Category: USA

New U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday issued an order  overturning an Obama administration ban on the controversial use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle used on federal lands and waters, in a nod to hunters and fishermen on his first day on the job.

Zinke, who was a first-term Montana Congressman and a former Navy SEAL, arrived for his first day at work at the Interior Department in Washington on a horse named Tonto escorted by mounted U.S. Park Police officers.

Zinke, an avid angler and hunter, lifted the lead ammunition ban in one of two secretarial orders, which he said were meant to “expand access to public lands and increase hunting, fishing, and recreation opportunities nationwide.”

Interior Department employs over 70,000

President Barack Obama’s Fish and Wildlife Service had issued the lead ban on Jan. 19, one day before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, to protect birds and fish from lead poisoning. The move was met with sharp criticism from the National Rifle Association (NRA), which called it Obama’s “final assault on gun owners’ and sportsmen’s rights.”

The Interior Department, which is in charge of conserving fish, wildlife and their habitat, manages one-fifth of the land in the United States. It employs more than 70,000 people across the United States.

Secretarial orders signed

Zinke also signed an order on Thursday that would direct federal agencies to identify areas where recreation and fishing can be expanded and sought recommendations for expanding access to public lands and improving fishing and wildlife habitat.

“This package of secretarial orders will expand access for outdoor enthusiasts and also make sure the community’s voice is heard,” he said.

The NRA, as well as hunting and fishing groups including the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Ducks  Unlimited and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership attended  the signing of the orders.

Zinke said that fishing, hunting, and other outdoor recreation activities  “generate thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity.”
…

The National Security Agency risks a brain drain of hackers and cyberspies because of a tumultuous reorganization and worries about the acrimonious relationship between the intelligence community and President Donald Trump, according to current and former NSA officials and cybersecurity industry sources.

Six cybersecurity executives told Reuters they had witnessed a marked increase in the number of U.S. intelligence officers and government contractors seeking employment in the private sector since Trump took office on January 20.

One of the executives, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said he was stunned by the caliber of the would-be recruits. They are coming from a variety of government intelligence and law enforcement agencies, multiple executives said, and their interest stems in part from concerns about the direction of U.S intelligence agencies under Trump.

Retaining and recruiting talented technical personnel has become a top national security priority in recent years as Russia, China, Iran and other nation states and criminal groups have sharpened their cyberoffensive abilities. The NSA and other intelligence agencies have long struggled to deter some of their best employees from leaving for higher-paying jobs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

Two-year reorganization plan

The problem is especially acute at the NSA, current and former officials said, because of a reorganization known as NSA21 that began last year and aims to merge the agency’s electronic eavesdropping and domestic cybersecurity operations.

The two-year overhaul includes expanding parts of the NSA that deal with business management and human resources and putting them on par with research and engineering. The aim is to “ensure that we’re using all of our resources to maximum effect to accomplish our mission,” NSA Director Mike Rogers said.

The changes include new management structures that have left some career employees uncertain about their missions and prospects. Former employees say the reorganization has failed to address widespread concerns that the agency is falling behind in exploiting private-sector technological breakthroughs.

A former top NSA official said he had been told by three current officials that budget problems meant there was too little money for promotions. That is especially important for younger employees, who sometimes need two jobs to make ends meet in the expensive Washington, D.C., area, the official said.

“Morale is as low as I’ve ever seen it,” said another former senior NSA official, who maintains close contact with current employees.

Asked about the risk of losing talent from the NSA and other agencies, White House spokesman Michael Anton said Trump had sought to reassure the intelligence community by visiting the CIA headquarters on his first full day in office. He also pointed to the military spending increase in Trump’s budget proposal released Monday.

Trump’s attacks

But it will most likely take more than a visit to the CIA to patch up relations with the intelligence community, the current and former officials said.

Trump has attacked findings from intelligence agencies that Russia hacked emails belonging to Democratic Party operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign to help him win, though he did eventually accept the findings.

In January, Trump accused intelligence agencies of leaking false information and said it was reminiscent of tactics used in Nazi Germany.

The breadth of any exodus from the NSA and other intelligence agencies is difficult to quantify.

The NSA has “seen a steady rise” in the attrition rate among its roughly 36,000 employees since 2009, and it now sits at a “little less than 6 percent,” according to an NSA spokesman.

The NSA’s Rogers said last year that the attrition rate was 3.3 percent in 2015, suggesting a sharp jump in departures since then.

Several senior NSA officials who have left or plan to leave, including Deputy Director Richard Ledgett and the head of cyberdefense, Curtis Dukes, have said their departures were unrelated to Trump or the reorganization.

Some turnover is normal with any new administration, government and industry officials noted, and a stronger economy has also improved pay and prospects in the private sector.

“During this time the economy has been recovering from the recession, unemployment rates have been falling and the demand for highly skilled technical talent has been increasing,” an NSA spokesman said when asked to comment on the reports of employee departures.

In a statement, Kathy Hutson, the NSA’s chief of human resources, said the agency continues “to attract amazing talent necessary to conduct the security mission the nation needs.”

Rogers’ style

Some NSA veterans attribute the morale issues and staff departures to the leadership style of Rogers, who took over the spy agency in 2014 with the task of dousing an international furor caused by leaks from former contractor Edward Snowden.

Concern about Rogers reached an apex last October, when former Defense Secretary Ash Carter and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recommended to then-President Barack Obama that Rogers be removed.

The NSA did not respond to a request for comment on the recommendation last fall that Rogers be replaced.

Rogers is now expected to retain his job at NSA for at least another year, according to former officials.

Rogers acknowledged concerns about potential morale problems last month, telling a congressional committee that Trump’s broadsides against the intelligence community could create “a situation where our workforce decides to walk.”

Trump’s criticism of the intelligence community has exacerbated the stress caused by the reorganization at the NSA, said Susan Hennessey, a former NSA lawyer now with the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research group.

The “tone coming from the White House makes an already difficult situation worse, by eroding the sense of common purpose and service,” she said.

A wave of departures of career personnel, Hennessey added, “would represent an incalculable loss to national security.”
…

President Donald Trump’s promise to use existing funds to begin immediate construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border has hit a financial roadblock, according to a document seen by Reuters.

The rapid start of construction, promised throughout Trump’s campaign and in an executive order issued in January on border security, was to be financed, according to the White House, with “existing funds and resources” of the Department of Homeland Security.

But so far, the DHS has identified only $20 million that can be re-directed to the multibillion-dollar project, according to a document prepared by the agency and distributed to congressional budget staff last week.

The document said the funds would be enough to cover a handful of contracts for wall prototypes, but not enough to begin construction of an actual barrier. This means that for the wall to move forward, the White House will need to convince Congress to appropriate funds.

An internal report, previously reported by Reuters, estimated that fully walling off or fencing the entire southern border would cost $21.6 billion — $9.3 million per mile of fence and $17.8 million per mile of wall.

