Month: November 2018

The man who plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at last year’s white nationalist rally in Virginia had every intention to kill, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday as James Fields’ murder trial got underway.

“It was willful, premeditated murder,” prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony said in Charlottesville Circuit Court, where Fields, 21, is facing a possible life sentence.

Fields’ attorney, John Hill, said the Ohio man acted in self-defense after becoming frightened by the mass of people around his car.

“You will hear James tell officers he feared for his safety,” Hill said, referring to his client’s comments to police following the crash. “He was scared to death.”

Heather Heyer, 32, was killed in the incident, which capped two days of chaos in August 2017 when hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, to protest the planned removal of a Confederate statue from a public park. Two state troopers were also killed during the protests when their helicopter crashed.

The “Unite the Right” rally followed a Friday night demonstration when hundreds of torch-carrying men chanted anti-Semitic slogans.

U.S. President Donald Trump was heavily criticized for saying there were “very fine people on both sides” after the violence, seemingly equating the white nationalists with those who demonstrated against them.

Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, declined to return phone calls from the White House after Trump’s remarks.

The bedlam left lasting wounds in Charlottesville, which has been forced to confront its own complicated racial legacy after the violence.

But it also damaged the image of the alt-right movement, a loose alignment of fringe groups centered on white nationalism and emboldened by Trump’s 2016 presidential victory. In August, a one-year anniversary rally in Washington drew just two dozen participants amid thousands of counterprotesters.

Prosecutors called several victims to the witness stand as the trial’s first day unfolded, giving jurors a firsthand account of the terrifying moments when Fields’ car sent bodies flying through the air.

“It was like a war zone downtown,” said Marcus Martin, who suffered a broken leg and ankle.

Fields was photographed hours before last year’s attack carrying a shield with the emblem of a far-right hate group, and people who knew him in high school have said he expressed Nazi sympathies as a student.

Fields also faces separate federal hate crimes, which carry a potential death sentence. He has pleaded not guilty in that case as well.
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Flash flooding hit a wildfire-scarred area of Northern California on Thursday, forcing officials to quickly deploy swift water rescue teams to save people stranded in vehicles after a downpour near the Paradise area, officials said. 

It was not clear how many people were trapped, but authorities received reports of flooding on roads and of downed trees and utility poles. 

“The roots and the bottoms of the utility poles are just kind of swimming,” said Rick Carhart, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “It rained really hard in a short amount of time and this whole thing came up really quickly.”

The storm brought heavy rains, toppling trees and trapping motorists in flooded roads downstream, said National Weather Service meteorologist Craig Shoemaker. 

“This is heavy rain in a short period of time and that’s the worst thing that can happen in the burn scar,” he said. 

The Butte County Sheriff’s Department ordered evacuations but could not say how many people were affected. The water rescues were in an area of Chico, which is downhill from Paradise, and a city where many of the wildfire evacuees have been staying since the town of 27,000 was destroyed just three weeks ago by a deadly wildfire.

Butte County Sheriff’s Sgt. Brad Meyer told television stations KHSL/KNVN in Chico that about a dozen homes were affected and rafts were being used to rescue people from water that was a couple of feet deep. 

“It is serious. The water is coming up so we want to make sure we get everybody out that we can,” Meyer told the station.

Emergency response crews earlier cleared a tree that toppled in the town of Magalia, but no other reports of damage had been received after an inch of rain fell overnight in the burn zone about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

Paradise has been under mandatory evacuation orders for nearly three weeks since a wildfire killed at least 88 people and destroyed nearly 14,000 homes.  

Residents could begin returning early next week, but only if the storm doesn’t hinder efforts to clear roads and restore power, said Sheriff Kory Honea.

No major problems were reported in burn zones in Southern California early Thursday, but numerous traffic accidents occurred on slick Los Angeles-area freeways and most vehicles traveling in the mountains were ordered to put chains on their tires.  

On the coast near Big Sur, the California Department of Transportation closed a 12-mile (19-kilometer) stretch of Highway 1 because of potential instability.

The scenic route perched between towering mountainsides and the ocean has been dogged by slides since 2016. But the one that hit in May 2017 was monumental, requiring extensive work to rebuild the highway.

In Southern California, residents were urged to voluntarily evacuate a string of neighborhoods about 45 miles (70 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles along a flank of the Santa Ana Mountains where a fire burned thousands of acres last summer. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for a small section of the city of Lake Elsinore beneath a burn zone.

West of Los Angeles, rain fell heavily at times in vast areas burned by fires this month and last December — an area where there are strong memories of a January downpour that unleashed devastating debris flows through the community of Montecito that killed 21 people and left two missing.

