AP

AP Photo/Isaac Brekken

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The Miss America Organization suspended its CEO on Friday, less than 24 hours after leaked emails surfaced showing him and others disparaging the appearance, intellect and sex lives of former Miss Americas.

Sam Haskell said he will abide by the suspension, even while decrying the Huffington Post story on Thursday that publicized the emails as “unkind and untrue.”

“My mistake is a mistake of words,” Haskell wrote in a statement issued Friday night, shortly after the board suspended him indefinitely while it investigates the situation. “Much of what was reported is dishonest, deceptive, and despicable.

“The story is so unkind and untrue, and hurts me, my family, and the stewardship of this nonprofit,” he wrote. “Those who know my heart know that this is not indicative of my character, nor is it indicative of my business acumen.”

Yashar Ali, who wrote the Huffington Post article, defended its accuracy Friday night, saying he was given the emails by two sources “who felt that Mr. Haskell’s behavior was egregious.” Ali said he now plans to publish all the emails he received in a future story.

The Miss America Organization said its board “will be conducting an in-depth investigation into alleged inappropriate communications and the nature in which they were obtained.”

The statement came hours after 49 former Miss Americas signed a petition demanding the resignation of Haskell and other pageant officials, as did more than 1,600 state and local titleholders, contestants and pageant volunteers.

The Miss America Organization did not indicate whether Haskell would be paid during his suspension.

The emails included one that used a vulgar term for female genitalia to refer to past Miss America winners, one that wished that a particular former Miss America had died, and others that speculated about how many sex partners another former Miss America has had.

Several of the emails targeted Mallory Hagan, who won the 2013 pageant, claiming she had gained weight after winning and speculating about how many men she had sex with.

“My hope is that this story that broke will bring light to the type of behavior that’s been in leadership of the Miss America Organization and really help us put in place some people who care and who embody the mission of Miss America,” Hagan said in a Twitter video . “Having somebody bully you, demean you, degrade you in any way is not OK.”

Haskell said he was attacked for a year by two former Miss Americas who he did not name, “which impaired my judgment when responding to the inappropriate emails sent to me about them. For that, I deeply apologize.

“I have the utmost respect for the women of this program and contestants at every level,” he continued. “It breaks my heart for anyone to think otherwise.”

Miss America 2016 Betty Cantrell, who signed the petition, told The Associated Press she “lived under this misogynistic leadership for a year of my life, and I’m definitely glad to see all of this evidence come into the light.”

She also said pageant officials “told me which former Miss Americas I wasn’t allowed to associate with or pose for photos with.”

On Friday, the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority began reviewing its contract with the Miss America Organization, which has about $4 million left on it, after numerous local and state officials called for the final year of the deal to be killed.

The emails already cost the pageant its television production partner and raised questions about the future of the nationally televised broadcast from Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall the week after Labor Day each year. Dick Clark Productions told the AP on Thursday night that it cut ties with the Miss America Organization over the emails, calling them “appalling.”

The Huffington Post article shows that Haskell and others directed considerable attention to Hagan. He forwarded an email he had been sent regarding Hagan to a writer for the pageant, who has since been terminated.

The writer responded by questioning whether he and Haskell were part of a tiny group of people who had not had sex with Hagan.

According to the Huffington Post, Haskell replied: “It appears we are the only ones!”

—

Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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Miss America suspends CEO in email flap; more are on the way
Miss America suspends CEO in email flap; more are on the way
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund political research into President Donald Trump that ultimately produced a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night.

The revelation is likely to fuel complaints by Trump that the dossier, which the president has derided as “phony stuff,” is a politically motivated collection of salacious claims. Yet the FBI has worked to corroborate the document, and in a sign of its ongoing relevance to investigators, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team – which is probing potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign – weeks ago questioned the former British spy, Christopher Steele, who helped compile the claims in the dossier.

The dossier, which circulated in Washington last year and was turned over to the FBI for its review, contends that Russia was engaged in a longstanding effort to aid Trump and had amassed compromising information about him. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the document as false and in recent days has questioned on Twitter whether Democrats or the FBI had helped fund it.

Trump has also attacked the findings of the FBI, NSA and CIA that Russia waged a large-scale influence campaign to interfere in the election. The FBI and the CIA have said with high confidence that the effort was aimed at hurting Clinton’s candidacy and helping Trump. The NSA found the same with “moderate” confidence.

The person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential client matters, said the arrangement was brokered by Marc Elias, a lawyer for the campaign and the DNC, and his law firm of Perkins Coie.

The deal began in the spring of 2016, when the firm was approached by Fusion GPS, the political research firm behind the dossier, and lasted until right before Election Day, according to the person. When Fusion approached Elias, it had already been doing research work on Trump for a client during the GOP primary. The identity of the original client has not been revealed.

It’s unclear what Fusion GPS had dug up by the time law firm hired them in April 2016. According to a copy of the dossier published by BuzzFeed last year, the earliest report from Steele dates to June 2016, two months later. It was not immediately known how much money Fusion was paid or how many others in the Clinton campaign or DNC were aware that the firm had been retained.

Elias did not immediately return an email seeking comment, and representatives of Fusion GPS declined to comment. The Washington Post first reported the arrangement.

Clinton campaign officials did not immediately comment, but in a statement, a DNC spokeswoman said chairman Tom Perez was not part of the decision-making and was unaware that Perkins Coie was working with Fusion GPS.

“But let’s be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened,” the statement said.

Former Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said on Twitter that he regretted not knowing about Steele’s hiring before the election, and that had he known, “I would have volunteered to go to Europe and try to help him.”

“I have no idea what Fusion or Steele were paid but if even a shred of that dossier ends up helping Mueller, it will prove money well spent,” he wrote in another tweet.

According to a letter obtained by the AP Tuesday night, representatives of Fusion GPS reached out to the firm in early March 2016 to express interest in continuing research on Trump it had begun “for one or more other clients during the Republican primary contest.”

At that time, the Clinton campaign was looking toward the general election and was pivoting attention toward Trump, who was emerging as the Republican front-runner. The person said Trump, by virtue of his extensive international business dealings, was seen as a natural target for complicated opposition research abroad.

Perkins Coie then engaged Fusion GPS in April 2016 “to perform a variety of research services during the 2016 election cycle,” according to the letter.