DHS officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has said he will ask Congress to pay for what existing funds cannot cover and that Mexico will be pressured to pay back U.S. taxpayers at a later date.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he will include funding for a border wall in the budget for next fiscal year. He has estimated the cost to be between $12 billion and $15 billion.

Many Republican lawmakers have said they would vote against a plan that does not offset the cost of the wall with spending cuts.

In the document it submitted to Congress, the DHS said it would reallocate $5 million from a fence project in Naco, Arizona, that came in under budget and $15 million from a project to install cameras on top of trucks at the border.

The surveillance project was awarded to Virginia-based Tactical Micro, but was held up due to protests from other contractors, according to the DHS document. Tactical Micro could not be reached for comment.

The DHS only searched for extra funds within its $376 million budget for border security fencing, infrastructure and technology, so it would not have to ask for congressional approval to repurpose funding, according to the document.

Contractors cannot begin bidding to develop prototypes until March 6, but more than 265 businesses already have listed themselves as “interested parties” on a government website.

Those interested range from small businesses to large government contractors such as Raytheon.
…

A bipartisan group of U.S. members of Congress has backed a proposal for $7.5 billion of new military funding for U.S. forces and their allies in the Asia-Pacific region, where tensions have risen over China’s territorial ambitions and military buildup.

Five members of the U.S. House of Representatives and eight senators from both the Democratic and Republican parties wrote to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to support the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative (ASPI) proposed in January by John McCain, chair of the Senate Armed Service Committee.

Copies of the letters were seen by Reuters. Their signatories include members of the armed services committees in both houses of Congress.

McCain’s proposal calls for $1.5 billion annually for five years to 2022 to boost U.S. munitions stocks in the region, build new military infrastructure, such as runways, and help allies and partners increase their capabilities.

The House letter urged Mattis to incorporate McCain’s proposal in the fiscal 2018-22 defense budgets.

“The Asia-Pacific region holds many interests for U.S. foreign policy that will require our government to continue to prioritize our time, energy and resources there,” it said.

The letter called former President Barack Obama’s policy of giving precedence to the Asia-Pacific region “sound” and said it was “critical” that this be continued under President Donald Trump.

It expressed concern about “the eroding military and economic balance that is the result of the People’s Republic of China’s two-decade military modernization, combined with the effect of years of sequestration on the U.S. military and our foreign policy apparatus.”

The Senate letter also expressed concern about increasing Russian activity in the region and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

“ASPI will show both allies and adversaries that the U.S. remains committed to ensuring peace and security in a region that contains the world’s three largest economies, four most populous countries, six of the world’s largest armies, and five of the seven U.S. mutual defense agreements,” it said.

Trump has vowed to take a tougher line with China and to build up the U.S. military, although it is unclear whether he will succeed in lifting caps on defense spending that have been part of “sequestration” legislation.

China is due to announce its defense budget for this year this weekend, and its navy is likely to secure significant new funding as Beijing seeks to check U.S. dominance of the high seas and step up its projection of global power.
…

Airport officials and civil rights lawyers around the country are getting ready for President Donald Trump’s new travel ban — mindful of the chaos that accompanied his initial executive order but hopeful the forthcoming version will be rolled out in a more orderly way.

The new order was expected as soon as Wednesday. A draft suggested it would target people from the same seven predominantly Muslim countries but would exempt travelers who already have visas to come to the U.S.

Since last month’s ban, which courts have put on hold, a section of the international arrivals area at Dulles International Airport outside the nation’s capital has been transformed into a virtual law firm, with legal volunteers ready to greet travelers from affected countries and ask if they saw anyone being detained.

Similar efforts are underway at other airports, including Seattle-Tacoma International, where officials have drawn up plans for crowd control after thousands crammed the baggage claim area to protest the original ban.

“The plan is to be as ready as possible,” said Lindsay Nash, an immigration law professor at New York University’s Cardozo School of Law who has been helping prepare emergency petitions on behalf of those who might be detained.

Trump’s initial action, issued Jan. 27, temporarily barred citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya from coming to the U.S. and halted acceptance of all refugees. The president said his administration would review vetting procedures amid concerns about terrorism in those seven nations.

Protesters flooded U.S. airports that weekend, seeking to free travelers detained by customs officials amid confusion about who could enter the country, including U.S. permanent residents known as green-card holders.

Attorneys also challenged the order in court, including officials from Washington state. That lawsuit, which Minnesota joined, resulted in a federal judge temporarily blocking the government from enforcing the travel ban, a decision unanimously upheld by a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Many civil rights lawyers and activists have said they don’t believe a new order would cure all the constitutional problems of the original, including the claim that it was motivated by anti-Muslim discrimination.

Trump has said he singled out the seven countries because they had already been deemed a security concern by the Obama administration. And in a speech Friday to the Conservative Political Action Committee Friday, he said, “We are going to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country.”

Last week, analysts at the Homeland Security Department’s intelligence arm found insufficient evidence that citizens of the seven Muslim-majority countries pose a terror threat to the United States.

“It’s not enough to just tweak an order and not change the nature of why it was issued in the first place,” said Rula Aoun, director of the Arab American Civil Rights League in Dearborn, Michigan, which sued over the initial ban and is prepared to do the same with the rewrite if necessary.

In New York, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt said the organization was ready to go to court if the administration tries to immediately enforce its new order.

“The primary focus is being able to respond immediately to any request by the government to lift any of the injunctions, before the courts have had a chance to examine the new order,” he said.

Activists and airport officials alike said they hoped it would be phased in to give travelers fair warning, which might preclude any detentions from arriving flights.

“We are prepared and willing,” said Rebecca Sharpless, who runs the immigration clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. “But it’s unlikely to cause the same kind of chaos of last time.”

At Dulles, Sea-Tac, Minneapolis-St. Paul and other airports, legal volunteers have greeted arriving travelers in shifts every day since the initial ban, wearing name tags or posting signs in different languages to identify themselves.

The legal-services nonprofit OneJustice was ready to send email alerts to 3,000 volunteers in California if needed, deploying them to San Francisco and Los Angeles airports for people affected by any new order, chief executive Julia Wilson said.

In Chicago, travelers have been signing up for an assistance program started by the local Council on American-Islamic Relations office to ensure swift legal help if they’re detained.

Groups urged those arriving at 17 other airports, including Miami, Atlanta and San Diego, to register with Airport Lawyer , a secure website and free mobile app that alerts volunteer lawyers to ensure travelers make it through customs without trouble.

Asti Gallina, a third-year student at the University of Washington Law School, volunteered at Sea-Tac for the first time Tuesday. It was quiet, she said.

“An essential part of the American narrative is the ability to come to America,” Gallina said. “Any infringement of that is something that needs to be resisted.”
…

The U.S. Senate has unanimously approved a resolution expressing “profound concern” about the crisis in Venezuela and calling for the immediate release of political prisoners.

