Nation & World Glance
High court OKs Trump’s travel ban, rejects Muslim bias claim
WASHINGTON — 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.
Judge in Virginia lets case against Manafort move forward
WASHINGTON — 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 defense against tax and bank fraud charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.
It also hobbles a favored 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 cooperate. He and his lawyers have repeatedly seized on the fact that none of the charges relate to allegations of Russian election interference and possible coordination 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.
Shelter chief fears migrant reunions could take months
AUSTIN, Texas — The chief executive of the nation’s largest shelters for migrant children said Tuesday he fears a lack of urgency by the U.S. government could mean it will take months to reunite thousands of immigrant children with their parents.
Juan Sanchez of the nonprofit Southwest Key Programs said the government has no process in place to speed the return of more than 2,000 children separated from their parents as part of the Trump administration’s recent “zero-tolerance” crackdown on illegal immigration.
“It could take days,” Sanchez said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “Or it could take a month, two months, six or even nine. I just don’t know.”
The communications staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t reply to a request for information about how long the process would take. During Congressional testimony on Tuesday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar declined to be pinned down on how long it would take to reunite separated families. “We have to expeditiously get children out of our care,” he said.
Sanchez said Southwest Key is “ready today” to do what it takes to reunite children with parents who have been arrested for trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. But he said his group is limited in what it can do because many parents’ cases will likely have to make their way through the legal system before the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement can give the goahead to put families back together.
States sue to pressure Trump to reunite immigrant families
LOS ANGELES — 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, immigrationrights 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.
Dem heavyweight loses in NY as Trump picks win
NEW YORK — As Donald Trump’s party came together, a 28-year-old liberal activist ousted top House Democrat Joe Crowley in the president’s hometown Tuesday night, a stunning defeat that suddenly forced Democrats to confront their own internal divisions.
Crowley, the No. 4 House Democrat and until Tuesday considered a possible candidate to replace Nancy Pelosi as leader, becomes the first Democratic incumbent to lose this primary season. He was beaten by underfunded challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the daughter of working-class immigrants who caught fire with the party’s left wing. She worked briefly years ago as an aide to Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.
Crowley’s loss echoed across the political world, sending the unmistakable message that lingering divisions between the Democratic Party’s pragmatic and more liberal wings may be widening heading into the high-stakes November midterm elections. It also exposed a generational divide among Democrats still debating their identity in the Trump era.
“The community is ready for a movement of economic and social justice. That is what we tried to deliver,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Trump seemed thrilled with Crowley’s defeat.
Can dogs perform CPR? Madrid police would have you think so
MADRID — Can dogs perform CPR? Probably not, but a video posted by police in Madrid sure makes it seem so.
In a video posted on Facebook, Poncho the dog springs into action when his partner falls to the ground and pretends to be unresponsive. The dog’s actions mimic CPR.
The dog pounds up and down on the officer’s chest and pauses to place its ear on the officer’s neck. Poncho continues until the officer stands up.
Police write that Poncho “did not hesitate for an instant” to save a life.