Nation & World Glance
CHICAGO — A Brazilian mother and 9-year-old son separated at the U.S.-Mexico border were together again Thursday after a federal judge in Chicago ordered the U.S. government to release the boy, in one of the first examples of an urgent petition for court intervention successfully reuniting parent and child.
Facing reporters together just hours after the reunion, Lidia Karine Souza and her son, Diogo, wrapped their arms around each other. Diogo frequently looked up at his mom and smiled.
Asked if she had a message for President Donald Trump about her ordeal and his zero-tolerance policy that separated hundreds of children from their parents, the mother responded through a translator, “Don’t do this to the children.”
Under Trump’s policy, the government has begun prosecuting all migrants caught entering the country without authorization. Trump has halted his policy of taking children from their detained parents under public pressure but around 2,000 of them are still being held, with many families saying they’ve not known how to locate them.
Jesse Bless, an attorney for Souza and her son who stood with them at their news conference, described the ruling by U.S. District Judge Manish Shah as unique, adding he hoped it would “open the door” for others to do the same and help hasten a resolution to the crisis.
EU leaders claim breakthrough deal on migrants
BRUSSELS — European Union leaders claimed a breakthrough deal Friday on how to deal with the pressures of migration after allnight talks helped accommodate Italian demands for more help.
The EU leaders said the agreement would bolster the bloc’s external borders and improve the solidarity among member nations to ease pressure on point-ofentry nations like Greece and Italy.
The plan proposes screening migrants in North Africa for asylum eligibility and setting up control centers within the bloc by nations which would volunteer to have them.
Beyond demands from Italy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also faced intense domestic pressure to find a breakthrough to stave off a government crisis at home.
“We got a European solution and a work of cooperation,” said French President Emmanuel Macron.
House Republicans grill FBI, Justice leaders on Russia probe
WASHINGTON — Republicans accused top federal law enforcement officials Thursday of withholding documents from them and demanded details about surveillance tactics during the Russia investigation in a contentious congressional hearing that capped days of mounting partisan complaints.
Underscoring their frustration, Republicans briefly put the hearing on hold so they could approve a resolution on the House floor demanding that the Justice Department turn over thousands of documents by next week.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing marked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s first appearance before Congress since an internal DOJ report criticizing the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation revealed new disparaging text messages among FBI officials about Donald Trump during the 2016 election. FBI Director Christopher Wray also appeared at Thursday’s hearing.
Republicans on the panel seized on the watchdog report to allege bias by the FBI and to discredit an investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign that is now led by special counsel Robert Mueller. They suggested the Justice Department had conspired against Trump by refusing to produce documents they believe would show improper FBI conduct.
“This country is being hurt by it. We are being divided,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, said of Mueller’s investigation. Gowdy led a separate two-year investigation into the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and Clinton’s role in those attacks as secretary of state.
VP Pence tells Central America to do more to stop migrants
GUATEMALA CITY — U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told the leaders of three Central American nations Thursday that they must do more to stop the flow of migrants who enter the United States illegally.
He made the comments to the presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where economic struggles and violent crime have pushed many people to try to sneak into the U.S. in hopes of finding better lives.
“This exodus must end,” Pence said. “It is a threat to the security to the United States, and just as we respect your borders and your sovereignty, we insist that you respect ours.”
He said the Trump administration “will always welcome” immigrants who follow the rules in getting permission to enter the U.S.
“In the last year alone, we welcomed more than 1.1 million legal immigrants into our country and our communities, including nearly 50,000 legal immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador last year,” he said.
Robot with artificial intelligence about to invade space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A robot with true artificial intelligence is about to invade space.
The large, round, plastic robot head is part of SpaceX’s latest supply delivery to the International Space Station.
Friday’s pre-dawn liftoff also includes two sets of genetically identical female mice, 20 mousestronauts that will pick up where NASA’s identical twin brother astronauts left off a few years ago. Super-caffeinated coffee is also flying up for the space station’s javacraving crew.
As intriguing as identical space siblings and turbocharged space coffee may be, it’s the German robot — named Cimon, pronounced Simon, after a genius doctor in science fiction’s “Captain Future” — that’s stealing the show.
Don’t worry about AI running amok on the space station. Cimon’s human handlers promise the first AI space bot will behave.