NATION/WORLD BRIEFING Trump picks Navy veteran as top counterterrorism official

European Union slaps tariffs on $3.4 billion in US goods

The European Union announced a 25 percent tariff Friday on U.S. products such as motorcycles, steel, bourbon and jeans in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports of EU steel and aluminum.

The EU, a bloc of 28 nations, said the tariffs on $3.4 billion in U.S. products would go into effect immediately.

Trump quickly responded to the European salvo, dashing off a tweeted warning Friday morning that if the EU tariffs and barriers “are not soon broken down and removed,” the U.S. will place a 20 percent tariff on all European-built cars coming into the U.S.

The EU’s retaliatory tariffs, which also included typical U.S. products such as orange juice, cigarettes, chewing tobacco and peanut butter, seemed aimed at putting pressure on politically sensitive groups such as farmers.

Backup driver in fatal Uber crash was distracted, police say

PHOENIX – The human backup driver in an autonomous Uber SUV was streaming the television show “The Voice” on her phone and looking down just before fatally striking a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix, according to a police report.

The 300-page report released Thursday by police in Tempe, Arizona, revealed that driver Rafaela Vasquez had been streaming the musical talent show via Hulu in the 43 minutes before the March 18 crash that killed Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a darkened road outside the lines of a crosswalk.

“This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and roadway conditions and was not distracted,” the report said.

Rival Koreas agree to August reunions of families split by war

SEOUL, South Korea – North and South Korea agreed Friday to hold temporary reunions of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War amid a diplomatic push to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis.

The reunions will take place at North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort Aug. 20-26, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said.

It said the countries will each send 100 participants to the reunions. People with mobility problems may bring a relative to help them.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is nominating a Navy special operations veteran, Joseph Maguire, to be the nation’s top counterterrorism official, as head of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Since 2013, Maguire has been president and chief executive officer of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. His last government assignment was deputy director for strategic operational planning at the counterterrorism center.

Maguire retired from the Navy in 2010 as a vice admiral after 36 years.

Feds indict 11 Salvadorans linked to MS-13 in teens’ deaths

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Eleven natives of El Salvador accused of being involved with the MS-13 street gang have been indicted in the slayings of two northern Virginia teenagers.

Federal prosecutors say a 17-year-old boy was killed in August 2016 because they suspected he was a member of a rival gang intending to infiltrate MS-13. The indictment says the second teen was killed because gang members thought he was cooperating with police.

The eleven defendants range in age from 20 to 27 and could get life in prison.

Lawsuits challenge efforts to push abstinence-only on teens

SPOKANE, Wash. – Several affiliates of Planned Parenthood sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Friday over its efforts to impose an abstinence-only focus on its Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.

The lawsuits were filed in federal courts in New York City and Spokane, Washington, by Planned Parenthood affiliates covering New York City and the states of Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska and Washington.

Planned Parenthood said the lawsuits are intended to protect the program from what it called ineffective abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculums.