US says video shows Iran removing mine from stricken tanker
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military released a video Friday it said showed Iran’s Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the oil tankers targeted near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, suggesting Tehran wanted to hide evidence of its alleged involvement.
Iran denied any role in Thursday’s apparent attacks, which have again roiled the Persian Gulf amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over the unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.
Four other oil tankers off the nearby Emirati port city of Fujairah suffered similar attacks in recent weeks, and Iranian-allied rebels from Yemen have struck U.S. ally Saudi Arabia with drones and missiles.
President Donald Trump withdrew America last year from the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran reached with world powers and recently imposed a series of sanctions now squeezing its beleaguered economy and cutting deeply into its oil exports. While Iran maintains it has nothing to do with the recent attacks, its leaders repeatedly have threatened to close the vital Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil flows.
Iran accused Washington of waging an “Iranophobic campaign” against it, while Trump countered that the country was “a nation of terror.”
Migrants complain of poor conditions at US holding centers
EL PASO, Texas — The Trump administration is facing growing complaints from migrants about severe overcrowding, meager food and other hardships at border holding centers, with some people at an encampment in El Paso being forced to sleep on the bare ground during dust storms.
The Border Network for Human Rights issued a report Friday based on dozens of testimonials of immigrants over the past month and a half, providing a snapshot of cramped conditions and prolonged stays in detention amid a record surge of migrant families coming into the U.S. from Central America.
The report comes a day after an advocate described finding a teenage mother cradling a premature baby inside a Border Patrol processing center in Texas. The advocate said the baby should have been in a hospital, not a facility where adults are kept in large fenced-in sections that critics describe as cages.
“The state of human rights in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands is grave and is only getting worse,” the immigrant rights group said in its report. “People are dying because of what is happening.”
Five immigrant children have died since late last year after being detained by the Border Patrol, including a flu-stricken teenager who was found dead in a facility migrants refer to as the “icebox” because of the temperatures inside.
Stocks post small losses; investors look ahead to Fed
NEW YORK — Stocks ended a choppy week of trading with modest losses Friday as investors look forward to getting more clues about the direction of interest rates.
Technology shares drove the declines, and energy stocks also fell a day after leading the market. Some late-day gains in banks and insurers helped temper the market’s losses.
Investors dealt with fresh concerns about the impact on businesses of the U.S. trade dispute with China. The chipmaker Broadcom warned that demand for chips has slowed because of U.S. restrictions on sales to Chinese technology firms and hesitation among customers to place new orders. It shaved $2 billion from its annual revenue forecast.
Trading this week was uneven as investors swung between safe-play holdings and riskier bets. Stocks rose Monday but then seesawed as investors saw signs that the U.S. and China won’t settle their differences on trade anytime soon. There is concern that a protracted dispute could further hurt global economic growth and corporate profits. A suspected attack on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz added more uncertainty.
The S&P 500 index fell 4.66 points, or 0.2%, to 2,886.98 Friday and ended the week with a slim gain of 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 17.16 points, or 0.1%, to 26,089.61. The Nasdaq composite slid 40.47 points, or 0.5%, to 7,796.66. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks dropped 13.30 points, or 0.9%, to 1,522.50.
Family: Baby cut from slain Chicago woman’s womb dies
CHICAGO — An infant boy who was cut from a Chicago woman’s womb with a butcher knife died Friday at a hospital where he had been in grave condition since the April attack that killed his mother, family spokeswomen said.
Yovanny Jadiel (yoh-VAH’-nee YAH’-dee-el) Lopez died at Christ Medical Center in suburban Oak Lawn from a severe brain injury, according to a statement posted on Facebook by family spokeswoman Julie Contreras, who expressed “great sadness” in announcing the baby’s death. Family spokeswoman Cecilia Garcia confirmed the statement.
The baby had been on life support since being brought to the hospital on April 23. Prosecutors say Clarisa Figueroa, 46, claimed she had given birth to the baby. She and her 24-year-old daughter, Desiree Figueroa, are charged with murder in the death of the baby’s mother, 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, and Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Friday that he expects both women will now be charged with murder in the infant’s death.
Prosecutors will “make a determination on additional charges” after police and the county’s medical examiner’s office complete their investigations, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said in a written statement. An attorney for the family, Frank Avila, demanded that the office charge the two women with murder, and charge the Figueroa’s boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, with murder as well. Bobak has been charged with concealing a homicide.
“The baby was murdered and we demand justice,” he said.
Ivanka Trump took in nearly $4M from DC hotel last year
NEW YORK — Ivanka Trump took in nearly $4 million in revenue last year from her stake in President Donald Trump’s Washington hotel, up slightly from a year earlier, according to her financial disclosure released Friday.
The report also shows that a trust that holds her fashion line of handbags, shoes and dresses and other assets generated at least $1 million in revenue in 2018, down from at least $5 million the year before. Ivanka Trump announced in July of last year that she planned to close her fashion company to focus on her work as a White House adviser for her father.
The disclosure for her husband, Jared Kushner, also an adviser to President Trump, shows that he took in hundreds of thousands of dollars from his holdings of New York City apartments and that he owns a stake in the real estate investment firm Cadre worth at least $25 million.
The disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics routinely show both assets and debts compiled in broad ranges between low and high estimates, making it difficult to precisely chart the rise and fall of the financial portfolios of federal government officials.
Ivanka Trump’s stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington took in $3.95 million in 2018, an increase of $60,000 from a year earlier. The president reported in his own financial disclosure last month that he took in $41 million from the hotel last year, also largely unchanged.