Deal sealed on federal budget, ensuring no shutdown, default
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and congressional leaders announced Monday a critical debt and budget agreement that’s an against-the-odds victory for Washington pragmatists seeking to avoid political and economic tumult over the possibility of a government shutdown or first-ever federal default.
The deal, announced by Trump on Twitter and in a statement by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, will restore the government’s ability to borrow to pay its bills past next year’s elections and build upon recent large budget gains for both the Pentagon and domestic agencies.
“I am pleased to announce that a deal has been struck,” Trump tweeted, saying there will be no “poison pills” added to follow-up legislation. “This was a real compromise in order to give another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!”
The agreement is on a broad outline for $1.37 trillion in agency spending next year and slightly more in fiscal 2021. It would mean a win for lawmakers eager to return Washington to a more predictable path amid political turmoil and polarization, defence hawks determined to cement big military increases and Democrats seeking to protect domestic programs.
Nobody notched a big win, but both sides view it as better than a protracted battle this fall.
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Puerto Ricans worry about future if embattled governor stays
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The political crisis in Puerto Rico has escalated to a point where many wonder how Gov. Ricardo Rosselló will be able to govern the U.S. territory in the coming days and possibly weeks amid the massive protests to oust him.
Rosselló dug his heels in late Monday after what seems to have been the biggest protest the island has seen in nearly two decades, telling Fox News that he has already apologized and made amends following the leak of an offensive, obscenity-laden online chat between him and his advisers that triggered the crisis.
But Puerto Ricans remained unsatisfied and vowed to keep protesting until he steps down, no matter how long it takes.
Tuesday marked the 11th consecutive day of protests as government officials around Rosselló kept resigning.
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Protester voices: What Puerto Rico demonstrators are saying
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — José Troche, a 64-year-old doctor from Yauco, sat under the shade in a beach chair as he waited for the march to begin.
“This right now is a dream,” he said as he gestured toward the massive crowd in Puerto Rico’s capital. “The people are united.”
Troche believes Puerto Rico is at a crossroads, and that the upheaval will force people to be more conscious about who they vote into office next year. He said the historic protests have changed the way people think about the island’s political parties and their associations with them: “We have to kick out everyone who is a traitor to the people, regardless of their (political) colour.”
When he was younger, he imagined Puerto Rico would have a strong economy and be self-sufficient by this time, but he doesn’t see that happening for at least another 40 years.
“They have misspent the money, and now we’re paying for it,” he said in reference to government officials. “We’re indignant with the island’s situation; so much corruption and lack of respect.”
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Much of Venezuela in the dark again after massive blackout
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The lights went out across much of Venezuela, reviving fears of the blackouts that plunged the country into chaos a few months ago as the government once again accused opponents of sabotaging the nation’s hydroelectric power system.
The power in the capital went out after 4 p.m. (2000 GMT) Monday and immediately backed up traffic as stop lights and the subway stopped working during rush hour. As night fell in Caracas many were wondering how long they would be left in the dark.
“This is horrible, a disaster,” Reni Blanco, a 48-year-old teacher, said as she joined a crush of people who flooded into the streets of the capital trying to make it home before nightfall.
Almost three hours into the blackout authorities broke their silence and blamed an “electromagnetic attack” on a series of dams located in southern Venezuela — the same culprit it attributed an almost week-long outage in March that left millions of Venezuelans without water or the ability to communicate with loved ones.
“Those who’ve systematically attacked the noble people of Venezuela in all kinds of ways will once again be confronted with the mettle and courage that we, the children of our liberator Simón Bolívar, have demonstrated in the face of difficulties,” Communications Minister Jorge Rodríguez said in a statement read on state TV.
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South Korea fires warning shots at Russian warplanes
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean jets fired warning shots after a Russian military plane violated South Korea’s airspace on Tuesday, Seoul officials said, in the first such incident between the countries.
Three Russian military planes initially entered South Korea’s air defence identification zone off its east coast before one of them entered the country’s territorial sky, the South’s Defence Ministry said.
South Korean fighter jets then scrambled to the area to fire warning shots, a ministry official said, requesting anonymity due to department rules.
The Russian plane left the area but it returned and violated the South Korean airspace again later Tuesday, the ministry official said. He said the South Korean fighter jets fired warning shots again. Each time, the Russian plane didn’t return fire, the official said.
It was the first time a Russian military plane violated South Korean airspace, according to South Korean officials.
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Analysis: Hong Kong protests could push China to intervene
BEIJING (AP) — While China doesn’t want to intervene in the summer-long protests that have shaken Hong Kong, that doesn’t mean it won’t.
The movement, now in its seventh week, has veered into more dangerous territory on two fronts.
Protesters, who had previously besieged the city’s legislature and police headquarters, directed their ire at China itself on Sunday, defacing the central government’s official emblem and pelting its building in Hong Kong with eggs. Needless to say, their actions were not well-received in Beijing.
