Defense, foreign ministers to plan next steps against IS
Defense, foreign ministers to plan next steps against IS
JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (AP) — Defense leaders at a counter-Islamic State meeting expressed concerns about what happens after the expected defeat of the militant group, and whether countries are ready to help stabilize and rebuild the war-torn cities, particularly in Iraq, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday.
Carter also said that some nations have agreed to step up their contributions to the fight, as battles for the key cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria loom.
Defense and foreign leaders from more than 30 countries are in Washington for two days of meetings on the next steps to be taken in the fight to defeat the Islamic State group, which still maintains control of large sections of Iraq and Syria.
Speaking to reporters after the first day’s session wrapped up at Joint Base Andrews, Carter said a lot of the conversations were about identifying the needs for reconstruction after the battles are over.
“The biggest strategic concern of this group of defense ministers was that the stabilization and governance effort will lag behind the military campaign,” Carter said. “Making sure there’s no such lag must be a significant strategic priority for us. We discussed it today and it will be an important focus of our conversation tomorrow at the State Department with our foreign ministry counterparts.”
Cruz backers chant ‘2020’ as 2nd White House bid possible
CLEVELAND (AP) — To chants of “2020, 2020,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday left open the possibility of a second White House run even as Donald Trump arrived in Cleveland to accept the GOP presidential nomination.
“I don’t know what the future is going to hold. I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Cruz told his rowdy supporters, many of them cheering another bid. “But what I do know what remains unshakable is my faith in the men and women here.”
The freshman lawmaker with Texas-size political ambitions has stopped short of a full-throated endorsement of Trump, his bitter primary rival who often mocked him as “Lyin’ Ted.” Cruz was slated to deliver a prime-time convention speech, but no endorsement was expected.
At a rally with some 900 delegates, donors, GOP officials and supporters at a lakeside restaurant, Cruz never mentioned Trump’s name during an appearance billed as a “thank you” event for supporters.
“Our party now has a nominee,” Cruz said Wednesday, just as Trump’s plane flew overhead. The senator laughed and said wryly: “That was pretty well-orchestrated.”
Turkey declares 3-month state of emergency after failed coup
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s president on Wednesday declared a three-month state of emergency following a botched coup attempt, declaring he would rid the military of the “virus” of subversion and giving the government sweeping powers to expand a crackdown that has already included mass arrests and the closure of hundreds of schools.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was accused of autocratic conduct before the insurrection, said the measure would counter threats to Turkish democracy. Possibly anticipating investor jitters, Erdogan criticized Standard & Poor’s for downgrading its credit rating for Turkey deeper into “junk” status and said the country would remain financially disciplined.
The president did not announce details, but the security measure could facilitate longer detentions for many of the nearly 10,000 people who have been rounded up since loyalist security forces and protesters quashed the rebellion that started Friday night and was over by Saturday.
“This measure is in no way against democracy, the law and freedoms,” Erdogan said in a national televised address after a meeting with Cabinet ministers and security advisers.
The state of emergency announcement needs to be published in a state gazette and lawmakers have to approve it for it to take effect, according to analysts.
In Cleveland, sea of white reflects GOP’s math problem
CLEVELAND — After Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, Republican Party heavyweights uniformly agreed that white voters alone do not hold the keys to winning the White House.
Yet in 2016, another overwhelmingly white gathering of Republican convention delegates — the makeup clear on television images or a walk through the Quicken Loans Arena floor — has nominated an all-white male ticket: businessman Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
Trump leaned almost exclusively on white voters to win the nomination and, in the process, alienated swaths of minorities with his push for a border wall to stop illegal immigration, calls for a “deportation force” and proposals to ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the country.
“He offended so many people,” said Texas GOP delegate Adryana Boyne, who is Latina. “I think he needs to apologize and he hasn’t.”
At the ballot box, simple math is at play as the country becomes less white with each presidential cycle. The more Trump struggles with non-whites, the more pressure there is for him to reach levels of white support no candidate has managed since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide.
Appeals court: Texas voter ID law discriminates; orders fix
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ strict voter ID law discriminates against minorities and the poor and must quickly be scrubbed of those effects before the November election, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling was a striking election-year victory for the administration of President Barack Obama, which had taken the unusual step of bringing the U.S. Justice Department into Texas to help fight the case. It’s also a blow to Republican lawmakers whose 2011 law had been enforced in three prior statewide elections.
Voters will still need to show identification at the polls under the decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to attorneys who challenged the law, but a lower court will now also have to devise a way for Texas to accommodate those who cannot.
The 9-6 decision agreed with a lower court ruling that Texas had violated the federal Voting Rights Act. Elections experts in the long-running legal fight have testified that Hispanics were twice as likely and blacks three times more likely than whites to lack an acceptable ID under the law. They also said lower-income Texas residents were more likely to lack underlying documents to obtain a free state voting ID.
“The law is still in place but it can’t be enforced as is,” said Gerry Hebert, a Washington-based attorney who helped challenge the law in court. “It has to be changed. There has to be some relief afforded.”