Trump support vital as Congress tackles immigration issue
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate begins a rare, open-ended debate on immigration and the fate of the “Dreamer” immigrants on Monday, and Republican senators say they’ll introduce President Donald Trump’s plan. Though his proposal has no chance of passage, Trump may be the most influential voice in the conversation.
If the aim is to pass a legislative solution, Trump will be a crucial and, at times, complicating player. His day-to-day turnabouts on the issues have confounded Democrats and Republicans and led some to urge the White House to minimize his role in the debate for fear he’ll say something that undermines the effort.
Yet his ultimate support will be vital if Congress is to overcome election-year pressures against compromise. No Senate deal is likely to see the light of day in the more conservative House without the president’s blessing and promise to sell compromise to his hard-line base.
Trump, thus far, has balked on that front.
“The Tuesday Trump versus the Thursday Trump, after the base gets to him,” is how Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a proponent of compromise, describes the president and the impact conservative voters and his hard-right advisers have on him. “I don’t know how far he’ll go, but I do think he’d like to fix it.”
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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. HOW TRUMP WANTS TO PAY FOR $1.5T INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN
The president’s blueprint to improve America’s highways, ports and airports relies heavily on state and local governments for much of the funding.
2. NY AG FILES SUIT AGAINST HARVEY WEINSTEIN
“The Weinstein Company repeatedly broke New York law by failing to protect its employees from pervasive sexual harassment” state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says in court papers.
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Attorney general suit: Weinstein Co. failed to protect women
NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general is accusing Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein of “repeatedly and persistently” sexually harassing female employees at his film company, according to a lawsuit filed on Sunday by the state prosecutor that could impact the company’s potential sale.
“As alleged in our complaint, The Weinstein Company repeatedly broke New York law by failing to protect its employees from pervasive sexual harassment, intimidation, and discrimination,” state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in court papers filed against Weinstein and the company.
Schneiderman launched a civil rights probe into the New York City-based company in October after The New York Times and The New Yorker exposed allegations of sexual assault and harassment spanning decades.
Weinstein’s attorney, Ben Brafman, released a statement Sunday evening saying many of the allegations against his client are “without merit.”
“While Mr. Weinstein’s behaviour was not without fault, there certainly was no criminality, and at the end of the inquiry it will be clear that Harvey Weinstein promoted more women to key executive positions than any other industry leader and there was zero discrimination at either Miramax or TWC,” Brafman said.
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Blackout hits northern Puerto Rico following fire, explosion
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An explosion and fire at an electric substation threw much of northern Puerto Rico into darkness late Sunday in a setback for the U.S. territory’s efforts to fully restore power more than five months after Hurricane Maria started the longest blackout in U.S. history.
The island’s Electric Power Authority said several municipalities were without power, including parts of the capital, San Juan, but they were optimistic it could be restored within a day as they worked to repair a substation that controls voltage.
The blast illustrated the challenges of restoring a power grid that was already crumbling before it was devastated by the Category 4 hurricane.
In many cases, power workers are repairing equipment that should have long been replaced but remained online due to the power authority’s yearslong financial crisis. PREPA is worth roughly $4 billion, carries $9 billion in debt and has long been criticized for political patronage and inefficiency. It also struggled with frequent blackouts, including an island-wide outage in September 2016.
It was not immediately known what caused Sunday’s fire, which was quickly extinguished. Officials said the explosion knocked two other substations offline and caused a total loss of 400 megawatts worth of generation.
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Dems taking another run at blocked memo on Russia probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are prepared to black out parts of their memo about the FBI’s Russia investigation to ensure there’s no harmful spilling of secrets, then try again to get President Donald Trump to let it come out. A White House aide said Sunday he’s confident it will be released once Democrats “clean it up.”
That possible nudge toward progress came as both sides traded steamy recriminations over the matter.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Trump is putting his personal interest above the country’s in blocking a memo that “completely undermines his claim of vindication” in special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s relationship with Russian interests and Russia’s meddling in the election. “The president doesn’t want the public to see the underlying facts,” Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The White House legislative director, Marc Short, countered that Democrats padded their memo with sensitive information, knowing Trump would stop its release, in an effort to make him look obstructionist.
“We’re not afraid of transparency,” Short said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”I think you’re going to see us release the memo.”
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Russian airliner crashes moments after takeoff, killing 71
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian airliner that had just taken off from the country’s second-busiest airport crashed Sunday, killing all 71 people aboard and scattering jagged chunks of wreckage across a snowy field outside Moscow.
