As Dems zero in on White House, Trump racks up court losses
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump knows he has fierce Democratic adversaries in Congress. But there is also ample push-back from the Judiciary branch, where black-robed judges who sit in courtrooms just blocks from the Capitol and in New York City have repudiated his view of executive power.
Federal judges in the last two months have accused Trump administration lawyers of “openly stonewalling” and of regarding presidents as kings while also deriding Justice Department legal positions as “extraordinary,” “exactly backwards” and just plain “wrong.”
Taken together, the court rulings eviscerate the administration’s muscular view of executive power just as the impeachment inquiry against Trump accelerates. And they embolden Democrats in their pursuit of investigations into Trump’s government and finances.
“We’re not accustomed to seeing presidents suffer as many defeats in the courts as this president,” said William Howell, a University of Chicago political scientist.
The administration at least temporarily lost its bid to shield former White House counsel Don McGahn from being questioned by Congress. It argued unsuccessfully to withhold secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. And lawyers for the president have tried to keep the president’s financial records away from Congress. In each instances, judges have overruled them.
Activists cheer for “Greta!”, urge climate action in Madrid
MADRID — Activists of all ages and from all corners of the planet demanded concrete action Friday against climate change from leaders and negotiators at a global summit in Madrid.
The march was led by dozens of representatives of Latin America’s indigenous peoples — a mark of deference after anti-government protests in Chile, the original host of the summit, resulted in the the talks suddenly being moved to Europe for the third year in a row.
Celebrity climate activist Greta Thunberg declared from a stage that “change is not going to come from the people in power, it’s going to come from the masses.” A crowd of thousands responded chanting “Greta! Greta!”
Organizers claimed 500,000 people turned out for the march, but authorities in Madrid put the number at 15,000 without an immediate explanation for the disparity in the count.
Supreme Court keeps federal executions on hold
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday blocked the Trump administration from restarting federal executions next week after a 16-year break.
The justices denied the administration’s plea to undo a lower court ruling in favor of inmates who have been given execution dates. The first of those had been scheduled for Monday, with a second set for Friday. Two more inmates had been given execution dates in January.
Attorney General William Barr announced during the summer that federal executions would resume using a single drug, pentobarbital, to put inmates to death.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., temporarily halted the executions after some of the chosen inmates challenged the new execution procedures in court. Chutkan ruled that the procedure approved by Barr likely violates the Federal Death Penalty Act.
The federal appeals court in Washington had earlier denied the administration’s emergency plea to put Chutkan’s ruling on hold and allow the executions to proceed.
15 killed in Iraqi capital as assailants fire live rounds
BAGHDAD — Gunmen in cars opened fire Friday in Baghdad’s Khilani Square. leaving at least 15 people dead and 60 wounded, Iraqi security and medical officials said. At least two of the dead were policemen.
Protesters fearing for their lives ran from the plaza to nearby Tahrir Square and mosques to take cover. It wasn’t immediately clear who did the shooting.
The attack came as anti-government demonstrators occupied parts of Jumhuriya, Sinak and Ahar bridges in a standoff with security forces. All the bridges lead to or near the heavily-fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government.
The attack came a day after a string of suspicious stabbing incidents targeting demonstrators left at least 13 wounded in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Iraq’s leaderless protest movement.
Those attacks by unknown perpetrators occurred as demonstrators supporting political parties and Iran-backed militias withdrew from the Square. The incidents Thursday fueled paranoia among protesters, who immediately implemented self security measures to uncover saboteurs within the square.
At least 400 people have died since the leaderless uprising shook Iraq on Oct. 1, with thousands of Iraqis taking to the streets in Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite southern Iraq decrying corruption, poor services, lack of jobs and calling for an end to the political system that was imposed after the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Security forces dispersed crowds with live fire, tear gas and sonic bombs, leading to fatalities.
Officials list pot vape brands reported in US outbreak
NEW YORK — Health officials investigating a nationwide outbreak of vaping illnesses have listed, for the first time, the vape brands most commonly linked to hospitalizations.
Most of the nearly 2,300 people who suffered lung damage had vaped liquids that contain THC, the high-inducing part of marijuana.
In a report released Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed the products most often cited by patients, noting that some of them said they vaped more than one.
Dank Vapes was the brand used by 56% of the hospitalized patients nationwide.
Dank is not a licensed product coming from one business, it is empty packaging that can be ordered from Chinese internet sites. Illicit vaping cartridge makers can buy the empty packages and then fill them with whatever they choose.
Jury: Elon Musk did not defame British caver in tweet
LOS ANGELES — Elon Musk defeated defamation allegations Friday from a British cave explorer who claimed he was branded a pedophile when the Tesla CEO called him “pedo guy” in an angry tweet.
Vernon Unsworth, who participated in the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for weeks in a Thailand cave last year, had sought $190 million in damages from a man his lawyer called the “billionaire bully.”
It took less than an hour for an eight-person jury in Los Angeles federal court to reject Unsworth’s claim.
Musk said the verdict restored his faith in humanity as he left the court with a security detail.
Musk — who deleted the tweet and later apologized for it — had asserted the expression was nothing more than a flippant insult that meant “creepy old man,” not pedophile.