AP

AP Photo/Steven Senne

BOSTON (AP) — A nor’easter pounded the Atlantic coast with hurricane-force winds and sideways rain and snow Friday, flooding streets, grounding flights, stopping trains and leaving 1.6 million customers without power from North Carolina to Maine. At least five people were killed by falling trees or branches.

The storm submerged cars and toppled tractor-trailers, sent waves higher than a two-story house crashing into the Massachusetts coast, forced schools and businesses to close early and caused a rough ride for passengers aboard a flight that landed at Dulles Airport outside Washington.

“Pretty much everyone on the plane threw up,” a pilot wrote in a report to the National Weather Service.

The Eastern Seaboard was hammered by gusts exceeding 50 mph, with winds of 80 to 90 mph on Cape Cod. Ohio and upstate New York got a foot or more of snow. Boston and Rhode Island were expected to get 2 to 5 inches.

The storm killed at least five people, including a 77-year-old woman struck by a branch outside her home near Baltimore. Fallen trees also killed a man and a 6-year-old boy in different parts of Virginia, an 11-year-old boy in New York state and a man in Newport, Rhode Island.

Floodwaters in Quincy, Massachusetts, submerged cars, and police rescued people trapped in their vehicles. High waves battered nearby Scituate, making roads impassable and turning parking lots into small ponds. More than 1,800 people alerted Scituate officials they had evacuated, The Boston Globe reported.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker activated 200 National Guard members to help victims.

Airlines canceled more than 2,800 flights, mostly in the Northeast. LaGuardia and Kennedy airports in New York City were brought to a near standstill.

President Donald Trump, who traveled to North Carolina for the funeral for the Rev. Billy Graham, was forced to fly out of Dulles instead of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where Air Force One is housed, because of high winds.

Amtrak suspended service along the Northeast Corridor, from Washington to Boston. In New Jersey, a tree hit overhead wires, forcing the suspension of some New Jersey Transit commuter service.

Winds toppled a truck on Rhode Island’s Newport Pell Bridge, prompting officials to close all major bridges in the state to commercial vehicles. A tractor-trailer also tipped over on New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge, snarling traffic for hours.

The federal government closed all offices in the Washington area for the day. Smithsonian museums also shut their doors.

In the western New York town of Hornell, 30-year-old Anna Stewart was milking the 130 cows of her dairy farm in a barn powered by a generator hooked up to a tractor. Stewart lost power Thursday night. Hornell got more than 14 inches of snow.

“The snow is pretty wet and heavy. It’s taken down a lot of lines,” Stewart said. “There’s more snow than I’ve seen in quite a few years.”

On the tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown resident Andy Towle took video of a 50-foot fishing boat breaking free from its mooring and drifting dangerously toward the rocks.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” the 50-year-old resident said. “The harbormaster was down there with police, and they didn’t know what to do.”

—

Associated Press writers Michael Hill in Albany, New York, Michelle Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, Anisha Frizzell in Baltimore, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

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Nor'easter grounds flights, halts trains along East Coast
Nor'easter grounds flights, halts trains along East Coast
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government careened toward shutdown Friday night in a chaotic close to Donald Trump’s first year as president, as Democrats and Republicans preemptively traded blame while still struggling to find some accord before a deadline at the stroke of midnight.

The lawmakers and Trump’s White House mounted last-ditch negotiations to stave off what had come to appear as the inevitable, with the parties in stare-down mode over federal spending and proposals to protect some 700,000 younger immigrants from deportation.

After hours of negotiating, the Senate scheduled a late-night vote on a House-passed plan. It appeared likely to fail.

The election-year standoff marked a test of the president’s much vaunted deal-making skills – and of both parties’ political fortitude. Republicans, who control both Congress and the White House, faced the prospect of being blamed for the display of dysfunction – just the fourth shutdown in a quarter-century. It could also threaten to slow any GOP momentum, one month after passage of the party’s signature tax cut law.

Democrats, too, risked being labeled obstructionist. Republicans branded the confrontation a “Schumer shutdown” and argued that Democrats were harming fellow Americans to protect “illegal immigrants.”

Trump summoned Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to the White House Friday afternoon in hopes of cutting a deal. But the two New Yorkers, who pride themselves on their negotiating abilities, emerged from the meeting at the White House without an agreement, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress continued to pass off responsibility.

“We made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements,” Schumer said upon returning to Capitol Hill. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told CNN that “Not much has changed” over the course of the day, but he predicted a deal would be reached by Monday, when most government offices are to reopen after the weekend.

