Trump replaces travel ban with new restrictions
WASHINGTON (AP) — Citizens of more than half a dozen countries will face new restrictions on entry to the U.S. under a proclamation signed by President Donald Trump on Sunday that will replace his expiring travel ban.
The new rules, which will impact the citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — and some from Venezuela — will go into effect on October 18.
The restrictions range from an indefinite ban on visas for citizens of countries like Syria to more targeted restrictions. A suspension of non-immigrant visas to citizens for Venezuela, for instance, will apply only to certain government officials and their immediate families.
The announcement comes the same day as Trump’s temporary ban on visitors from six Muslim-majority countries was set to expire 90 days after it went into effect. That ban had barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who lacked a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” from entering the U.S. Only one of those countries, Sudan, will no longer be subject to travel restrictions.
“Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet,” Trump tweeted late Sunday after the new policy was announced.
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President’s criticisms spark more protests at NFL games
President Donald Trump’s criticism of players who kneel during the national anthem sparked a mass increase in such protests around the National Football League Sunday, as about 200 players sat, knelt or raised their fists in defiance during early games.
A week ago, just six players protested.
Most of the players on Sunday locked arms with their teammates — some standing, others kneeling — in show of solidarity. A handful of teams stayed off the field until after “The Star-Spangled Banner” to avoid the issue altogether.
As he prepared to board Air Force One to return to Washington from New Jersey, Trump said the players protesting the anthem were “very disrespectful to our country” and called again on owners to stop what he considers unpatriotic displays in America’s most popular sport.
“This has nothing to do with race,” Trump said. “This has to do with respect for our country.”
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10 Things to Know for Monday
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Monday:
1. WHOSE CRITICISMS SPARKED MORE PROTESTS AT NFL GAMES
President Donald Trump’s comments about owners firing players who kneel during the national anthem sparked a mass increase in such protests around the National Football League as about 150 players sat, knelt or raised their fists in defiance.
2. WHAT HURRICANE MARIA’S DEVASTATION HAS DONE TO PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative in the U.S. Congress says the storm’s destruction has set the island back decades, even as authorities worked to assess the extent of the damage.
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Lawyer: Kushner used personal email for some WH messages
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, used his personal email account on dozens of occasions to communicate with colleagues in the White House, his lawyer said Sunday.
Between January and August, Kushner either received or responded to fewer than 100 emails from White House officials from his private account, attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement that confirmed Kushner’s use of a personal address in the first months of the administration.
The use of a private email account to discuss government matters is a politically freighted issue that factored prominently in last year’s presidential election. Trump repeatedly attacked Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for setting up a private email server as secretary of state, a decision that prompted an FBI investigation that shadowed her for much of the campaign.
In Kushner’s case, Lowell said, the emails to and from his private account usually involved “forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal, rather than his White House, address.”
The attorney said Kushner, a key aide to Trump, uses his White House address to discuss White House business and that any non-personal emails were forwarded to his official account and “all have been preserved in any event.”
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Merkel wins 4th term as nationalists enter German parliament
BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a fourth term Sunday, but now faces the tricky prospect of forming a coalition with two disparate new partners after voters weakened her conservatives and a nationalist, anti-migrant party surged into parliament.
Merkel’s centre-left challenger, Martin Schulz, conceded his Social Democrats had suffered a “crushing election defeat,” with projections showing the party’s worst performance in post-World War II Germany.
He vowed to take his party, the junior partner in Merkel’s outgoing “grand coalition” of Germany’s traditionally dominant parties, into opposition.
“We have a mandate to form a new government, and no government can be formed against us,” Merkel told cheering supporters. She added that it wasn’t a “matter of course” to finish first after 12 years in power, and that the past four years were “extremely challenging.”
Stressing that “we live in stormy times” internationally, she declared: “I have the intention of achieving a stable government in Germany.”
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Gunman opens fire in Nashville church; 1 dead, 7 wounded
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A masked gunman opened fire at a Nashville church Sunday, walking silently down the aisle as he shot unsuspecting congregants. At least one person was killed and seven others wounded, authorities said.
An usher confronted the shooter, who apparently shot himself in the struggle before he was arrested, police said.
The FBI said Sunday night it has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ.
No motive was immediately determined. Church members told investigators that the suspect had attended services a year or two ago, said Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metro Nashville Police Department. Nashville police did not immediately comment on several bizarre posts on the suspect’s Facebook page in the hours before the shooting.
