White House: Trump won’t seek to block Comey testimony
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will not assert executive privilege to block fired FBI Director James Comey from testifying on Capitol Hill, the White House said Monday, setting the stage for a dramatic public airing of the former top law enforcement official’s dealings with the commander in chief.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president’s power to invoke executive privilege is “well-established.” But she said Trump wanted to allow for a “swift and thorough examination of the facts” related to Comey’s ouster and the multiple investigations into his campaign’s possible ties to Russia.
Comey is scheduled to testify Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee. His appearance will mark his first public comments since he was abruptly fired by the president on May 9.
White House officials had weighed trying to block Comey by arguing that his discussions with the president pertained to national security and that there was an expectation of privacy. However, officials ultimately concluded that the optics of taking that step would be worse than the risk of letting the former FBI director testify freely.
Legal experts have also said that the president likely undermined his ability to assert executive privilege by publicly discussing his dealings with Comey in tweets and interviews.
UN chief warns oceans are ‘under threat as never before’
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first-ever U.N. conference on oceans Monday with a warning that the seas are “under threat as never before,” with one recent study warning that discarded plastic garbage could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done.
The U.N. chief told presidents, ministers, diplomats and environmental activists from nearly 200 countries that oceans — “the lifeblood of our planet” — are being severely damaged by pollution, overfishing and the effects of climate change as well as refuse.
The five-day conference, which began on World Environment Day, is the first major event to focus on climate since President Donald Trump announced last Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement — a decision criticized by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and other speakers.
Guterres said the aim of the conference is “to turn the tide” and solve the problems that “we created.”
He said competing interests over territory and natural resources have blocked progress for far too long in cleaning up and restoring to health the world’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet.
Trump lashes out at London’s mayor, again
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump continued a long-running feud with London’s mayor on Monday, criticizing him on Twitter for the second day in a row in the wake of the deadly van and knife attack in the city.
Trump said London Mayor Sadiq Khan had offered a “pathetic excuse” and “had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement.”
Trump’s tweet renewed his mischaracterization of Khan’s statement to London residents following the attack that left seven people dead and dozens injured. The mayor had told London residents not to be concerned by a stepped-up police presence in the city after the incident.
In a Sunday tweet, Trump mischaracterized Khan’s remarks by suggesting the mayor had said there was “no reason to be alarmed” about the attack itself. Khan’s spokesman said he was too busy to respond to Trump’s “ill-informed” tweet.
On Monday, a spokesman for Khan responded to the latest statement from Trump, saying, “Nothing has changed since yesterday.”
Bill Cosby goes on trial, his legacy and freedom at stake
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Bill Cosby went on trial Monday on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman more than a decade ago, with prosecutors immediately introducing evidence the 79-year-old TV star once known as America’s Dad had done it before to someone else.
The prosecution’s opening witness was not the person Cosby is charged with abusing, but another woman, who broke down in tears as she testified that the comedian violated her in the mid-1990s at a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles.
Cosby is on trial on charges he assaulted Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University’s basketball program, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. His good-guy reputation already in ruins, he could get 10 years in prison if convicted.
In her opening statement, prosecutor Kristen Feden noted that the “Cosby Show” star previously admitted under oath that he gave Constand pills and touched her genitals as she lay on his couch.
“She couldn’t say no,” Feden said. “She can’t move, she can’t talk. Completely paralyzed. Frozen. Lifeless.”
State elections see infusion of first-time women candidates
(AP) Christine Lui Chen, a 36-year-old health care executive in New Jersey and mother of two small children, had never considered entering politics, focusing instead on her family, her career and her community.
That all changed in January, 13 hours after she attended the Women’s March on Washington. She emailed Democratic officials: “Here’s my resume. I want to get involved.”
Less than five months later, Chen’s name will be on the ballot, unopposed, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. She hopes to become her district’s first Democratic state senator in more than 30 years, the first-ever Asian-American woman in her state’s legislature — and a spear-point for legions of enthusiastic, mainly liberal-leaning women inspired by the election of President Donald Trump to get into politics.
“I just never thought politics was in the cards,” says Chen, whose parents immigrated to the United States with almost nothing to their name. “But I don’t want to be the one who didn’t do anything, when we’re at this moment in history where we need to stand up and say, ‘This is what it means to be an American.’”
New Jersey is one of two states holding general legislative elections this year; the other is Virginia. Political analysts will be watching closely to see if there’s a shift in the red-blue balance, but the newfound enthusiasm for politics among women — particularly young women like Chen — is also drawing attention. Like her, a number of them say they were inspired by Barack Obama’s suggestion, in his farewell speech, to “grab a clipboard” and collect signatures to run for office themselves, if they were disappointed with their elected officials.
Politics fuels cable news surge, not network evening news
NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration has been a boon for the cable news networks each night yet curiously not for the broadcast evening news programs, where a viewership slump contributed to Scott Pelley losing his job last week as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”
CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC spend much of their prime-time hours dissecting President Donald Trump’s every move and people on all sides of the political spectrum can’t seem to get enough. Ratings are up at all three networks, doubling since last May for MSNBC. They’re uniquely situated to appeal to the passionate believers in a country that came out of the last election sharply divided.
“When people are on fire, the cable people gain compared to the evening news, which doesn’t play that game,” said Tom Bettag, longtime “Nightline” producer who now teaches journalism at the University of Maryland.
Even with the same material to cover, the ABC, CBS and NBC nightly wraps were down a collective 4 percent in viewership for the season that ended last month, the Nielsen company said. That fits a typical pattern, where news ratings generally rise during an exciting election year and fall when a new president becomes immersed in the day-to-day grind of governing. A similar trend is visible in the morning, where ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today” show are trying to stop viewers from bleeding away.
To the broadcast networks, it isn’t necessarily fair to compare the different trajectories since the missions aren’t the same. The evening news shows, an institution in place since the middle of the last century, are designed to present a half-hour, nonbiased report on the day’s news for a broad audience. The cable networks can respond to viewers’ interest with an unlimited amount of time.