Democrats in the Senate served notice they would filibuster a four-week extension, the government-wide funding bill that cleared the House Thursday evening. They’re seeking an even shorter extension that they think will keep the pressure on the White House to cut a deal to protect “dreamer” immigrants – who were brought to the country as children and are now here illegally – before their legal protection runs out in March.

But a White House official said Trump would oppose a mini-short-term agreement to keep the government open through the weekend, suggesting lawmakers would be in their exact same position in a few days.

For his part, Trump described his discussion with Schumer as an “excellent preliminary meeting,” tweeting that lawmakers are “Making progress – four week extension would be best!”

Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas said Trump told Schumer to work things out with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. McConnell did not attend the meeting because he was not invited, a Senate GOP aide said.

Trump has been an unreliable negotiator in the weeks leading up to the showdown. Earlier this week he tweeted opposition to the four-week plan, forcing the White House to later affirmed his support. He expressed openness to extending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, only to reject a bipartisan proposal. His disparaging remarks about African and Haitian immigrants last week helped derail further negotiations.

Still, officials said the president has been working the phones trying to avert a shutdown. The president had been set to leave Friday afternoon to attend a fundraiser at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate marking the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, but delayed his travel until at least Saturday.

“I think the president’s been very clear: he’s not leaving until this is finished,” Mulvaney told reporters.

As word of the Schumer meeting spread, the White House hastened to reassure Republican congressional leaders that Trump would not make any major policy concessions, said a person familiar with the conversations but not authorized to be quoted by name. Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas said Trump told Schumer to work things out with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

On Capitol Hill, McConnell said Americans at home would be watching to see “which senators make the patriotic decision” and which “vote to shove aside veterans, military families and vulnerable children to hold the entire country hostage… until we pass an immigration bill.”

Across the Capitol, the House backed away from a plan to adjourn for a one-week recess, meaning the GOP-controlled chamber could wait for a last-minute compromise that would require a new vote.

“We can’t keep kicking the can down the road,” said Schumer, insisting on more urgency in talks on immigration. “In another month, we’ll be right back here, at this moment, with the same web of problems at our feet, in no better position to solve them.”

The four-week measure would be the fourth stopgap spending bill since the current budget year started in October. A pile of unfinished Capitol Hill business has been on hold, first as Republicans ironed out last fall’s tax bill and now as Democrats insist on progress on immigration. Talks on a budget deal to ease tight spending limits on both the Pentagon and domestic agencies are on hold, as is progress on a huge $80 billion-plus disaster aid bill.

Before Thursday night’s House approval, GOP leaders sweetened the stopgap measure with legislation to extend for six years a popular health care program for children from low-income families and two-year delays in unpopular “Obamacare” taxes on medical devices and generous employer-provided health plans.

A shutdown would be the first since 2013, when tea party Republicans – in a strategy not unlike the one Schumer is employing now – sought to use a must-pass funding bill to try to force then-President Barack Obama to delay implementation of his marquee health care law. At the time, Trump told Fox & Friends that the ultimate blame for a shutdown lies at the top. “I really think the pressure is on the president,” he said.

Arguing that Trump’s predecessors “weaponized” that shutdown, Mulvaney said Friday the budget office would direct agencies to work to mitigate the impact this time. That position is a striking role-reversal for the conservative former congressman, who was one of the architects of the 2013 shutdown over the Affordable Care Act.

With no agreement by midnight, the government would begin immediately locking its doors. The impact would initially be spotty – since most agencies would be closed until Monday – but each party would be gambling the public would blame the other.

In the event of a shutdown, food inspections, federal law enforcement, airport security checks, and other vital services would continue, as would Social Security, other federal benefit programs and military operations.

—

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.

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Gov't shutdown deadline nears; Senate sets one last vote
Gov't shutdown deadline nears; Senate sets one last vote
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Pope Francis flew in to Chile’s capital Monday night for a visit expected to be met with protests over sexual abuse by priests and confronted by many Chileans deeply skeptical about the Roman Catholic Church.

It’s the pope’s first visit to the Andean nation of 17 million people since taking the reins of the church in 2013. It comes at a time when many Chileans are furious over Francis’ 2015 decision to appoint a bishop close to the Rev. Fernando Karadima, who the Vatican found guilty in 2011 of abusing dozens of minors over decades.

The Rev. Juan Barros, bishop of the southern city of Osorno, has always denied he knew what Karadima was doing when he was the priest’s protege, a position that many Chileans have a hard time believing.

“It’s not just time for the pope to ask for forgiveness for the abuses but also to take action,” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of Karadima.

Cruz added that if it wasn’t possible to jail bad bishops, “at the very least they can be removed from their positions.”