In the zone that burned this month, the city of Malibu warned of rocks falling on canyon roads and Pepperdine University closed its campus. 

The weather service also issued a backcountry avalanche warning for most of the central Sierra, including the Lake Tahoe area.

 
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the U.N. is working hard to ensure peace talks on Yemen before the end of the year.

Talks are tentatively set to open next week in Stockholm between Yemeni officials and representatives of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Guterres said at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit Thursday in Buenos Aires that “a number of setbacks have taken place” and he does not want to raise expectations. But he said he is hopeful something will happen before the end of 2018.

A Houthi spokesman said Thursday his side will come to Sweden for the talks next week if their safe passage is guaranteed.

British Ambassador to Yemen Michael Aron said he sent messages to the head of the Houthi delegation and Yemen Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yemeni, telling them he has already booked his travel to Stockholm and looks forward to seeing both of them there.

“The political solution is the way forward and these consultations are a great step forward,” Aron tweeted.

Also Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Matthew Tueller said Iran is one of the major forces trying to stir up instability in Yemen and “throwing gasoline on the fire” across the Middle East.

“Step back for a moment and look at what we have in Yemen. We have a non-state actor, a militia, that has overthrown the government, and yet it is receiving arms, equipment and support from a state, Iran,” Tueller told The Associated Press.

Iran has denied sending the Houthis weapons through the rebel-controlled port of Hodeida, where some of the fiercest fighting is concentrated.

Airstrikes fired against the rebels by a Saudi-led coalition have killed thousands of civilians. 

A State Department spokeswoman announced Thursday the U.S. is sending another $131 million in emergency food aid to Yemen, bringing the total over the past 14 months to nearly $700 million.

“Ultimately, no amount of humanitarian or development assistance will end this conflict. All parties must cease hostilities and support negotiations. … It is time to replace conflict with compromise and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction,” a State Department statement said.
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The U.S. Navy sailed two ships through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, a move likely to upset China. 

A destroyer and an oil ship made the journey. 

This is the third time this year the Navy carried out what it calls a “routine transit.” 

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement. “The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.” 

A U.S. official told the French news agency, Agence France-Presse, that Chinese ships were standing by and monitoring the American vessels but that both sides acted in a manner that was “safe and professional.” 

China protested earlier sailings as a challenge to its sovereignty. It regards Taiwan as part of mainland China. It has threatened military action if Taiwan declares independence, although the island has ruled itself since the Communists seized power in China in 1949. 

The U.S. is obliged to come to Taiwan’s defense if it is ever attacked. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that new auto tariffs were “being studied now,” asserting they could prevent job cuts such as the U.S. layoffs and plant closures that General Motors Co. announced this week. 

Trump said on Twitter that the 25 percent tariff placed on imported pickup trucks and commercial vans from markets outside North America in the 1960s had long boosted U.S. vehicle production. 

“If we did that with cars coming in, many more cars would be built here,” Trump said, “and G.M. would not be closing their plants in Ohio, Michigan & Maryland.” 

The United States has a 2.5 percent tariff on imported cars and sport utility vehicles from markets outside North America and South Korea. The new North American trade deal exempts the first 2.6 million SUVs and passenger cars built in Mexico and Canada from new tariffs. 

Several automakers said privately on Wednesday that they feared GM’s action could prompt Trump to act faster than expected on new tariffs. 

GM did not directly comment on Trump’s tweets but reiterated that it was committed to investing in the United States. On Monday, the company said it would shutter five North American plants, stop building six low-selling passenger cars in North America and cut up to 15,000 jobs. The company has no plans to shift production of those vehicles to other markets. 

The administration has for months been considering imposing dramatic new tariffs on imported vehicles. 

The U.S. Commerce Department has circulated draft recommendations to the White House on its investigation into whether to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported cars and parts on national security grounds, Reuters reported earlier this month. 

“The President has great power on this issue – Because of the G.M. event, it is being studied now!” Trump said. 

Shock to industry

The prospect of tariffs of 25 percent on imported autos and parts has sent shock waves through the auto industry, with both U.S. and foreign-brand producers lobbying against it and warning that national security tariffs on EU and Japanese vehicles could dramatically raise the price of many vehicles. 

Trump has also harshly criticized GM for building cars in China. The United States slapped an additional 25 percent tariff on Chinese-made vehicles earlier this year, prompting China to retaliate. 

China currently imposes a 40 percent tariff on U.S. automobiles, while the United States has a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese vehicles. 

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement on Wednesday that he “will examine all available tools to equalize the tariffs applied to automobiles.” 

Additional tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles and parts would have a limited impact, said Kristin Dziczek, an economist at the Center for Automotive Research. She noted only a small number of vehicles were exported from China to the United States annually. 