The resolution adopted Tuesday also calls for the South American country to respect the democratic process and urges the Organization of American States to adopt additional measures to deal with the crisis in Venezuela, which is suffering through recession, skyrocketing inflation and shortages of food and medicine.

U.S. President Donald Trump and opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have called for the release of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and others prisoners.

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro announced earlier this month he would update a report that was used to accuse Venezuela of violating the OAS’s Democratic Charter last year.
…

Democrats are turning to an immigrant brought into the U.S. illegally as a child to give a Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s address to Congress.

Astrid Silva, 28, said millions of people living in the United States are worried, whether it’s about being deported, losing their health insurance coverage or being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. She made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday at the Capitol.

Silva, who will deliver the response in Spanish, said she wants them to know there are people who care about them. And she wants the president to understand his policy choices will affect millions of families around the nation.

“It’s very important for President Trump to understand that even though he spent so much time campaigning about deporting us, now that he is president, he does have to make these choices,” said Silva, a resident of Las Vegas. “He needs to see us as humans. That’s what we are. We’re families trying to find a better life.”

Democrats also tapped former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear to give the party response. As governor he aggressively expanded access to health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans are vowing to repeal.

Silva is part of a group of 750,000 immigrants who were brought into the U.S. without authorization as children but later received deportation relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program authorized by former President Barack Obama in 2012. She became pen pals with former Sen. Harry Reid. Obama ended up highlighting her story during an address to the nation about a similar deportation relief program for the parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents.

Silva, who was 4 when she was brought to the U.S., said her parents and millions of other families now feel the consequences of Trump’s election every day.

“My parents are thinking twice about going to the grocery store,” she said. “Their friends are calling them and asking them what they do if ICE comes to their door — things that for many years were in the back of our minds but it wasn’t necessarily an everyday occurrence.”

Democratic lawmakers have invited several immigrants to be their guests at the address. In contrast, three people with loved ones killed by someone in the United States illegally will sit near first lady Melania Trump.

Despite White House promises that the speech will be an optimistic vision for the country that crosses traditional lines of party and race, Democrats expect to hear little that they will like.

But Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley of New York said he doesn’t expect any outbursts from Democratic lawmakers in attendance. “As much as we have nothing in common with the president, we do respect the office of the presidency. Keeping that in mind, we will be polite but we will show very little if any enthusiasm at all for what I anticipate his speech will be about.”

Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California said she’ll skip the speech. She said she would have considered attending if the president had apologized for certain actions, citing the mocking of a disabled reporter as an example.

“I don’t feel good about it, so I won’t be here,” Waters said.

Others are taking different paths to show their displeasure. Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel of New York announced he would not try to shake hands with the president as he customarily does. Many lawmakers arrive hours early to position themselves for an aisle seat so they can greet the president.

Dozens of female lawmakers were wearing white on Tuesday in honor of women’s suffrage. “Know that we stand committed and ready to fight on behalf of all women and girls,” said Democratic Congresswoman Julia Brownley of California.
…

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross easily won confirmation as U.S. commerce secretary on Monday, clearing President Donald Trump’s top trade official to start work on renegotiating trade relationships with China and Mexico.

The U.S. Senate voted 72-27 to confirm the 79-year-old corporate turnaround expert’s nomination, with strong support from Democrats.

Ross is set to become an influential voice in Trump’s economic team after helping shape the president’s opposition to multilateral free trade deals such as the now-scrapped Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Ross drew votes from 19 Democrats and one independent, partly because of an endorsement from the United Steelworkers union for his efforts in restructuring bankrupt steel companies in the early 2000s, which saved numerous plants and thousands of jobs.

Ross was criticized by some Democrats as another billionaire in a Trump Cabinet that says it is focused on the working class, and for being a “vulture” investor who has eliminated some jobs.

Reuters reported last month that Ross’s companies had shipped some 2,700 jobs overseas since 2004.

The investor will oversee a sprawling agency with nearly 44,000 employees responsible for combating the dumping of imports below cost into U.S. markets, collecting census and critical economic data, weather forecasting, fisheries management, promoting the United States to foreign investors and regulating the export of sensitive technologies.

While commerce secretaries rarely take the spotlight in Washington, Ross is expected to play an outsize role in pursuing Trump’s campaign pledge to slash U.S. trade deficits and bring manufacturing jobs back to America.

Trump has designated Ross to lead the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, a job that in past administrations would have been left to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

Ross will join other major players on the economic team, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council.

Some experts said Ross could serve as a counterweight to advisers such as Peter Navarro, the University of California-Irvine economics professor who heads Trump’s newly created White House National Trade Council. Navarro has advocated a controversial 45 percent across-the-board tariff on imports from China that Trump threatened during his campaign.

“I expect that Ross will quickly become the administration’s chief trade spokesman, and that Navarro’s influence will be felt indirectly, rather than through public statements or testimony,” said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

At his confirmation hearing, Ross downplayed chances of a trade war with China, while calling it the “most protectionist” large economy. He vowed to level the playing field for U.S. companies competing with Chinese imports and those trying to do business in China’s highly restricted economy.

Ross, estimated by Forbes to be worth $2.9 billion, built his fortune in the late 1990s and early 2000s by investing in distressed companies in steel, coal, textiles and auto parts, restructuring them and often benefiting from tariff protections put in place by the Commerce Department.
…

Cambodia’s government has threatened to expel several media outlets, including the Voice of America, and is using U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticisms of the press as justification.

In a Facebook post Saturday, Phay Siphan, a spokesman for Cambodia’s cabinet, threatened to “take action” against the media outlets, which he said are threatening the country’s peace and stability.

It appears to be the first time a foreign government has used Trump’s treatment of the media as justification for its own censorship activities — something press watchdog groups have warned could happen.

Trump has called press coverage he dislikes “fake news,” referring to it as “the enemy of the people.” Last week, the White House banned several organizations, including the New York Times and CNN, from an informal press gaggle with Press Secretary Sean Spicer. The White House argued it was trying to include more reporters in the event, however the action drew strong criticism from media outlets, which called it an insult to democratic ideals.

In his Facebook post, the Cambodian spokesman appeared to reference the White House’s move to exclude certain media organizations from the gaggle, saying it sent a “clear message” that some journalists’ reporting “does not reflect reality.”

“President Donald Trump thinks that the news reported by these organizations did not reflect the truth, which is the responsibility of the professional reporters,” the spokesman said. “This means that freedom of expression must respect the law and the authority of the state.”

The spokesman specifically took aim at Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, both U.S.-government funded broadcasters, as well as the local Voice of Democracy, an independent, nonprofit radio station.

Though Cambodia’s constitution provides for a free press, most media are indirectly controlled by the state and closely monitored. The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in power for three decades, has in the past criticized VOA and RFA, saying they were fomenting instability.