The dossier created a political firestorm in January when it was revealed that then-FBI Director James Comey had alerted Trump to the existence of allegations about him and Russia. Since then, Trump has repeatedly attacked it and Republicans in Congress have worked to discredit it, even issuing a subpoena to force the disclosure of Fusion GPS’s bank records.

The letter, sent Tuesday by the law firm’s general counsel to a lawyer for Fusion GPS, was intended to release the research firm from its obligation to keep confidential the identity of its client.

—

Associated Press writers Chad Day and Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

—

Read the letter: http://apne.ws/UK0Ojir

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AP source: Clinton camp helped fund Trump dossier research
AP source: Clinton camp helped fund Trump dossier research
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Source: AP HEADLINES

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on women’s marches taking place around the world (all times local):

11:20 a.m.

Some early arrivers at the Las Vegas women’s march, which is launching a voter drive and targeting swing states like Nevada, say they’re happy to be part of history.

Organizers hope the rally will recruit candidates to push back against the Trump administration and promote issues important to women, progressives and those feeling marginalized by the president’s policies.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Sam Boyd Stadium, which holds 40,000 people, was about a quarter-full by late morning Sunday.

Among the crowd was Paula Beaty, who wore a women’s suffrage outfit from early 1900s.

The tech worker from Durham, North Carolina says women’s rights have been eroded with President Donald Trump in office.

—

3:40 p.m.

Protesters have gathered near the Eiffel Tower to rally against sexual misconduct and sex discrimination in solidarity with women’s marches marking the anniversary of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Heavy rain fell in Paris during the event on Sunday, which could have been a factor in the small number of participants compared to the marches in the United States on Saturday.

Maggie Kan was one of the more than one hundred people who didn’t let the rain and cold deter them.

Kan told The Associated Press: “It doesn’t matter if the weather is like this. We’re still coming together, and we’re going to still fight against Trump and his agenda.”

Some of the slogans on posters raised at the Paris rally read “Sorry for the inconvenience, we are trying to change the world” and “Look back, march forward.”

—

2:35 p.m.

Thousands of people have rallied in cities across Australia to support women’s rights and show solidarity with those marching elsewhere around the globe.

The largest march was held in Sydney, with thousands gathered in the city’s Hyde Park on Sunday carrying signs with politically charged messages such as “If you’re not angry you’re not paying attention.”

Smaller marches also drew hundreds in Melbourne and Brisbane.

Melbourne march organizer Melissa Goffin said: “I think last year was that watershed moment of President Trump’s election.” She added: “It’s a new era of feminism.”

—

2:20 p.m.

Thousands of people have turned out in central London despite sleet and snow to show solidarity with women around the world in demanding equality, justice and an end to harassment.

Demonstrators chanted across from British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office on Sunday with placards reading “We Are Powerful” and “Time’s Up” to mark the anniversary of U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Marches supporting of female empowerment, several of them massive, also took place on Saturday.

The international events come at a time of reckoning for many men in Hollywood, media and other industries as women speak out about sexual misconduct in the workplace.

In a statement before the London march, activists said they were “coming together to pledge that we are going to make change in big and small ways.”

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The Latest: Nevada marchers happy to be part of history
The Latest: Nevada marchers happy to be part of history
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/J. David Ake

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI failed to notify scores of U.S. officials that Russian hackers were trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin’s crosshairs, The Associated Press has found.

Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up. Even senior policymakers discovered they were targets only when the AP told them, a situation some described as bizarre and dispiriting.

“It’s utterly confounding,” said Philip Reiner, a former senior director at the National Security Council, who was notified by the AP that he was targeted in 2015. “You’ve got to tell your people. You’ve got to protect your people.”

The FBI declined to answer most questions from AP about how it had responded to the spying campaign. The bureau provided a statement that said in part: “The FBI routinely notifies individuals and organizations of potential threat information.”

Three people familiar with the matter – including a current and a former government official – said the FBI has known for more than a year the details of Fancy Bear’s attempts to break into Gmail inboxes. A senior FBI official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the hacking operation because of its sensitivity, declined to comment on timing but said that the bureau was overwhelmed by the sheer number of attempted hacks.

“It’s a matter of triaging to the best of our ability the volume of the targets who are out there,” he said.

The AP did its own triage, dedicating two months and a small team of reporters to go through a hit list of Fancy Bear targets provided by the cybersecurity firm Secureworks.

Previous AP investigations based on the list have shown how Fancy Bear worked in close alignment with the Kremlin’s interests to steal tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic Party . The hacking campaign disrupted the 2016 U.S. election and cast a shadow over the presidency of Donald Trump, whom U.S. intelligence agencies say the hackers were trying to help . The Russian government has denied interfering in the American election.

The Secureworks list comprises 19,000 lines of targeting data . Going through it, the AP identified more than 500 U.S.-based people or groups and reached out to more than 190 of them, interviewing nearly 80 about their experiences.

Many were long-retired, but about one-quarter were still in government or held security clearances at the time they were targeted. Only two told the AP they learned of the hacking attempts on their personal Gmail accounts from the FBI. A few more were contacted by the FBI after their emails were published in the torrent of leaks that coursed through last year’s electoral contest. But to this day, some leak victims have not heard from the bureau at all.

Charles Sowell, who previously worked as a senior administrator in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and was targeted by Fancy Bear two years ago, said there was no reason the FBI couldn’t do the same work the AP did.

“It’s absolutely not OK for them to use an excuse that there’s too much data,” Sowell said. “Would that hold water if there were a serial killer investigation, and people were calling in tips left and right, and they were holding up their hands and saying, ‘It’s too much’? That’s ridiculous.”

—

“IT’S CURIOUS”

The AP found few traces of the bureau’s inquiry as it launched its own investigation two months ago.

In October, two AP journalists visited THCServers.com , a brightly lit, family-run internet company on the former grounds of a communist-era chicken farm outside the Romanian city of Craiova. That’s where someone registered DCLeaks.com, the first of three websites to publish caches of emails belonging to Democrats and other U.S. officials in mid-2016.

DCLeaks was clearly linked to Fancy Bear. Previous AP reporting found that all but one of the site’s victims had been targeted by the hacking group before their emails were dumped online.

Yet THC founder Catalin Florica said he was never approached by law enforcement.

“It’s curious,” Florica said. “You are the first ones that contact us.”

THC merely registered the site, a simple process that typically takes only a few minutes. But the reaction was similar at the Kuala Lumpur offices of the Malaysian web company Shinjiru Technology , which hosted DCLeaks’ stolen files for the duration of the electoral campaign.

