Lawyer says Trump administration moved to squelch testimony
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates wrote in letters last week that the Trump administration was trying to limit her testimony at congressional hearings focused on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The hearing was later canceled by the House intelligence committee chairman.
In the letters, attorney David O’Neil said he understood the Justice Department was invoking “further constraints” on testimony Yates could provide at a committee hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday. He said the department’s position was that all actions she took as deputy attorney general were “client confidences” that could not be disclosed without written approval.
“We believe that the Department’s position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the Department’s historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former senior officials,” O’Neil wrote in a March 23 letter to Justice Department official Samuel Ramer.
The White House said today it did not interfere with Yates’ plans to testify.
“We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
South Korea officials: Bones found near ferry not of victims
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The first government announcement Tuesday was startling: Salvage crews had found bones near the wreckage of the Sewol ferry, which sank in 2014 and killed 304 people.
The discovery raised hopes that the remains were of some of the nine people still missing. Such a find would bring a measure of closure in one of South Korea’s deadliest maritime disasters.
But hours later, investigators from the National Forensic Service concluded that it was all a mistake. The bones were from unidentified animals, not human remains.
There was no immediate explanation from the government, which has been widely criticized over its handling of the disaster.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries had initially said salvage crews had found bones measuring 4 to 18 centimeters (1.5 to 7 inches) that were likely to be from one or more of the missing passengers, and that DNA tests would be used to verify the identities.
US denies loosening rules for avoiding civilian casualties
BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S. airstrikes probably played a role in the deaths of dozens of civilians in Mosul earlier this month, U.S. and Iraqi military officials acknowledged Tuesday, but they denied the rules for avoiding civilian casualties have been loosened despite a recent spike in civilian casualties.
Speaking from Baghdad to reporters at the Pentagon, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said an ongoing investigation may reveal a more complicated explanation for the March 17 explosion that residents say killed at least 100 people, including the possibility that Islamic State militants rigged the building with explosives after forcing civilians inside.
Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said a recent spate of civilian casualties in Mosul was “fairly predictable” given the densely populated urban neighborhoods that the IS fighters are defending against Iraqi government troops. But the civilian deaths cannot be attributed to any loosening of American military rules of combat, he said, and Washington hasn’t decided to tolerate greater risk of civilian casualties in U.S. airstrikes.
Amnesty International on Tuesday said the rising death toll suggested the U.S.-led coalition wasn’t taking adequate precautions as it helps Iraqi forces try to retake the city.
Townsend acknowledged the U.S. conducted multiple airstrikes in the area of the explosions. That, coupled with initial inquiries done by U.S. technical experts who visited the scene, led him to say: “My initial assessment is that we probably had a role in these casualties.”
Powerful cyclone slams into Australia’s tropical northeast
TOWNSVILLE, Australia (AP) — A powerful cyclone packing winds of up to 260 kilometers (160 miles) per hour roared across Australia’s tropical northeast on Tuesday, uprooting trees, tearing down fences and knocking out power to thousands, officials said.
Cyclone Debbie, which slammed into the coast of Queensland state as a fierce Category 4 storm, quickly began to weaken after making landfall near the resort town of Airlie Beach, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said. By Tuesday night, it had been downgraded to a Category 2 storm, with wind gusting up to 155 kilometers (95 miles) per hour.
One man was injured after a wall collapsed in Proserpine, a town south of Airlie Beach, Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said. The man was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition.
The extent of the damage from the storm was not known as night fell across the region, but there were reports of roofs peeling from homes, fences crumbling and trees snapping in half. The idyllic Whitsunday Islands, a popular tourist destination, were hit particularly hard, with one recorded wind gust of 263 kilometers (163 miles) per hour, the meteorology bureau reported.
The slow-moving storm pounded the coastal region for hours, creating what Stewart called a “battering ram effect,” with the same areas enduring the howling winds and drenching rains for a punishingly long time.
Communities along more than 300 kilometers (190 miles) of coastline were expected to be impacted, Stewart said.
Australia’s military was sending vehicles, aircraft and supplies to the region, with soldiers focusing on clearing debris and reopening roads, State Recovery Coordinator Brigadier Chris Field said.
Oakland found building lacked sprinklers before deadly blaze
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Inspectors discovered that a California building in a rundown neighborhood lacked fire extinguishers, smoke detectors in every apartment and a working sprinkler system just three days before a blaze erupted and killed four low-income residents.
Officials uncovered multiple fire code violations during an inspection Friday and ordered the owner of the Oakland building to immediately fix the fire alarm and sprinkler systems, according to documents released by the city.
Residents complained they didn’t hear alarms, feel sprinklers or see fire extinguishers early Monday as they fled flames tearing through the three-story building that housed some 80 recovering drug addicts and former homeless people.
Michael Jones said he was awakened by screams of “fire,” bolted out of bed and instinctively pounded on the doors of his elderly neighbors and ushered them to safety.
Jones, 43, then found Princess, the “house” pit bull, cowering in the backyard, and the two ran out the front door as glass shattered from the heat.
Advocates of homeless vets fear Trump budget could hurt them
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The push to end homelessness among veterans would suffer without the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which is up for elimination under President Donald Trump’s proposed budget, nonprofits and local officials say.
The council coordinates the efforts of 19 federal agencies that play a role in preventing and ending homelessness among all Americans. But the strides made with veterans — for whom homelessness has been effectively ended in three states and dozens of communities amid a concerted effort — make the proposed cuts particularly upsetting to advocates.
Homeless advocates in any given state consult the council, whose annual budget is about $3.5 million, on which strategies are working elsewhere as they seek to house veterans. They worry momentum will slow.
“We’ve learned how to end homelessness,” said Nonie Brennan, chief executive of the nonprofit All Chicago. “It would be a tremendous shame if we were not able to continue to implement these strategies in our communities across the country.”
Adding to the ire and confusion, the budget proposal also says the Trump administration will support Department of Veterans Affairs programs for homeless and at-risk veterans and their families, but doesn’t elaborate. Trump, who promised on the campaign trail to support veterans, wants to give the VA a 6 percent increase.
Russian Manafort client: Willing to speak to Congress
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian billionaire close to President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he is willing to take part in U.S. congressional hearings to discuss his past business relationship with President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
Last week, the Associated Press reported Manafort wrote to aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in 2005, proposing to do work for Deripaska that would “benefit the Putin Government.” The story was based on interviews with people familiar with Deripaska’s business dealings with Manafort and documents obtained by the AP, including strategy memoranda, contracts and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars.
In a quarter-page advertisement in Tuesday’s editions of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, Deripaska said he was “ready to take part in any hearings conducted in the US Congress on this subject in order to defend my reputation and name.”
Manafort signed a $10 million contract in 2006 that laid out a four-country communications and political strategy intended to support Deripaska’s company and undermine anti-Russian political movements. Payments continued until at least 2009, seven years before Manafort joined and led Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the relationship. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the business arrangement openly.
In his newspaper ads responding to the AP’s story, Deripaska said he never signed “a $10 million contract ‘to greatly benefit the Putin Government’ with Paul Manafort.”