In his Facebook post, Phay Siphan accused the broadcasters of being “foreign agents,” and said they must “reconsider” their use of airtime before the government takes unspecified actions.

The story was first reported by the Phnom Penh Post, an independent paper based in the Cambodian capital. After the warning was issued, the paper reached out to Phay Siphan, who said any media outlet that doesn’t follow the government’s orders would be expelled.

“Shut it down. Very simple. Expel them,” he said. 

In a statement, Jing Zhang, the acting director of VOA’s East Asia Pacific division, rejected the characterization of VOA as a “foreign agent.”  

“VOA is a media organization that reports news in an objective, fair and balanced manner,” he said. “Millions of VOA listeners and Facebook fans in Cambodia can attest to our journalistic integrity.”

The U.S. State Department replied to VOA’s request for comment by saying, “The United States has long supported freedom of the press as fundamental to any democracy.”

But some human rights groups and ex-diplomats warn that it may not be the last time an authoritarian government cites the Trump administration’s behavior as justification for their own press crackdown.

“It’s hard enough to be a journalist in dictatorships like Cambodia when the United States is setting a good example,” Tom Malinowski, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Labor, told VOA.

“Now every dictator who wants to ban media he doesn’t like can say, ‘Trump does it so why can’t I?'” said Malinowski, who served under former U.S. President Barack Obama.

In October, the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonpartisan media rights watchdog, warned that Trump’s presidency would represent an “unprecedented” threat to press freedom.

“The consequences for the rights of journalists around the world be far more serious,” said the CPJ statement. “Any failure of the United States to uphold its own standards emboldens dictators and despots to restrict the media in their own countries.”

White House officials have insisted that Trump respects freedom of the press, saying he is only fighting against what they see as unfair media coverage. 

Spicer, Trump’s chief spokesman, on Friday defended his decision to bar several news organizations from the gaggle, saying he was only trying to include, not exclude, more reporters.

“We had a pool and then we expanded it, we added some folks to come cover it,” Spicer said. He later added: “We are going to aggressively push back. We’re just not going to sit back and let, you know, false narratives, false stories, inaccurate facts get out there.”

VOA’s Mony Say in Washington and Narin Sun in Phnom Penh contributed to this report.
…

In the days after President Donald Trump’s election, thousands of teenagers across the nation walked out of class in protest. Others rallied to his defense.

It was an unusual show of political engagement from future voters who may alter America’s political landscape in 2020 — or even in next year’s midterm elections.

Now, a new survey of children ages 13 to 17 conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research with the permission of their parents finds that America’s teens are almost as politically disillusioned and pessimistic about the nation’s divisions as their parents. The difference? They aren’t quite as quick to write off the future.

Eight in 10 feel that Americans are divided when it comes to the nation’s most important values and 6 in 10 say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Nyles Adams, a 14-year-old from New York City, was in kindergarten when Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s first black president. Adams, the grandson of Trinidadian immigrants, remembers watching the inauguration on TV and talking with his mother about the particular significance of Obama’s election for his black, immigrant family.

Now, with Trump as president, he feels America’s best days are behind it, and the nation will be worse off in 40 years. Yet like 57 percent of his peers, he is still optimistic about the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.

“Sometimes it does get you down, but I try not to focus on it too much because I see myself as someone who despite all the odds that are against me, I’m still going to prevail,” he said.

That youthful optimism is hard to crush. While rates vary by race, 56 percent of all teens surveyed believe America’s best days are ahead, compared with the 52 percent of adults in an AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2016 who said the nation’s best days are behind it.

But like adults, the poll reveals deep divisions along familiar lines.

Just a quarter of teens say they have a lot in common with people of different political views. Three in four already have a party preference, including 29 percent who say they’ll be Democrats, 23 percent Republicans and 24 percent independent or another party. Less than one-third have a favorable impression of Trump, but only slightly more think well of Hillary Clinton.

Elijah Arredondo, a second-generation Mexican-American from La Habra, California, disliked both major party candidates but is now worried about his family under Trump.

His mother signed up for the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has promised to dismantle and replace.

“I feel like anyone can achieve the American Dream, but for some people it’s a lot harder for them to do, so these things help people,” he said.

Caroline Millsaps of Garner, North Carolina, describes herself as a liberal Democrat and says climate change and women’s rights are her top political concerns. Last year, she took time away from her busy competitive dance schedule to attend two Bernie Sanders rallies with her mother.

Like 40 percent of teens surveyed, she feels she has a “moderate” amount in common with people of different political views.

“I always watch Fox News to get a different perspective, and I have some friends who support Trump and so I’ll ask them, ‘What is your opinion on this?'” she said. “I try to see both sides of the situation and see which side fits my view best.”

Millsaps, 16, talks about politics daily with her parents and that has strongly influenced her views.

Nearly 40 percent of teens surveyed said they did the same at least weekly and, like Millsaps, those talks seem to sway them. A majority of respondents said they agree with their parents’ political views most of the time. Only 3 percent disagree most of the time.

Sophie Svigel, 17, attends a private Christian school in Dallas and identifies herself as a conservative Republican. She talks to her Republican parents about politics and almost always agrees with them, but is also heavily influenced by her faith-based school, she said.

“I feel like a lot of the bad things that are going on are not really spoken of and are hidden,” she said. “I feel like the politicians and people in politics speak very vaguely about the problems that we’re facing.”

That cynicism echoes in the AP-NORC poll. Just 16 percent of teens feel the federal government is doing a good job promoting the well-being of all Americans, and not just special interests. Fewer than 2 in 10 teens surveyed feel the federal government is doing a good job representing most Americans’ views.

Jessi Balcon from Bend, Oregon, has tried to fight that cynicism by pouring her energy into delivering food to homeless people and engaging in open-minded debate with those whose politics are different from hers. Nine in 10 teens say they have participated in civic activities like volunteering or raising money for a cause.

“It’s not you versus me, it’s us versus the problem and the problem isn’t other people,” said Balcon, 17, a Green Party supporter.

“There are a lot of really big problems that we need to solve, but I think that getting angry is the worst thing that we can do,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what side of politics they’re on, conservative or liberal. I don’t want to hate anyone.”
…

President Donald Trump’s choice to be secretary of the Navy, businessman Philip Bilden, said Sunday he was withdrawing from consideration for the post, citing concerns about privacy and separating himself from his business interests.

Bilden’s withdrawal raises similar issues to that of Vincent Viola, Trump’s nominee for Army secretary who stepped aside earlier this month. Just last week, the Pentagon sought to tamp down reports that Bilden might pull out.

Bilden was an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve from 1986-1996. He relocated to Hong Kong to set up an Asian presence for HarbourVest Partners LLC, a global private equity management firm. Bilden recently retired from HarbourVest Partners after 25 years.

In a statement released Sunday by the Pentagon, Bilden said he determined that he would not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without what he called “undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my family’s private financial interests.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement that he would make a recommendation to Trump for a nominee in the coming days.