The company’s chief executive, Terence Choong, said he had never heard of DCLeaks until the AP contacted him.

“What is the issue with it?” he asked.

Questions over the FBI’s handling of Fancy Bear’s broad hacking sweep date to March 2016, when agents arrived unannounced at Hillary Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn to warn her campaign about a surge of rogue, password-stealing emails.

The agents offered little more than generic security tips the campaign had already put into practice and refused to say who they thought was behind the attempted intrusions, according to a person who was there and spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversation was meant to be confidential.

Questions emerged again after it was revealed that the FBI never took custody of the Democratic National Committee’s computer server after it was penetrated by Fancy Bear in April 2016. Former FBI Director James Comey testified this year that the FBI worked off a copy of the server, which he described as an “appropriate substitute.”

—

“MAKES ME SAD”

Retired Maj. James Phillips was one of the first people to have the contents of his inbox published by DCLeaks when the website made its June 2016 debut.

But the Army veteran said he didn’t realize his personal emails were “flapping in the breeze” until a journalist phoned him two months later.

“The fact that a reporter told me about DCLeaks kind of makes me sad,” he said. “I wish it had been a government source.”

Phillips’ story would be repeated again and again as the AP spoke to officials from the National Defense University in Washington to the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado.

Among them: a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, retired Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes; a former head of Air Force Intelligence, retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula; a former defense undersecretary, Eric Edelman; and a former director of cybersecurity for the Air Force, retired Lt. Gen. Mark Schissler.

Retired Maj. Gen. Brian Keller, a former director of military support at the Geospatial Intelligence Agency, was not informed, even after DCLeaks posted his emails to the internet. In a telephone call with AP, Keller said he still wasn’t clear on what had happened, who had hacked him or whether his data was still at risk.

“Should I be worried or alarmed or anything?” said Keller, who left the spy satellite agency in 2010 and now works in private industry.

Not all the interviewees felt the FBI had a responsibility to alert them.

“Perhaps optimistically, I have to conclude that a risk analysis was done and I was not considered a high enough risk to justify making contact,” said a former Air Force chief of staff, retired Gen. Norton Schwartz, who was targeted by Fancy Bear in 2015.

Others argued that the FBI may have wanted to avoid tipping the hackers off or that there were too many people to notify.

“The expectation that the government is going to protect everyone and go back to everyone is false,” said Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior technical officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency who teaches homeland security at Pennsylvania State University in Harrisburg and was himself among the targets.

But the government is supposed to try, said Michael Daniel, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House cybersecurity coordinator.

Daniel wouldn’t comment directly on why so many Fancy Bear targets weren’t warned in this case, but he said the issue of how and when to notify people “frankly still needs more work.”

—

“CLOAK-AND-DAGGER”

In the absence of any official warning, some of those contacted by AP brushed off the idea that they were taken in by a foreign power’s intelligence service.

“I don’t open anything I don’t recognize,” said Joseph Barnard, who headed the personnel recovery branch of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command.

That may well be true of Barnard; Secureworks’ data suggests he never clicked the malicious link sent to him in June 2015. But it isn’t true of everyone.

An AP analysis of the data suggests that out of 312 U.S. military and government figures targeted by Fancy Bear, 131 clicked the links sent to them. That could mean that as many as 2 in 5 came perilously close to handing over their passwords.

It’s not clear how many gave up their credentials in the end or what the hackers may have acquired.

Some of those accounts hold emails that go back years, when even many of the retired officials still occupied sensitive posts.

Overwhelmingly, interviewees told AP they kept classified material out of their Gmail inboxes, but intelligence experts said Russian spies could use personal correspondence as a springboard for further hacking, recruitment or even blackmail.

“You start to have information you might be able to leverage against that person,” said Sina Beaghley, a researcher at the RAND Corp. who served on the NSC until 2014.

In the few cases where the FBI did warn targets, they were sometimes left little wiser about what was going on or what to do.

Rob “Butch” Bracknell, a 20-year military veteran who works as a NATO lawyer in Norfolk, Virginia, said an FBI agent visited him about a year ago to examine his emails and warn him that a “foreign actor” was trying to break into his account.

“He was real cloak-and-dagger about it,” Bracknell said. “He came here to my work, wrote in his little notebook and away he went.”

Left to fend for themselves, some targets have been improvising their cybersecurity.

Retired Gen. Roger A. Brady, who was responsible for American nuclear weapons in Europe as part of his past role as commander of the U.S. Air Force there, turned to Apple support this year when he noticed something suspicious on his computer. Hughes, a former DIA head, said he had his hard drive replaced by the “Geek Squad” at a Best Buy in Florida after his machine began behaving strangely. Keller, the former senior spy satellite official, said it was his son who told him his emails had been posted to the web after getting a Google alert in June 2016.

A former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, who like many others was repeatedly targeted by Fancy Bear but has yet to receive any warning from the FBI, said the lackluster response risked something worse than last year’s parade of leaks.

“Our government needs to be taking greater responsibility to defend its citizens in both the physical and cyber worlds, now, before a cyberattack produces an even more catastrophic outcome than we have already experienced,” McFaul said.

—

Donn reported from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Associated Press writers Vadim Ghirda in Carcea, Romania, Chad Day in Washington, Frank Bajak in Houston, Justin Myers in Chicago and Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.

—

Satter, Donn and Butler can be reached at:

http://raphaelsatter.com,https://twitter.com/jadonn7 and https://twitter.com/desmondbutler

—

EDITOR’S NOTE – Raphael Satter’s father, David Satter, is an author and Russia specialist who has been critical of the Kremlin. His emails were published last year by hackers and his account is on Secureworks’ list of Fancy Bear targets. He was not notified by the FBI.

EDITOR’S NOTE – One in a series of stories on the findings of an Associated Press investigation of the Russian hackers who disrupted the U.S. presidential election in 2016

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FBI didn't tell US targets as Russian hackers hunted emails
FBI didn't tell US targets as Russian hackers hunted emails
{$excerpt:n}
Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Disguised Russian agents on Twitter rushed to deflect scandalous news about Donald Trump just before last year’s presidential election while straining to refocus criticism on the mainstream media and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, according to an Associated Press analysis of since-deleted accounts.

Tweets by Russia-backed accounts such as “America-1st-” and “BatonRougeVoice” on Oct. 7, 2016, actively pivoted away from news of an audio recording in which Trump made crude comments about groping women, and instead touted damaging emails hacked from Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.

