Clinton tears into Trump on taxes; he says he’ll save nation
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Hillary Clinton tore into Donald Trump’s tax maneuvering, business skills and trustworthiness Monday as she sought to capitalize on news that the New York real estate mogul may have paid no federal taxes for years. Unfazed, he boasted of using U.S. tax laws “brilliantly” and cast himself as a savvy business survivor poised to save a reeling nation.
Campaigning at a Toledo train station, Clinton castigated Trump as a cold-hearted and bungling businessman who “represents the same rigged system that he claims he’s going to change.” She called for a new law requiring presidential candidates from major parties to release their tax returns, as Trump has refused to do, and she accused him of shirking his responsibility as a taxpayer.
“He’s taken corporate excess and made a business model out of it,” she said. “It’s Trump first and everyone else last.”
The Democrat’s broadside was her first response to a weekend New York Times report that Trump claimed a loss of nearly $916 million in a single year on his personal tax filings. The Times said the size of the loss could have allowed him to avoid federal taxes for nearly two decades, an assertion his campaign neither confirmed nor disputed.
Nor did Trump.
Hurricane Matthew drenches Haiti, threatens catastrophe
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The outer bands of powerful Hurricane Matthew drenched Haiti on Monday, flooding streets and sending people scrambling to emergency shelters as the Category 4 storm threatened to hit the hemisphere’s poorest nation overnight with life-threatening winds, rains and storm surge.
Matthew had sustained winds of 140 mph (220 kph) Monday evening, up from 130 mph (210 kph) earlier in the day. Its center was expected to pass near or over the southwestern tip of impoverished Haiti on Tuesday morning before heading to eastern Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
“We are looking at a dangerous hurricane that is heading into the vicinity of western Haiti and eastern Cuba,” said Richard Pasch, a senior hurricane specialist with the center. “People who are impacted by things like flooding and mudslides hopefully would get out and relocate because that’s where we have seen loss of life in the past.”
In the Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre, officials urged shantytown residents living next to a muddy river to take shelter at a local school where cots were set up. While some went, many refused fearing their few possessions might be stolen.
“If we lose our things we are not going to get them back!” Toussaint Laine said as police and officials from the mayor’s office urged the jobless man and his family to evacuate.
Trump angers with suggestion that vets with PTSD are weak
HERNDON, Virginia (AP) — Donald Trump is drawing scorn from veterans’ groups after he suggested that soldiers who suffer from mental health issues might not be as strong as those who don’t.
Trump was speaking at an event organized by the Retired American Warriors political action committee Monday when he was asked about his commitment to faith-based programs aimed at preventing suicides and helping soldiers suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and other issues.
“When you talk about the mental health problems — when people come back from war and combat, and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over, and you’re strong and you can handle it. But a lot of people can’t handle it,” he said.
“And they see horror stories. They see events that you couldn’t see in a movie, nobody would believe it,” he added.
The comment drew condemnation from critics as well as veterans’ groups that have been working for years to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues in an effort to encourage soldiers to seek treatment.
Family of black man shot 14 times by police wants charges
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The family of a man killed in July by Sacramento police after 911 callers reported he was waving a knife and acting erratically demanded Monday that two officers face murder charges after dash-cam video revealed they talked inside their police cruiser about running him down. He dodged the cruiser twice and was shot 14 times less than a minute later by the same two officers.
The officers “behaved like big game hunters closing in on an animal,” said John Burris, a lawyer for the family of Joseph Mann, who was mentally unstable and homeless.
The demand for the murder charges came as Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck defended his officers in the fatal shootings of a black man Saturday who police say was armed with a loaded semi-automatic gun and a Hispanic man on Sunday who officers say was wielding replica handgun.
The latest police shootings happened amid heightened tensions over police actions involving black people and other minorities across the country, and followed two more fatal encounters between California police and black men last week in San Diego and Pasadena.
In the Sacramento case, police have said Mann was waving a knife in the air and doing karate moves in the streets just before police responded. But Burris told reporters he was not threatening anybody and that the two officers who shot him, John Tennis and Randy Lozoya, should face a U.S. Justice Department civil rights investigation in addition to murder charges.
Obama, DiCaprio team up against climate change
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is teaming up with actor Leonardo DiCaprio to push for action on climate change.
The two appeared together Monday on the White House South Lawn as part of a festival of technology and music meant to re-create the spirit of the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
Obama says the world is in “a race against time” to combat climate change.
The president says the good news is that “there’s still time to pass the test” and make real progress on the issue.
DeCaprio told the White House crowd that the scientific consensus about the dangers of climate change is in, and “the argument is now over.”
