Trump issues first veto after rebuke of border order
WASHINGTON — Unbowed by a congressional rebuke, President Donald Trump issued the first veto of his presidency on Friday in a demonstration that he is not through fighting for his signature campaign promise, which stands largely unfulfilled 18 months before voters decide whether to grant him another term.
Trump rejected an effort by Congress to block the emergency declaration he’d used to circumvent lawmakers as he tried to shake loose funds for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The monthslong confrontation now moves to the courts, but not before marking a new era of divided government in Washington and Republicans’ increasing independence from the White House.
“Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution,” Trump said, “and I have the duty to veto it.”
A dozen defecting Republicans joined Senate Democrats in approving the joint resolution on Thursday as both parties strained to exert their power in new ways. It is unlikely that Congress will have the two-thirds majority required to override Trump’s veto, though House Democrats will try nonetheless on March 26.
Despite the reproach, Trump seized the opportunity to publicly rebuff Congress and show his commitment to the border wall. In embracing the opportunity to deploy the constitutional power of the veto for the first time, he treated the occasion with all the traditional pomp of a bill-signing.
Midwest flooding forces evacuations, closing of road, river
OMAHA, Neb. — Flooding in the central U.S. on Friday swamped small towns, forced some residents along waterways to evacuate, threatened to temporarily close a nuclear power plant and shut down stretches of a major river and an interstate highway, foreshadowing a difficult spring flooding season.
The high water, prompted by a massive late-winter storm, pushed some waterways to record levels in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. The flooding was the worst in nearly a decade in places, though the situation was expected to improve quickly in many places over the weekend, according to Mike Gillispie, National Weather Service hydrologist in Sioux Falls.
But in eastern Nebraska, flooding worsened Friday and remained a big concern in the lower Missouri River region — which is a major source for the Mississippi River — with the weather service issuing warnings of high water along the river and its tributaries from southeastern South Dakota to St. Louis in Missouri.
About 45 miles northwest of Omaha, the town of North Bend — home to nearly 1,200 along the banks of the Platte River — emergency workers used boats to evacuate residents. Also Friday afternoon, officials asked residents of Valley, home to nearly 1,900 people just west of Omaha, to evacuate. Within hours of that request, anyone left in the city found all access in and out cut off by floodwaters from the Elkhorn River.
Officials in eastern Nebraska said more than 2,600 people living along the Missouri, Platte and Elkhorn rivers there had been urged to evacuate, as waters breached levees in several rural spots.
Students globally protest warming, pleading for their future
WASHINGTON — Students around a warming globe pleaded for their lives, future and planet Friday, demanding tough action on climate change.
From the South Pacific to the edge of the Arctic Circle, angry students in more than 100 countries walked out of classes to protest what they see as the failures by their governments.
Well more than 150,000 students and adults who were mobilized by word of mouth and social media protested in Europe, according to police estimates. But the initial turnout in the United States did not look quite as high.
“Borders, languages and religions do not separate us,” eight-year-old Havana Chapman-Edwards, who calls herself the tiny diplomat, told hundreds of protesters at the U.S. Capitol. “Today we are telling the truth and we do not take no for an answer.”
Thousands of New York City students protested at locations including Columbus Circle, City Hall, the American Museum of Natural History and a football field at the Bronx High School of Science. A police spokesman said there were arrests but he did not know how many.
Darkness lingers for Venezuela’s most vulnerable
CARACAS, Venezuela — Darkness has yet to lift for 72-year-old Elizabeth Guzman and thousands of her poor neighbors in a forgotten corner of Venezuela’s capital that was barely getting by even before the lights went out over a week ago.
As the sun sets each day, Guzman lights a homemade oil lamp and holds it in one hand as she navigates the stairs and narrow passages up to the windowless room that she calls her “little cave.”
“I’ve never seen a crisis like this. It’s the first time,” said Guzman, who is malnourished and frail. “It makes me so sad.”
Venezuela’s power grid crashed on March 7, throwing almost all of the oil-rich nation’s 30 million residents into chaos. Many struggled to find cellphone signals to call loved ones, the Caracas metro ground to a halt, hospital services collapsed, and massive looting was reported across the country.
President Nicolas Maduro blamed the blackouts on a U.S.-led cyberattack targeting the Guri Dam, the main engine of Venezuela’s power grid. U.S. officials and Juan Guaido countered that the allegation is absurd and that the socialist government had looted public coffers for years, causing key infrastructure to collapse.
Are eggs good or bad for you? New research rekindles debate
The latest U.S. research on eggs won’t go over easy for those who can’t eat breakfast without them.
Adults who ate about 1 ½ eggs daily had a slightly higher risk of heart disease than those who ate no eggs. The study showed the more eggs, the greater the risk. The chances of dying early were also elevated.
The researchers say the culprit is cholesterol, found in egg yolks and other foods, including shellfish, dairy products and red meat. The study focused on eggs because they’re among the most commonly eaten cholesterol-rich foods. They can still be part of a healthy diet, but in smaller quantities than many Americans have gotten used to, the researchers say.
U.S. dietary guidelines that eased limits on cholesterol have helped eggs make a comeback.
The study has limitations and contradicts recent research, but is likely to rekindle the long-standing debate about eggs.