After deplaning, Francis was greeted by President Michelle Bachelet and a band played while the two walked on a red carpet as night began to fall. The pope traveled in a black sedan to the center of the city, flanked by several cars. He then transferred to a popemobile, waving to small crowds of well-wishers who lined up along avenues.

Crowds were notably thin, particularly compared to papal visits in other Latin American countries.

“Long live the pope!” yelled some as he passed by in the pope mobile.

Others carried signs criticizing the pope or extolling him to act.

“Stop the abuse, Francis!” read one sign. “You can so you must!”

Over the next three days, Francis is scheduled to celebrate Mass in Santiago, the southern city of Temuco and the northern city of Iquique. On Thursday, the pope will go to Peru for a three-day visit.

Francis’ trip was aimed at highlighting the plight of immigrants and indigenous peoples and underscoring the need to preserve the Amazon rain forest. However, sexual abuse by priests has taken front and center in the weeks before his arrival.

Hours before Francis landed, activists on issues related to sex abuse by priests called for sanctions against both abusers and anyone who helped cover up their actions.

About 200 people attended the first of several activities aimed at making the sex abuse scandal a central topic of Francis’ time in the country.

The majority of Chileans continue to declare themselves Roman Catholics, but the church has lost the influence and moral authority it once enjoyed thanks to the scandals, secularization and an out-of-touch clerical caste.

“I used to be a strong believer and churchgoer,” said Blanca Carvucho, a 57-year-old secretary in Santiago. “All the contradictions have pushed me away.”

To be sure, many eagerly awaited a chance to see the pope and celebrate their faith.

Moises Lopez, a 35-year-old musician, took a bus from northern Chile to Santiago in hopes of seeing the pontiff.

“I consider myself a pilgrim,” Lopez said. “I could have stayed comfortably at home and watched the pope on television, but I prefer to make an effort to see him in person once in my life.”

The pope will try to inject new energy into the church during his visit, which gets underway in earnest Tuesday with a series of protocol visits for church and state.

He also plans sessions with migrants, members of Chile’s Mapuche indigenous group and victims of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship. It remains to be seen if he will meet with sex abuse survivors. A meeting wasn’t on the agenda, but such encounters never are.

Chile’s church earned wide respect during the regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet because it spoke out against the military’s human rights abuses, but it began a downward spiral in 2010 when victims of a charismatic, politically connected priest came forward with allegations that he had kissed and fondled them.

Local church leaders had ignored the complaints against Karadima for years, but they were forced to open an official investigation after the victims went public and Chilean prosecutors started investigating. The Vatican in 2011 sentenced Karadima to a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for his crimes, but the church leadership hasn’t won back Chileans’ trust for having covered up Karadima’s crimes for so long.

“The Karadima case created a ferocious wound,” said Chile’s ambassador to the Holy See, Mariano Fernandez Amunategui. He and others inside the Vatican speak openly of a Chilean church “in crisis” as a result, a remarkable admission of the scandal’s toll on a church that wielded such political clout that it helped stave off laws legalizing divorce and abortion until recently.

Chileans’ disenchantment has even affected their views of the pope himself. A recent survey by Latinobarometro, a respected regional polling firm, found that Chile had a lower esteem for history’s first Latin American pope than 18 other Central and South American countries. Even among Chilean Catholics, only 42 percent approve of the job Francis is doing, compared to a regional average of 68 percent.

“The serious error of the Catholic Church in the Karadima case wasn’t that the case existed, which the church couldn’t avoid because it did happen, but rather the way in which the church reacted,” said Latinobarometro’s Marta Lagos.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that Francis had told Chile’s bishops that the Vatican was so concerned about the Karadima fallout that it had planned to ask Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops to resign and take a year sabbatical. But the plan fell through, and Francis went through with the appointment of Barros to Osorno, even criticizing parishioners against the decision.

“The people of Osorno suffer for stupidity,” said Francis in 2015.

—

Associated Press writers Peter Prengaman and Patricia Luna contributed to this report.

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In Chile, pope met with protests, passion and skepticism
In Chile, pope met with protests, passion and skepticism
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

WASHINGTON (AP) — Plowing into the sexual harassment debate in a big way, President Donald Trump laced into Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday, tweeting that the New York Democrat would come to his office “begging” for campaign contributions and “do anything” to get them. Democrats accused the president of making crude insinuations.

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who had called for Trump’s resignation a day earlier because of allegations of sexual misconduct, called Trump’s attack a “sexist smear attempting to silence my voice.”

“I will not be silenced on this issue,” Gillibrand insisted. “Neither will the women who stood up to the president yesterday,” referring to women who have accused the president of sexual misconduct.

Standing up for Gillibrand, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted to the president: “Are you really trying to bully, intimidate and slut-shame @SenGillibrand? Do you know who you’re picking a fight with? Good luck with that, @realDonaldTrump. Nevertheless, #shepersisted.”