In an escalation on the other side, a group armed with metal rods and wooden poles beat up anti-government protesters and others inside a subway station late Sunday night. The attack injured 45 people, including a man who remained in critical condition. Beijing supporters had tussled with protesters previously, but not on this scale.
Neither side wants China’s People’s Liberation Army to step in, but the growing chaos and what China will see as a direct challenge to its authority raise the risks. The thuggish attack on the protesters brought accusations of connivance between police and criminal gangs, though Hong Kong’s police commissioner flatly denied it and it remained unclear who was behind it.
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Chris Kraft, 1st flight director for NASA, dies at 95
WASHINGTON (AP) — Behind America’s late leap into orbit and triumphant small step on the moon was the agile mind and guts-of-steel of Chris Kraft, making split-second decisions that propelled the nation to once unimaginable heights.
Kraft, the creator and longtime leader of NASA’s Mission Control, died Monday in Houston, just two days after the 50th anniversary of what was his and NASA’s crowning achievement: Apollo 11’s moon landing. He was 95.
Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. never flew in space, but “held the success or failure of American human spaceflight in his hands,” Neil Armstrong, the first man-on-the-moon, told The Associated Press in 2011.
Kraft founded Mission Control and created the job of flight director — later comparing it to an orchestra conductor — and established how flights would be run as the space race between the U.S. and Soviets heated up. The legendary engineer served as flight director for all of the one-man Mercury flights and seven of the two-man Gemini flights, helped design the Apollo missions that took 12 Americans to the moon from 1969 to 1972 and later served as director of the Johnson Space Center until 1982, overseeing the beginning of the era of the space shuttle.
Armstrong once called him “the man who was the ‘Control’ in Mission Control.”
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Ready to fight, Trump says he’ll watch ‘a little’ of Mueller
NEW YORK (AP) — He won’t watch. Well, maybe just a little bit.
President Donald Trump on Monday feigned indifference to Robert Mueller’s upcoming congressional testimony, an eyebrow-raising claim for a media-obsessed president who has been concerned for months about the potential impact of the former special counsel’s appearance.
Much of Washington will stop in its tracks Wednesday as Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill for at least five hours, a nationally televised event that for many Americans will be their first detailed exposure to the former special counsel’s findings on Russia’s 2016 election interference.
The Justice Department on Monday told Mueller his testimony should not go beyond information that has already been released publicly.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office: “I’m not going to be watching — probably — maybe I’ll see a little bit of it. I’m not going to be watching Mueller because you can’t take all those bites out of the apple.”
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Trump expands fast-track deportation authority across US
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration announced Monday that it will vastly extend the authority of immigration officers to deport migrants without allowing them to appear before judges, its second major policy shift on immigration in eight days.
Starting Tuesday, fast-track deportations can apply to anyone in the country illegally for less than two years. Previously, those deportations were largely limited to people arrested almost immediately after crossing the Mexican border.
Kevin McAleenan, the acting Homeland Security secretary, portrayed the nationwide extension of “expedited removal” authority as another Trump administration effort to address an “ongoing crisis on the southern border” by freeing up beds in detention facilities and reducing a backlog of more than 900,000 cases in immigration courts.
U.S. authorities do not have space to detain “the vast majority” of people arrested on the Mexican border, leading to the release of hundreds of thousands with notices to appear in court, McAleenan said in the policy directive to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register. He said Homeland Security officials with the new deportation power will deport migrants in the country illegally more quickly than the Justice Department’s immigration courts, where cases can take years to resolve.
The agency “expects that the full use of expedited removal statutory authority will strengthen national security, diminish the number of illegal entries, and otherwise ensure the prompt removal of aliens apprehended in the United States,” McAleenan said.
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Angels’ Skaggs remembered and praised at memorial service
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Los Angeles Angels pitcher Andrew Heaney urged those at a private memorial service to remember a gift fallen teammate Tyler Skaggs gave to them.
“Take a moment, close your eyes and think of a story or even an image that reminds you of all the good times you had with Ty,” Heaney said. “Take that memory and hold it in your hearts and in your minds. That is his lasting gift to everyone here.”
Skaggs’ teammates and family gathered Monday at a Catholic church in his native Santa Monica to remember Skaggs, who was found dead in his hotel room in Texas on July 1. He died shortly before his 28th birthday.
The mourners remembered Skaggs as a beloved son, husband, teammate and friend whose upbeat personality brought joy to everyone around him. The altar was flanked by two large red-and-white floral arrangements prominently featuring No. 45, Skaggs’ uniform number.
Hundreds of attendees laughed and cried at the eulogies from 14 speakers. Several family members related stories of Skaggs as a precocious, upbeat kid who just happened to grow into a world-class athlete.
The Associated Press