Since early this year, the extent of Russian intrusion to help Trump and hurt Clinton in the election has been the subject of both congressional scrutiny and a criminal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. In particular, those investigations are looking into the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

AP’s analysis illuminates the obvious strategy behind the Russian cyber meddling: swiftly react, distort and distract attention from any negative Trump news.

The AP examined 36,210 tweets from Aug. 31, 2015, to Nov. 10, 2016, posted by 382 of the Russian accounts that Twitter shared with congressional investigators last week. Twitter deactivated the accounts, deleting the tweets and making them inaccessible on the internet. But a limited selection of the accounts’ Twitter activity was retrieved by matching account handles against an archive obtained by AP.

“MSM (the mainstream media) is at it again with Billy Bush recording … What about telling Americans how Hillary defended a rapist and later laughed at his victim?” tweeted the America-1st- account, which had 25,045 followers at its peak, according to metadata in the archive. The tweet went out the afternoon of Oct. 7, just hours after The Washington Post broke the story about Trump’s comments to Bush, then host of “Access Hollywood,” about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, saying, “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”

Within an hour of the Post’s story, WikiLeaks unleashed its own bombshell about hacked email from Podesta’s account, a release the Russian accounts had been foreshadowing for days.

“WikiLeaks’ Assange signals release of documents before U.S. election,” tweeted both “SpecialAffair” and “ScreamyMonkey” within a second of each other on Oct. 4. “SpecialAffair,” an account describing itself as a “Political junkie in action,” had 11,255 followers at the time. “ScreamyMonkey,” self-described as a “First frontier.News aggregator,” had 13,224. Both accounts were created within three days of each other in late December 2014.

Twitter handed over the handles of 2,752 accounts it identified as coming from Russia’s Internet Research Agency to congressional investigators ahead of the social media giant’s Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 appearances on Capitol Hill. It said 9 percent of the tweets were election-related but didn’t make the tweets themselves public.

That makes the archive the AP obtained the most comprehensive historical picture so far of Russian activity on Twitter in the crucial run-up to the Nov. 8, 2016, vote. Twitter policy requires developers who archive its material to delete tweets from suspended accounts as soon as reasonably possible, unless doing so would violate the law or Twitter grants an exception. It’s possible the existence of the deleted tweets in the archive obtained by the AP runs afoul of those rules

The Russian accounts didn’t just spring into action at the last minute. They were similarly active at earlier points in the campaign.

When Trump reversed himself on a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace on Sept. 17, declaring abruptly that Obama “was born in the United States, period,” several Russian accounts chimed in to echo Trump’s subsequent false claim that it was Clinton who had started the birther controversy.

Others continued to push birther narratives. The Russian account TEN-GOP, which many mistook for the official account of the Tennessee Republican Party, linked to a video that claimed that Obama “admits he was born in Kenya.” But the Russian accounts weren’t in lockstep. The handle “hyddrox” retweeted a post by the anti-Trump billionaire Mark Cuban that the “MSM (mainstream media) is being suckered into chasing birther stories.”

On Sept. 15, Clinton returned to the campaign trail following a bout with pneumonia that caused her to stumble at a 9/11 memorial service. The Russian account “Pamela-Moore13” noted that her intro music was “I Feel Good” by James Brown – then observed that “James Brown died of pneumonia,” a line that was repeated at least 11 times by Russian accounts, including by “Jenn-Abrams,” which had 59,868 followers at the time.

According to several obituaries, Brown died of congestive heart failure related to pneumonia.

Racial discord also figured prominently in the tweets, just as it did with many of the ads Russian trolls had purchased on Facebook in the months leading up to and following the election. One Russian account, “Blacks4DTrump,” tweeted a Trump quote on Sept. 16 in which he declared “it is the Democratic party that is the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow & the party of opposition.”

TEN-GOP, meanwhile, asked followers to “SPREAD the msg of black pastor explaining why African-Americans should vote Donald Trump!”

—

AP Data Journalist Larry Fenn in New York contributed to this report.

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AP Exclusive: Russia Twitter trolls deflected Trump bad news
AP Exclusive: Russia Twitter trolls deflected Trump bad news
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Phil Nijhuis

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Latest on the judgment on former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic (all times local):

5:50 p.m.

Kosovo has welcomed the conviction of Serbian military chief Ratko Mladic on charges of genocide and other crimes by a United Nations court.

Kosovo’s Foreign Ministry said the verdict marked an act of “international justice and satisfaction for the Bosnia war victims.”

The ministry also recalled that its own ethnic Albanian population, like Bosnians, suffered at the hands of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his generals, who “applied in Kosovo, too, all the forms of crimes described in the charges against Mladic.”

Kosovo was previously a province of Serbia that declared independence in 2008.

—

4:45 p.m.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says the genocide conviction of Ratko Mladic shows that “those who perpetrate atrocities cannot outrun justice.”

Johnson says Wednesday’s conviction of the Bosnian Serb military leader “will not bring back the thousands who lost their lives but it does demonstrate that the architects of their suffering will be held to account.”

Johnson said the atrocities committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s “marked one of Europe’s darkest periods. We must join together to ensure it never happens again.”

Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment by a U.N. war crimes tribunal for crimes committed during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

—

3:35 p.m.

The top Bosnian Serb leader says the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia proved its anti-Serb bias by convicting Ratko Mladic of war crimes and genocide committed during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

Milorad Dodik alleged Wednesday that the U.N tribunal was established with the “single purpose” of demonizing the Serbs. He said Serbs, in turn, should “forever erase every mention” of the court from their textbooks.

Dodik said that “this opinion is shared by all the Serbs” and described Mladic as “a hero and a patriot.”

He added that the U.N tribunal will be studied in the future as a place where “law and ethics were defeated, and achievement of justice prevented.”

—

3 p.m.

The European Union says it counts on the Balkan nations to honor the victims of war crimes committed in the Bosnian war by promoting reconciliation among neighbors.

It made the statement after former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was found guilty of 10 counts of genocide and given a life sentence.

The EU said it could not comment specifically on the judgment against Mladic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, but that it fully respects the court’s decisions.

It said that Wednesday’s judgment “touches upon some of the darkest, most tragic events” in the recent history of the Western Balkans and Europe.

—

2:45 p.m.

