Nation briefs for November 17

US official: US intel says prince ordered Khashoggi killing

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. official said Friday. The Saudi government has denied the claim.

The conclusion will bolster efforts in Congress to further punish the close U.S. ally for the killing. The Trump administration this week sanctioned 17 Saudi officials for their alleged role in the killing, but lawmakers have called on the administration to curtail arms sales to Saudi Arabia or take other harsher punitive measures.

The U.S. official familiar with the intelligence agencies’ conclusion was unauthorized to speak publicly about it and spoke on condition of anonymity. It was first reported by The Washington Post.

Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat has said the crown prince had “absolutely” nothing to do with the killing.

Khashoggi, a Saudi who lived in the United States, was a columnist for the Post and often criticized the royal family. He was killed Oct. 2 at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish and Saudi authorities say he was killed inside the consulate by a team from the kingdom after he went there to get marriage documents.

Abrams ends Georgia governor bid, says she’ll file lawsuit

ATLANTA — Democrat Stacey Abrams ended 10 days of post-election drama in Georgia’s closely watched and even more closely contested race for governor Friday, acknowledging Republican Brian Kemp as the victor while defiantly refusing to concede to the man she blamed for “gross mismanagement” of a bitterly fought election.

The speech Abrams delivered at her campaign headquarters Friday evening marked the close of the 44-year-old attorney and former lawmaker’s unsuccessful attempt to make history as America’s first black woman governor. Since Election Day her campaign fought on, insisting efforts to suppress turnout had left thousands of ballots uncounted that otherwise could erode Kemp’s lead and force a runoff election.

Kemp, the 55-year-old businessman who oversaw the election as Georgia’s secretary of state, will keep the governor’s office in GOP hands as the state’s third Republican governor since Reconstruction. He responded to Abrams ending her campaign by calling for unity and praising his opponent’s “passion, hard work, and commitment to public service.”

The kind words came just days after Kemp’s campaign spokesman derided Abrams’ efforts to have contested ballots counted as a “disgrace to democracy.”

Abrams made no such retreat from her criticisms of Kemp, saying she refused “to say nice things and accept my fate.” Instead, she announced plans to file a federal lawsuit to challenge the way Georgia’s elections are run. She accused Kemp of using the secretary of state’s office to aggressively purge the rolls of inactive voters, enforce an “exact match” policy for checking voters’ identities that left thousands of registrations in limbo and other measures to tile the outcome in his favor.

Finger pointing, frustration in eastern US storm’s aftermath

TRENTON, N.J. — Exhausted commuters pointed fingers and demanded answers Friday, a day after a modest snowstorm stranded motorists on slippery roads for hours, paralyzed the public transit network serving New York City and its suburbs and even forced some New Jersey children to stay overnight in their schools.

How, they asked, could a few inches of snow in a region used to this sort of weather lead to such chaos?

“Clearly we could have done better and we will do better,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio promised a “full review.”

“We’re all unhappy with what happened,” he said.

CNN’s Acosta back at White House after judge’s ruling

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to immediately return the White House press credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta, though a lawsuit over the credentials’ revocation is continuing.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, an appointee of President Donald Trump, announced his decision at a hearing Friday morning. The judge said Acosta’s credentials must be reactivated to allow him access to the White House complex for press briefings and other events.

Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, was back in the afternoon. The White House said it would be developing new rules for orderly press conferences.

The White House revoked Acosta’s credentials last week after he and Trump tangled verbally during a press conference following the midterm elections. CNN sued and asked the judge to issue a temporary restraining order forcing the White House to give back Acosta’s credentials. The judge agreed.

CNN alleged that Acosta’s First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the White House revoked his “hard pass.”

Migrants won’t see armed US soldiers on border

SAN DIEGO — As thousands of migrants in a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers converge on the doorstep of the United States, what they won’t find are armed American soldiers standing guard.

Instead they will see cranes installing towering panels of metal bars and troops wrapping concertina wire around barriers while military helicopters fly overhead, carrying border patrol agents to and from locations along the U.S.-Mexico border.

That’s because U.S. military troops are prohibited from carrying out law enforcement duties.

What’s more, the bulk of the troops are in Texas — hundreds of miles away from the caravan that started arriving this week in Tijuana on Mexico’s border with California after walking and hitching rides for the past month.

Still, for many migrants the barriers and barbed wire were an imposing show of force.

Judge: John Hinckley can move out of his mother’s house

NORFOLK, Va. — The man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan can move out of his mother’s house in Virginia and live on his own, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman granted John Hinckley Jr. the largest measure of freedom he’s had since shooting and wounding Reagan and three others outside a Washington hotel in 1981.

Hinckley was confined for decades to St. Elizabeths Hospital in the nation’s capital. Starting in 2006, he began to make trips to visit his mother, who is now in her 90s and lives in a gated community in Williamsburg. He moved in with her in 2016.

The judge wrote Friday that the 63-year-old Hinckley can now live within 75 miles of that city as long as Hinckley’s doctors give their approval on the location.

Hinckley still must live under a long list of conditions. They include meeting at least twice a month with a social worker, a psychiatrist and a therapist. He can’t own a gun or consume alcohol or drugs.

Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’ film finally in theaters

NEW YORK — Three years ago, Alan Elliott was at the Telluride Film Festival, prepared to unveil the holy grail of musical works: A documentary on the making of Aretha Franklin’s “Amazing Grace,” which had been lost to the archives until Elliott spent decades restoring it so it could finally be seen.

But then, through lawyers, he got word that the Queen of Soul herself was trying to prevent the film from being shown. Elliott’s business partner, Tirrell Whittley, recalls the moment as “deflating.”

“It was disappointing. … You try to figure out what is it that happened,” Whittley said.

But as determined as Elliott and Whittley were to get the documentary to the world, they decided not to fight Franklin.

“It would just be the wrong and the wrong spirit,” Whittley said, adding later: “In talking to Alan, it was really around patience and saying, ‘You know what? God may not have meant it right now. And that’s OK. Let’s just be patient. When God says it’s the right time it will be the right time, not just for us but for her, for her family, for her legacy.’”