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AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Original Publication Date June 25, 2018 - 9:06 PM

McMaster wins in SC for Trump; Dem veteran Crowley out in NY

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — One of President Donald Trump's earliest and strongest supporters, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, survived an unusually tough challenge from a political newcomer on Tuesday. But a veteran Democratic House leader wasn't so fortunate.

Rep. Joe Crowley of New York lost to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old former aide to the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, in the first defeat of the primary season for a Democratic incumbent.

In Utah, Mitt Romney, the former GOP presidential nominee and one-time face of the "Never Trump" movement, won the Republican nomination to run in November to become a 71-year-old freshman senator.

Crowley is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House and had been considered a possible candidate to replace Nancy Pelosi as the party's leader in the chamber if the Democrats should win control in November and Pelosi should step aside.

Crowley was backed by many unions, while Ocasio-Cortez was endorsed by several liberal groups, including MoveOn.

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US Rep. Joe Crowley defeated in Democratic primary in NY

NEW YORK (AP) — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders supporter, has upset longtime U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley in the Democratic congressional primary in New York.

"We meet a machine with a movement, and that is what we have done today," said Ocasio-Cortez, who has never held elected office and whose candidacy attracted only modest media attention. "Working-class Americans want a clear champion and there is nothing radical about moral clarity in 2018."

Crowley, a member of the Democratic House leadership, has been in Congress since 1999 and hadn't faced an opponent in a primary election in 14 years, when the woman who beat him Tuesday was just a teenager. He was considered a candidate to become the next House speaker if Democrats win the majority.

"It's not about me," Crowley, 56, told his supporters. "It's about America. I want nothing but the best for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I want her to be victorious."

Crowley represents New York's 14th Congressional District, which includes parts of the Bronx and Queens, where he is also the leader of the Queens Democratic party.

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High court OKs Trump's travel ban, rejects Muslim bias claim

WASHINGTON (AP) — A sharply divided Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump's ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries Tuesday, the conservative majority taking his side in a major ruling supporting his presidential power. A dissenting liberal justice said the court was making a historic mistake by refusing to recognize the ban discriminates against Muslims.

The 5-4 decision was a big victory for Trump in the court's first substantive ruling on one of his administration's policies. It also was the latest demonstration of a newly invigorated conservative majority and a bitter defeat for the court's liberals.

The ruling came on an issue that has been central for Trump, from his campaign outbursts against "radical Islamic terrorism" through his presidency. He tweeted a quick reaction — "Wow!" — and then celebrated at greater length before TV cameras.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for the five conservative justices, including Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch, who got his seat only after Republicans blocked President Barack Obama's nominee for the last 10 months of Obama's term.

Roberts wrote that the travel ban was well within U.S. presidents' considerable authority over immigration and responsibility for keeping the nation safe. He rejected the challengers' claim of anti-Muslim bias that rested in large part on Trump's own tweets and statements over the past three years.

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States sue to pressure Trump to reunite immigrant families

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Seventeen states, including New York and California, sued the Trump administration Tuesday to force it to reunite the thousands of immigrant children and parents it separated at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the legal and political pressure on the White House to reconnect families more quickly escalated.

The states, all led by Democratic attorneys general, joined Washington, D.C., in filing the lawsuit in federal court in Seattle, arguing that they are being forced to shoulder increased child welfare, education and social services costs.

"The administration's practice of separating families is cruel, plain and simple," New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement. "Every day, it seems like the administration is issuing new, contradictory policies and relying on new, contradictory justifications. But we can't forget: The lives of real people hang in the balance."

Separately, immigration-rights activists asked a federal judge in Los Angeles to order that parents be released and immediately reunited with their children.

In a speech before the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Los Angeles, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the administration for taking a hardline stand on illegal immigration and said the voters elected President Donald Trump to do just that.

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GOP set for showdown immigration vote

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are set to vote Wednesday on a hard-fought immigration compromise between conservative and moderate GOP flanks, but the bill has lost any real chance for passage despite a public outcry over the crisis at the border.

Instead, lawmakers are expected to turn toward a narrow bill to prevent immigrant family separations in hopes of addressing that issue before leaving town for the Fourth of July recess.

GOP leaders set out to pass the sweeping immigration measure on their own, without Democratic input, after some members agitated for action. Now they are facing almost certain defeat, stung by their own divisions and President Donald Trump's wavering support.

It remained unclear late Tuesday what the final version of the immigration legislation would contain. GOP negotiators had been working over the weekend on an amendment to tack on provisions to draw more support. But it was not expected to be included.

The broader bill includes trade-offs, including a multi-year path to citizenship for young immigrants who have been living in the U.S. illegally since childhood and $25 billion for Trump's border wall. It also would stem family separations at the border by doing away with longstanding rules that prevents minors from being detained for more than 20 days; instead, children could be held in custody with their parents for longer stretches.

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Judge in Virginia lets case against Manafort move forward

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Virginia rejected a bid by President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to throw out charges in the special counsel's Russia investigation, clearing the way for a much-anticipated trial to start as scheduled next month.

The decision Tuesday by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III was a setback for Manafort in his defence against tax and bank fraud charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.

It also hobbles a favoured talking point of Trump and his legal team as they repeatedly attack Mueller's investigation as overly broad and seek to undermine its legitimacy. Ellis' skeptical comments and pointed questioning during a hearing last month, including his suggestion that prosecutors had pursued Manafort to get him to testify against Trump, had given the president and his supporters hope that the case might be dismissed.