On Feb. 19, after press reports suggested that Bilden might drop out, the Pentagon issued a statement saying Bilden had assured Mattis he remained committed to serving as Navy secretary if confirmed by the Senate and that Mattis was confident Bilden was “the right leader” to rebuild the Navy and Marine Corps.

Viola cited his inability to successfully navigate the confirmation process and Defense Department rules concerning family businesses. A military veteran and former Airborne Ranger infantry officer, he was also the founder of several businesses, including the electronic trading firm Virtu Financial. He also owns the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers and is a past chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
…

Police say scores of headstones have been vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia.

A police spokeswoman said preliminary estimates are that 75 to 100 graves were damaged at Mount Carmel Cemetery in the Wissinoming section of the city.

WPVI-TV reported that a man who came to visit his father’s grave Sunday morning discovered headstones toppled. Police said a vandalism report came in just after 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia lists Mount Carmel as a Jewish cemetery in northeastern Philadelphia.

The damage comes less than a week after a Jewish cemetery in suburban St. Louis reported more than 150 headstones vandalized, many of them tipped over.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon called the damage reported in Philadelphia “shocking and a source of worry.”
…

In Washington, bipartisan calls are growing for an independent probe of Russian efforts to impact last year’s U.S. election and any ties between Moscow and President Donald Trump’s inner circle. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports the White House is trying to fend off the escalating controversy as the president prepares for his first speech to Congress
…

President Donald Trump signaled Saturday that he would not take part in the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association, a star-studded gala that is normally a political imperative for the U.S. chief executive.

The formal dinner is over two months away, but Trump broke the news with a tweet saying, “I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”

A day earlier, Trump had excoriated White House reporters and media outlets he believes are deliberately spreading “fake news” about his administration, in a speech to a large gathering of American conservatives. And a few hours later, his White House staff excluded a number of high-profile news organizations from a regular briefing, including CNN, The New York Times, Politico, the Los Angeles Times and Buzzfeed.

The White House Correspondents’ Association protested the way in which the briefing was conducted. Although there was no immediate reaction to Trump’s tweet, the WHCA said recently that plans for the annual dinner on April 29 were going forward, to “celebrate the First Amendment and the role a free press plays in a healthy republic.”

The correspondents group presents a series of awards for political reporting at the dinner and promotes its scholarship program, “to highlight and support up-and-coming journalists who are the future of our profession.”

Money raised from those attending the dinner is used to support the scholarship program. The entertainment highlight of the annual affair usually is a comedic “roast” of the president by a well-known comedian.

Because of the turbulent relationship between the U.S. press and the White House since Trump was sworn in last month, preparations for this year’s dinner had been somewhat tentative. The dinner is normally the central event in a whirlwind weekend of parties and receptions hosted by news media groups, but several of the most popular gatherings already have been canceled, including those hosted in the past by Bloomberg News and Vanity Fair and The New Yorker magazines.
…

President Donald Trump’s administration will begin rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations in an “aggressive way” as soon as next week, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday — adding that he understood why some Americans wanted to see his agency eliminated.

“I think there are some regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way. And I think maybe next week you may be hearing about some of those,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

Pruitt added that the EPA’s focus on combating climate change under former President Barack Obama had cost jobs and prevented economic growth, leading many Americans to want to see the EPA eliminated.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt Wants to Restore Role of States

“I think it’s justified,” he said. “I think people across this country look at the EPA much like they look at the IRS [Internal Revenue Service]. I hope to be able to change that.”

Pollution fears

Pruitt was confirmed as EPA head last week. His appointment triggered an uproar among Democratic lawmakers and environmental advocates worried that he will gut the agency and reopen the doors to heavy industrial pollution. He sued the EPA more than a dozen times as his state’s top attorney and has repeatedly cast doubt on the science of climate change.

But his rise to the head of the EPA has also cheered many Republicans and business interests that expect him to cut back red tape they believe has hampered the economy.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt: US Better at Growing Economy

Trump campaigned on a promise to slash regulation to revive the oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries.

Three targets

Pruitt mentioned three rules ushered in by Obama that could meet the chopping block early on: the Waters of the U.S. rule outlining waterways that have federal protections; the Clean Power Plan requiring states to cut carbon emissions; and the U.S. Methane rule limiting emissions from oil and gas installations on federal land.

A Trump official told Reuters late Friday that the president was expected to sign a measure as early as Tuesday aimed at rescinding the Waters of the U.S. rule.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt: Republicans Have Nothing to Be Apologetic About Concerning Environment

Pruitt said in his comments to the CPAC summit that the rule had “made puddles and dry creek beds across this country subject to the jurisdiction of Washington, D.C. That’s going to change.” He also suggested longer-term structural changes were in store at the EPA.

“Long term, asking the question on how that agency partners with the states and how that affects the budget and how it affects the structure is something to work on very diligently,” Pruitt said.

Like Trump, he said cutting regulation could be done in a way that does not harm water or air quality.
…

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was elected head of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, charged with overseeing the formidable task of rebuilding a party left shattered by the presidential win of Republican Donald Trump.

Perez, who served under former President Barack Obama, and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota were the front-runners in the race.

Perez, the first Latino to hold the post, won on a second ballot by a margin of 235-200, in a contest widely seen as a proxy fight between defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her chief party rival, Bernie Sanders.

Immediately after the vote count, Perez moved to make Ellison the deputy party chairman, and DNC members ratified his choice.

“We are all in this together,” Perez said, calling on Democrats to fight what he called “the worst president in the history of the United States.”

Earlier Saturday, Perez told the 474 DNC members that the party was “suffering from a crisis of confidence, a crisis of relevance.” He also sought to define the tasks ahead as Democratic stalwarts push to regain the party’s stature in the aftermath of Clinton’s defeat.

“We need to make house calls, we need to listen to people. We need to get back to basics,” he said.

Perez, considered the establishment pick and a political moderate, is the son of Dominican immigrants. Ellison, a progressive, was the first Muslim elected to Congress.

Ellison, endorsed by Sanders and his progressive followers, said the Democrats were in “this mess because we lost not one election, but a thousand elections” — at all levels of government, from local councils to the White House — in November.

The new DNC chairman will oversee a party financially drained by the 2016 election, but one that has been energized this year by grass-roots protests against Trump and his policies. Notable among the protests was the nationwide Women’s March on Washington on January 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration, that produced one of the largest turnouts ever seen in the United States.

Perez will also face the challenge of restoring party fortunes after heavy losses in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections that produced the Republicans’ current majority in both houses of Congress. He must also coordinate the development of potential candidates to challenge Republicans for the White House in 2020.
…

Democratic senators are protesting the Trump Organization’s acceptance of a valuable trademark from the Chinese government without asking Congress first if doing so is constitutional.