The head of the NATO military alliance is welcoming the life sentence handed down to former Bosnian Serb strongman Ratko Mladic and says it shows that justice works.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that the verdict “shows that the rule of law is working and those responsible for war crimes are held to account.”

Stoltenberg said in a statement that he hopes the ruling will help move the entire Western Balkans region “further down the path of peace and reconciliation.”

He also underlined the region’s importance to the trans-Atlantic alliance and said that NATO’s doors remain open to Western Balkans countries willing and able to join.

—

2:15 p.m.

The guilty verdict of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic has caused mixed reactions in Serbia, which is seeking European Union membership, but where nationalism remains strong years after the 1990s conflict.

The hearing at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal was aired live on state TV Wednesday in the Balkan country, where many consider Mladic a hero.

Nationalists blasted Mladic being found guilty of genocide and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison. But Serbian liberals hailed the verdict, urging the nation to face its role in the conflict that left 100,000 people dead and millions homeless.

Serbia’s pro-government Pink television, a widely viewed commercial broadcaster, described the Mladic verdict as “shameful” and anti-Serb.

Among those in the opposing camp was the Youth Initiative for Human Rights group, which said: “war criminals must not be treated as heroes.”

—

2 p.m.

A former prisoner of Serb-run camps in northwestern Bosnia who became a symbol of the 1992-95 war horrors says justice has finally been satisfied with the sentencing of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic.

Fikret Alic was featured in photos published in Time magazine in 1992, when thousands of Muslims were rounded up in the notorious camps by the Bosnian Serb troops.

Alic’s skeletal figure behind a barbed wire shocked the world and raised international awareness of the war.

Alic says “justice has won, and the war criminal has been convicted.” He added the verdict “means that the example will help prevent war crimes in the future.”

Alic was in The Hague, Netherlands, as U.N. judges declared Mladic guilty of genocide and other crimes and sentenced him to life in prison.

—

1:45 p.m.

A lawyer says that Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic will appeal his genocide convictions at the U.N. war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia.

Dragan Ivetic said that “it is certain that we will file an appeal and that the appeal will be successful.”

Ivetic also said Mladic has been denied his “basic human rights” by not being allowed to see doctors of his choosing.

Mladic’s son Darko Mladic accused the judges of obstructing his father’s legal team in presenting evidence exculpating his father.

Darko Mladic said: “This judgment is wrong. It did not achieve anything….and will be an obstacle to future normal life in the region.”

—

1:30 p.m.

Serbian President Alksandar Vucic says he is not surprised by the verdict against former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic at the U.N. war crimes court for former Yugoslavia.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist who supported Mladic’s war campaigns and who now says he’s a pro-EU reformer, said Wednesday that “all of us knew what will be the outcome.”

He alleges that the court has been biased against the Serbs and Serb war victims, but adds that “we should not justify the crimes committed” by the Serbs.

Vucic says “we are ready to accept our responsibility (for war crimes) while the others are not.”

He says “farewell to all those who want to return us to the past; we want to go to the future.”

Vucic said he did not watch the court hearing.

—

1:10 p.m.

The chief prosecutor of the U.N.’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal says that the conviction of former Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic is not a verdict against all Serb people.

Serge Brammertz said, “Mladic’s guilt is his and his alone.”

Serb nationalists often portray the tribunal as anti-Serb because most of the people it has convicted were Serbs.

Brammertz spoke to reporters after judges on Wednesday convicted Mladic of 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and sentenced the former general to life imprisonment.

Mladic was acquitted on one count of genocide linked to ethnic purges in Bosnian towns and villages. Brammertz said he would study the judgment before deciding whether to appeal on the one count Mladic was found not guilty.

—

1:05 p.m.

Bosnian Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic has welcomed the verdict against former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic, who was found guilty by a U.N war crimes tribunal of crimes against humanity and genocide during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

Zvizdic said in a statement that the verdict “confirmed that war criminals cannot escape justice regardless of how long they hide.”

Zvizdic said Mladic’s life sentence “will not bring back to life thousands of killed innocent civilians nor will it bring comfort to their families, but it is of immense importance for the future of (the Balkans) as a deterrent to all those who dream of future wars and continue to stoke ethnic tensions.”

—

12:55 p.m.

Paddy Ashdown, a former U.N. High Representative for Bosnia, says the genocide conviction of Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic is a victory for justice.

Ashdown, a former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat party, says “those who value the rule of law in war will welcome” the verdict against “the murderer of Srebrenica.”

He says that “those who bled in the Bosnian wars have retribution and that those in Bosnia who “understand there is no peace without justice can now look more confidently to the future.”

Mladic was earlier convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to life in prison by the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal for atrocities during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

—

12:50 p.m.

In Lazarevo, a small Serbian village where former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic was arrested in 2011, residents have dismissed the guilty verdict against him as biased.

Villagers say they do not recognize the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, which they say has sought to solely blame Serbs for the crimes of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

A villager Igor Topolic says he is “horrified and saddened.” Topolic adds “all this is a farce for me, he (Mladic) is a Serbian national hero.”

Another villager MIlinko Zeljak says “he (Mladic) should be here with us, not dying out there on his own.”

Residents have dubbed their village as Mladicevo (Mladic’s village) to show their admiration for Mladic and defiance toward The Hague court.

The court found Mladic guility of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison for atrocities perpetrated during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

—

12:25 p.m.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein has hailed the conviction of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic as a “momentous victory for justice.”

In a statement, he said Mladic is “the epitome of evil, and the prosecution of Mladic is the epitome of what international justice is all about.”

He added: “Mladic presided over some of the darkest crimes to occur in Europe since World War II, bringing terror, death and destruction to thousands of victims, and sorrow, tragedy and trauma to countless more.”

“Today’s verdict is a warning to the perpetrators of such crimes that they will not escape justice, no matter how powerful they may be nor how long it may take. They will be held accountable,” Zeid said.

—

12:10 p.m.

A U.N. court has convicted former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison for atrocities perpetrated during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

The court in The Hague convicted Mladic of 10 of 11 counts in a dramatic climax to a groundbreaking effort to seek justice for the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie read out the judgment Wednesday after ordering Mladic out of the courtroom over an angry outburst.

Mladic was found guilty of commanding forces responsible for crimes including the worst atrocities of the war – the deadly three-year siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica.

—

11:55 a.m.