The pilots of the An-148 regional jet did not report any problems before the twin-engine aircraft plunged into the field about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Domodedovo Airport, authorities said.
The Saratov Airlines flight disappeared from radar just minutes after departure for the city of Orsk, some 1,500 kilometres (1,000 miles) to the southeast.
Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov confirmed that there were no survivors.
The 65 passengers ranged in age from 5 to 79, according to a list posted by the Russian Emergencies Ministry, which did not give their nationalities. Six crew members were also aboard.
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3 dead, 4 rescued after Grand Canyon helicopter crash
PHOENIX (AP) — Four survivors of a deadly tour helicopter crash onto the jagged rocks of the Grand Canyon were being treated at a Nevada hospital on Sunday while crews tackled difficult terrain in a remote area to try to recover the bodies of three other people.
Six British tourists and a pilot were on board the Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters chopper when it crashed under unknown circumstances on Saturday evening on the Hualapai Nation’s land near Quartermaster Canyon, by the Grand Canyon’s West Rim. A witness said he saw flames and black smoke spewing from the crash site, heard explosions and saw victims who were bleeding and badly burned.
“It’s just horrible,” witness Teddy Fujimoto said. “And those victims — she was so badly burned. It’s unimaginable, the pain.”
Windy conditions, darkness and the rugged terrain made it difficult to reach the helicopter’s wreckage, Hualapai Nation police Chief Francis Bradley said. Rescue crews had to fly in, walk to the crash site and use night vision goggles to find their way around, he said.
The survivors were airlifted to a Las Vegas hospital by around 2 a.m. Sunday, Bradley said.
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Trump budget plan already outdated after budget deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a twist on Washington’s truism about presidential budgets being D.O.A., President Donald Trump’s 2019 fiscal plan due Monday is dead even before arrival.
The original plan was for Trump’s new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year’s proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both last year’s budget and the one to be released Monday.
In a preview of the 2019 budget, the White House on Sunday focused on Trump’s $1.5 trillion plan for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also will ask for a $13 billion increase over two years for opioid prevention, treatment and long-term recovery. A request of $23 billion for border security, including $18 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and money for more detention beds for detained immigrants, is part of the budget, too.
Trump’s latest submission was completed before the budget pact delivered the nearly $300 billion increase above prior “caps” on spending. The $4 trillion-plus 2019 budget was originally designed to double down on last year’s proposals to slash foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, home heating assistance and other nondefense programs funded by Congress each year.
“A lot of presidents’ budgets are ignored. But I would expect this one to be completely irrelevant and totally ignored,” said Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama. “In fact, Congress passed a law week that basically undid the budget before it was even submitted.”
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2nd Alpine postponement means Shiffrin starts with slalom
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin’s pursuit of gold at the Pyeongchang Olympics will start on a different day — and in a different event, the slalom, which is her forte — than everyone expected.
Of course, that’s assuming they ever get around to doing any racing at all in Alpine skiing, after each of the first two contests were postponed because of dangerous winds.
The latest schedule change came Monday, when the temperature was 5 degrees (minus-15 Celsius) and the women’s giant slalom was shelved less than three hours before it was supposed to start. That followed Sunday’s postponement of the men’s downhill.
Now both of those races will be held Thursday, but on different hills. The women will compete at the Yongpyong Alpine Center used for technical races, and the men will be about 30 miles (50 kilometres) away at the Jeongseon Alpine Center used for speed races.
The men’s super-G, originally set for Thursday, has been switched to Friday.
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Kenworthy embracing LGBT flag-bearer role in Pyeongchang
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — At the Sochi Games, he was the medal-winning athlete who overshadowed that achievement by rescuing five stray dogs. In Pyeongchang, he’s vacuuming up attention with his “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it” posts and photos of him kissing skater Adam Rippon, and taking swipes at U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence.
Eventually, Gus Kenworthy hopes, he’ll be talked about more for his skiing, the insane tricks and risks he and other slopestylers take negotiating the big jumps and zany rails of the Olympic course.
By vigorously embracing an unofficial role as Olympic flag-bearer for the LGBT community, Kenworthy is edging sport closer to the point where being a gay athlete is no longer even an issue.
That, at least, is his plan. But sports’ aren’t there yet. Proof? Well, for starters: The people who have confided to him at these games that they are gay but haven’t yet taken the step he took in 2015 to say so publicly.
“That’s been insane to me, and I think it also just shows that there’s a lot more of us,” Kenworthy said in an interview Sunday. “But it’s still kind of a condemning time and hopefully one day it won’t be.”
