and devotion to one another.”

The concert starts at 7 p.m. CDT.

—

12:30 p.m.

All five living former U.S. presidents will be attending a concert Saturday night in a Texas college town, raising money for relief efforts from hurricane devastation in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Democrats Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Republicans George H.W. and George W. Bush are putting aside politics for the event. Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which made landfall after Harvey and Irma had battered Texas and Florida.

Having so much ex-presidential power in one place is unusual. George H.W. Bush spokesman Jim McGrath said all five of Saturday night’s attendees haven’t been together since the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas in 2013, when Obama was still in office.

—

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HOUSTON (AP) — Jose Altuve embraced Justin Verlander as confetti rained down. An improbable thought just a few years ago, the Houston Astros are headed to the World Series.

Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers Jr. combined on a three-hitter, Altuve and Evan Gattis homered and the Astros reached the World Series for only the second time by blanking the New York Yankees 4-0 Saturday night in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.

Next up for the Astros: Game 1 against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night. Los Angeles opened as a narrow favorite, but Verlander, the ALCS MVP , and fellow Houston ace Dallas Keuchel will have plenty of rest before the World Series begins at sweltering Dodger Stadium.

“I love our personality,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “We have the right amount of fun, the right amount of seriousness, the right amount of perspective when we need it. This is a very, very unique group. To win 100 games and still be hungry is pretty remarkable.”

The Astros will try for their first World Series title, thanks in large part to Altuve , the diminutive second baseman who swings a potent bat, and Verlander, who switched teams for the first time in his career to chase a ring.

Four years removed from their third straight 100-loss season in 2013, the Astros shut down the Yankees on consecutive nights after dropping three in a row in the Bronx.

The only previous time the Astros made it this far, they were a National League team when they were swept by the Chicago White Sox in 2005.

Hinch’s club has a chance to win that elusive first crown, while trying to boost a region still recovering from Hurricane Harvey.

“This city, they deserve this,” McCullers said.

Clutch defensive plays by third baseman Alex Bregman and center fielder George Springer helped Houston improve to 6-0 at Minute Maid Park in these playoffs and become the fifth team in major league history to capture a seven-game postseason series by winning all four of its home games.

Morton bounced back from a loss in Game 3 to allow two hits over five scoreless innings. Starter-turned-postseason reliever McCullers limited the Yankees to just one hit while fanning six over the next four. A noted curveballer, McCullers finished up with 24 straight breaking pitches to earn his first major league save.

Combined, they throttled the wild-card Yankees one last time in Houston. Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and their New York teammates totaled just three runs in the four road games.

“I know people are going to talk about how we didn’t win many games on the road. There were some other teams that haven’t won many games on the road, either. We just happened to run into a very good team that just beat us,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

The Astros also eliminated New York in the 2015 postseason, with Keuchel winning the AL wild-card game at Yankee Stadium.

CC Sabathia entered 10-0 with a 1.69 ERA in 13 starts this season after a Yankees loss. But he struggled with command and was gone with one out in the fourth inning.

Houston was up 2-0 in fifth when former Yankees star Brian McCann came through for the second straight game by hitting a two-run double. He snapped an 0-for-20 skid with an RBI double to give Houston its first run on Friday night in a 7-1 win.

The Yankees, trying to reach the World Series for the first time since 2009, lost an elimination game for the first time this season after winning their first four in these playoffs. New York went 1-6 on the road this postseason.

After going 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position through the first three innings, the Astros got on the board with no outs in the fourth with the 405-foot shot by Gattis.

Altuve launched a ball off Tommy Kahnle into the seats in right field with one out in the fifth for his fifth homer this postseason. It took a while for him to see that it was going to get out, and held onto his bat until he was halfway to first base before flipping it and trotting around the bases as chants of “MVP” rained down on him.

Altuve finished 8 for 25 with two homers and four RBIs in the ALCS after hitting .533 with three homers and four RBIs in the ALDS against Boston.

Carlos Correa and Yuli Gurriel hit consecutive singles before Kahnle struck out Gattis. McCann’s two-strike double, which rolled into the corner of right field, cleared the bases to push the lead to 4-0. Gurriel slid to avoid the tag and remained on his belly in a swimming pose at the plate for a few seconds after he was called safe.

It was just the second Game 7 in franchise history for the Astros, who lost to the Cardinals in the 2004 NLCS exactly 13 years earlier.

Sabathia allowed five hits and one run while walking three in 3 1/3 innings. He wasn’t nearly as sharp as he was in a Game 3 win and just 36 of the 65 pitches he threw were strikes.