The U.N. judge reading out the verdict for Gen. Ratko Mladic says the Bosnian Serb military chief was responsible for crimes including persecution, extermination, murder in Bosnian towns.

The judge also said that Mladic intended to commit genocide in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica where some 8,000 men and boys were massacred.

The court has not yet ruled on whether Mladic is guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Judge Alphons Orie is now reporting on the court’s determination of who was responsible for a litany of horrors during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

The judge also said Mladic intended to carry out a deadly campaign of sniping and shelling in Sarajevo.

Mladic was sent out of the courtroom after an angry outburst. He is facing verdicts on 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly masterminding atrocities by Serb forces during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. He insists he is innocent.

—

11:50 a.m.

A U.N. judge has ordered Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic removed from court after an angry outburst at the hearing determining whether he is guilty of genocide and war crimes.

The defense lawyer for Mladic requested a delay in Wednesday’s proceedings because Mladic had three high blood pressure readings during a break.

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie refused the request, and Mladic got out of his chair and shouted criticism “Lies! Shame on you” as he was led out to a nearby room where he could following the proceedings on a screen.

The court is reading its verdict for Mladic on 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly masterminding atrocities by Serb forces during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

He insists he is innocent.

—

11:15 a.m.

Supporters of Ratko Mladic have put up posters in Bosnia praising the former Bosnian Serb military chief.

Posters in the eastern Bosnian town of Bratunac carried a photo of Mladic in military attire with the words “you are our hero” written above.

Some former soldiers who fought under Mladic came together to watch the pronouncement of the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on whether he is guilty of genocide and other crimes during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

At the same time, survivors of the 1995 massacre in the eastern town of Srebrenica gathered at the memorial center to also watch the live TV broadcast from the courtroom of The Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

Mladic insists he is innocent.

—

10:55 a.m.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has confirmed that genocide occurred in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, but has yet to rule on whether Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic was responsible.

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie said the court found that “genocide, persecution, extermination, murder and the inhuman act of forcible transfer were committed in or around Srebrenica” in 1995.

Previous judgments have that the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica was genocide.

The court said Wednesday however it is “not convinced” of genocidal intent in six other municipalities, in line with previous judgments.

The court will rule later on whether Mladic is guilty of genocide and other crimes during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

He insists he is innocent.

—

10:20 a.m.

A skirmish broke out outside the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal after a young man carrying a Serbian flag approached a group of Bosniaks awaiting the verdict in a trial of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic.

A Bosniak woman tried to take the Serbian flag from the man.

The scuffle ended when a security officer intervened.

The man, who said he came to support Mladic, shouted: “Do not touch my flag.”

The Bosnian woman told him to stop provoking victims, adding that it “is sad that the villains still glorify genocide and aggression.”

The incident reflects the divisions between the Serbs and Bosniaks over Mladic’s trial on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

—

10:15 a.m.

United Nations judges have opened a hearing to deliver their judgment in the genocide trial of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Mladic looked relaxed in the courtroom of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, greeting lawyers and giving a thumbs-up to photographers in court.

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie, wearing a red and black robe, opened the hearing by greeting lawyers and then giving a background of when Mladic was indicted, when he was captured, details of the trial and detailing the charges against Mladic.

Mladic is set to hear verdicts on 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly masterminding atrocities by Serb forces during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. He insists he is innocent.

—

10.05 a.m.

Lawyers for former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic say that he will appear in a United Nations war crimes tribunal for the judgment in his long-running genocide trial despite health concerns.

In a filing to judges Wednesday shortly before the hearing was due to start at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Mladic’s lawyer say that he “insists on appearing” despite his ailing health. Mladic has been insistent on his innocence.

Mladic is set to hear verdicts on 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly masterminding atrocities by Serb forces during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

—

9:50 a.m.

The son of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic says his family is ready for anything as the U.N. Yugoslav war crimes tribunal prepares to rule on whether his father committed genocide and other crimes during the Bosnian war.

Darko Mladic accused the court of “not being objective, and that makes us concerned.”

Speaking outside the courthouse in The Hague, Darko Mladic said the prosecution “didn’t manage to connect Ratko Mladic with any point of the indictment” and that the family is ready for whatever judgment.

Ratko Mladic’s lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, said the general faces a “risk of deterioration of his health, including death, that could be caused by these proceedings.”

Mladic stands accused of commanding forces responsible for crimes including the worst atrocities of the 1992-95 war.

—

8:20 a.m.

The United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal is set to pass judgment on former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic, who is accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during Bosnia’s devastating 1992-95 war.

Mladic, who faces 11 counts, stands accused of commanding forces responsible for crimes including the worst atrocities of the war – the deadly three-year siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica, which was Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II.

The three judge panel will rule Wednesday on whether the 75-year-old former general is guilty or innocent and, if they convict Mladic, they will immediately pass sentence.

Prosecutors have sought a life sentence.

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The Latest: Kosovo welcomes verdict for Serb military leader
The Latest: Kosovo welcomes verdict for Serb military leader
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The Federal Communications Commission repealed the Obama-era “net neutrality” rules Thursday, giving internet service providers like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T a free hand to slow or block websites and apps as they see fit or charge more for faster speeds.

In a straight party-line vote of 3-2, the Republican-controlled FCC junked the longtime principle that said all web traffic must be treated equally. The move represents a radical departure from more than a decade of federal oversight.

The big telecommunications companies had lobbied hard to overturn the rules, contending they are heavy-handed and discourage investment in broadband networks.

“What is the FCC doing today?” asked FCC chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican. “Quite simply, we are restoring the light-touch framework that has governed the internet for most of its existence.”

The push to eliminate net neutrality has stirred fears among consumer advocates, Democrats, many web companies and ordinary Americans afraid that the cable and phone giants will be able to control what people see and do online. But the broadband industry has promised that the internet experience for the public isn’t going to change.

The FCC vote is unlikely to be the last word. Net neutrality supporters threatened legal challenges, with New York’s attorney general vowing to lead a multistate lawsuit. Some Democrats want to overturn the FCC action in Congress.

“The fact that Chairman Pai went through with this, a policy that is so unpopular, is somewhat shocking,” said Mark Stanley, a spokesman for the civil liberties organization Demand Progress. “Unfortunately, not surprising.”

On Thursday, about 60 demonstrators gathered in the bitter chill in Washington to protest the FCC’s expected decision. Just before the vote, the hearing room was briefly evacuated and searched for unspecified security reasons.