The phrase “she persisted” went viral earlier this year after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell silenced Warren as she tried to read a letter from Coretta Scott King about then-attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions.

Trump’s tweet Tuesday did not directly address sexual harassment, but said of Gillibrand: “Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!”

A day earlier, Gillibrand said Trump should resign because there were credible accusations against him. And barring that, she said, “Congress should investigate the multiple sexual harassment and assault allegations against him.”

Trump’s tweet Tuesday morning inflamed Democrats who said the president was again debasing a woman. Trump had not responded to earlier resignation calls from three male senators, Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

Hours later, Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono also called for the president to step down, declaring that Trump’s “tweet against Kirsten was just another example of his misogyny.”

“He is a liar. He is an admitted sexual predator and the only thing that will stop him is his resignation,” Hirono said. “He not only owes Kirsten an apology, he owes an apology to our entire country, particularly the women in this country.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., called it “an ugly and suggestive tweet, and we all know what he was trying to say there, and it is beneath the office of the presidency.”

Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., said Trump had “proven to be a poison for the presidency, a cancer on the country, and a truly disgraceful human being.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island declared that Trump was “rather incontinent when it comes to tweets.”

And the Democratic Women’s Working Group held a news conference to demand that the House Oversight Committee investigate sexual misconduct allegations against Trump. Republican lawmakers, who control both houses of Congress, have suggested that such a probe was unlikely.

The criticism of Trump largely came from one side of the aisle. Republicans largely remained silent about the tweet, with Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a frequent Trump critic, being an exception, saying he “didn’t think it was appropriate at all.”

More than a dozen women came forward during last year’s campaign, many in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump is heard bragging about committing sexual assault, to say that the celebrity businessman had harassed them.

With each day seeming to bring new headlines that force men from positions of power, four of Trump’s accusers re-upped their claims Monday, believing the national movement on sexual harassment should force change at the White House too.

Trump has denied the claims. In a heated exchange with reporters in the White House briefing room on Monday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders steadfastly dismissed accusations against the Republican president and suggested the issue had been litigated in Trump’s favor on Election Day.

Sanders also promised that the White House would provide a list of eyewitnesses and corroborating evidence to exonerate Trump. Nearly 24 hours later, the White House sent along an email that, citing news reports that quote witnesses, only offered rebuttals to two of the accusations.

Trump donated $4,800 to Gillibrand’s Senate campaign in 2010, according to federal campaign finance records. Before launching his presidential campaign, Trump frequently bestowed donations on politicians of both parties.

To his accusers, the rising #MeToo movement is an occasion to ensure he is at last held accountable.

“It was heartbreaking last year. We’re private citizens and for us to put ourselves out there to try and show America who this man is and how he views women, and for them to say, ‘Eh, we don’t care,’ it hurt,” Samantha Holvey said Monday. The former beauty queen claimed that Trump ogled her and other Miss USA pageant contestants in their dressing room in 2006.

“Let’s try round two,” she said. “The environment’s different. Let’s try again.”

—

Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report.

—

Follow Benac on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@nbenac and Lemire at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire

—

This story has been corrected to show that Sanders is an independent, not Democrat.

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Dems say Trump's tweets about Gillibrand sexist, crude
Dems say Trump's tweets about Gillibrand sexist, crude
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Tina Fineberg

Dress in layers, lay off the booze and bring some hand warmers. Those are some of the tips offered for the huge crowd of revelers expected in Times Square for what could be one of the coldest New Year’s Eve ball drops on record.

Brutal weather has iced plans for scores of events in the Northeast from New Year’s Eve through New Year’s Day, but not in New York City, where people will start gathering in Times Square up to nine hours before the famous ball drop.

“Hundreds of thousands have withstood very cold weather over the years for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we expect this year to be no different,” said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance which puts on the event.

The coldest New Year’s Eve in Times Square came in 1917, when it was 1 degree at midnight. This year, the forecast is for 11 degrees with a wind chill around zero, which would tie for second with 1962.

City and state health officials are advising people to cover all exposed skin, and wear a hat, scarf and gloves. Drinking alcohol is discouraged because it causes the body to lose heat faster.

Extra New York Fire Department personnel are going to be on hand to provide medical support and a National Weather Service meteorologist will be on site with the city’s emergency management officials to monitor weather conditions.

In other areas gripped by the cold, some events are being canceled or reconsidered. The annual Lobster Dip at Old Orchard Beach in Maine has been rescheduled for the first time in 30 years.

