Trump's strong words on guns give way to political reality

WASHINGTON (AP) — Not two weeks ago, President Donald Trump wagged his finger at a Republican senator and scolded him for being "afraid of the NRA," declaring that he would stand up to the powerful gun lobby and finally get results on quelling gun violence following last month's Florida school shooting.

On Monday, Trump struck a very different tone as he backpedaled from his earlier demands for sweeping reforms and bowed to Washington reality. The president, who recently advocated increasing the minimum age to purchase an assault weapon to 21, tweeted that he's "watching court cases and rulings" on the issue, adding that there is "not much political support (to put it mildly)."

Over the weekend, the White House released a limited plan to combat school shootings that leaves the question of arming teachers to states and local communities and sends the age issue to a commission for review. Just two days earlier, Trump had mocked commissions as something of a dead end while talking about the opioid epidemic. "We can't just keep setting up blue-ribbon committees," he said, adding that all they do is "talk, talk, talk."

Seventeen people were killed in last month's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, prompting a national conversation about gun laws, fierce advocacy for stronger gun control from surviving students and, initially, a move from Trump to buck his allies at the National Rifle Association.

In a televised meeting with lawmakers on Feb. 28, Trump praised members of the gun lobby as "great patriots" but declared "that doesn't mean we have to agree on everything. It doesn't make sense that I have to wait until I'm 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18."

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Package bombs in Texas capital likely tied to earlier blast

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Two package bomb blasts a few miles apart killed a teenager and wounded two women in Austin on Monday, less than two weeks after a similar attack left a man dead in another part of the Texas capital.

Investigators said the bombings are probably connected, and they are looking into whether race was a factor because all of the victims were minorities. The blasts unfolded just as the city was swelling with visitors to the South By Southwest music festival.

The first of Monday's attacks killed a 17-year-old boy and wounded a 40-year-old woman, both of them black. As Police Chief Brian Manley held a news conference to discuss that attack, authorities were called to the scene of another explosion that injured a 75-year-old Hispanic woman. She was taken to a hospital with potentially life-threatening wounds.

Authorities suspect that both of Monday's explosions were linked to a March 2 attack that killed a 39-year-old black man. All three blasts happened as the packages were opened, and officials urged the public to call police if they receive any unexpected packages.

"This is the third in what we believe to be related incidents over the past 10 days," Manley said while briefing reporters near the site of Monday's second explosion. He at first suggested that the blasts could constitute a hate crime, but later amended that to say authorities had not settled on a motive.

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10 Things to Know for Tuesday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Tuesday:

1. WHAT'S GOOD NEWS FOR WHITE HOUSE

Republicans on the House intelligence committee complete a draft report concluding there was no collusion or co-ordination between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia.

2. CITY ON EDGE AFTER DEADLY BLASTS

Package bombs explode in Austin, Texas, killing two people and wounding two others — and police say race may be the link because at least three victims are black.

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Draft GOP report: No co-ordination between Trump and Russia

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have completed a draft report concluding there was no collusion or co-ordination between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, a finding that pleased the White House but enraged Democrats who had not yet seen the document.

After a yearlong investigation, Texas Rep. Mike Conaway announced Monday that the committee has finished interviewing witnesses and will share the report with Democrats for the first time Tuesday. Conaway is the Republican leading the House probe, one of several investigations on Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.

"We found no evidence of collusion," Conaway told reporters Monday, suggesting that those who believe there was are reading too many spy novels. "We found perhaps some bad judgment, inappropriate meetings, inappropriate judgment in taking meetings. But only Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn or someone else like that could take this series of inadvertent contacts with each other, or meetings or whatever, and weave that into sort of a fiction page-turner, spy thriller."

Hours later, Trump tweeted his own headline of the report in excited capital letters: "THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS, AFTER A 14 MONTH LONG IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION, FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR Co-ordinatION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA TO INFLUENCE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION."

Conaway previewed some of the conclusions, but said the public will not see the report until Democrats have reviewed it and the intelligence community has decided what information can become public, a process that could take weeks. Democrats are expected to issue a separate report with far different conclusions.

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Porn actress offers to repay $130K so she can discuss Trump

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An adult film actress who said she had sex with President Donald Trump offered Monday to return the $130,000 she was paid for agreeing not to discuss the alleged relationship.

Stormy Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — is willing to repay the money she received as part of a 2016 agreement, as long as she can speak openly about the situation, according to a copy of a letter from Clifford's attorney obtained by The Associated Press.

The letter sent to Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen and his attorney, Lawrence Rosen, said the non-disclosure agreement would be considered "null and void" after she returned the money, and that would allow Clifford to speak about the relationship and the attempt to silence her while she publishes any text messages, photos and videos she may have.

"Mr. Cohen and the president should accept this proposal and allow Ms. Clifford to tell her side," her attorney Michael Avenatti said. "The American people can then decide who was telling the truth."