The FCC subscribed to the principle of net neutrality for over a decade and enshrined it in rules adopted in 2015.

Under the new rules approved Thursday, the Comcasts and AT&Ts of the world could slow down or block access to services they don’t like or happen to be in competition with. They could also charge higher fees of rivals and make them pay up for higher transmission speeds. They just have to post their policies online or tell the FCC.

Such things have happened before. In 2007, for example, The Associated Press found that Comcast was blocking or throttling some file-sharing. And AT&T blocked Skype and other internet calling services on the iPhone until 2009.

Thursday’s rule change also eliminates certain federal consumer protections, bars state laws that contradict the FCC’s approach, and largely transfers oversight of internet service to another agency altogether, the Federal Trade Commission.

Angelo Zino, an analyst at CFRA Research, said he expects AT&T and Verizon to be the biggest beneficiaries because the two internet giants can now give priority to the movies, TV shows and other videos or music they provide to viewers. That could hurt rivals such as Sling TV, Amazon, YouTube or start-ups yet to be born.

However, AT&T senior executive vice president Bob Quinn said in a blog post that the internet “will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has.” He said the company won’t block websites and won’t throttle or degrade online traffic based on content.

Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook have strongly backed net neutrality.

On Thursday, Netflix, said in a tweet it is “disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the Trump administration “supports the FCC’s effort to roll back burdensome regulations. But as we have always done and will continue to do, we certainly support a free and fair Internet.”

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat appointed by President Barack Obama, lambasted the “preordained outcome” of the vote that she said hurts small and large businesses and ordinary people. She said the end of net neutrality hands over the keys to the internet to a “handful of multibillion-dollar corporations.”

With their vote, she added, the FCC’s Republican commissioners are abandoning the pledge they took to make a rapid, efficient communications service available to all people in the U.S., without discrimination.

But Michael O’Rielly, a GOP commissioner appointed by Obama, called the FCC’s approach a “well-reasoned and soundly justified order.”

The internet, he said, “has functioned without net neutrality rules for far longer than it has with them.” The decision “will not break the internet.”

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, has been investigating what appears to be large numbers of fake public comments submitted to the FCC during the net neutrality comment period. He said 2 million comments were submitted under stolen identities, including those of children and dead people.

—

Associated Press Writer Chris Rugaber in Washington contributed to this story.

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FCC votes along party lines to end 'net neutrality'
FCC votes along party lines to end 'net neutrality'
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Jennifer Peltz

NEW YORK (AP) — A helicopter crashed into New York City’s East River Sunday night and flipped upside down in the water, killing two of the six people aboard and leaving three others in critical condition, officials said.

Video taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter shows the red helicopter land hard in the water and then capsize, its rotors slapping at the water.

The helicopter, a private charter hired for a photo shoot, went down near Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence. One person, the pilot, freed himself and was rescued by a tugboat, officials said.

The passengers were recovered by police and fire department divers, who had to remove them from tight harnesses while they were upside down, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.

“It took awhile for the drivers to get these people out. They worked very quickly as fast as they could,” Nigro said. “It was a great tragedy that we had here.”

Witnesses on a waterfront esplanade near where the aircraft went down said the helicopter was flying noisily, then suddenly dropped into the water and quickly submerged. But the pilot appeared on the surface, holding onto a flotation device as a tugboat and then police boats approached.

“It’s cold water. It was sinking really fast,” Mary Lee, 66, told the New York Post. “By the time we got out here, we couldn’t see it. It was underwater.”

Celia Skyvaril, 23, told the Daily News that she could see a person on what looked like a yellow raft or float screaming and yelling for help.

News footage showed one victim being loaded into an ambulance while emergency workers gave him chest compressions.

A bystander, Susan Larkin, told The Associated Press that she went down to see rescue boats in the river and a police helicopter circling overhead, hovering low over the water.

“You could clearly see they were searching,” she said.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said the Eurocopter AS350 went down just after 7 p.m. The aircraft was owned by Liberty Helicopters, a company that offers both private charters and sightseeing tours popular with tourists. A phone message left with the company was not immediately returned.

The skies over New York constantly buzz with helicopters carrying tourists, businesspeople, traffic reporters, medical teams and others. Crashes are not unheard of.

In 2009, a sightseeing helicopter of the same model and operated by the same company as the one in Sunday’s wreck collided with a small, private plane over the Hudson River, killing nine people, including a group of Italian tourists.

A crash in October 2011 in the East River killed a British woman visiting the city for her 40th birthday. Three other passengers were injured.

A helicopter on a sightseeing tour of Manhattan crashed into the Hudson River in July 2007, shaking up the eight people aboard but injuring no one. In June 2005, two helicopters crashed into the East River in the same week. One injured eight people including some banking executives. The other hit the water shortly after takeoff on a sightseeing flight, injuring six tourists and the pilot.

Nigro and Police Commissioner James O’Neill said the rescue operation Sunday took place in a 4 mph current in water about 50 feet (15 meters) deep, under challenging conditions.

The cause of the crash is unknown. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

Officials did not immediately release the names of the pilot or passengers or say how the two passengers died.

The helicopter was recovered in the rescue operation and towed to a pier.

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2 killed, 3 critically injured in NYC helicopter crash
2 killed, 3 critically injured in NYC helicopter crash
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AP Photo/Stephen Dunn

Accounts from two women who visited crisis pregnancy centers, with differing views of the experience:

LAUREN GRAY

Lauren Gray became pregnant when she was in college in western North Carolina. Estranged from her mother, somewhat ashamed and very confused, “I did not know where to turn,” she said.

With the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic a three-hour round-trip away, Gray did a Google search for local help with pregnancy and was pleased that the first place that came up was located just off campus in Cullowee, North Carolina.

When she showed up for her appointment, Gray said the center seemed like a typical medical office.

But after she took a pregnancy test, she told the woman helping her she was nervous and scared. “I said I would like to have an abortion but I don’t know exactly what that looks like,” Gray recalled recently in a telephone call from Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she now lives.

“She clearly stated that we are a pro-life center. We will talk about options for keeping the baby or giving it up for adoption. I said I was very confused and that I wanted to talk about all the options,” Gray said.

She grew upset and soon left. She had an abortion.

Gray said she felt misled because “I thought I was going to a medical facility that would give me honest and accurate information that I, as a woman, felt I needed and deserved.”