Organizers of the Penguin Plunge in Narragansett, Rhode Island, say it’s still on for New Year’s Day but advised the thousands of expected participants to “use their good judgment” and avoid taking the plunge if they have a medical condition or have been sick.

With temperatures only expected to reach 9 degrees in Springfield, Illinois, on Sunday, organizers of its annual New Year’s Eve fireworks display have decided to cancel this year’s show. Officials say they plan to reschedule it for a warmer date.

In Ohio where some communities saw digit temperatures on Saturday, fireworks have been canceled and events moved inside in Miami Township and the New Year’s Eve ball drop and other activities in New Carlisle have been reduced to an hour.

Despite the drawn-out deep freeze across Pennsylvania, officials said Saturday the annual New Year’s Day Mummers Parade will still be held. The event features thousands of performers in colorful costumes adorned with sequins and feathers strutting through Philadelphia’s streets.

The village of Orchard Park near Buffalo, New York, has canceled its New Year’s Eve event because subzero temperatures have been forecast. “With frigid weather, the chance of a water line break is higher, and I’d rather have my public works crew fixing it than hoisting a ball up to drop,” said Mayor Jo Ann Litwin Clinton.

At Long Lake in the heart of New York state’s Adirondack Park, intrepid souls in swimsuits or funny costumes will jump into frigid water through a hole cut by the fire department for the fifth annual Polar Plunge, a fundraiser for High Peaks Hospice. With temperatures expected to top out around 13 degrees, the rescue squad will be checking participants’ blood pressure and buses will provide warm shelter, said Alexandra Roalsvig, the town’s director of recreation and tourism.

“People get excited about the cold here; we grew up with it,” Roalsvig said. “We’re counting on a good cold winter and snow because we’re so reliant on snowmobiling for the winter economy.”

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Extreme cold to test New Year's revelers; some events iced
Extreme cold to test New Year's revelers; some events iced
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Source: AP HEADLINES

A man suspected of gunning down four people at a Pennsylvania car wash was driven by jealousy, according to family members of the shooting victims.

State police said Timothy Smith, 28, was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, a .308-caliber rifle and a handgun and was wearing a body armor carrier without the ballistic panels inserted when he opened fire early Sunday morning at Ed’s Car Wash in Saltlick Township, a rural town about 55 miles (89 kilometers) southeast of Pittsburgh.

Twenty-seven-year-old William Porterfield, 25-year-old Chelsie Cline, 23-year-old Courtney Snyder and 21-year-old Seth Cline were all killed.

Smith was on life support Sunday and not expected to survive after suffering a gunshot wound to his head. State police said it was possible that the gunshot wound was self-inflicted.

Authorities would not reveal how Smith knew the victims, but Chelsie Cline’s half-sister, Sierra Kolarik, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that Smith had developed an obsession with Cline.

Cline shared a meme on her Facebook page last week that read, “After this week, I rlly (sic) need to get taken out … on a date or by a sniper either one is fine w me at this point.” A Facebook friend of hers named Tim Smith replied, “I could do both.”

Porterfield’s pregnant wife, Jenna Porterfield, 24, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that a state police investigator told her that Smith was a jealous former boyfriend of Cline.

Porterfield said that she was told by family members of other victims that her husband and Cline had spent the past two days together after Cline ended a relationship with Smith. Porterfield said that she and her husband – who were married in November – had been “having some troubles” this month.

“I’m not holding that against Will. We weren’t fighting. We were fixing. And if he was with someone else while we were having problems, honestly, I don’t care what he did. I’m not going to hold that against him,” Porterfield told the newspaper. “I’d give anything to have him back.”

State police said Smith was the first person to arrive at the scene and parked his pickup truck on the side of the two-bay car wash. They said he shot Porterfield and Cline when they got out of their car and walked to the side of the car wash.

Snyder and Seth Cline arrived in a pickup truck at the same time and were both shot and killed in their vehicle, state police said. Another unidentified woman in the rear seat took cover in the truck and survived with only minor injuries from broken glass.

Cayleigh Myers said she was friends with Seth Cline, Chelsie Cline’s half-sibling, and described the construction worker as “very outgoing, very funny and very smart.”

“You always had fun when you were around him,” Myers said. “He would give his shirt off his back for you, anything, it didn’t matter what it was, what time it was, if you need him, you could call him. He was everything.”

Ed Bukovac, who owns the car wash, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that a neighbor called him around 4 a.m. Sunday and said something was wrong at his business. Bukovac said police were on the scene by the time he arrived and that he had few other details about what happened.

A man who lives nearby told the newspaper that he heard about 30 gunshots over a span of several minutes.