Morton got into trouble in the fifth, and the Yankees had runners at the corners with one out. Bregman fielded a grounder hit by Todd Frazier and made a perfect throw home to allow McCann to tag Greg Bird and preserve Houston’s lead. McCann held onto the ball despite Bird’s cleat banging into his forearm. Chase Headley grounded out after that to end the inning.

A night after Springer kept Frazier from extra-bases with a leaping catch, Judge returned the favor on a ball hit by Yuli Gurriel. Judge sprinted, jumped and reached into the stands to grab his long fly ball before crashing into the wall and falling to the ground for the first out of the second inning.

Springer had another nifty catch in this one, jumping in front of Marwin Gonzalez at the wall in left-center to grab a ball hit by Bird for the first out of the seventh.

With McCullers in charge, the Astros soon closed it out.

“It’s not easy to get here. And I don’t take any of this for granted. And this is what we play for,” Verlander said. “These are the experiences that you remember at the end of your career when you look back, winning these games, just playing the World Series. Hopefully winning the World Series.”

—

More AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The five living former presidents appeared together for the first time since 2013 on Saturday at a concert to raise money for victims of devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Democrats Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Republicans George H.W. and George W. Bush gathered on stage in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University, putting aside politics to try to unite the country after the storms.

Texas A&M is home to the presidential library of the elder Bush. At 93, he has a form of Parkinson’s disease and appeared in a wheelchair at the event. His wife Barbara and George W. Bush’s wife Laura Bush were in the audience.

The concert features the country music band Alabama, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer ‘Soul Man’ Sam Moore, gospel legend Yolanda Adams and Texas musicians Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen.

The appeal backed by the ex-presidents has raised $31 million since it began on Sept. 7, said Jim McGrath, spokesman for George H.W. Bush.

Earlier on Saturday, President Donald Trump recorded a video greeting that avoids his past criticism of the former presidents and called them “some of America’s finest public servants.”

“This wonderful effort reminds us that we truly are one nation under God, all unified by our values and devotion to one another,” Trump said in the message.

The last time the five were together was in 2013, when Obama was still in office, at the dedication of George W. Bush’s presidential library in Dallas.

There is precedent for former presidents joining forces for post-disaster fundraising. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton raised money together after the 2004 South Asia tsunami and Hurricane Katrina the next year. Clinton and George W. Bush combined to seek donations after Haiti’s 2011 earthquake.

“It’s certainly a triple, if not a home run, every time,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Presidents have the most powerful and prolific fundraising base of any politician in the world. When they send out a call for help, especially on something that’s not political, they can rake in big money.”

Amid criticism that his administration was initially slow to aid storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, Trump accused island leaders of “poor leadership,” and later tweeted that, “Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes” while saying that Federal Emergency Management Agency, first-responders and military personnel wouldn’t be able to stay there forever.

But Rottinghaus said those attending Saturday’s concert were always going to be viewed more favorably since polling consistently shows that “any ex-president is seen as less polarizing than the current president.”

“They can’t get away from the politics of the moment,” he said of current White House occupants. “Ex-presidents are able to step back and be seen as the nation’s grandfather.”

Hurricane Harvey slammed into Texas’ Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 25, eventually unleashing historic flooding in Houston and killing more than 80 people. Shortly thereafter, all five ex-presidents appeared in a commercial for a fundraising effort known as “One America Appeal.” In it, George W. Bush says, “People are hurting down here.” His father, George H.W. Bush, then replies, “We love you, Texas.”

A website accepting donations, OneAmericaAppeal.org, was created with 100 percent of proceeds pledged to hurricane relief.

Hurricane Irma subsequently hit Florida and Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico, while both affected the U.S. Virgin Islands.

—

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COOPER CITY, Fla. (AP) — Mourners filled a church in Florida on Saturday to honor a U.S. soldier whose combat death in Africa led to a political fight between President Donald Trump and a Florida congresswoman.

The widow of Sgt. La David T. Johnson held the arm of an Army officer as she led her family, dressed in white, into the Christ the Rock Community Church in suburban Fort Lauderdale. The family asked that reporters remain outside.

Johnson, 25, was one of four U.S. Special Forces troops killed Oct. 4 in an ambush in Niger in an attack by militants linked to the Islamic State group. Four soldiers from Niger also died.

Debbie Valin and her teenage daughter, Michelle Shawn, held a U.S. flag outside the church in Cooper City more than an hour before the service.

“We are here for the military. We are grateful for the people who serve,” said Valin, whose grandson just completed Marine boot camp.

Fred Walker, a Marine veteran, planted small flags along the driveway into the church.

