CBS suspends Rose, PBS halts his show following allegations
NEW YORK (AP) — Charlie Rose is the latest public figure to be felled by sexual misconduct allegations, with PBS halting distribution of his nightly interview show and CBS News suspending him Monday following a Washington Post report with the accusations of eight women.
The women, who all worked for Rose or tried to work for him, accused the veteran newsman of groping them, walking naked in front of them and telling one that he dreamed about her swimming nude.
Rose, 75, said in a statement that he was “deeply embarrassed” and apologized for his behavior.
“PBS was shocked to learn today of these deeply disturbing allegations,” the public broadcasting service said in a statement. “We are immediately suspending distribution of ‘Charlie Rose.’”
Three women went on the record in the Post’s deeply-reported story. Reah Bravo, a former associate producer for Rose’s PBS show who began working for him in 2007, told the newspaper: “He was a sexual predator, and I was his victim.” She said Rose groped her on multiple occasions and once, during a business trip to Indiana, called her to his hotel room where he emerged from a shower naked.
Zimbabwe’s Mugabe ignores calls to quit, faces impeachment
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabweans mobilized Monday for a major push to oust President Robert Mugabe, an increasingly isolated figure who faces impeachment proceedings and more street demonstrations even as he ignores calls to resign.
While there is a widespread consensus that the 93-year-old president should step down after nearly four decades in power, Mugabe has refused. The country has known no other leader since independence from white minority rule in 1980.
The conflicted role of the military, widely hailed as a savior after effectively stripping Mugabe of his authority last week, is under scrutiny after its generals flanked him during a televised address Sunday night in which he asserted that he remained the “commander in chief” and referred to “our well-cherished constitutional order.”
The generals have been involved in talks with him on a way out of the leadership crisis. While they acted outside his authority by sending tanks into the streets, they also projected deference in sitting by at the official residence, State House, as Mugabe told the nation he was still in charge.
Although Mugabe’s powers as a wily, ruthless tactician have faded with age, his remarks seemed to reflect a keen understanding of the quandary of those trying to pry him from office: It would be easy enough at this stage to eject him, but perceptions that he is being illegally toppled, or is the target of a military coup, would undermine the credibility of any successor and muddy the international relationships of a new government.
Warming to make thunderstorms larger and more frequent
WASHINGTON (AP) — Summer thunderstorms in North America will likely be larger, wetter and more frequent in a warmer world, dumping 80 percent more rain in some areas and worsening flooding, a new study says.
Future storms will also be wilder, soaking entire cities and huge portions of states, according to a federally-funded study released Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The U.S. in recent years has experienced prolonged drenchings that have doused Nashville in 2010, West Virginia and Louisiana in 2016 and Houston this year. The disasters cost about $20 billion a year in damage.
By the end of century if emissions aren’t curbed, these gully washers will be much worse because they will get bigger, said Andreas Prein, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study.
Prein and colleagues used high-resolution computer simulations to see how global warming will likely change the large thunderstorms that are already daily summer events in North America. Previous studies projected more frequent and wetter storms, but this is the first research to show they likely will be more widespread, covering an entire city instead of just half of it, Prein said.
Before elephants, US loosened limits on lion trophies
WASHINGTON (AP) — One month before the Trump administration sparked outrage by reversing a ban on trophies from threatened African elephants, federal officials quietly loosened restrictions on the importation of heads and hides of lions shot for sport.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began issuing permits Oct. 20 for lions killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia between 2016 and 2018. The agency is also currently studying whether to add three additional countries to the list — Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania.
Previously, only wild lions killed in South Africa were eligible to be imported.
In a pair of recent tweets, President Donald Trump said he will delay the new policy on allowing elephant trophies, but he made no mention of lions. Trump, whose adult sons are avid big-game hunters, also expressed skepticism about his own administration’s claim that killing threatened animals could help save them by helping raise money for conservation programs.
“Big-game trophy decision will be announced next week but will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of Elephants or any other animal,” the president tweeted on Sunday.
Justice Dept. sues to stop AT&T’s $85B Time Warner deal
NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department is suing AT&T to stop its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner, setting the stage for an epic legal battle with the telecom giant.
It could also create a new headache for President Donald Trump, whose public statements have raised suspicions that he might have interfered with the department’s decision, potentially undermining its legal case. DOJ’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, has said the president did not tell him what to do. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday she wasn’t aware of any specific action related to the case taken by the White House.
In a press release, Delrahim said that a combined AT&T-Time Warner would “greatly harm American consumers” by hiking television bills and hampering innovation, particularly in online television service. The DOJ said AT&T would be able to charge rival distributors such as cable companies “hundreds of millions of dollars more per year” for Time Warner’s programming — payments that would ultimately get passed down to consumers through their cable bills.
In an emailed statement Monday, AT&T general counsel David McAtee said the lawsuit is a “radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent” and that the company is confident that it will prevail in court.
AT&T runs the country’s second largest wireless network and is the biggest provider of traditional satellite and cable TV services. Time Warner owns HBO, CNN, TBS and other networks, as well as the Warner Bros. movie studio.
US ending temporary permits for almost 60,000 Haitians
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Monday it is ending a temporary residency permit program that has allowed almost 60,000 citizens from Haiti to live and work in the United States since a 2010 powerful earthquake shook the Caribbean nation.
The Homeland Security Department said conditions in Haiti have improved significantly, so the benefit will be extended one last time — until July 2019 — to give Haitians time to prepare to return home.
“Since the 2010 earthquake, the number of displaced people in Haiti has decreased by 97 percent,” the department said in a press release. “Haiti is able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens.”
Advocates and members of Congress from both parties had asked the Trump administration for an 18-month extension of the program, known as Temporary Protected Status. Haitian President Jovenel Moise’s government also requested the extension.
Rony Ponthieux, a 49-year-old Haitian nurse with temporary residency who has lived in Miami since 1999, told The Associated Press, “This isn’t over, this is time we get to fight for renewal, not to pack our bags.” She has a daughter and a son born in the United States and another son in Port-au-Prince.
Nebraska gives long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline new life
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska regulators Monday approved a Keystone XL oil pipeline route through the state, breathing new life into the long-delayed $8 billion project, although the chosen pathway is not the one preferred by the pipeline operator and could require more time to study the changes.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission’s vote also is likely to face court challenges and may require another federal analysis of the route, if project opponents get their way.
“This decision opens up a whole new bag of issues that we can raise,” said Ken Winston, an attorney representing environmental groups that have long opposed the project.
Environmental activists, American Indian tribes and some landowners have fought the project since it was proposed by TransCanada Corp in 2008. It would carry oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska to meet the existing Keystone pipeline, where it could move as far as the U.S. Gulf Coast. Business groups and some unions support the project as a way to create jobs and reduce the risk of shipping oil by trains that can derail.
President Barack Obama’s administration studied the project for years before finally rejecting it in 2015 because of concerns about carbon pollution. President Donald Trump reversed that decision in March.