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Victims' families: Jealousy drove car wash shooting suspect
Victims' families: Jealousy drove car wash shooting suspect
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Sen. Rand Paul was in the news for a scuffle, it involved a neighbor who allegedly tackled him in his yard over a lawn dispute. Thursday night, the Kentucky Republican took on the entire U.S. Senate – and rather than fisticuffs, his weapons of choice were obstinacy and the chamber’s weird rules.

With the clock ticking toward a midnight government shutdown, the 55-year-old lawmaker, ophthalmologist and veteran Senate pest made himself the sole obstacle to his chamber’s quick passage of legislation keeping federal agencies open.

The measure – which would shower the Pentagon and domestic programs with around $400 billion in new spending – was destined for overwhelming Senate approval, no matter what Paul did.

But the libertarian, failed 2016 GOP presidential contender and “wacko bird” – a moniker an angry Sen. John McCain gave him years ago – said “I object” when Senate leaders tried speeding a vote on the measure. Under the chamber’s rules, senators were looking at likely votes on the massive legislation beginning at 1 a.m. Friday.

“I didn’t come up here to be part of somebody’s club. I didn’t come up here to be liked,” said Paul, whose actions during a seven-year Senate career make it likely that many colleagues would silently answer, “Mission accomplished.”

“I’m in a club that says we need to keep the government open,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said on the Senate floor. With Paul standing just a yards away, he said the delays could continue “if we want to go for theater” but said the bill would pass notwithstanding.

Paul said he was demanding a vote on an amendment against breaking spending caps imposed by a bipartisan budget agreement in 2011. He complained the new budget accord would drive up federal deficits – but didn’t mention that he backed a $1.5 trillion tax bill in December that added red ink that was multiples larger than this week’s spending agreement.

“I ran for office because I was critical of President Obama’s trillion-dollar deficits,” he told the chamber’s leaders, who stood silently as he derailed their hopes for an early evening vote. “Now we have Republicans hand-in-hand with Democrats offering us trillion-dollar deficits.” He said he could not “look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits.”

Paul said he was asking for a 15-minute debate and then a vote on his amendment, which was certain to lose. He said the 652-page measure was “printed at midnight” and was a bill that “no one has read.”

Paul’s fellow Kentuckian, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had no intention of caving in, knowing that would inevitably spark demands for amendment votes by other senators. Instead, they offered him a procedural vote, which Paul declined.

“It’s his right, of course, to vote against the bill,” McConnell said around 6 p.m. EST. “But I would argue that it’s time to vote.”

“We’re in risky territory here,” Schumer said, noting that Paul was flirting with a politically damaging government shutdown.

They got nowhere. Neither did No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas, who at 10 p.m. EST tried and failed to get Paul’s consent for votes before 1 a.m. Cornyn said Paul’s objections were “wasting everybody’s time” and said the Kentuckian would “effectively shut down the federal government for no real reason.”

Paul came to the Senate in 2009 after defeating a GOP primary opponent that McConnell had actively supported. The two men have made an effort to work together, and McConnell even backed Paul’s abortive 2016 presidential run.

“We get along fine,” Paul told reporters Thursday. Asked if McConnell was annoyed with him, Paul said: “Not that I know of. I think he takes policy disputes in hand.”

In the Senate, Paul’s libertarian streak has steered him into conflicts with his own party before. He’s opposed indefinite detention of terror suspects by the military, backed President Barack Obama’s restoration of relations with Cuba and waged an 11-hour filibuster in 2015 against renewing a law on government surveillance.

He’s advocated pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and once expressed his opposition in principle to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, though he later said he opposed its repeal.

As for Paul’s famous lawn fight, federal prosecutors said last month they are seeking a 21-month prison sentence for the man they said tackled him in a dispute over a pile of brush. The man, who has said the attack wasn’t politically motivated, has been charged with assaulting a member of Congress.

—

Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

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Used to scuffles, Rand Paul takes on Senate, risks shutdown
Used to scuffles, Rand Paul takes on Senate, risks shutdown
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AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Standing on the white marble steps of Alabama’s Capitol, Kayla Moore surrounded herself with two dozen other women to defend husband Roy Moore against accusations of sexual misconduct that are dividing Republicans, and women in particular.

“He will not step down. He will not stop fighting for the people of Alabama,” Kayla Moore said Friday at a “Women for Moore” rally. Acting as her husband’s lead defender, she lashed out at the news media and thanked people who were sticking behind her husband. “To the people of Alabama, thank you for being smarter than they think you are,” Moore said.

Not everyone is sticking with Roy Moore, however, and certainly not all women.

“I was going to vote for him. I was going to be one of his voters. I just don’t know that I can vote for him anymore,” said Laura Payne, a Trump delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention.