Manafort, also facing separate charges in the District of Columbia, is the only one of the four Trump aides charged by Mueller who has opted to fight the allegations instead of plead guilty and co-operate. He and his lawyers have repeatedly seized on the fact that none of the charges relate to allegations of Russian election interference and possible co-ordination with Trump associates, the main thrust of Mueller's public appointment order.

But in a 31-page ruling, Ellis rejected Manafort's argument that Mueller had exceeded his authority by bringing charges unrelated to the presidential election. He said the May 2017 Justice Department order that appointed Mueller as special counsel specifically empowered him to pursue other crimes that arose out of the investigation, and that the case against Manafort clearly fell within that authority.

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Missing Thai soccer team known for adventures together

MAE SAI, Thailand (AP) — The members of the Wild Boars are a team on and off the soccer field, travelling to competitions, cycling mountain roads and swimming in waterfalls together. Now, 12 of the boys and their coach are lost, together, in a flooded cave in northern Thailand.

The boys, ranging in age from 11 to 16 and hailing from schools across Chiang Rai province's northern reaches, have been missing since they entered the sprawling Tham Luang Nang Non cave on Saturday afternoon, after a morning intrasquad match on a nearby field.

Leading the way as always was Ekapol "Aek" Chanthawong, their 25-year-old coach.

"Coach Aek is very dedicated to the team," said Noppadon Kanthawong, whose 13-year-old son plays on the Wild Boars but decided to skip Saturday's cave trip. "He would be there at the field waiting for kids to show up after school. It is a great way to keep healthy, away from screens and have friends. I can tell that they are very close to each other."

Noppadon and his son were huddled Tuesday with other teammates and anguished relatives at the entrance to the cave awaiting any word from the navy SEAL divers and other rescuers working inside. Divers have been seeking a way forward through the cave complex's chambers, but flooding and low visibility has hindered their progress.

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On both sides of Atlantic, migrants meet hostile reception

MILAN (AP) — On both sides of the Atlantic, migrants flooding across borders by the hundreds each day have met a hostile reception and governments unable to agree on how to cope with the arrivals. In Europe, where far-right parties have joined the governments in Italy and Austria and made gains elsewhere, even the most basic decision of which port would accept a ship filled with migrants has been fraught.

On Tuesday, yet another rescue boat loaded with migrants struggled to find safe harbour in the Mediterranean, while in Austria police cadets playing the role of desperate refugees rattled a chain-link fence demanding to be let in as part of a high-profile training exercise to test the mettle of a new border force charged with preventing an influx of migrants.

"We have had migratory crises in the past, but that is not what we are going through now. What we are living through now is a European political crisis," French President Emmanuel Macron said after a daylong meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican during which they discussed the issue.

The European crisis mirrors the one in the United States, where a broad-ranging Republican immigration bill was set for a vote Wednesday, with little certainty that it would survive. With legislation in disarray and a global uproar over the separation of more than 2,300 migrant children from their parents, the Trump administration abruptly reversed a key element of its zero-tolerance immigration policy last week, halting the practice of separating immigrant families caught illegally crossing the border, but leaving more than 2,000 separated children in limbo in government-contracted shelters.

The standoffs in Europe involve multiple governments, all running their own immigration policies but with open borders among them.

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As US market weakens, Harley-Davidson recruits new riders

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Harley-Davidson, the iconic brand that sells its customers an image of freedom and adventure, found itself in an unwanted role this week: poster child for the damage of an international trade war.

Harley said it would move production of motorcycles bound for Europe overseas, blaming European Union tariffs it said would add an estimated $2,200 cost to the average bike. That prompted President Donald Trump — whose own tariffs prompted the EU moves — to accuse Harley of using tariffs as an excuse for moves already planned.

Beneath the rhetoric, Harley is a company that needs overseas growth to shore up a business that is shrinking in the United States, where retail sales fell 8.5 per cent last year. International sales also fell, but by less than 4 per cent.

Milwaukee-based Harley has been putting renewed emphasis on teaching people to ride as part of its effort to attract more customers. As The Associated Press reported in December, Harley has expanded the number of dealerships with a Harley "Riding Academy."

The program launched in 2000 with about 50 locations; the company now says 250 dealerships in the U.S. offer the three- or four-day course. It says about a quarter of those launched since 2014.

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Japan space explorer arrives at asteroid to collect samples

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese space explorer arrived at an asteroid Wednesday after a 3 1/2-year journey and now begins its real work of trying to blow a crater to collect samples to eventually bring back to Earth.

The unmanned Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached its base of operations about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the asteroid and some 280 million kilometres (170 million miles) from Earth, the Japan Space Exploration Agency said.

Over the next year and a half, the spacecraft will attempt three brief touch-and-go landings to collect samples. If the retrieval and the return journey are successful, the asteroid material could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.

The mission is challenging. The robotic explorer will spend about two months looking for suitable landing places on the uneven surface. Because of the high surface temperature, it will stay for only a few seconds each time it lands.

The asteroid, named Ryugu after an undersea palace in a Japanese folktale, is about 900 metres (3,000 feet) in diameter. In photos released by JAXA, the Japanese space agency, it appears more cube-shaped than round. A number of large craters can be seen, which Project Manager Yuichi Tsuda said in an online post makes the selection of landing points "both interesting and difficult."

News from © The Associated Press, 2018
The Associated Press

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