She decided to talk about her experience so that other women might get the help they need. “I don’t want more women deceived by these fake women’s health centers,” Gray said.

ANGELA JOZWICKI

Angela Jozwicki was in her early 30s and already had had an abortion when she used a store-bought test to confirm she was pregnant again in October 2015. She made an appointment for another abortion, because she was using drugs. But when the baby’s father didn’t show up to take her to the clinic for her appointment, Jozwicki changed her mind. “I decided I would keep that baby,” she said in a Supreme Court brief filed by The Catholic Association Foundation.

Jozwicki eventually found Soundview Pregnancy Services in Centereach, New York. She saw the baby on an ultrasound and returned weekly to meet with a staff member and watch videos about pregnancy and childcare. When it came time to have the baby, Jozwicki invited the staff member to be with her at the hospital. “I did not think she would come, but she was there,” she said.

The center has continued to work with her since her son, Cameryn, was born. With help, she was able to enroll in the Women, Infant and Children nutrition program and apply for financial aid. Counselors at the center also have helped bridge the divide that had opened between Jozwicki and her mother. Jozwicki and Cameryn are now living with her mother. Jozwicki said the center also provides support “so that I don’t turn back to drugs.”

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2 women offer differing views of crisis pregnancy centers
2 women offer differing views of crisis pregnancy centers
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AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

MT. LEBANON, Pa. (AP) — Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone were locked in a surprisingly tight congressional election Tuesday night that pitted the strength of President Donald Trump’s grasp on blue-collar America against the energy and anger of the political left.

The contest has drawn national attention as a bellwether for the midterm elections in November.

In a region Trump carried by 20 points, the White House has scrambled to rally voters behind Saccone, who cast himself as the president’s “wingman,” but has struggled at times to connect with the blue-collar coalition that fueled Trump’s victory little more than a year ago.

Democrat Conor Lamb, a 33-year old Marine veteran and former federal prosecutor, downplayed his opposition to the Republican president on Tuesday and insisted instead that the race hinged on local issues.

“This didn’t have much to do with President Trump,” Lamb said after casting his vote in suburban Pittsburgh.

Because of a state court decision redrawing Pennsylvania’s congressional boundaries, the winner will have to start campaigning for re-election almost immediately in a different district. Still, the election has far greater political consequences as each party prepares for the November midterm elections.

For the White House and its Republican allies, a Tuesday loss would represent both a profound embarrassment and major cause for concern in the broader push to defend majorities in the U.S. House and Senate.

The president has campaigned in the district twice and sent several tweets on Saccone’s behalf. Other recent visitors include the vice president, the president’s eldest son, the president’s daughter and the president’s chief counselor. Outside groups aligned with Republicans have also poured millions of dollars into the contest.

For Democrats, a win would reverberate nationwide, while even a narrow loss would be viewed as a sign of increased Democratic enthusiasm just as the midterm season begins.

Lamb was watching election returns privately, but hundreds of his family, friends and supporters were enjoying a buffet and drinks at a Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, hotel.

The excited supporters included Lamb’s middle school football and basketball coach, Joe DelSardo, who recalled Lamb as “a leader from the beginning.”

The former coach described the district as having “a lot of suit-and-tie people and people who dig in the dirt.” Lamb, he said, “can talk to all of them, and that’s why he can win.”

Registered Republican Brett Gelb said he voted for Saccone, largely because the Republican candidate promised to support the president.

“Saccone backs a lot of President Trump’s plans for the country,” said Gelb, a 48-year-old fire technician who lives in Mt. Lebanon. He added, “I do think Trump is doing a good job. I think he needs backup.”

Democrats must flip 24 GOP-held seats this fall to seize control of the House, and months ago few had counted on this Pittsburgh-area district to be in play. The seat has been in Republican hands for the past 15 years.

It was open now only because longtime Republican congressman Tim Murphy, who espoused strong anti-abortion views, resigned last fall amid revelations of an extramarital affair in which he urged his mistress to get an abortion.

After voting Tuesday in Allegheny County, Republican Saccone downplayed the significance of the unusually close race.

“The Democrats … they’re throwing everything they can at this race,” he said. “There hasn’t been an open seat for a long time.”

Besides bruising the president, a Lamb defeat also could shake Republican self-assurance that their new tax law can shield them from other political woes.

With polls showing a tight race for months, Saccone tried to persuade the GOP-leaning electorate that their choice was about “making America great again,” as the president repeatedly says.

Saccone, a 60-year-old Air Force veteran turned state lawmaker and college instructor, enjoyed enthusiastic backing from the social conservatives who’ve anchored his state career. He’s been perhaps at his most animated when emphasizing his opposition to abortion rights.

Yet Saccone struggled to raise money and stir the same passions that helped Trump on his way to the White House. The consistent fundraising deficit left him with limited resources to air the message he delivered one-on-one: His four decades of experience in the private sector, international business and now the Legislature should make voters’ choice a no-brainer.

Lamb, meanwhile, excited core Democrats and aimed for independents and moderate Republicans.

“We worked really hard for it,” Lamb said after voting.

He did it though national Republican groups filled airwaves and social media with depictions of the first-time candidate as little more than a lemming for Nancy Pelosi – the California Democrat, House minority leader.

Lamb answered the criticism by saying he wouldn’t support Pelosi as floor leader, much less as speaker if the Democrats should retake control of the House. He also said he opposes major new gun restrictions – though he backs expanded background checks – and declared himself personally opposed to abortion, despite his support for its legality.

Lamb largely avoided mentioning Trump, who remains generally popular in the district even if slightly diminished from his 2016 dominance.

Lamb embraced Democratic orthodoxy on the new GOP tax law, hammering it as a giveaway to corporations at the future expense of Social Security, Medicare and the nation’s fiscal security. And he embraces unions, highlighting Saccone’s anti-labor record at the statehouse, which was a notable deviation from the retiring Murphy’s status as a union-friendly Republican.

The AFL-CIO counts 87,000 voters from union households – around a fifth of the electorate.

In a final-hours message on Fox Business Network, Saccone said that he was ready and willing to help Trump.

“He’s getting beat up in Washington as you see, from the media, from the bureaucracy and from Hollywood,” Saccone said. “He needs a good wingman.”

—

Peoples reported from New York.

—

Follow Barrow and Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarowAP and https://twitter.com/timelywriter .

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Race to the wire in PA: Trump embarrassment or close call?
Race to the wire in PA: Trump embarrassment or close call?
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