The White House previously pledged not to move forward with imposing national security tariffs on the European Union or Japan while it was making constructive progress in trade talks. 

Trump wants the EU and Japan to buy more American-made vehicles. He wants the EU and Japan to make trade concessions, including lowering the EU’s 10 percent tariff on imported vehicles and cutting nontariff barriers. 

The White House in recent weeks has reached out to the chief executives of German automakers, including Daimler AG, MW AG and Volkswagen AG about meeting to discuss the status of auto trade.  
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed to G-20 leaders ahead of their meetings this week to cooperate more to address some of the planet’s most pressing issues. 

“Threats to human prosperity are becoming increasingly acute,” Guterres wrote in a five-page letter dated Nov. 16 and released by the U.N. on Wednesday. “More, rather than less, cooperation is needed,” he said.

Guterres detailed threats from global hunger to climate-related disasters to the need for empowering women and harnessing technology for good. He said multilateralism must be “preserved and renewed,” and he urged international support for the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which he said “provide us with an agreed blueprint to tackle the most daunting challenges of our times.” 

Watch: What is the G-20?

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the SDGs in 2015. The 17 global goals provide a framework for ending extreme poverty and hunger, improving health and education, and protecting the planet, all by 2030.

“I hope leaders at the G-20 will give it a strong push forward,” Guterres told reporters ahead of his departure for the summit in Argentina.  

The U.N. chief is also grappling with a series of international crises and conflicts. At the top of the list is the nearly four-year-old war in Yemen that has left half that nation —14 million people— on the brink of starvation. 

“We are at a very crucial moment in relation to Yemen,” Guterres said in response to reporters’ questions. “I believe there is a chance to be able to start effective negotiations in Sweden early in December, but we are not yet there.”

His special envoy, Martin Griffiths, has been shuttling around the region talking to key players and trying to get them to the negotiating table in Sweden.Saudi Arabia, which leads the pro-government coalition bombing the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, will be represented at the G20 by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Asked if he would meet with the prince, who has come under international scrutiny for his possible role in the brutal murder of a Saudi dissident journalist, Guterres said he is ready to meet him. 

“I’m ready to discuss it with the crown prince or with any other Saudi officials, because I believe it is a very important objective at the present moment,” Guterres said. “If we are able to stop the Yemeni war, we will be stopping the most tragic humanitarian disaster we are facing in today’s world.”

Climate calls

The U.N. chief also made a big pitch for action on climate change.

“Climate action can no longer wait,” he wrote. “Decisive action to halt the progress of climate change is imperative.”

In 2015, leaders made ambitious commitments under the Paris Agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt to its effects. China and the United States — the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases — both joined the deal, but the U.S. under the Trump administration announced its intention to withdraw.

“The members of the G20 are responsible for more than three-quarters of greenhouse emissions,” Guterres told reporters. “Yet, it is equally true that G20 members have the power to bend the emissions curve. They also have the resources to provide the financing needed for both mitigation and adaptation,” he added. 

The U.N. chief has insisted that greening the global economy will be good for everyone, creating jobs and investment opportunities. 

After the G20, Guterres will travel to Katowice, Poland, for the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the Paris accord. 
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California will see widespread rain and heavy Sierra Nevada snowfall through midweek, potentially bringing travel problems and raising the risk of damaging runoff from wildfire burn scars, forecasters said Tuesday.

The wet pattern from a deep atmospheric fetch of Pacific moisture marks a significant change in the weather following conditions that contributed to disastrous and deadly wildfires up and down California, where hundreds of thousands of acres have burned this year.

“This is good news to help minimize that fire activity,” Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean said . “But remember that if you are in an area that has seen recent fires this year or latter part of last year it could mean trouble as that soil is much more prone to mudslides and debris flow.”

The National Weather Service said there was a risk of heavy rainfall in northwest California through Tuesday night, then spreading farther south down virtually all of the coastal ranges and some interior sections of the state through Wednesday and Thursday.

Snow accumulations in the Sierra could range from 2-4 feet (0.6-1.2 meters), the NWS said.

In the Sierra, chain controls were put into effect on Interstate 80 between Kingvale and the Donner Lake interchange, the California Department of Transportation said. 

On the coast near Big Sur, Caltrans planned to close a section of Highway 1 between Mud Creek and Paul’s Slide for 48 hours starting Wednesday morning because of potential instability.

The scenic route perched between towering mountainsides and the ocean has been dogged by slides since late 2016. But the one that hit Mud Creek near Ragged Point in May 2017 was monumental. Millions of tons of earth moved, displacing 75 acres (30 hectares) of land and extensive work was required to rebuild the highway over the slide.