The offer is valid until Tuesday afternoon, the letter said.

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British PM: Russia 'highly likely' behind ex-spy's poisoning

LONDON (AP) — Russia is "highly likely" to blame for poisoning a former spy and his daughter with a military-grade nerve agent, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Monday, demanding that Moscow give a compelling explanation or face "extensive" retaliation.

May told lawmakers in a strongly worded statement that without a credible response from Russia by the end of Tuesday, Britain would consider the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in a quiet English city "an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom."

"There can be no question of business as usual with Russia," she said, without saying what measures Britain might take.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed May's allegations as a "circus show in in the British Parliament."

Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, remain in critical condition after being found unconscious March 4 in Salisbury. A police detective who came in contact with them is in serious but stable condition.

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Q&A: What's known of fatal shootings at California vets home

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Three days after a former Army rifleman killed three mental health care workers at a program where he had received care in Northern California, there are still more questions than answers. Albert Wong, 36, slipped into a going-away party at The Pathway Home on Friday morning. About seven hours later, a robot with a video feed showed officers that Wong and the three workers were dead.

Executive Director Christine Loeber, 48; Clinical Director Jennifer Golick, 42; and Jennifer Gonzales Shushereba, 32, a clinical psychologist with the San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare System who was nearly 7 months pregnant died in the siege.

Here are some of the things officials have said about what happened and questions that remain:

Did officials at The Pathway Home, at the Veterans Administration or in the military ever report any concerns about Albert Wong's mental health to outside authorities?

Napa County Sheriff's Capt. Steve Blower said Monday that his office had received no prior reports from mental health workers alerting them to concerns about Wong's mental health or that he was a danger to others, though his agency would have been a primary point of contact for such reporting. The U.S. Army has declined to provide more details beyond Wong's basic service record, which shows he served in Afghanistan from April 2011 to March 2012 and received numerous awards.

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AP source: Bag may have hit fuel switch before chopper crash

NEW YORK (AP) — A pilot who survived a helicopter crash that killed his five passengers told authorities he believed a passenger's bag might have hit an emergency fuel shutoff switch in the moments before the chopper went down, a federal official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The official was briefed on the investigation but was not authorized to speak publicly about it and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it would look at the switch, the chopper's flotation devices and even the photos on passengers' cameras to figure out what caused the crash Sunday in the East River.

NTSB member Bella Dinh-Zarr said the agency hasn't spoken to the pilot but hopes to do so.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday," pilot Richard Vance said in an emergency radio call as the Eurocopter AS350 tour helicopter foundered. "East River — engine failure."

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Chaos in 2 towns as Turkish and Syrian forces close in

BEIRUT (AP) — Parallel offensives waged by Turkey and the Syrian government on two separate towns in Syria on Monday pushed residents into overcrowded shelters for safety as others tried to flee the advancing forces by road.

Residents and displaced families in the besieged town of Douma in the rebel-held Damascus suburbs of eastern Ghouta were sleeping in shops and in the streets as basements in the town filled up beyond capacity, said Haitham Bakkar, a local resident.

"We are afraid of the assault," Bakkar said of the government's efforts to take the town amid a ferocious campaign of shelling and airstrikes. Blasts could be heard as he spoke to The Associated Press via a messaging service.

Meanwhile, thousands of people were fleeing the northwestern town of Afrin as Turkish troops and Turkey-backed opposition fighters moved closer to completely encircling it.

Ebrahim Ebrahim, a Europe-based spokesman for the largest Kurdish group in Syria, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, said those fleeing were heading toward government-controlled areas, fearful that Turkish troops and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters might commit atrocities against the Kurds and minority Christians, Alawites and Yazidis in the town.

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Latest nor'easter could dump a foot or more of snow

BOSTON (AP) — Winter-weary New Englanders are preparing for blizzard conditions, more than a foot of snow and high winds as the third major nor'easter in two weeks bears down on the Northeast.

The National Weather Service on Monday issued a blizzard warning for much of the Massachusetts coast, a winter storm warning for most of New England and a winter weather advisory for portions of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The storm is expected to hit late Monday and last through most of the day Tuesday, with snow accumulating at a rate of 2 inches per hour during the Tuesday morning commute, disrupting road and air travel. American Airlines announced that it had suspended all flight operations from Boston Logan International Airport on Tuesday because of the storm. The airline said arrivals and departures from Bangor, Maine, Burlington, Vermont, Manchester, New Hampshire and New Haven, Connecticut also will be shut down.

Amtrak said it is suspending service from Boston to New York's Penn Station on Tuesday until 11 a.m.

While the first two storms of the month brought coastal flooding and hundreds of thousands of power outages, this winter monster is a little bit different.

News from © The Associated Press, 2018