“It’s about doing the right thing for the soldiers. They are not acknowledged enough,” said Walker, who served from 1983 to 1989 as a tank gunner and substance abuse counselor.

The fight between Trump and Rep. Frederica Wilson has taken the focus off Johnson, whose widow, Myeshia, is due to have a daughter in January. Sgt. Johnson told friends she will be named La’Shee. The couple, who were high school sweethearts, already had a 6-year-old daughter, Ah’Leeysa, and 2-year-old son, La David Jr. An online fundraiser has raised more than $600,000 to pay for the children’s education.

The Miami Herald reports that Johnson’s mother died when he was 5 and that he was raised by his aunt. His family enrolled him in 5000 Role Models, a project Wilson began in 1993 when she was an educator to mentor African-American males and prepare them for college, vocational school or the military. He worked at Walmart for several years before joining the military in 2014.

A year before he enlisted, Johnson was featured in a local television newscast for his ability to do bicycle tricks, earning the nickname “Wheelie King.” He said he learned his tricks by going slow.

“Once you feel comfortable, you could just ride all day,” he told the interviewer.

The fight between the president and Wilson began Tuesday when the Miami-area Democrat said Trump told Myeshia Johnson in a phone call that her husband “knew what he signed up for” and didn’t appear to know his name, a version later backed up by Johnson’s aunt. Wilson was riding with Johnson’s family to meet the body and heard the call on speakerphone. She was principal of a school Johnson’s father attended.

Trump tweeted Wilson “fabricated” his statement and the fight escalated through the week. Trump in other tweets called her “wacky” and accused her of “SECRETLY” listening to the phone call.

Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, entered the fray on Thursday. Kelly asserted that the congresswoman had delivered a 2015 speech at an FBI field office dedication in which she “talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building,” rather than keeping the focus on the fallen agents for which it was named. Video of the speech contradicted his recollection.

Wilson, who is black, fired back Friday when she told The New York Times “The White House itself is full white supremacists.”

The retorts persisted on Saturday morning, with Trump tweeting: “I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he doesn’t plan to block the scheduled release of thousands of never publicly seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

“Subject to the receipt of further information,” he wrote in a Saturday morning tweet, “I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.”

The National Archives has until Thursday to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. The trove is expected to include more than 3,000 documents that have never been seen by the public and more than 30,000 that have been previously released but with redactions.

Congress mandated in 1992 that all assassination documents be released within 25 years, but Trump has the power to block them on the grounds that making them public would harm intelligence or military operations, law enforcement or foreign relations.

“Thank you. This is the correct decision. Please do not allow exceptions for any agency of government,” tweeted Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of a book about Kennedy, who has urged the president to release the files. “JFK files have been hidden too long.”

The anticipated release has had scholars and armchair detectives buzzing. But it’s unlikely the documents will contain any big revelations on a tragedy that has stirred conspiracy theories for decades, Judge John Tunheim told The Associated Press last month. Tunheim was chairman of the independent agency in the 1990s that made public many assassination records and decided how long others could remain secret.

Sabato and other JFK scholars believe the trove of files may, however, provide insight into assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s trip to Mexico City weeks before the killing, during which he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies. Oswald’s stated reason for going was to get visas that would allow him to enter Cuba and the Soviet Union, according to the Warren Commission, the investigative body established by President Lyndon B. Johnson, but much about the trip remains unknown.

Longtime Trump friend Roger Stone, who wrote a book alleging that Johnson was the driving force behind Kennedy’s assassination, had personally urged the president to make the files public, he told far-right conspiracy theorist and radio show host Alex Jones this past week.

“Yesterday, I had the opportunity to make the case directly to the president of the United States by phone as to why I believe it is essential that he release the balance of the currently redacted and classified JFK assassination documents,” Stone said, adding that “a very good White House source,” but not the president, had told him the Central Intelligence Agency, “specifically CIA director Mike Pompeo, has been lobbying the president furiously not to release these documents.”

“Why? Because I believe they show that Oswald was trained, nurtured and put in place by the Central Intelligence Agency. It sheds very bad light on the deep state,” he said.

After the president announced his decision, Stone tweeted: “Yes ! victory !”

The files that were withheld in full were those the Assassination Records Review Board deemed “not believed relevant,” Tunheim said. Its members sought to ensure they weren’t hiding any information directly related to Kennedy’s assassination, but there may be nuggets of information in the files that they didn’t realize were important two decades ago, he said.

“There could be some jewels in there because in our level of knowledge in the 1990s is maybe different from today,” Tunheim said.

The National Archives in July published online more than 440 never-before-seen assassination documents and thousands of others that had been released previously with redactions.

