Homes burn after shooter kills 2 Honolulu officers

HONOLULU (AP) — A man shot and killed two police officers Sunday as they responded to a home in a leafy neighbourhood beneath the rim of a famed volcanic crater near Waikiki Beach, authorities said.

The officers were responding to a call from a woman who said she needed help and found her with a stab wound to her leg, police said Sunday. The suspect opened fire as police arrived, killing Officers Tiffany Enriquez and Kaulike Kalama, said Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard. She said the suspect as well as two women who were in the home were unaccounted for.

Ballard said authorities would continue to search for the shooter, but that it was likely that he was inside the home when it burned.

The homeowner, Lois Cain, had recently sought to have a man evicted, court records showed. A neighbour told The Associated Press she saw Cain being loaded into an ambulance with knife wounds.

Cain’s condition was not immediately confirmed, nor was the suspect’s. Flames emerging from the home soon spread to several others. Honolulu fire said five homes were “complete losses.”

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No escape: Senators to be quiet, unplugged for Trump trial

WASHINGTON (AP) — No cellphones. No talking. No escape.

That's the reality during the Senate's impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, which will begin each day with a proclamation: “All persons are commanded to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment.” After that, 100 senators will sit at their desks for hours on end to hear from House prosecutors, Trump’s defence team and possibly a series of witnesses.

The first time the proclamation was used, in the 1868 trial of President Andrew Johnson, lawmakers couldn’t have imagined life in the modern era. The pace of today's politics would have been hard to foresee even in early 1999, at the start of the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, when smartphones didn't exist.

And so the senators will have a throwback experience in 2020, disconnected from the outside world, asked only to listen. The normally chummy senators won't even be allowed to talk at length to people nearby or walk on certain areas of the Senate floor. Mostly they will sit, trapped in the chamber, focused on the issue at hand.

While senators might privately grumble about the restrictions — and will likely violate them at times — they agree that the rules are justified as they execute their most solemn duty: considering whether to remove the president of the United States from office.

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After cashing in on QB gambles, Niners, Chiefs in Super Bowl

A little more than two years ago, a pair of teams gambled on quarterbacks who had all kinds of potential but were far from a sure thing.

Both teams guessed right.

The Kansas City Chiefs will meet the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl on Feb. 2 in Miami. Oddsmakers opened the line at pick 'em in a title game featuring one franchise, the Niners, trying to win a record-tying sixth Lombardi Trophy against another, the Chiefs, making their first appearance in the big game in 50 years.

Their quarterbacks: Patrick Mahomes (KC) and Jimmy Garoppolo (SF).

Mahomes, whose gaudy college stats (his 5,052 passing yards led the country in 2016) were a byproduct of playing at pass-happy Texas Tech, was generally viewed as no better than the second-best quarterback in a 2017 draft that wasn't considered strong on quarterbacks to begin with.

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Prince Harry: 'No other option' but to cut royal ties

LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry said Sunday that he felt “great sadness” but found “no other option” to cutting almost all of his and his wife Meghan’s royal ties in the hopes of achieving a more peaceful life.

The comments were Harry’s first public remarks since his split from the royal family was announced earlier this month. Video of his speech was posted to Harry and Meghan's official Instagram account.

Harry said he did not make the decision lightly and praised his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and the rest of his family for supporting him and his wife in recent months. He called the decision “a leap of faith” and said he hopes the move will allow him and his family to achieve a “more peaceful life.”

During his speech at a charity event, Harry framed the decision as being at least in part because of press scrutiny, saying the “the media is a powerful force.”

He said that he and Meghan intend to continue a life of service and that his love and support for the United Kingdom is unwavering, but added that he needed to shed the royal ties he grew up with.

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Sanders distances himself from group backing his WH run

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Bernie Sanders said Sunday that outside political groups that can raise and spend unlimited sums backing candidates for public office should be abolished — including those supporting his own bid for the White House.

But the Vermont senator stopped short of directly calling on Our Revolution, a political non-profit he founded, to cease its efforts on behalf of his Democratic presidential primary campaign.

“I would think that we should end super PACs right now. So I would tell my opponents who have a super PAC, why don't you end it? And certainly that's applicable to the groups that are supporting me,” Sanders said.

The remarks, made during a candidate forum with New Hampshire Public Radio, are the first substantive response from Sanders after The Associated Press reported earlier this month that Our Revolution's advocacy for his White House bid appeared to skirt campaign finance law.

For years, Sanders has railed against the torrent of money allowed to flood the political system in the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark 2010 Citizens United decision. But he has saved special ire for super PACs, which is shorthand for super political action committee.

