Nation & World Glance
MADISON, Wis. — The incoming Democratic governor of Wisconsin said Wednesday that he plans to make a personal appeal to his defeated rival, Gov. Scott Walker, to veto farreaching GOP legislation that would strip the new administration of some powers. If that doesn’t work, he might sue.
Wisconsin Republicans pushed through protests, internal disagreement and Democratic opposition to pass the bills after an allnight session. The measures would shift power to the GOP-controlled Legislature and weaken the authority of the office Republicans will lose in January.
“The will of the people has officially been ignored by the Legislature,” Gov.elect Tony Evers said, adding that the lawmakers’ actions “take us back to Nov. 6,” before the election was finalized.
“Wisconsin should be embarrassed by this,” Evers said.
He said he will talk to Walker as soon as the bills reach his desk and that if he cannot persuade the governor to veto the proposals, he will consider lawsuits and any other option “to make sure that this legislation does not get into practice.”
TORONTO — Canadian authorities said Wednesday that they have arrested the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies for possible extradition to the United States.
Justice Department spokesman Ian McLeod said Meng Wanzhou was detained in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday.
McLeod said a publication ban had been imposed in the case and he could not provide further details. The ban was sought by Meng, who has a bail hearing Friday, he said.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese tech giant Huawei violated sanctions on Iran.
Internal Facebook documents released by a U.K. parliamentary committee offer the clearest evidence yet that the social network has used its enormous trove of user data as a competitive weapon, often in ways designed to keep its users in the dark.
Parliament’s media committee accused Facebook on Wednesday of cutting special deals with some app developers to give them more access to data, while icing out others that it viewed as potential rivals.
In other documents, company executives discussed how they were keeping the company’s collection and exploitation of user data from its users. That included quietly collecting the call records and text messages of users of phones that run on Google’s Android operating system without asking their permission. The U.K. committee released more than 200 pages of documents on the tech giant’s internal discussions about the value of users’ personal information. While they mostly cover the period between 2012 and 2015 —the first three years after Facebook went public — they offer a rare glimpse into the company’s inner workings and the extent to which it used people’s data to make money while publicly vowing to protect their privacy.
The company’s critics said the new revelations reinforced their concerns over what users actually know about how Facebook treats their data.
2 US warplanes crash off Japan; 1 rescued, 6 missing
TOKYO — A Marine refueling plane and a fighter jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Japan’s southwestern coast after a midair collision early Thursday, and rescuers found one of the seven crew members in stable condition while searching for the others, officials said.
The U.S. Marine Corps said that the 2 a.m. crash involved an F/A-18 fighter jet and a KC-130 refueling aircraft during regular training after the planes took off from their base in Iwakuni, near Hiroshima in western Japan.
The crash took place 200 miles off the coast.
Japan’s Defense Ministry said the aircraft carrying seven crew members in total collided and crashed into the sea south of the Muroto Cape on Shikoku island in southwestern Japan.
The Maritime Self-Defense Force, which dispatched aircraft and vessels to join in the search operation, said Japanese rescuers found one of the crew members in stable condition. The Marine Corps said the rescued crew was taken to a hospital at its base in Iwakuni and was being treated, but did not provide any other details.
Border Patrol agent charged with capital murder in Texas
DALLAS — A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been charged with capital murder after telling investigators he killed four sex workers whom he considered worthless and that he thought he was performing a service for his Texas border hometown, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz said he will seek the death penalty if Juan David Ortiz is found guilty in the September slayings.
“The scheme in this case, from Ortiz’s own words, was to clean up the streets of Laredo by targeting this community of individuals who he perceived to be disposable, that no one would miss and that he did not give value to,” Alaniz said at a news conference. Ortiz, 35, thought he was doing his civic service by killing the women, the prosecutor said.
A suspect can be charged with capital murder if he is suspected in more than one killing in the same scheme with an overarching motive, Alaniz said. Three of the women were shot to death and one died of blunt force trauma. “The evidence that was presented to the grand jury this morning showed that he killed these four innocent individuals in a cold, callous and calculating way,” he said.
Residents return to California town leveled by wildfire
PARADISE, Calif. — Joyce and Jerry McLean sifted through twisted metal and broken glass Wednesday on the property where their mobile home once stood, hoping to find precious family possessions that might have survived the devastating California wildfire that leveled Paradise.
They were among hundreds of residents who were finally allowed back into neighborhoods on the east side of town a month after the blaze killed at least 85 people and destroyed about 14,000 homes.
The couple, wearing white hazmat suits and leather gloves, searched for his gold wedding band, a Bible that belonged to his great-grandmother and Christmas ornaments their son made when he was a boy.
“We didn’t own expensive things, but we had a lot of memory things,” said Joyce McLean, 73. “If I can find a little piece of his family or just a little piece of my son, I would be happy.”
Earlier in the day, a long line of cars waited in a cold drizzle at a checkpoint to enter areas where evacuation orders had been lifted for an area where 4,700 people once lived.
Expectations low as Yemen’s warring parties meet for talks
CAIRO — Yemen’s warring parties will meet in Sweden this week for another attempt at talks aimed at halting their catastrophic 3-year-old war, but there are few incentives for major compromises, and the focus is likely to be on firming up a shaky de-escalation.
U.N. officials say they don’t expect rapid progress toward a political settlement but hope for at least minor steps that would help to address Yemen’s worsening humanitarian crisis.
Both the internationallyrecognized government, which is backed by a U.S.sponsored and Saudi-led coalition, and the Iranaligned Houthi rebels say they are striving for peace. A Houthi delegation arrived in Stockholm late Tuesday, accompanied by U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths. The government delegation and the head of the rebel delegation were heading to Sweden on Wednesday.
Dutch court rejects man’s request to be 20 years younger
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch motivational speaker Emile Ratelband may feel like a 49-year-old, but according to Dutch law he is still 69.
A Dutch court on Monday rejected Ratelband’s request to shave 20 years off his age in a case that drew worldwide attention.
“Mr. Ratelband is at liberty to feel 20 years younger than his real age and to act accordingly,” Arnhem court said in a press statement. “But amending his date of birth would cause 20 years of records to vanish from the register of births, deaths, marriages and registered partnerships. This would have a variety of undesirable legal and societal implications.”
Ratelband went to court last month, arguing that he didn’t feel 69 and saying his request was consistent with other forms of personal transformation which are gaining acceptance in the Netherlands and around the world, such as the ability to change one’s name or gender. The court rejected that argument, saying that unlike in the case of a name or gender, Dutch law assigns rights and obligations based on age “such as the right to vote and the duty to attend school. If Mr. Ratelband’s request was allowed, those age requirements would become meaningless.”