Caltrans also warned that chains will be required for travel through the mountains of San Bernardino and Riverside counties east of Los Angeles when the storm arrives there Wednesday evening. Flash flood watches were to go into effect Thursday morning in those area as well as parts of Orange County.

Forecasters also warned of very high surf along the coast. 
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Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday he would “probably” block a renewed effort to bring to a vote a bill to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The bill, known as the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, would make it harder for President Donald Trump to undermine the investigation, which he has called a witch hunt. The measure has already been approved at the committee level with bipartisan support.

“I probably would” object to bringing up the bill, McConnell told reporters at the U.S. Capitol, calling a bipartisan effort to force such a vote “a solution in search of a problem” as Trump renewed his Twitter attacks on Mueller and his long-running inquiry.

McConnell reiterated that Mueller should be allowed to finish his probe, which is also looking into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign and obstruction of justice. But he said he did not think Trump would try to fire Mueller, adding that lawmakers “have a lot of things to do to try to finish up this year without taking votes on things that are completely irrelevant to outcomes.”

Moscow denies interfering in the 2016 election, and Trump has denied any collusion occurred.

The president blasted Mueller again on Tuesday on Twitter, calling him a “conflicted prosecutor gone rogue” and accusing him of doing “TREMENDOUS damage” to the criminal justice system.

Noting the attack, Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican who is retiring from Congress, and Senate Democrats Chris Coons and Cory Booker said on Tuesday they would again seek to bring up the legislation for a vote Wednesday.

Flake tried the same step earlier this month, and McConnell stopped the bill from advancing. Flake responded by saying he would try to block judicial nominations pending in the Senate until McConnell lets the Mueller bill go to a floor vote.

Before McConnell spoke Tuesday, No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn told reporters that Republican leaders were trying to gauge support for the Mueller bill. He suggested it could be brought up for a vote to try to end Flake’s tactics.

Cornyn added that he opposed the bill, believing it to be unconstitutional. Some Democrats want to put language protecting the Mueller investigation into a spending bill to fund the government that must pass by Dec. 7.
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President Donald Trump’s renewed demand for U.S. taxpayer funding of his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall was threatening again on Tuesday to bring on a budget standoff and a partial government shutdown, leaving Congress just 11 days to act.

With time running short, Trump and Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives huddled at the White House. Border security was expected to be high on the agenda.

By Dec. 7, Congress must pass this spending bill, estimated at $312 billion, to keep some government agencies funded, including the Department of Homeland Security, which polices the border and immigration.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet with the incoming foreign minister of Mexico on Sunday to discuss immigration, a top White House official said.

“They will have a full conversation about all the issues in connection with the border,” White House national security adviser John Bolton told reporters.

Washington’s focus on the Mexican border coincides with televised images of U.S. border police lobbing tear gas canisters over a border fence in Southern California on Sunday into crowds of asylum seekers, mostly from Central America.

Even with the divisive Nov. 6 congressional elections over, Trump has continued to rail against thousands of migrants in a caravan traveling from violence-ridden Central American countries to seek asylum in the United States.

The latest border incident was unlikely to shift the partisan split in Congress over Trump’s proposed, $23 billion wall, with many Republicans in favor and most Democrats against, Senator Marco Rubio told reporters in a Capitol hallway.

“People here are pretty dug in,” said Rubio, a Republican.

Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who like Rubio is a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, predicted a border security deal would be struck in coming days.

​But a House Democratic aide familiar with the negotiations said in a telephone interview that, at least for now, talks over Homeland Security’s budget were “a total mess.”

House Republicans want $5 billion for Trump’s wall, while the Senate wants $1.6 billion for this fiscal year. The Trump administration would like the entire $23 billion up front, fearing that a House run by Democrats next year would never fully fund the long-term costs of the wall.

Rubio said more “physical structures” are needed to reinforce the border. But, he said, “The ultimate border security is to help address … the causes of people leaving Guatemala and Honduras” and fleeing to the United States.

Under Republican control of the Senate and House in recent years, U.S. spending on programs to combat violence and promote the economies of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras has declined sharply. At the same time, despite Trump’s efforts to make immigration more difficult, the number of illegal crossings has risen.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, apprehensions on the southwest border of unaccompanied children rose 21 percent from  the previous year to 50,000, while family apprehensions were up 42 percent to more than 107,000.

As Trump gears up for his 2020 re-election bid, he is expected to hammer on his 2016 campaign pledge to stop illegal immigration, raising fears that he might not back down, as he has before, from a threat to close the government.

“Life is hard, but it’s harder when you’re stupid. A government shutdown would be stupid,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy, also an Appropriations Committee member. “But if we can’t agree on the budget, we can’t agree on the budget,” he added.
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