Nation and World briefs for November 19
Pushing US policy rightward, Trump taps Sessions, Flynn
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NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump signaled a sharp rightward shift in U.S. national security policy Friday with his announcement that he will nominate Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general and Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to lead the CIA, turning to a pair of staunch conservatives as he begins to fill out his Cabinet.
Trump also named retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn as his national security adviser. A former military intelligence chief, Flynn has accused the Obama administration of being too soft on terrorism and cast Islam as a “political ideology” and driver of extremism.
Sessions and Flynn were ardent Trump supporters during the campaign, and their promotions were seen in part as a reward for their loyalty.
The
selections form the first outlines of Trump’s Cabinet and national security teams. Trump’s initial decisions suggest a more aggressive military involvement in counterterror strategy and a greater emphasis on Islam’s role in stoking extremism.
Sessions, who is best known for his hard-line immigration views, has questioned whether terror suspects should benefit from the rights available in U.S. courts. Pompeo has said Muslim leaders are “potentially complicit” in attacks if they do not denounce violence carried out in the name of Islam.
‘I want to live’: UK girl gets wish to be frozen after death
LONDON (AP) — The teenage girl’s instructions were direct: She didn’t want to be buried, but to be frozen — with the hope she can continue her life in the future when cancer is cured.
“I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up,” the 14-year-old wrote to a British judge before her recent death.
She said “being cryopreserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up — even in hundreds of years’ time.”
Her plaintive words convinced High Court Judge Peter Jackson to grant her final wishes in what he called the first case of its kind in England — and possibly the world.
The judge said the girl chose the most basic preservation option at a cost of about $46,000.
UN agency lifts Zika emergency, prepares for long-term fight
GENEVA (AP) — Acknowledging Zika is “here to stay,” the United Nations health agency on Friday lifted a 9-month-old emergency declaration and prepared for a longer-term response to the mosquito-borne virus that can result in severe neurological defects in newborns whose mothers were infected.
The World Health Organization was quick to note that the move does not mean the agency is downgrading the threat of the virus that has spread across Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Nearly 30 countries have reported birth defects linked to Zika, with over 2,100 cases of nervous-system malformations reported in Brazil alone.
The officials also emphasized that the now-lifted “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” was declared in February, when Zika clusters were appearing and a sharp increase in research was needed — with the looming Rio Olympics in mind.
WHO said the emergency measures had led the world to an “urgent and coordinated response.” But the virus has continued to spread. The agency acknowledged “many aspects of this disease and associated consequences still remain to be understood, but this can best be done through sustained research.”
“It is a significant and enduring public health challenge, but it no longer represents an emergency,” Dr. David Heymann, who heads the WHO emergency committee on Zika, said after the panel met for the fifth time this year. “There was no downgrading of this.”
Trump’s staff picks alarm minorities: ‘Injustice to America’
President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for leadership posts threaten national unity and promise to turn back the clock on progress for racial, religious and sexual minorities, civil rights leaders and others said Friday after his nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general.
Comments attributed to Trump’s picks, also including alt-right architect Stephen Bannon as senior adviser and chief strategist and former Army Lt. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, serve to embolden everyday Americans to lash out at members of minority groups, they said.
Sessions, of Alabama, was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after hearings in which he was accused of making racially charged remarks as a U.S. attorney. According to transcripts, Sessions was accused, among other things, of joking that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was OK” until he learned they smoked marijuana, and of calling a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy.” During the hearing, Sessions denied making some of the comments and said others were jokes taken out of context.
“Every American should be concerned about the direction of the U.S. Department of Justice and oppose any nominee who threatens to turn back the clock on civil rights by 50 years,” said National Urban League President Marc Morial.
Bannon led the Breitbart website, which has been widely condemned as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic. In a 2011 radio interview, Bannon said conservative women infuriated liberals because they “would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children,” contrasting that against a slur for lesbians.
Trump agrees to $25M settlement to resolve Trump U lawsuits
SAN DIEGO (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump agreed Friday to pay $25 million to settle several lawsuits alleging that his now-defunct school for real estate investors defrauded students who paid up to $35,000 to enroll in Trump University programs.
If approved by a judge, the deal announced by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman would settle a lawsuit he filed three years ago and two class-action lawsuits filed in California on behalf of former students.
The suits alleged that Trump University failed to deliver on its promise to teach success in real estate. They accused the program of misleading students by calling itself a university when it was not an accredited school and by saying that Trump “hand-picked” instructors.
Messages left with several of Trump’s attorneys and a spokeswoman were not returned Friday.
Trump has denied the allegations and said during the campaign that he would not settle. He told supporters at a May rally that he would come to San Diego to testify after winning the presidency.
Unlikely apprentice: Obama coaches Trump to be world leader
BERLIN (AP) — It’s the last thing President Barack Obama ever expected he’d be doing in his final months in office: Coaching Donald Trump on how to be a world leader.
As the president-elect holes up in his skyscraper, Obama is giving Trump policy advice, style tips and gentle nudges to let the fervor of the campaign give way to the sobriety of the Oval Office. And as Obama completes his last world tour, he’s been thrust into the unexpected role of Trump translator to anxious U.S. allies.
Standing next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Obama said Trump would quickly see that a president’s responsibilities can’t be treated casually and that diverse countries can only be governed by “listening and reaching out.”
“It is my hope that that is what will happen,” Obama said. “And I’m going to do everything I can over the next two months to help assure that that happens.”
Though the outgoing president made clear his profound disdain for Trump throughout the campaign, perhaps no one is better positioned than Obama to get him up to speed in a matter of weeks.
Obama blocks new oil, gas drilling in Arctic Ocean
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is blocking new oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean, handing a victory to environmentalists who say industrial activity in the icy waters will harm whales, walruses and other wildlife and exacerbate global warming.
A five-year offshore drilling plan announced on Friday blocks the planned sale of new oil and gas drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska. The plan allows drilling to go forward in Alaska’s Cook Inlet southwest of Anchorage.
The blueprint for drilling from 2017 to 2022 can be rewritten by President-elect Donald Trump, in a process that could take months or years.
Besides Cook Inlet, the plan also allows drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, long the center of U.S. offshore oil production. Ten of the 11 lease sales proposed in the five-year plan are in the Gulf, mostly off the coasts of Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama.
Confirming a decision announced this spring, the five-year plan also bars drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.
Lennon’s Beatles breakup letter sold at auction for $30,000
BOSTON (AP) — An angry letter from John Lennon to Paul and Linda McCartney written shortly after the Beatles’ breakup has been sold at auction for nearly $30,000.
The two-page typed draft , with handwritten annotations by Lennon, was sold Thursday by Boston-based RR Auction.
RR says the letter is believed to have been written in 1971 in response to criticism Lennon received from Linda McCartney about his decision to not publicly announce his departure from the band.
The profanity-filled and sometimes rambling letter reads: “Do you really think most of today’s art came about because of the Beatles? I don’t believe you’re that insane — Paul — do you believe that? When you stop believing it you might wake up!”
The letter was sold to a collector in Dallas who requested anonymity.
