Trump indictment would be unprecedented in US history
The decision whether to indict former President Donald Trump over hush-money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign lies with a Manhattan grand jury that has been hearing evidence in secret for weeks.
An indictment of Trump, who is seeking the White House again in 2024, would be an unprecedented moment in American history, the first criminal case against a former U.S. president.
Law enforcement officials are bracing for protests and the possibility of violence after Trump called on his supporters to protest ahead of a possible indictment.
An indictment could also test a Republican Party already divided over whether to support Trump next year, in part due to his efforts to undermine his 2020 election loss.
Trump denies any wrongdoing and has slammed the Manhattan district attorney’s office probe as politically motivated.
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Japan’s Kishida heading to Ukraine for talks with Zelenskyy
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was heading to Kyiv early Tuesday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that coincide with the Chinese leader’s visit to Moscow.
Kishida will “show respect to the courage and patience of the Ukrainian people who are standing up to defend their homeland under President Zelenskyy’s leadership, and show solidarity and unwavering support for Ukraine as head of Japan and chairman of G-7,” during his visit to Ukraine, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in announcing his trip to Kyiv.
At the talks, Kishida will show his “absolute rejection to Russia’s one-sided change to the status quo by invasion and force, and to affirm his commitment to defend the rules-based international order,” the ministry’s statement said.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, meanwhile, is in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin warmly welcomed Xi to the Kremlin on a visit both nations describe as an opportunity to deepen their “no-limits friendship.”
Japan’s public television NHK showed Kishida riding a train from Poland heading to Kyiv. His surprise trip to Ukraine comes just hours after he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
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Biden issues first veto, taking on new Republican House
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden issued the first veto of his presidency Monday in an early sign of shifting White House relations with the new Congress since Republicans took control of the House in January — a move that serves as a prelude to bigger battles with GOP lawmakers on government spending and the nation’s debt limit.
Biden sought to kill a Republican-authored measure that would ban the government from considering environmental impacts or potential lawsuits when making investment decisions for people’s retirement plans. In a video released by the White House, Biden said he vetoed the measure because it “put at risk the retirement savings of individuals across the country.”
His first veto represents a more confrontational approach at the midway of Biden’s term in office, as he faces a GOP-controlled House that is eager to undo parts of his policy legacy and investigate his administration and his family. Complicating matters for Biden, several Democratic senators are up for re-election next year in conservative states, giving them political incentive to put some distance between them and the White House.
The measure vetoed by Biden would have effectively reinstated a Trump-era ban on federal managers of retirement plans considering factors such as climate change, social impacts or pending lawsuits when making investment choices.
The veto could also help calm some anger from environmentalists who have been upset with the Biden administration for its recent decision to greenlight the Willow oil project, a massive and contentious drilling project in Alaska.
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World on ‘thin ice’ as UN climate report gives stark warning
BERLIN (AP) — Humanity still has a chance, close to the last, to prevent the worst of climate change’s future harms, a top United Nations panel of scientists said Monday.
But doing so requires quickly slashing nearly two-thirds of carbon pollution by 2035, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. The United Nations chief said it more bluntly, calling for an end to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040.
“Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.”
Stepping up his pleas for action on fossil fuels, Guterres called for rich countries to accelerate their target for achieving net zero emissions to as early as 2040, and developing nations to aim for 2050 — about a decade earlier than most current targets. He also called for them to stop using coal by 2030 and 2040, respectively, and ensure carbon-free electricity generation in the developed world by 2035, meaning no gas-fired power plants either.
That date is key because nations soon have to come up with goals for pollution reduction by 2035, according to the Paris climate agreement. After contentious debate, the U.N. science report approved Sunday concluded that to stay under the warming limit set in Paris the world needs to cut 60% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, compared with 2019, adding a new target not previously mentioned in six previous reports issued since 2018.
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Saudi Arabia frees American imprisoned over critical tweets
WASHINGTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Monday freed an American citizen, a 72-year-old Florida retiree, it had imprisoned for more than a year over his old tweets critical of the kingdom’s crown prince, his son said.
Neither Saudi nor U.S. officials immediately confirmed the release of Saad al Madi, a longtime Florida, resident. But progress on his release had been rumored since last week.
Madi on Monday night was at home with family members who live in Riyadh, said his son, Ibrahim al Madi, in the United States. Saudi officials dropped all charges against the elder Madi, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen. But it was not immediately clear whether the kingdom would lift a travel ban it had imposed to follow the prison sentence.
Saudi Arabia had sentenced Madi last year to 16 years in prison, saying his critical tweets about how the kingdom was being governed amounted to terrorist acts against it.
As U.S. officials worked to win his release, and after President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia last summer in an attempt to improve relations with the oil-rich nation, a Saudi appeals court increased Madi’s prison sentence to 19 years.