Since last week, Moore has been engulfed by accusations of sexual misconduct toward women in their teens when he was a deputy district attorney in his 30s. Several of his accusers have allowed their identities to be made public.

One said Moore molested her when she was 14. Another said Moore assaulted her when she was a 16-year-old waitress after he offered to drive her home. Five others said Moore pursued romantic relationships with them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18.

“I have not found any reason not to believe them …. They risked a whole lot to come forward,” Payne said of the accusers.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said she also has no reason to disbelieve the women and is bothered by their allegations. But Ivey said she will vote for Moore anyway for the sake of GOP power in Congress.

“We need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like Supreme Court justices, other appointments that the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,” Ivey said.

Moore has ignored mounting calls from Washington Republicans concerned that if he stays in the race against Democrat Doug Jones he may not only lose a seat they were sure to win but also may do significant damage to the party’s brand among women nationwide as they prepare for a difficult midterm election season.

The Alabama GOP, meanwhile, reaffirmed its support for Moore on Thursday.

The accusations sent a shockwave through the Senate race in Alabama, where Republicans typically have a lock on statewide election. Democrats already hoped to stand a chance against the polarizing jurist who was twice removed from chief justice duties because of defying court orders regarding the Ten Commandments and gay marriage.

A Fox News poll released Thursday, a week after the first accusations, showed Jones leading Moore by eight points. Support from women was helping to give Jones the edge with 68 percent for Jones compared to 32 percent for Moore.

One of them is longtime Republican Tracy James, who worked for former senator and current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Her cousin was a Republican governor. She won’t vote for Moore, a decision she made before the election.

“My hope is that the Moore debacle will not only be a wake-up call for evangelicals, but also for Republicans, who should stand back and say, ‘Wow, look at the kind of person we almost elected to our ranks,” James said.

But Kayla Moore says her husband is exactly the kind of person who needs to be in the Senate.

Decades ago, then known by her maiden name, Kayla Kisor, she was performing in a hometown dance recital when she first caught Roy Moore’s eye. As he wrote in his 2009 autobiography: Seeing her was something he never forgot.

“Years later,” Moore wrote, when she was 23 – she’s 14 years his junior- he finally met her. They wed in 1985.

Now, Kayla Moore is doing more than standing by her husband – she’s his most aggressive defender against allegations threatening his Republican bid for U.S. Senate.

When Moore makes a public appearance, Kayla Moore is there. When something pops up on social media that could help his cause, she shares it on Facebook. And she was the star at the Statehouse rally in Montgomery.

Speakers there said the allegations against Moore were out of character for the man they have known for years.

“I do not recognize the man these ladies are describing,” Ann Eubank, a fixture in Alabama Republican politics, said of the accusers.

Across the street from the rally, Rose Falvey, 25, who runs an LGBT community center, said she was angered by the stories about Moore since he had fought to block gay marriage in the state.

“I think it’s really hypocritical and an embarrassment for the state of Alabama, and he’s dragging us backwards,” Falvey said.

—-

Associated Press writers Steve Peoples and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, and Zeke Miller and Catherine Lucey in Washington contributed to this report.

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Sexual misconduct claims roil Alabama campaign, divide women
Sexual misconduct claims roil Alabama campaign, divide women
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

NEW YORK (AP) — Newly leaked documents show that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, the Trump administration’s point man on trade and manufacturing policy, has a stake in a company that does business with a gas producer partly owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to records obtained by the International Consortium of Journalists, Ross is an investor in Navigator Holdings, a shipping giant that counts Russian gas and petrochemical producer Sibur among its major customers. Putin’s son-in-law Kirill Shamalov once owned more than 20 percent of the company, but now holds a much smaller stake.

Commerce Department spokesman James Rockas said Ross “never met” Shamalov and has generally supported the Trump administration’s sanctions against Russia, according to the ICIJ report. Rockas added that Ross has withdrawn from matters related to transoceanic shipping vessels and has met the “highest ethical standards.”

The details are likely to add to the questions about ties between Russia and the Trump administration, connections that for months have shadowed the White House and are a focus of an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Yet it wasn’t immediately clear how many partners Ross might have or what the profit-sharing agreement might be.

ICIJ disclosed the Ross holding as part of reporting on 13.4 million records of offshore entities in tax havens leaked to German newspaper S�ddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper then shared the records with ICIJ and a network of more than 380 journalists in 67 countries. The New York Times is its U.S. partner in this inquiry.

The Times earlier reported on the Ross holding.

It wasn’t immediately clear exactly how much of Navigator, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Ross personally owns. ICIJ reported that Ross and other investors own four Cayman Island entities that in turn own 31.5 percent of Navigator, a stake worth $176 million at Friday’s closing stock price.