Among those documents was a 1975 internal CIA memo that questioned whether Oswald became motivated to kill Kennedy after reading an AP article in a newspaper that quoted Fidel Castro as saying “U.S. leaders would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba.”

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COOPER CITY, Fla. (AP) — Mourners are expected to pack a church Saturday to honor a U.S. soldier whose combat death in Africa led to a political fight between President Donald Trump and a Florida congresswoman.

Family, friends and neighbors of Sgt. La David T. Johnson will attend his funeral service at a suburban Fort Lauderdale church and others are expected to line the streets outside to salute him. Johnson, 25, was one of four U.S. Special Forces troops killed Oct. 4 in an ambush in Niger in an attack by militants linked to the Islamic State group. Four soldiers from Niger also died.

Debbie Valin and her teenage daughter, Michelle Shawn, held a U.S. flag outside Christ the Rock Church in Cooper City more than an hour before the service, awaiting the arrival of Johnson’s family.

“We are here for the military. We are grateful for the people who serve,” said Valin, whose grandson just completed Marine boot camp.

Fred Walker, a Marine veteran, planted small flags along the driveway into the church.

“It’s about doing the right thing for the soldiers. They are not acknowledged enough,” said Walker, who served from 1983 to 1989 as a tank gunner and substance abuse counselor.

The fight between Trump and Rep. Frederica Wilson has taken the focus off Johnson, whose widow, Myeshia, is due to have a daughter in January. Sgt. Johnson told friends she will be named La’Shee. The couple, who were high school sweethearts, already had a 6-year-old daughter, Ah’Leeysa, and 2-year-old son, La David Jr. An online fundraiser has raised more than $600,000 to pay for the children’s education.

The Miami Herald reports that Johnson’s mother died when he was 5 and that he was raised by his aunt. His family enrolled him in 5000 Role Models, a project Wilson began in 1993 when she was an educator to mentor African-American males and prepare them for college, vocational school or the military. He worked at Walmart for several years before joining the military in 2014.

A year before he enlisted, Johnson was featured in a local television newscast for his ability to do bicycle tricks, earning the nickname “Wheelie King.” He said he learned his tricks by going slow.

“Once you feel comfortable, you could just ride all day,” he told the interviewer.

The fight between the president and Wilson began Tuesday when the Miami-area Democrat said Trump told Myeshia Johnson in a phone call that her husband “knew what he signed up for” and didn’t appear to know his name, a version later backed up by Johnson’s aunt. Wilson was riding with Johnson’s family to meet the body and heard the call on speakerphone. She was principal of a school Johnson’s father attended.

Trump tweeted Wilson “fabricated” his statement and the fight escalated through the week. Trump in other tweets called her “wacky” and accused her of “SECRETLY” listening to the phone call.

Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, entered the fray on Thursday. Kelly asserted that the congresswoman had delivered a 2015 speech at an FBI field office dedication in which she “talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building,” rather than keeping the focus on the fallen agents for which it was named. Video of the speech contradicted his recollection.

Wilson, who is black, fired back Friday when she told The New York Times “The White House itself is full white supremacists.”

The retorts persisted on Saturday morning, with Trump tweeting: “I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!”

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AP Photo/Hussein Malla

PARIS (AP) — The forces fighting the remnants of the Islamic State group in Syria have tacit instructions on dealing with the foreigners who joined the extremist group by the thousands: Kill them on the battlefield.

As they made their last stand in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, an estimated 300 extremists holed up in and around a sports stadium and a hospital argued among themselves about whether to surrender, according to Kurdish commanders leading the forces that closed in. The final days were brutal – 75 coalition airstrikes in 48 hours and a flurry of desperate IS car bombs that were easily spotted in the sliver of devastated landscape still under militant control.

No government publicly expressed concern about the fate of its citizens who left and joined the Islamic State fighters plotting attacks at home and abroad. In France, which has suffered repeated violence claimed by the Islamic State – including the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris – Defense Minister Florence Parly was among the few to say it aloud.

“If the jihadis perish in this fight, I would say that’s for the best,” Parly told Europe 1 radio last week.

Those were the orders, according to the U.S.

“Our mission is to make sure that any foreign fighter who is here, who joined ISIS from a foreign country and came into Syria, they will die here in Syria,” said Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy for the anti-IS coalition, in an interview with Dubai-based Al-Aan television.

“So if they’re in Raqqa, they’re going to die in Raqqa,” he said.

The coalition has given names and photos to the Kurdish fighters to identify the foreign jihadis, who are seen as a threat back home and a burden on their justice systems, according to a commander with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The commander said his U.S.-backed fighters are checking for wanted men among the dead or the few foreigners among the captured.