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1 dead, 1 hurt in Texas school shooting; suspect arrested
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — A student opened fire at a Dallas-area school Monday morning, killing one student and injuring another before being arrested on a capital murder charge, police said.
The shooting began on a high school campus in the suburb of Arlington around 6:55 a.m., before many students arrived for the first day back to classes after the spring break, according to police and school district officials.
Arlington police Chief Al Jones said Monday that a male student who was shot died at a hospital and a female victim was receiving medical care after being “grazed” by shrapnel, causing injures that aren’t life threatening. He declined to give their ages or grades.
Another male student was arrested at the scene and charged with capital murder, Jones said at an afternoon news conference. The police chief declined to identify the suspected shooter because he is a minor, but said he is being held at a juvenile detention center in the area.
The gunman ran from the scene without ever entering the Lamar High School building and was taken into custody by responding officers “within minutes,” Jones said. He said investigators recovered a gun used in the shooting but the shooter’s motive and where he got the weapon remain unclear.
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New law puts Wyoming at forefront of abortion pill bans
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming has pushed to the front of state efforts to prohibit the most common type of abortion by instituting the nation’s first explicit ban on pills that terminate pregnancies.
In many states women can get abortion pills prescribed online and delivered to their homes. The ease and availability of pills have made that method the most popular way to end a pregnancy – more than half of all abortions are done with that method, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion access advocacy group.
But 13 states now effectively ban abortion pills by prohibiting all forms of abortion, moves made after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling last year.
Fifteen states restrict access to the pills. Of those, six — Arizona, Indiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota and South Carolina — require a doctor to administer them in person. Arizona also bans mailing abortion pills.
But before a law signed Friday by Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, no state specifically banned abortion pills. The law passed alongside a new abortion ban that seeks to sidestep issues with an earlier state ban that’s been held up in court.
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Missouri to restrict gender-affirming care for minors
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s Republican attorney general on Monday said he will limit access to gender-affirming care for minors, sidestepping the GOP-led Senate as it struggles to pass a law banning the practice for children completely.
As hundreds of activists rallied at the Capitol to pressure lawmakers to act on the bill, Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced plans to file an emergency rule.
The rule will require an 18-month waiting period, 15 hour-long therapy sessions and treatment of any mental illnesses before Missouri doctors can provide that kind of care to transgender children, according to Bailey’s office.
“I am dedicated to using every legal tool at my disposal to stand in the gap and protect children from being subject to inhumane science experiments,” Bailey said.
The emergency rule also requires disclosure of information about puberty blocker drugs, including that they are experimental, not approved by the FDA and that the FDA has warned they can lead to brain swelling and blindness, Bailey said.
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Idaho poised to allow firing-squad executions in some cases
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho is poised to allow firing squads to execute condemned inmates when the state can’t get lethal-injection drugs, under a bill the Legislature passed Monday with a veto-proof majority.
Firing squads will be used only if the state cannot obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections — and one death row inmate has already had his scheduled execution postponed multiple times because of drug scarcity.
The move by Idaho lawmakers is in line with those by other states that in recent years have scrambled to revive older methods of execution because of difficulties obtaining drugs required for longstanding lethal injection programs. Pharmaceutical companies increasingly have barred executioners from using their drugs, saying they were meant to save lives, not take them.
Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little has voiced his support for the death penalty but generally does not comment on legislation before he signs or vetoes it.
Only Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina currently have laws allowing firing squads if other execution methods are unavailable, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. South Carolina’s law is on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.
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The big problem for endangered orcas? Inbreeding
SEATTLE (AP) — People have taken many steps in recent decades to help the Pacific Northwest’s endangered killer whales, which have long suffered from starvation, pollution and the legacy of having many of their number captured for display in marine parks.
They’ve breached dikes and removed dams to create wetland habitat for Chinook salmon, the orcas’ most important food. They’ve limited commercial fishing to try to ensure prey for the whales. They’ve made boats slow down and keep farther away from the animals to reduce their stress and to quiet the waters so they can better hunt.
So far, those efforts have had limited success, and research published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution suggests why: The whales are so inbred that they are dying younger and their population is not recovering. Female killer whales take about 20 years to reach peak fertility, and the females may not be living long enough to ensure the growth of their population.
While that news sounds grim for the revered orcas — known as the “southern resident” killer whales — it also underscores the urgency of conservation efforts, said Kim Parsons, a geneticist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s NOAA Fisheries who co-authored the study. The population is not necessarily doomed, she said.
“It’s not often inbreeding itself that will result in a shortened lifespan or kill an individual,” Parsons said. “It’s really that inbreeding makes these individuals more vulnerable to disease or environmental factors. We can support the population by supporting the environment and giving them the best chance possible.”
The Associated Press