The gunman pulled into the church’s parking lot as services were ending. He fatally shot a woman who was walking to her vehicle, then entered the rear of the church with two pistols and kept firing, hitting six people, Aaron said. Police said they later recovered another pistol and a rifle from the suspect’s car.
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Puerto Ricans hunt for precious Wi-Fi and cell signals
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Margarita Aponte and her relatives cleared the road in front of her house with two oxen Sunday, then drove an hour from her devastated hometown in central Puerto Rico to the old telegraph building in the capital of San Juan.
There, thousands of Puerto Ricans gathered for a chance at a resource nearly as precious as power and water in the wake of Hurricane Maria — communication.
“It’s ringing, it’s ringing, it’s ringing!” Aponte, a janitor, screamed as her phone connected to free Wi-Fi and her Facetime call went through to the mainland.
Her eyes filled with tears as she talked with nephews, uncles, brothers and sisters in Florida and Massachusetts for the first time since Maria destroyed nearly every cellphone and fiber optic connection on this U.S. territory of 3.4 million people.
The low murmur at one of two free Wi-Fi hotspots is occasionally interrupted by the cheering of someone getting through the largely jammed network. Most spend hours frowning at their phones, unable to connect.
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Opposition from GOP senators grows, jeopardizes health bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican opposition to the GOP health care bill swelled to near-fatal numbers Sunday as Sen. Susan Collins all but closed the door on supporting the last-ditch effort to scrap the Obama health care law and Sen. Ted Cruz said that “right now” he doesn’t back it.
White House legislative liaison Marc Short and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the measure’s sponsors, said Republicans would press ahead with a vote this week. But the comments by Collins and Cruz left the Republican drive to uproot President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act dangling by an increasingly fraying thread.
A vote must occur this week for Republicans to prevail with their narrow Senate majority. Next Sunday, protections expire against a Democratic filibuster, bill-killing delays that Republicans lack the votes to overcome.
President Donald Trump seemed to distance himself from the showdown, saying his “primary focus” was his party’s drive to cut taxes.
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Trump told reporters about the bill’s GOP opponents as he prepared to fly back to Washington after a weekend at his New Jersey golf club. “But you know what? Eventually we’ll win, whether it’s now or later.”
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Iraq’s Kurds to vote on independence amid fears of unrest
KALAK, Iraq (AP) — “For the sake of the sacrifices and blood of the martyrs, let’s all say yes for Kurdistan independence,” reads a large billboard in the centre of Kalak, a small town in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. “Independence is not given, it’s taken!” reads another banner hanging below a cluster of red, green, yellow and white Kurdish flags.
Iraq’s Kurds are set to vote Monday in a referendum on support for independence that has stirred fears of instability across the region as the war against the Islamic State group winds down. The Kurds are likely to approve the referendum, but the non-binding vote is not expected to result in any formal declaration of independence.
The United States and the United Nations have condemned the referendum. Turkey, which is battling its own Kurdish insurgency, has threatened to use military force to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state, and Baghdad has warned it will respond militarily to any violence resulting from the vote.
Initial results from the poll are expected Tuesday, with the official results announced later in the week.
Denied independence when colonial powers drew the map of the Middle East after World War I, the Kurds form a sizable minority in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. They have long been at odds with the Baghdad government over the sharing of oil revenues and the fate of disputed territories like the city of Kirkuk, which are expected to take part in the vote.
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Immigrants touched by Mexico quake, try to help from afar
LAS VEGAS (AP) — When Luis Ramirez finally reached his mother after the powerful Mexico earthquake, he learned her home was so badly damaged that it had to be demolished.
He considered getting on a plane from New York to help her find a new home, but it was too risky now that the program that has been shielding him from deportation is being phased out. He tried to send money, but the usual courier that he uses shut down because of the damage from the 7.1-magnitude quake in his home state of Morelos.
“The situation is eating me alive because you can’t do anything,” he said about sending help to his mother from New York City.
The earthquake that killed nearly 300 people and destroyed dozens of buildings in Mexico set off a frantic response in communities around the U.S. as people desperately try to connect with their loved ones, figure out ways to send emergency help, money and goods as well as raise funds for smaller towns around the capital they say are receiving less help from the government. Those in the country illegally wish they could travel to help their loved ones cope with the aftermath but are afraid they wouldn’t be able to return.
“We saw people desperately trying to connect with their families. Lines were down. They couldn’t think of other ways to find their relatives,” said Ana Flores, who heads an office for the Mexican state of Puebla in Passaic, New Jersey. “We have gone through all of the feelings from anxiety, to anguish and now trying to find all the support we can.”