Ross’ stake in Navigator is likely a small fraction of that. In financial disclosure forms he filed with the government this year, Ross valued his holdings in the Cayman Island entities, which include other companies besides Navigator, at no more than $10.1 million.

Sibur contributed 8 percent to Navigator’s revenue last year, according to reports filed with securities regulators. Russia’s energy sector is largely controlled by individuals with ties to state actors, including Putin.

Much of the new trove of files includes bank statements, emails and loan agreements from Appleby, a law firm that helps set up offshore dummy companies and trusts. Appleby told the ICIJ that there is “no evidence” that it has done anything wrong.

Other records came from Asiaciti Trust, a family-run offshore specialist based In Singapore, and from 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in jurisdictions that draw the wealthy seeking privacy.

Big investments in two U.S. tech companies from a Russian government bank and Russian energy giant have also come to light.

The ICIJ reported that Silicon Valley investor and Russian citizen Yuri Milner got $191 million from VTB Bank, and invested that money in Twitter. The leaked records also show that a financial subsidiary of Russian energy company Gazprom funded a shell company that invested in a Milner-affiliated company that held roughly $1 billion in Facebook shares shortly before its 2012 initial public offering.

Milner told the ICIJ that he was unaware of any involvement by the Gazprom subsidiary in any of his deals and that none of his investments has been related to politics.

Milner has also invested in a tech-savvy real estate fund that was co-founded by Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner called Cadre. Milner told the ICIJ that he used his own money for the investment.

Sunday’s revelations follow last year’s release of records from a Panama-based firm involved in setting up offshore accounts. That disclosure triggered investigations in several countries, the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland and ouster of the leader of Pakistan. The Panama Papers also revealed that close associates of Russia’s leader Putin had been using the dummy accounts abroad to store their wealth, including a close Putin friend who had $2 billion of offshore assets.

There are legitimate reasons for setting up offshore accounts, but lax regulation and anonymity in some jurisdictions make it easy to launder money, evade taxes and avoid regulatory scrutiny. Critics of the widening gap between the super-wealthy and the rest have seized upon the use of tax havens as revealed in the Panama Papers as evidence of a crisis, and governments have promised to crack down.

In the case of Ross, the ICIJ reported Navigator’s Russian customer, Sibur, has ties to Putin in addition to his son-in-law.

A big shareholder is Gennady Timchenko, who was targeted by the U.S. and other Western nations for sanctions after Russia’s invasion of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014. A few months later, the U.S. barred banks from providing long-term financing to a gas company belonging to another large Sibur shareholder, Leonid Mikhelson. Mikhelson has also been sanctioned by the Treasury Department for propping up Putin’s rule.

Sibur itself was not targeted by the U.S. sanctions, but the Bank of America and the Royal Bank of Scotland reportedly backed away from doing business with the company.

The Russian gas producer last year contributed $23 million to Navigator’s revenue, an increase of more than 40 percent in two years

—

Associated Press writers Jake Pearson in New York and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

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Report: Commerce head has stake in firm tied to Putin orbit
Report: Commerce head has stake in firm tied to Putin orbit
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Republican Roy Moore filed a lawsuit to try to stop Alabama from certifying Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the U.S. Senate race.

The court filing occurred about 14 hours ahead of Thursday’s meeting of a state canvassing board to officially declare Jones the winner of the Dec. 12 special election. Jones defeated Moore by about 20,000 votes.

Moore’s attorney wrote in the complaint filed late Wednesday that he believed there were irregularities during the election and said there should be a fraud investigation and eventually a new election.

“This is not a Republican or Democrat issue as election integrity should matter to everyone,” Moore said in a statement released Wednesday announcing the complaint.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill told The Associated Press Wednesday evening that he has no intention of delaying the canvassing board meeting.

“It is not going to delay certification and Doug Jones will be certified (Thursday) at 1 p.m. and he will be sworn in by Vice President Pence on the third of January,” Merrill said.

In the complaint, Moore’s attorneys noted the higher than expected turnout in the race, particularly in Jefferson County, and said that Moore’s numbers were suspiciously low in about 20 Jefferson County precincts.

Merrill said he has so far not found evidence of voter fraud, but that his office will investigate any complaint that Moore submits.

Moore has not conceded the race to Jones and has sent several fundraising emails to supporters asking for donations to investigate claims of voter fraud.

Jones and Moore were competing to fill the U.S. Senate seat that previously belonged to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Moore’s campaign was wounded by accusations against Moore of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls decades ago.

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Roy Moore files lawsuit to block Alabama Senate result
Roy Moore files lawsuit to block Alabama Senate result
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Source: AP HEADLINES