A group of 13 senators warned President Donald Trump in a letter Thursday that they intended to hold him accountable to his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Additional Democrats signed a letter Friday to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that complained about Trump getting special treatment from China.

“A president must not have two masters,” said Thursday’s letter, led by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal. “If you continue to refuse to request and receive congressional approval before accepting favors from foreign governments, we will be unable to serve our constitutional role. Such a situation is unacceptable.”

The letters came in response to China’s February 14 registration of a trademark for construction services to Trump. He secured the mark only after fighting for 10 grinding years in China’s courts to win back rights from a man named Dong Wei. A bureaucratic about-face after Trump declared his candidacy has raised questions about whether his political rise is benefiting his family business. These concerns are particularly sharp in China, where the courts and bureaucracy reflect the will of the ruling Communist Party.

Emoluments clause

Critics say the trademark award violates the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars public servants from accepting anything of value from foreign states unless approved by Congress. While the actual value of Trump’s China trademarks is unclear, Trump himself has said he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending them. Trump has significant intellectual property interests abroad, including 49 pending and 77 registered trademarks in China alone. Most come up for renewal during his term.

Alan Garten, chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment. He has previously said that Trump’s trademark activity in China predates his election. Garten has also noted that Trump turned management of his company over to his children and a team of executives in order to remove himself from his business and its trademark portfolio.

Last week, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California called the China trademark registration “a clear conflict of interest and deeply troubling.” Feinstein is a signatory to both of this week’s letters, too.

“At a time when the United States has pressing economic, diplomatic and security concerns at play in our relationship with the People’s Republic of China, the possibility that the government of China is seeking to win President Trump’s favor by granting him special treatment for his businesses is disturbing,” said the letter to Tillerson, also signed by Senators Ben Cardin of Maryland and Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
…

Republicans in the U.S. Congress are working to overhaul the nation’s health care laws in their effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, considered by some to be one of former President Barack Obama’s most significant legislative achievements.

U.S. media outlets reported details Friday of potential replacements for the health care law, frequently referred to as Obamacare. The details were obtained from draft legislation circulating among lobbyists and congressional staff.

One proposal would cap the amount of money the federal government gives to states for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, which was expanded under Obama. The Washington Post reported that another idea gaining traction would allow those who gained access to Medicaid when the program was expanded to keep their benefits, while additional enrollees would be excluded.  

End to subsidies

The Republicans’ draft would end income-based tax subsidies to help individuals purchase health insurance. It also calls for tax credits of up to $4,000 for people 60 years or older, but would allow insurers to increase the rates they charge older people.

The Associated Press reported that Republican governors from seven states want Medicaid to change from an open-ended federal entitlement to a program designed by each state, within a financial limit. Ohio Governor John Kasich leads the group, which is said to be concerned that a new law could shift high health care costs from Washington to the states.

Public opinion surveys indicate a broad majority of Americans oppose repealing the health care law unless lawmakers can come up with an acceptable substitute plan.

President Donald Trump, along with many Republicans in Congress, campaigned on a pledge to repeal Obamacare, but the party’s lawmakers have since faced complaints that simply abandoning Obamacare would leave millions of Americans without any protection against high-cost medical emergencies. Republicans say they expect to decide on a replacement for the present law in the coming weeks.

Vice President Mike Pence, painting the legislative situation in dramatic terms, said Friday that “America’s Obamacare nightmare is about to end.”

Pledge, but no details

“President Trump and I want every American to have access to quality and affordable health insurance,” Pence said, “which is why we’re designing a better law that lowers the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government.” He did not, however, give details of the “better law.”

Congressional committees are still working on the new bills under consideration, and the proposals will still face a period of debate in the full Congress.

Democratic lawmakers argue the existing law has helped slow the rise in Americans’ health care spending and brought coverage to the poor. They also note the current plan guarantees insurance for people with long-standing health problems, to whom insurers often had denied coverage in the past.

Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, when they had majority control of both houses of Congress. Republicans have opposed the law since its passage, and they tried more than 50 times unsuccessfully to repeal it during the Obama administration. Trump’s party argues that prices are too high for Affordable Care Act insurance coverage, and that individual states should have more control than the federal government over the issue.

The health care law has enabled 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain coverage, but it has been plagued by difficulties, including rising premiums and some large private insurers’ decisions to leave the system.
…

U.S. companies led by tech firms Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft have criticized the Trump administration’s decision to revoke Obama administration guidance that allowed transgender public school students to use the bathroom of their choice.

Their statements evoked the opposition expressed by many businesses last year when North Carolina passed a law forcing transgenders to use public restrooms matching their gender assigned at birth.

The resulting boycotts have cost North Carolina more than $560 million in economic activity, according to the online magazine Facing South.

Role for business

Companies lacked the same opportunity to protest with their dollars in this instance, since the Trump administration action pertains to schools, but still signaled they stood with the Obama policy of using the federal government to expand transgender civil rights.

“It’s ultimately going to come down to the business community to stop it because it’s so bad for business,” said Christopher Gergen, chief executive of Forward Impact, an entrepreneurial organization in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In unveiling the new direction Wednesday, Trump administration officials argued that transgender policies should be an issue for the states to decide.

“The action taken by the administration is troubling and goes against all that we believe in,” Yahoo said in a statement.

Social conservatives have hailed the decision by the Justice and Education departments to defer transgender bathroom policies to the states, calling it a victory for privacy and traditional values.

But companies have tried to persuade state and local governments to side with transgender people.

“We support efforts toward greater acceptance, not less, and we strongly believe that transgender students should be treated as equals,” Apple said in a statement.

Microsoft President Brad Smith looked to history as a guide, referencing the date that the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, when President Abraham Lincoln declared freedom for slaves.

“Since Jan. 1, 1863, the federal government has played a vital role in protecting the rights of all Americans. Let’s not stop now,” Smith said on Twitter.

Rights rollback ‘is wrong’

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey joined other tech firms criticizing the Trump administration’s position.

“Rolling back rights for transgender students is wrong,” Dorsey said in a tweet Thursday. “Twitter and Square stand with the LGBTQ community, always.”

In response to the North Carolina law, companies such as Deutsche Bank and PayPal canceled expansion plans, costing the state jobs.

By invoking states’ rights, the Trump administration is potentially emboldening legislatures in other states that are considering laws similar to North Carolina’s HB2.
…

President Donald Trump has ordered the federal government to account for all U.S. assistance to Mexico over the past five years, as part of his effort to shore up security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly were in Mexico on Thursday for meetings with top Mexican officials about immigration and other matters. 

Among points of tension is the possibility of Trump’s administration using U.S. aid to Mexico as leverage for his demands that Mexico pay for a border wall and do more to stem illegal migration.

Trump’s January 25 executive order gives the heads of government agencies 60 days to “identify and quantify all sources of direct and indirect federal aid or assistance to the government of Mexico” since 2012. It does not indicate what will be done with the information.

