Trump promises ‘first-class’ infrastructure system for US
CINCINNATI (AP) — Dogged by allegations in Washington, President Donald Trump traveled to friendlier territory Wednesday and promised to create a “first-class” system of roads, bridges and waterways by using $200 billion in public funds to generate $1 trillion in investment to pay for construction projects that most public officials agree are badly needed and long overdue.
“America must have the best, fastest and most reliable infrastructure anywhere in the world,” Trump said, pushing his infrastructure plan in middle America as Washington geared up for Thursday’s appearance before Congress by fired FBI Director James Comey.
“We will fix it,” said Trump, standing along the Ohio River. “We will create the first-class infrastructure our country and our people deserve.”
But the controversies and distractions in Washington continued to dog the president throughout the day. As he was speaking, the Senate Intelligence committee released the prepared testimony Comey is expected to deliver Thursday. It includes detailed descriptions of meetings and phone conversations between Trump and Comey.
In the speech, the president also pressed the Senate to send him a health care bill, criticized congressional Democrats as “obstructionists” and revisited his controversial decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement.
Islamic State claims stunning attack in heart of Iran
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Wednesday for a pair of stunning attacks on Iran’s parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.
Tehran Police Chief Gen. Hossein Sajedinia announced late Wednesday night that five suspects had been detained for interrogation, according to a report in the semi-official ISNA news agency. Sajedinia did not offer any further details.
Reza Seifollahi, an official in the country’s Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by the independent Shargh daily as saying that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals. He did not elaborate.
The bloodshed shocked the country and came as emboldened Sunni Arab states — backed by U.S. President Donald Trump — are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.
The White House released a statement from Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.
Emirati diplomat to AP: ‘Nothing to negotiate’ with Qatar
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A top Emirati diplomat said Wednesday “there’s nothing to negotiate” with Qatar over a growing diplomatic dispute about the energy-rich nation’s alleged funding of terror groups, signaling Arab countries now isolating it have no plans to back down.
Speaking in a rare interview, Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told The Associated Press that Qatar has “chosen to ride the tiger of extremism and terrorism” and now needed to pay the price, despite Qatar long denying the allegation.
Gargash said Qatar “definitely” should expel members of Hamas, stop its support of terror groups “with al-Qaida DNA” around the world and rein in the many media outlets it funds, chief among them the Doha-based satellite news network Al-Jazeera.
While applauding a Kuwaiti effort to mediate the crisis, Gargash said Emirati and Saudi officials planned to concede nothing to Qatar, home to some 10,000 American troops at a major U.S. military base and the host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Their “fingerprints are all over the place” in terror funding, Gargash said. “Enough is enough.”
London attacker’s mom blames internet for radicalizing son
LONDON (AP) — The youngest of the London Bridge attackers pleaded with his mother to settle with him in Syria but instead moved to Britain where his extremist views hardened and he fell into the company of a bloodthirsty gang that launched the latest attack on British streets, his mother said Wednesday.
Valeria Khadija Collina last spoke with her 22-year-old son, Youssef Zaghba, by telephone just two days before he and two other men plowed a van into a crowd near London Bridge and went on a stabbing rampage. Eight people were killed and dozens wounded. All three of the assailants were shot dead.
Zaghba, an Italian national of Moroccan descent, initially told his mother that he wanted to go to Syria to start a family in a religious Islamic climate — not to fight. But he changed, she said, when he went to Britain about a year ago and was seduced by radical views propagated on the internet.
“Last year … when I went to England, he was … more rigid,” Collina, an Italian convert to Islam, told reporters in a series of interviews at her home in Bologna, Italy. “From his face, from his look, I could see there was a radicalization, as you say. And this happened in England, absolutely.”
The other two attackers were identified as Khurum Butt, a 27-year-old whose extremist views had been reported to police, and 30-year-old Rachid Redouane, also known as Rachid Elkhdar, a pastry chef who claimed to have dual Moroccan-Libyan citizenship.
Cosby’s accuser stands by her story under cross-examination
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The woman who accuses Bill Cosby of drugging and violating her more than a decade ago stood by her story at his sex-crimes trial Wednesday, withstanding hours of often tedious cross-examination that didn’t produce the stumbles the TV star might have hoped for.
Calm and composed, Andrea Constand brushed off suggestions she and Cosby had a romantic relationship before the 2004 encounter at his suburban Philadelphia home.
And she explained away the numerous phone calls she made to him afterward by saying she was merely returning Cosby’s messages about the women’s basketball squad at Temple University, where he was a powerful member of the board of trustees and she was director of team operations.
Constand, 44, left the witness stand after some seven hours of testimony over two days, during which she told the jury that Cosby gave her three blue pills and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay paralyzed on a couch, unable to tell him to stop.
Her long-awaited showdown with the 79-year-old comedian’s lawyers became bogged down Wednesday in an examination of her phone records and police statements, and the defense couldn’t budge her off her account of molestation and broken trust.
Eyes on Russia probe leaves Washington’s to-do list undone
WASHINGTON (AP) — You’ve probably heard all about what’s happening in Washington. This is a story about what isn’t.
The rapid-fire revelations about the Trump campaign and its Russia connections that are heating up this city are having a chilling effect in plenty of other ways.
There are bills that have been pushed to the back burner. Diplomatic initiatives that aren’t fully initiating. Interest groups that can’t stir up much interest. Appointees that haven’t been appointed.
“It reminds me very much of the Monica Lewinsky days, when things just slowed to a crawl,” says Rich Galen, a Republican strategist who worked for then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich when President Bill Clinton was under investigation for his affair with an intern in the late 1990s. “Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are consumed by it and there seems to be little appetite for getting into the nitty gritty of other things.”
Public relations executive Jamie Horwitz, who leads the team that schedules National Press Club events, emails that “nothing, NOTHING of any importance” is happening at the press club this week. By contrast, the organization’s schedule for June 2016, when reporters were out covering campaigns and President Barack Obama was almost out the door, still featured plenty of press conferences, breakfasts, luncheons and newsmaker events.