An official with the powerful YPG, the backbone of the SDF that also runs the local security and intelligence branches, said foreigners who decided to fight until the end will be “eliminated.” For the few prisoners, the Kurds try to reach out to the home countries, “and we try to hand them in. But many would not want to take their (detainees),” he said. Both men spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue with reporters.

No country will admit to refusing to take back citizens who joined the Islamic State, including women and their children. But few are making much of an effort to recover them.

In Iraq, hundreds of Islamic State fighters have surrendered or have been taken into custody, and their families have been rounded up into detention camps. The men are put on trial and face the death penalty if convicted of terrorism charges – even if they are foreigners. One Russian fighter has already been hanged.

France, which routinely intervenes when citizens abroad face capital punishment, has said nothing about its jihadis in Iraq. More French joined the group, also known by its Arab acronym Daesh, than any other European country.

Foreigners captured by Kurdish forces are in a more precarious position because the SDF doesn’t answer to Syria’s government and has no state of its own. A Syrian woman whose French husband surrendered to Kurdish authorities in June said she had no access to him and didn’t know where he was 50 days after they separated. She denied her husband was an IS fighter.

The camps for displaced civilians from Raqqa contain only foreign women and children. As for the fate of any French citizens there, France’s Foreign Ministry had a short response: “Our priority today is to achieve a complete victory over Daesh.” German diplomats say all of the country’s citizens are entitled to consular assistance.

As the final battle in Raqqa drew to a close, Parly estimated a few hundred French fighters were still in the war zone. For Germany, about 600 men were unaccounted for.

Britain has not said how many of its former citizens are believed still fighting, but at least one holdout posted a furious 72-minute monologue earlier this month from Raqqa as airstrikes and artillery fire boomed behind him. He said Muslims around the world should be outraged at the treatment of Islamic State’s followers.

“This is not me being an extremist. I’m a very moderate, mild person, hamdullah (thanks to God), and I find Islamic State to be very moderate and mild,” said the man, who called himself as Abu Adam al-Britani and was identified by British media as Yasser Iqbal, a Porsche-driving lawyer who defended Islamic State’s brutal practices as ordained by God, including killing non-Muslims and dissenting Muslims. He did not mention the group’s routine public beheadings, enslavement of women or brainwashing of children to become hardened killers.

At its height, between 27,000 and 31,000 may have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State group, according to an analysis by the Soufan Group. Of those, about 6,000 were from Europe, with most from France, Germany and Britain. A majority had immigrant backgrounds and was heavily targeted by the group’s propaganda, which highlighted the injustices they faced at home. One study found that fewer than 10 percent of the Western fighters were converts to Islam.

As many as a third of the Europeans may have returned home. Many are jailed immediately and awaiting trial in backlogged courts, but others are freed and under surveillance.

Raqqa’s foreign holdouts are generally acknowledged to be midlevel IS recruits, and most are believed to have little information about the group’s inner workings. U.S. Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition, said he had no information about any “high-value targets” among approximately 350 fighters who surrendered in Raqqa in the last days, including a few foreigners.

But for their home countries, they pose a risk.

“The general sentiment in northern Europe is we don’t want these people back, but I don’t think anyone has thought about the alternatives,” said Pieter Van Ostaeyen, an expert on the Belgian jihadis.

Among the complications are how to prosecute any returnees and how to track them if and when they leave custody.

“You can see why almost the preferred resolution is that they don’t return,” said Bruce Hoffman, head of Georgetown University’s security studies program and author of “Inside Terrorism.”

“What worries me is I think it’s wishful thinking that they’re all going to be killed off,” he added.

Wishful thinking or not, Parly said it’s the best outcome.

“We cannot do anything to prevent their return besides neutralize the maximum number of jihadis in this combat,” she said.

—

El Deeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Frank Jordans in Berlin and Gregory Katz in London contributed.

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Foreigners who joined IS faced almost certain death in Raqqa
Foreigners who joined IS faced almost certain death in Raqqa
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Source: AP HEADLINES

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian security officials say at least 55 policemen, including 20 officers and 34 conscripts, have been killed in a shootout during a raid on a militant hideout near Cairo.

The officials said Saturday that the exchange of fire took place late Friday in the al-Wahat al-Bahriya area in Giza governorate, about 135 kilometers (84 miles) from the capital after security services moved in.

The officials say the death toll could increase.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry issued a statement on the raid late Friday but didn’t provide a death toll.

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Egyptian officials say 55 police killed in Cairo shootout
Egyptian officials say 55 police killed in Cairo shootout
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Source: AP HEADLINES