Officials say Baghdad bombing kills at least 23

The FBI is investigating whether Donald Trump’s associates coordinated with Russian officials in an effort to sway the 2016 presidential election, Director James Comey said Monday in an rare public confirmation of an inquiry the president has refused to acknowledge, dismissed as fake news and blamed on Democrats.

In a five-hour session, the FBI director also knocked down Trump’s claim that his predecessor had wiretapped his New York skyscraper.

The revelation of the investigation of possible collusion with Russians, and the first public confirmation of the wider probe that began last summer, came in a remarkable hearing by one branch of government examining serious allegations against another branch and the new president’s election campaign.

Tight-lipped for the most part, Comey refused to offer details on the scope, targets or timeline for the FBI investigation, which could last months, if not years. The director would not say whether the probe has turned up evidence that Trump associates may have schemed with Russians during a campaign marked by email hacking that investigators believe was aimed at helping the Republican defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“I can promise you,” the FBI director vowed, “we will follow the facts wherever they lead.”

Comey for the first time put himself publicly at odds with the president by contradicting a series of recent tweets from Trump that asserted his phones

Talmadge Yarbrough had just sat down at his desk and opened a box of pecans when he let out a gasp that could have been his last breath. He’d gone into cardiac arrest in his office, a co-worker called 911, and an ambulance drove him two miles to the small hospital that serves this rural community in southeast Georgia.

“I would have never lasted to get to Savannah or Statesboro,” Yarbrough said of the biggest cities near Claxton — each 30 to 60 miles away. “I firmly believe if that hospital wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be here.”

But like Yarbrough, the 10-bed Evans Memorial Hospital has fought to survive. That story is reflected nationwide — rural hospitals have long struggled, with patients who are older, suffer from chronic illnesses, and face few insurance options, if they’re insured at all. Most rural hospitals have a higher-thannormal percentage of Medicaid patients; expected cuts to the federal program for low-income residents will affect facilities everywhere, but experts and administrators are particularly

A suicide car bombing in Baghdad killed at least 23 people on Monday and wounded 45 others, according to Iraqi officials.

The attack targeted a commercial area in Baghdad’s southwestern Amil neighborhood, police and hospital officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because had been ordered tapped by President Barack Obama during the campaign.

“With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department.

His confirmation of the Russialinks investigation was striking given the FBI’s historic reluctance to discuss its work. But Comey said the intense public interest in the matter — and permission from the Justice Department — made it appropriate to do so. worried about rural areas. Still more rural patients are on Medicare, for those 65 and older, but both programs’ reimbursements are lower than the cost of care.

Now, as Republicans in Washington put forward long-anticipated plans to get rid of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, rural hospitals and communities are watching the debate closely. But if they didn’t fare too well under the ACA, many question whether they’d be better off they were not authorized to release information.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State group has been behind previous Baghdad bombings.

Iraqi forces have been battling the extremists in Mosul, the country’s second largest city, since October. Iraq declared eastern Mosul “fully liberated” in January and is now fighting for the more

Comey said the collusion inquiry began last July as part of a broader probe into Russian meddling in American politics, meaning Trump was elected president as associates remained under investigation for possible connections to Russia.

Clinton allies on Monday contrasted Comey’s silence during the campaign with public comments he made last year when closing out an investigation into Clinton’s email practices and then, shortly before Election Day, announcing that the probe would be revived following the discovery of additional emails. Many Democrats blame Comey’s public updates with stoking worries under the plan backed by President Donald Trump.

At Evans Memorial, many blue-collar workers are unable to afford insurance but are too well-off for Medicaid, said chief financial officer John Wiggins. Such uninsured patients are perhaps the No. 1 problem for rural hospitals: Evans Memorial has been saddled with $3 million or more in unpaid medical bills in recent years.

But the hospital can’t and densely populated western half.

Iraqi troops are closing in on Mosul’s old city, where some of the fiercest fighting is expected to unfold. The militarized Federal Police say they are some 500 meters from al-Nuri mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made a rare public appearance in July 2014, announcing a selfstyled caliphate in Iraq about Clinton’s trustworthiness and turning voters against her.

Comey acknowledged that “some folks may want to make comparisons to past instances” where he and other officials were more open, but he said those were about concluded investigations.

In the current case, it’s not clear how long it will take for the FBI to decide if a crime was committed, but counterintelligence investigations are known for being complicated and timeintensive — and for frequently concluding without charges. Comey would not commit to a timetable. won’t turn away the uninsured — federal law prohibits it in emergencies. Recently, Dr. Kyle Parks performed an urgent gallbladder operation on an uninsured woman. “It is what we’ve always done — we take care of people, payer or no payer,” Parks said. “But we’re fighting a struggle to keep our little hospital open.”

Evans Memorial, which opened in 1968, has managed to keep operating by seeking new revenue — for example, a new wing for dementia patients scheduled to open soon. But the hospital was in the red for four years before finding itself $50,000 in the black this year.

“We do not have fear of the doors closing, but we remember those days and we never get comfortable,” said Nikki NeSmith, the CEO who doubles as chief nursing officer, in part to cut costs. “I don’t think we’ll be in that comfortable position anytime soon.”

Meantime, other rural hospitals have shuttered — 80 since 2010, mostly in the South and Midwest, according to the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. A wave of closures also hit in the 1980s and early ‘90s with changes in Medicare reimbursement, though Congress eventually increased that. and Syria.

The militants have suffered a string of defeats over the past two years, but have continued to regularly launch attacks in and around Baghdad. A series of large-scale bombings claimed by IS have struck Baghdad since the operation to retake Mosul began.

Iraqi and coalition officials have repeatedly warned that IS will return to its insurgent roots as it loses territory. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch pledged to be independent or “hang up the robe” as the U.S. Senate began rancorous hearings Monday on President Donald Trump’s conservative pick to fill a Supreme Court seat that has been vacant for more than a year.

Gorsuch sought to take the edge off Democratic complaints that he has favored the wealthy and powerful in more than 10 years as a federal judge. The 49-year-old Coloradan told the Senate Judiciary Committee he has tried to be a “neutral and independent” judge and has ruled both for and against disabled students, prisoners and workers alleging civil rights violations.

“But my decisions have never reflected a judgment about the people before me, only my best judgment about the law and facts at issue in each particular case,” Gorsuch said. That was his opening statement a day ahead of expected pointed questioning from committee Democrats.

A Supreme Court confirmation hearing is a major occasion on Capitol Hill — the last one was in 2010 — but Monday’s was overshadowed by a separate event in the Capitol complex. On the House side, FBI Director James Comey was testifying that the bureau is investigating Russian meddling in last year’s election and possible links and coordination between Russia and associates of Trump.

The Russian story line as well as Trump’s verbal attacks on federal judges both during the campaign and as president have fed into Democratic efforts to force Gorsuch to break publicly with the man who nominated him. Gorsuch already has told some senators in private meetings that he found the criticism of the judges disheartening. But Blumenthal said the nominee needs to make a statement “publicly and explicitly and directly.”