Obama heads to Europe amid British referendum’s aftershocks ADVERTISING Obama heads to Europe amid British referendum’s aftershocks WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama embarked Thursday on a five-day, two-country mission to buck up a beleaguered Europe and brush back an
Obama heads to Europe amid British referendum’s aftershocks
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama embarked Thursday on a five-day, two-country mission to buck up a beleaguered Europe and brush back an aggressive Moscow on what is expected to be his last presidential visit to the continent.
Obama departed mid-morning on his way to a summit of NATO allies in Warsaw, before moving on to Seville and Madrid for his first presidential visit to Spain. In both corners of the continent, he’ll be surrounded by leaders still reeling from Britain’s decision to pull out of the European Union and sorting through uncertainty about the future of the decades-old experiment in international cooperation.
The White House says Obama will arrive with words of reassurance that the departure — whenever it occurs — won’t disrupt the decades-old trans-Atlantic ties that bind. He’ll emphasize that Britain’s exit, which does not affect its membership in NATO, only makes the 28-member military alliance more essential and its cooperation with the European Union more important. And amid leaders’ anxiety about whether his possible successor, Republican Donald Trump, would retrench from Europe, Obama will make the case for stronger alliances and the benefits of globalization.
“He feels like all leaders in Europe and in the United States — including himself — have a responsibility in the face of all these challenges to the trans-Atlantic order that we’ve built to make the case on behalf of the values that the United States and Europe have stood for and the benefits to our countries,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser.
The president’s arrival early Friday will be his first chance to deliver that message in person, both to the European leaders tasked with smoothly navigating the tricky divorce and British Prime Minister David Cameron, whom Obama personally tried but failed to save from the wave of anti-European sentiment that fueled the vote.
UK to get 2nd female PM: May, Leadsom in Conservative runoff
LONDON (AP) — Britain is on course to get its second female prime minister, after Conservative lawmakers chose Home Secretary Theresa May and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom on Thursday to fight a runoff contest for leadership of the country’s governing party.
The race pits a stalwart of the center-right government — May — against a rising star of the party’s right. The winner will become the first woman to lead Britain since Margaret Thatcher, who governed from 1979 to 1990, transforming the country with her staunchly free-market policies.
May received 199 votes in a ballot of Conservative members of Parliament, while Leadsom received 84. Justice Secretary Michael Gove got 46 votes and was eliminated from the race.
Some 150,000 Conservative Party members will now vote by postal ballot on the two candidates, with the result announced Sept. 9.
The winner will replace Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced his resignation after Britain voted last month to leave the European Union.
‘Hot, wet and wild’ 2016 weather as US has warmest June
WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s warm, wild and costly weather broke another record with the hottest June, federal meteorologists say. And if that’s not enough, they calculated that 2016 is flirting with the U.S. record for most billion-dollar weather disasters.
The month’s average temperature in the Lower 48 states was 71.8 degrees, 3.3 degrees above normal, surpassing the Dust Bowl record set in 1933 by a couple tenths of a degree, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday. Every state in the nation was warmer than normal in June, with Utah and Arizona having their hottest Junes.
“2016 has been hot, wet and wild for the contiguous U.S.,” NOAA climate scientist Jake Crouch said Thursday.
The nation had its third hottest first half of the year. June’s record heat is from a combination of natural variability and long-term global warming, Crouch said. Records go back to 1895.
But there’s been a wet and wild aspect of the year, too. So far, NOAA calculates that there have been eight billion-dollar weather disasters in the first half of this year, not counting the West Virginia flooding, which is still being calculated. They’ve been a combination of severe storms with tornadoes and heavy rains and downpours that cause damaging flooding. Seven of those have hit Texas.
No double standard for Clinton, FBI director tells GOP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Under an onslaught of Republican criticism, FBI Director James Comey vigorously defended the government’s decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her private email setup, rejecting angry accusations that the Democratic presidential candidate was given special treatment.
To criminally charge Clinton based on the facts his agency’s yearlong probe had found would have been unwarranted and mere “celebrity hunting,” Comey told a congressional investigative committee Thursday.
In nearly five hours of testimony, he sought to explain the Justice Department’s decision ending an investigation that has dogged Clinton’s presidential campaign and raised fresh questions among voters about her trustworthiness.
Republicans’ hard, skeptical questioning made it clear that settling the legal issue will not end the matter as a political issue as Clinton campaigns against Republican Donald Trump, who scornfully refers to her as “Crooked Hillary.”
Republicans on the panel, voices sometimes raised in apparent frustration and irritation, said they were mystified by the decision not to prosecute because they felt that Comey, in a remarkably detailed and critical public statement on Tuesday, had laid out a sufficient basis for charges.
Judge: Cosby’s accuser doesn’t have to testify before trial
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A judge on Thursday denied Bill Cosby’s effort to compel the accuser in his criminal sex assault case to testify before trial, ruling the comedian shouldn’t get a new preliminary hearing.
Earlier, Cosby’s lawyers told the judge they needed to cross-examine accuser Andrea Constand before trial because her statement to police raised more questions than it answered.
The defense asked the trial judge, Steven T. O’Neill, to dismiss the case or schedule a new preliminary hearing.
The comedian’s lawyers said a lower court found probable cause this spring based solely on decade-old police statements, and they complained that defense lawyers had no way to challenge the allegations.
After Thursday’s ruling, Cosby lawyer Brian McMonagle said he was confident Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court will reverse the decision.
