Nation and World briefs for April 17

Starbucks to train workers on ‘unconscious bias,’ CEO says

PHILADELPHIA — Starbucks wants to add training for store managers on “unconscious bias,” CEO Kevin Johnson said Monday, as activists held more protests at a Philadelphia store where two black men were arrested after employees said they were trespassing.

Johnson, who has called the arrests “reprehensible,” arrived in Philadelphia this weekend after video of the incident gained traction online. He said he hopes to meet with the two men in the next couple of days and apologize face to face.

“I’d like to have a dialogue with them and the opportunity to listen to them with compassion and empathy through the experience they went through,” said Johnson, who has been CEO for about a year. Stewart Cohen, the lawyer for the two men, said he hopes “something productive for the community” can come out of such a meeting.

The incident is a major blow to Starbucks’ image, since the company has promoted its coffee shops as neighborhood hangouts where anyone is welcome. After a video of the arrests spread online, the hashtag #BoycottStarbucks trended on Twitter.

And on Monday morning, about two dozen protesters took over the Philadelphia shop, chanting slogans like, “A whole lot of racism, a whole lot of crap, Starbucks coffee is anti-black.” A Starbucks regional vice president who attempted to talk to the protesters was shouted down.

Feds say California rejects proposed border duties for troops

SAN DIEGO — The Trump administration said Monday that California Gov. Jerry Brown rejected terms of the National Guard’s initial deployment to the Mexican border, but a state official said nothing was decided.

“The governor determined that what we asked for is unsupportable, but we will have other iterations,” Ronald Vitiello, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s acting deputy commissioner, told reporters in Washington.

Brown elicited rare and effusive praise from President Donald Trump last week for pledging 400 troops to the Guard’s third large-scale border mission since 2006.

But the Democratic governor conditioned his commitment on troops having nothing to do with immigration enforcement, even in a supporting role.

Brown’s announcement last week did not address what specific jobs the California Guard would and would not do and how state officials would distinguish work related to immigration from other aspects of border enforcement, such as fighting criminal gangs and drug and gun smuggling.

UK court rules against parents who want treatment for son

LONDON — Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled Monday against the parents of a terminally ill toddler who sought permission to take him to Italy for medical treatment that lower U.K. courts blocked in favor of suspending life support.

The parents of 23-month-old Alfie Evans have been engaged in a protracted legal fight with Alder Hey Children’s Hospital over his care. They asked the Court of Appeal to overturn earlier rulings that blocked further medical treatment for their son.

Instead, justices upheld a lower court’s conclusion that flying Alfie to a hospital in Rome would be wrong and pointless.

Some protesters gathered outside the hospital in Liverpool wept at the news of the appeals court’s decision. Some chanted “Save Alfie Evans!”

Alfie is in a “semi-vegetative state” as the result of a degenerative neurological condition that doctors have been unable to definitively identify. Lower courts have ordered the boy’s life support to be withdrawn.

Pope Francis prayed Sunday for Alfie and others who are suffering from serious infirmities. The pope’s comments marked the second case in less than a year in which he expressed his views on the treatment of a terminally ill British child.

Last July, Francis spoke out on behalf of Charlie Gard, who died from a rare genetic disease after his parents waged a protracted court fight to obtain treatment for him outside of Britain.

In appealing the lower court rulings, Alfie’s parents, Tom Evans, 21, and Kate James, 20, argued their son had shown improvement in recent weeks. But doctors said his brain was eroded and his condition was irreversible.

Bill Cosby’s accuser, her mom testify at sex-assault retrial

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby’s chief accuser at his sexual-assault trial on Monday denied framing him and said she doesn’t know a key witness who plans to testify she spoke of leveling false accusations against a celebrity.

Andrea Constand told jurors she doesn’t “recall ever having a conversation with” Marguerite Jackson. Both women worked at Temple University around the time Constand says Cosby drugged and molested her at the comedian’s suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

The defense plans to call Jackson as a witness and says she will testify that before Constand lodged her allegations against Cosby in 2005, Constand had mused to her about setting up a “high-profile person” and filing suit. Jackson has said that she and Constand worked closely together, had been friends and had shared hotel rooms several times.

A judge blocked Jackson from testifying at last year’s trial, which ended in a hung jury, after Constand took the stand and denied knowing her. At the time, Judge Steven O’Neill ruled Jackson’s testimony would be hearsay. Since then, prosecutors have told Cosby’s lawyers that Constand had modified her statement to acknowledge she “recalls a Margo.”

The judge has ruled that Jackson can take the stand at the retrial but indicated he could revisit the issue after Constand was finished testifying.

Times, New Yorker win Pulitzer for Weinstein scandal

NEW YORK — The New York Times and The New Yorker won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for breaking the Harvey Weinstein scandal with reporting that galvanized the #MeToo movement and set off a worldwide reckoning over sexual misconduct in the workplace.

The Times and The Washington Post took the award in the national reporting category for their coverage of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and contacts between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian officials.

The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, California, received the breaking news reporting award for coverage of the wildfires that swept through California wine country last fall, killing 44 people and destroying thousands of homes.

The Washington Post also won the investigative reporting prize for revealing decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct against Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama. The Republican former judge denied the accusations, but they figured heavily in Doug Jones’ victory as the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state in decades.

One of the biggest surprises of the day came in the non-journalism categories when rap star Kendrick Lamar was awarded the Pulitzer for music, becoming the first non-classical or non-jazz artist to win the prize.

Commercial and critical darling Kendrick Lamar wins Pulitzer

NEW YORK — Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for music Monday, making history as the first non-classical or jazz artist to win the prestigious prize.

The revered rapper is also the most commercially successful musician to receive the award, usually reserved for critically acclaimed classical acts who don’t live on the pop charts.

The 30-year-old won the prize for “DAMN.,” his raw and powerful Grammy-winning album. The Pulitzer board said Monday the album is “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” He will win $15,000.

Lamar has been lauded for his deep lyrical content, politically charged live performances, and his profound mix of hip-hop, spoken word, jazz, soul, funk, poetry and African sounds. Since emerging on the music scene with the 2011 album “Section.80,” he has achieved the perfect mix of commercial appeal and critical respect.

The Pulitzer board has awarded special honors to Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Hank Williams, but a popular figure like Lamar has never won the prize for music. In 1997, Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz act to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.