While it is difficult to quantify the indirect support the U.S. provides to Mexico through multilateral institutions, direct aid is readily available online.

The main sources of the assistance are the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which jointly operate the website www.foreignassistance.gov.

Its figures state:

The U.S. has given Mexico $234.79 million in assistance over the past five years, or roughly $46.9 million per year.
The U.S. plans to provide Mexico with $134.6 million in the current budget year, none of which has yet been spent.
The biggest chunk of the planned 2017 spending, $78.9 million, is devoted to democracy, human rights and governance programs, including supporting civic institutions.
An additional $43.8 million is devoted to promoting peace and security, including counter-narcotics operations and combating transnational crime.
The smallest piece of the 2017 package, $11.9 million, is for environmental and climate change programs.
…

The Justice Department will step up enforcement of federal law against recreational marijuana, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday, offering the Trump administration’s strongest indication to date of a looming crackdown on the drug, even as a solid majority of Americans believe it should be legal.

“I do believe you’ll see greater enforcement of it,’’ Spicer said in response to a question during a news conference. But he offered no details about what such enforcement would entail. President Donald Trump does not oppose medical marijuana, he added, but “that’s very different than recreational use, which is something the Department of Justice will be further looking into.’’

A renewed focus on recreational marijuana in states that have legalized pot would present a departure from the Trump administration’s statements in favor of states’ rights. A day earlier, the administration announced that the issue of transgender student bathroom access was best left to states and local communities to decide.

Enforcement would also shift away from marijuana policy under the Obama administration, which said in a 2013 memo that it would not intervene in state’s marijuana laws as long as they keep the drug from crossing state lines and away from children and drug cartels.

But the memo carried no force of law and could be rewritten by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has consistently said he opposes legal marijuana but has not indicated what he might do.

Legal in eight states, D.C.

Eight states and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana for recreational use. The Justice Department has several options available should it decide to enforce the law, including filing lawsuits on the grounds that state laws regulating pot are unconstitutional because they are pre-empted by federal law.

Pot advocates said they hoped Spicer’s prediction would not come to pass.

“This administration is claiming that it values states’ rights, so we hope they will respect the rights of states to determine their own marijuana policies,’’ said Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. “It is hard to imagine why anyone would want marijuana to be produced and sold by cartels and criminals rather than tightly regulated, taxpaying businesses.’’

Flouting law since 1996

States have been flouting the U.S. Controlled Substances Act since at least 1996, when California voters approved marijuana for sick people, a direct conflict with federal guidelines barring the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

And presidents since Bill Clinton have said the federal government unequivocally rejects a state’s ability to modify federal drug law.

However, three presidents over the last 20 years have each concluded that the limited resources of the U.S. Department of Justice are best spent pursuing large drug cartels, not individual users of marijuana.

Poll: Majority approves

Nevada state Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford said in a statement Thursday that meddling in recreational pot laws would be federal overreach and harm state coffers.

“Not only did voters overwhelmingly vote to approve the legalization of recreational marijuana, the governor’s proposed education budget depends on tax revenue from recreational marijuana sales. Any action by the Trump administration would be an insult to Nevada voters and would pick the pockets of Nevada’s students,’’ Ford said.

Spicer’s comments come as a solid majority of Americans support legalization. A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday said 59 percent of Americans think marijuana should be legal and 71 percent would oppose a federal crackdown.
…

The Trump administration’s move on Wednesday to rescind guidance allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice has raised the stakes for an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case that could deliver a landmark decision on the issue.

The court is due to hear oral arguments on March 28 on whether the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia can block Gavin Grimm, a female-born transgender high school student, from using the boys’ bathroom. A ruling is due by the end of June.

A key question in the case is whether a federal law, known as Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in education, covers transgender students. The Education Department under Democratic President Barack Obama said in guidance to public schools last May that it does, but the Republican Trump administration withdrew that finding Wednesday.

Lawyers for Grimm say that the definition of sex discrimination in Title IX is broad and includes gender identity. The school board maintains that the law was enacted purely to address “physiological distinctions between men and women.”

Power of Title IX

If the Supreme Court rules that Title IX protects transgender students, the decision would become the law of the land, binding the Trump administration and the states.

“This is an incredibly urgent issue for Gavin and these other kids across the country,” said Joshua Block, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who represents Grimm.

The Trump administration’s announcement “only underscores the need for the Supreme Court to bring some clarity here,” he added.

The administration on Wednesday did not offer its own interpretation of Title IX, with the Justice Department telling the court only that it plans to “consider further and more completely the legal issues involved.”

The administration is not directly involved in the case.

Lawyers for both Grimm and the Gloucester County School Board have urged the court to decide whether Title IX applies to transgender students rather than taking a narrower approach by sending the case back to a lower court.

In a court filing Thursday, the ACLU said that, regardless of the administration’s position, the court “can — and should — resolve the underlying question of whether the Board’s policy violates Title IX.”

The school board’s lawyers made similar comments in their most recent court filing, saying that the meaning of the federal law is “plain and may be resolved as a matter of straightforward interpretation.”

But the court could take a more cautious approach and send the case back to the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court’s April 2016 ruling in favor of Grimm relied on the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law.

Kyle Duncan, a lawyer representing the school board, said the court must at a minimum throw out the appeals court decision because “the entire basis for that opinion” was the no-longer extant Obama administration interpretation.

Justice Kennedy: Pivotal vote?

With the eight-justice court likely to be closely divided, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, conservative appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch, could end up casting the deciding vote if he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate in time. Otherwise, the court, which is divided equally between liberals and conservatives, could split 4-4, which would set no nationwide legal precedent.

Clues as to how the high court could rule can be gleaned from its decision last August to temporarily block the appeals court decision in Grimm’s case from going into effect. That emergency request from the school board did not require the justices to decide the merits of the case.

The vote in favor of the school board was 5-3, with Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal, joining the four conservative justices. Breyer made clear in a statement at the time that his vote would not dictate how he would approach the case if the court took up the issue.

That decision indicated that the court is likely to be closely divided at oral argument. Grimm’s hopes may rest in Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who voted against Grimm last summer but has sometimes sided with liberals in major cases, including several on gay rights.

But even lawyers closely following the case are not sure which way Kennedy could go.

“If I could predict that, I would be down in the casino,” said Gary McCaleb, a lawyer with conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which backs the school board.
…

Mexico reacted with anger Wednesday to what one official called “hostile” new U.S. immigration guidelines as senior Trump administration envoys began arriving in Mexico City for talks on the volatile issue.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security unveiled plans Tuesday to consider almost all illegal immigrants subject to deportation, and will seek to send many of them to Mexico if they entered the United States from there, regardless of nationality.

The tension over the timing of the rules mirrors an outcry when President Donald Trump tweeted that Mexico should pay for his planned border wall shortly before Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was due at a Washington summit in January.

