US Army quietly discharging immigrant recruits
SAN ANTONIO — Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.
The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.
“It was my dream to serve in the military,” said reservist Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian immigrant who filed a lawsuit against the Army last week. “Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military.”
Some of the service members say they were not told why they were being discharged. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.
Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the Army said that, due to the pending litigation, they were unable to explain the discharges or respond to questions about whether there have been policy changes in any of the military branches.
Man pleads not guilty to hate crimes in attack on protesters
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — An Ohio man pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges Thursday in a deadly car attack on a crowd of protesters opposing a white nationalist rally in Virginia.
James Alex Fields Jr. entered the plea during his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville after being charged last week with 30 federal crimes in the Aug. 12 violence that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured dozens more. He also is charged under Virginia law with murder and other crimes.
Fields, of Maumee, Ohio, wore a gray striped jumpsuit and sat quietly, giving brief answers to the judge’s questions. He entered the courtroom wearing handcuffs and shackles. The cuffs were removed when he came in, then re-fastened when he left. His attorneys made no request for bail.
He told U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Hoppe that he is being treated for bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression and ADHD, and is taking medication. But he also said the drugs do not impair his ability to understand the charges against him.
Hoppe said Fields was qualified to be represented by a federal public defender and appointed legal counsel for him.
President Trump’s rallies get extensive airtime on Fox News
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s campaign-style rallies have found a receptive audience at Fox News Channel, which unlike the other cable news networks often carries his speeches live and in their entirety.
Four times in the past few weeks, Fox has set aside its usual prime-time programming to air the president speaking live to supporters at events in South Carolina, Minnesota, North Dakota and West Virginia. The network also promised live coverage of a Trump rally Thursday in Montana, where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester faces a tough fight for re-election.
Critics say Fox is essentially giving the Republican president free, repeated access to his supporters in a midterm election year.
Fox counters that it is simply covering newsworthy events and that the criticism is absurd. The rallies have also been good for business.
CNN and MSNBC generally do not air the rallies live, and once were taunted on the air by Fox for that.
Bluster aside, US and China vulnerable to pain from tariffs
WASHINGTON — The U.S. and Chinese governments have been flashing a lot of bravado just before firing the first shots in a conflict that risks erupting into a mutually damaging trade war.
“China will not bow in the face of threats and blackmail, nor will it be shaken in its resolve to defend global free trade,” a spokesman for Beijing’s Commerce Ministry declared Thursday, one day before the two sides were to subject billions of dollars of each other’s goods to punishing tariffs.
President Donald Trump, who ran for the White House on a vow to force China and other nations to reform their policies, has insisted that a trade war would be easy to win.
Yet among the people and business in both countries that are suddenly under threat from higher costs, closed-off markets and deep uncertainties, there’s far less confidence. A trade war between the world’s two biggest economies will leave casualties — from makers of musical instruments to farmers in America’s Midwest to a manufacturer of soldering irons south of Shanghai.
Silence in newsrooms as 5 slain at Maryland paper remembered
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Newsrooms across the country paused Thursday to observe a moment of silence for five employees of a Maryland newspaper who were killed a week ago in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history.
The Capital Gazette staff paused somberly at 2:33 p.m. as editor Rick Hutzell rang a bell for each person who died at the Annapolis paper exactly seven days earlier, The Baltimore Sun reported .
The staff traditionally convenes meetings by clanging a bell, and Hutzell said the act has taken on a new meaning.
“Every time we ring that bell, we’re going to think about our friends,” he said.
About a dozen people held hands and prayed next to a memorial near the building where the shootings happened. Cheryl Starr and her son, Sam, came to pay their respects.