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China counts sharp rise in coronavirus cases, 2 in Beijing

BEIJING (AP) — China reported Monday a sharp rise in the number of people infected with a new coronavirus, including the first cases in the capital. The outbreak coincides with the country's busiest travel period, as millions board trains and planes for the Lunar New Year holidays.

Health authorities in the central city of Wuhan, where the viral pneumonia appears to have originated, said an additional 136 cases have been confirmed in the city, which now has a total of 198 infected patients. As of the weekend, a third patient had died, bringing the death toll to three.

Two individuals in Beijing and one in the southern city of Shenzhen have also been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, health commissions in the respective cities said Monday. The three people had visited Wuhan.

The outbreak has put other countries on alert as millions of Chinese travel for Lunar New Year. Authorities in Thailand and in Japan have already identified at least three cases, all involving recent travel from China.

At least a half-dozen countries in Asia and three U.S. airports have started screening incoming airline passengers from central China.

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Schiff accuses NSA, CIA of withholding documents on Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is accusing U.S. intelligence agencies of withholding documents from Congress on Ukraine that could be significant to President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

“They appear to be succumbing to pressure from the administration,” Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday on ABC's "This Week.'' Schiff was selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as the lead impeachment manager for Trump's Senate trial.

Schiff, D-Calif., contended that the National Security Agency “in particular is withholding what are potentially relevant documents to our oversight responsibilities on Ukraine, but also withholding documents potentially relevant that the senators might want to see during the trial. That is deeply concerning." He also said "there are signs that the CIA may be on the same tragic course.”

The intelligence community said it is working to respond to the committee's requests.

“The intelligence community is committed to providing Congress with information and intelligence it needs to carry out its critical oversight role,” Amanda Schoch, assistant national intelligence director for strategic communications, said in a statement Sunday. “The intelligence community is working in good faith with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to respond to requests on a broad range of topics and will continue to do so..”

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2 more Puerto Rico officials fired after warehouse break-in

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Gov. Wanda Vázquez fired the heads of Puerto Rico’s housing and family departments Sunday in the latest fallout over the discovery of a warehouse filled with emergency supplies dating from Hurricane Maria.

The removal of Housing Secretary Fernando Gil and Department of Family Secretary Glorimar Andújar came a day after the governor fired the director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency. Vázquez fired him hours after a Facebook video showed angry people breaking into the warehouse in an area where thousands have been in shelters since a recent earthquake.

“There have been actions by government officials that have been completely unacceptable,” the governor said Sunday.

Vázquez said she decided on the additional firings after meeting with leaders of her administration Sunday morning and officials were unable to provide information she requested about other collection and distribution centres.

“They weren’t able to personally tell me specifically where these centres were located, what they contained and whether an inventory was completed,” she said.

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'Parasite' wins at SAG Awards, so do Pitt and Aniston

“Parasite” has officially infected this year’s award season. Bong Joon Ho’s Korean class satire became the first foreign language film to take top honours from the Screen Actors Guild on Sunday, setting itself up as a legitimate best picture contender to the front-runner “1917” at next month’s Academy Awards.

The best ensemble win for “Parasite” came over the starry epics “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” and “The Irishman.” It was a surprise but only to a degree. “Parasite,” up for six Oscars including best picture, has emerged as perhaps the stiffest competition for Sam Mendes' “1917,” which won at the highly predictive Producers Guild Awards on Saturday.

But “Parasite” was the clear crowd favourite Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, where even the cast's appearance introducing the film drew a standing ovation. Yet until the SAG Awards, the many honours for “Parasite” have seldom included wins for its cast, none of whom was nominated for an Oscar.

“Although the title is ‘Parasite,’ I think the story is about coexistence and how we can all live together,” said Song Kang Ho, one of the film's stars.

Because actors make up the largest percentage of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, their picks are closely watched as an Academy Awards harbinger.

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Trump thanks farmers for backing him through China trade war

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — President Donald Trump thanked farmers Sunday for supporting him through a trade war with China as he promoted a new North American trade agreement and a separate one with China that he said will massively benefit farmers.

“We did it,” Trump said, recalling his campaign promises to improve America's trading relationships with other countries.

At one point during his address to the American Farm Bureau Federation's convention, Trump said he has strong support among farmers following his signing last week of a preliminary trade deal with China.

When Trump spoke to the American Farm Bureau Federation's last year, he urged farmers to continue supporting him even as they suffered financially in the fallout from his trade war with China and a partial shutdown of the federal government.

His follow-up speech Sunday at this year's convention in Austin, Texas, gave him a chance to make the case to farmers that he kept promises he made as a candidate to improve trade with China and separately with Canada and Mexico.

News from © The Associated Press, 2020