Trump, who took office last month, campaigned on a pledge to get tougher on the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, playing on fears of violent crime while promising to build the wall and stop potential terrorists from entering the country.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson landed in Mexico City on Wednesday afternoon. He was due to be joined by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly later for talks the White House said would “walk through” the implementation of Trump’s immigration orders.

Kelly signed the guidelines issued by his department Monday.

Mexico’s lead negotiator with the Trump administration, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, said there was no way Mexico would accept the new rules, which among other things seek to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico.

“I want to say clearly and emphatically that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on the other,” he told reporters at the Foreign Ministry.

He said the issue would dominate the talks, taking place Wednesday and Thursday. Mexico will insist that the United States proves the nationality of any person it wants to deport to Mexico, he said.

“We also have control of our borders and we will exercise it fully,” he said.

Roberto Campa, who heads the human rights department of the Interior Ministry, said the plan to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico was “hostile” and “unacceptable.”

‘Phenomenal’ relationship

White House spokesman Sean Spicer described U.S.-Mexico ties as healthy and robust and said he expected a “great discussion.”

“I think the relationship with Mexico is phenomenal right now,” Spicer told reporters.

Homeland Security’s guidance to immigration agents is part of a broader border security and immigration enforcement plan in executive orders that the Republican president signed on Jan. 25.

In Guatemala on Wednesday, Kelly told Guatemalans the immigration crackdown ordered by Trump meant undocumented immigrants would be caught and sent back quickly, advising them to stay at home.

He denied the administration was embarking on mass deportations.

Mexico’s agenda at the talks on Thursday includes border infrastructure, deportation strategies, Central American migration, narcotics, arms trafficking and terrorism, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, a senior official with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
…

The White House has pushed back the release of a new executive order to replace its directive suspending travel to the United States by citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries, a White House official said Wednesday.

The order is now expected to be issued “sometime next week,” the official said. President Donald Trump said last week he expected to release the new order this week.

Trump said the new directive will address legal concerns raised in Washington state, San Francisco and elsewhere about the original order, which was issued on Jan. 27.

The order, which was quickly implemented, caused chaos at airports around the world as visa holders heading to the United States were pulled off planes or turned around upon arrival at U.S. airports.

Americans were deeply divided over the order, which was condemned by prominent U.S. companies and allies before being temporarily blocked by federal courts.

Trump criticized the court’s action in a series of tweets, including one that read: “The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!”
…

The mucky water flooding a section of San Jose in Northern California forced officials on Wednesday to widen the area under mandatory evacuation orders, with about 14,000 people barred from returning to their homes following drenching rains.

San Jose, a hub of high-tech Silicon Valley, suffered major flooding on Tuesday triggering evacuation orders when Coyote Creek overran its banks, swamping the Rock Springs neighborhood.

Water at some sites engulfed the entire first floor of residences while in other places it reached waist-high.

Worst flooding since 1997

Officials said the city of about 1 million residents has not seen a flood approaching this magnitude since 1997.

The gush of water inundating San Jose flowed down from the Anderson Reservoir, which was pushed to overflowing by a rainstorm that pounded Northern California from Sunday to Tuesday, officials said.

The reservoir’s operators have been releasing water at maximum levels since January 9 but it was not enough to avoid a spillover because of recent storms, Rachael Gibson, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, said at a news conference.

Trash-strewn floodwaters inundated city blocks in California’s third-largest city, as firefighters in inflatable boats on Tuesday ferried stranded residents to dry ground.

Thousand face mandatory evacuation

Aside from 14,000 people whom officials said were placed under mandatory evacuation orders, with many taking up residence in emergency shelters, the city has issued a less severe evacuation advisory to 22,000 people, urging them to leave their homes as well.

“This is nothing you ever want to see in your community,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo told a news conference.

Residents of the flooded area, which is near downtown and is made up of apartment buildings and townhomes, would not be allowed to return to their properties on Wednesday, Liccardo said. “We’re not out of this yet,” he said.

The Weather Service forecasts light rain to resume this weekend in the area.

It was not immediately clear how many homes suffered flood damage.

Freeway closed by flooding

A section of the 101 Freeway in San Jose and another strip of the thoroughfare south of the city were closed by flooding, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Coyote Creek crested at a record-breaking 14.4 feet (4.4 meters) on Tuesday evening, said National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin.

The previous record was in 1922, at 12.8 feet (3.9 meters), Benjamin said.

“Quite possibly we won’t see a return to a flood this weekend because the (weather) system does not look terribly imposing,” Benjamin said.
…

A Missouri native who said he wanted to participate in a terrorist attack that would cause many deaths and injuries is charged with helping plan a Presidents Day attack on buses, trains and a train station in Kansas City, federal officials said Tuesday.

Robert Lorenzo Hester Jr., 25, a Missouri-born U.S. citizen from Columbia, was charged in federal court in Kansas City with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

He was arrested Friday when he arrived at a meeting with what he thought was an Islamic State sympathizer who was an undercover FBI agent. The arrest was made public Tuesday after Hester made his first court appearance, during which a judge ordered him to remain in custody. A detention hearing was scheduled for Friday.

Online court records didn’t list an attorney for Hester on Tuesday.

Suspect a married father

A criminal complaint said federal officials began investigating Hester in August 2016 after receiving tips about social media posts in which he said he had converted to Islam and expressed hatred for the United States and a tendency toward violence. Undercover FBI agents contacted Hester first online and then in several face-to-face meetings to discuss whether he wanted to participate in a terrorist attack.

During those contacts, Hester “expressed his interest in and exhibited his willingness to commit violence in support of a foreign terrorist organization,” according to the complaint.

Hester, a married father of two children who served less than a year in the U.S. Army, also provided materials such as roofing nails, batteries and other items that he was told would be used to build bombs for the attack, the complaint said. He also was shown weapons and was told several backpacks containing explosives would be placed in different locations in Kansas City.

The undercover agent told Hester the supposed terrorist organization was planning on “killing a lot of people” in an attack “10 times more” severe than the Boston Marathon attack, according to the complaint. Hester approved of the plans and rejected the undercover agent’s offer to walk away if he didn’t want to participate, the complaint said.

Used encrypted messaging app

Hester communicated five times in early February with an undercover employee via an encrypted messaging app, saying he was “happy to be part” of the plan and predicting the day of the attack would be “a good day for Muslims,” according to the complaint.

On February 17, Hester met with another undercover employee and provided more nails before they went to a storage facility, where Hester believed the components would be stored, the complaint said. He was arrested shortly thereafter.

On October 3, 2016, Hester was arrested in Columbia in an unrelated case after he allegedly threw a knife through a store window and threatened an employee during an argument with his wife. He pleaded guilty to one count of felony property damage and one count of unlawful use of a weapon and was released on his own recognizance awaiting sentencing, which was scheduled for March.
…