Nation and World briefs for January 25

Water lead-level falls below federal limit in Flint

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Flint’s water system no longer has levels of lead exceeding the federal limit, a key finding that Michigan environmental officials said Tuesday was good news for a city whose 100,000 residents have been grappling with the man-made water crisis.

The 90th percentile of lead concentrations in Flint was 12 parts per billion from July through December, below the “action level” of 15 ppb, according to a letter from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to Flint’s mayor. It was 20 ppb in the prior six-month period.

Based on the sample of 368 residential sites, Flint’s lead levels are again comparable to other similarly sized U.S. cities with older infrastructure, state officials said.

“This is good news and the result of many partners on the local, county, state and federal levels working together to restore the water quality in the City of Flint,” the department’s director, Heidi Grether, said in a statement. “The Flint water system is one of the most monitored systems in the country for lead and copper, and that commitment will remain to ensure residents continue to have access to clean water.”

Residents, whose mistrust in government remains high nearly three years after a fateful switch of Flint’s water source in April 2014 while the city was under state management, are being told to continue using faucet filters or bottled water because an ongoing mass replacement of pipes could spike lead levels in individual houses. The replacement of the lines is expected to take years.

Trump dogged by insecurity over popular vote, media coverage

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump holds the most powerful office in the world. But he’s dogged by insecurity over his loss of the popular vote in the election and a persistent frustration that the legitimacy of his presidency is being challenged by Democrats and the media, aides and associates say.

Trump’s fixation has been a drag on the momentum of his opening days in office, with his exaggerations about inauguration crowds and false assertions about illegal balloting intruding on advisers’ plans to launch his presidency with a flurry of actions on the economy. His spokesman Sean Spicer has twice stepped into the fray himself, including on Tuesday, when he doubled down on Trump’s false claim that he lost the popular vote because 3 million to 5 million people living in the U.S. illegally cast ballots.

“He believes what he believes based on the information he was provided,” said Spicer, who provided no evidence to back up the president’s statements. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have finalized their election results with no reports of the kind of widespread fraud that Trump is alleging.

If the president’s claim were true it would mark the most significant election fraud in U.S. history — and ironically, would raise the same questions about Trump’s legitimacy that he’s trying to avoid. Yet Spicer repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether the Trump administration would investigate the allegations pushed by the president.

“Anything is possible,” he said.

UK government loses Brexit case, must consult Parliament

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government warned lawmakers not to try to “thwart the will of the people” after the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Prime Minister Theresa May must seek the approval of Parliament before starting the formal process of leaving the European Union.

The 8-3 decision forces the government to put a bill before Parliament, giving members of the House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords the chance to debate and potentially offer amendments that could soften the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU, known as Brexit.

While the government insisted its timetable of starting the talks by the end of March remained on track, some analysts warned that a defeat in the House of Lords, where May does not have a majority, could delay the process by a year or more.

“Parliament will rightly scrutinize and debate this legislation,” David Davis, the government’s Brexit secretary, told the House of Commons after the ruling. “But I trust no one will seek to make it a vehicle for attempts to thwart the will of the people, or frustrate or delay the process of our exit from the European Union.”

While the ruling won’t scuttle Britain’s departure, mandated by voters in a June 23 referendum, it once again highlights the uncertainties in negotiating the country’s future relationship with the bloc of 500 million people, which is central to trade, immigration and security. The pound has fallen about 20 percent against the dollar since the vote on concern about slower economic growth and reduced investment.

‘1984’ sales soar after ‘alternative facts,’ Trump claims

NEW YORK (AP) — In the wake of incorrect or unprovable statements made by President Donald Trump and some White House aides, one truth is undeniable: Sales are soaring for George Orwell’s “1984.”

Orwell’s classic dystopian tale of a society in which facts are distorted and suppressed in a cloud of “newspeak” was in the top 5 on Amazon.com as of midday Tuesday. The sales bump comes after the administration’s assertions that Trump’s inaugural had record attendance and Trump’s unfounded allegation that millions of illegal votes were cast against him last fall.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway coined an instant catchphrase Sunday when she called Trump’s claims about crowd size “alternative facts,” bringing comparisons by some on social media to “1984.” Orwell’s book has long been standard classroom reading.

Trump health pick gives Dems few details on health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s selection to become health secretary told a Senate committee Tuesday that the new administration believes people with existing illnesses should not be denied health insurance, but committed to no details on that or any aspects of how Republicans will reshape President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., who would be at the center of GOP efforts to scuttle Obama’s statute and create new programs, frustrated Democrats probing for details of what Republicans will do. Instead, he repeatedly told them that the GOP goal is making health care affordable and “accessible for every single American” and to provide choices.

At a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Price’s nomination, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told him the upcoming Republican drive to scrap Obama’s overhaul will garner no Democratic votes and warned: “What we have after the repeal is Trump care.”

Democrats also condemned Price, a 12-year House veteran, for purchasing stocks in health care companies that could benefit from legislation he pushed. Top panel Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon called that “a conflict of interest and an abuse of his position.”

Price, an orthopedic surgeon, told Wyden: “The reality is everything I did was ethical, above board, legal and transparent.”

Trump expands anti-abortion ban to all US global health aid

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump has massively expanded the ban on providing federal money to international groups that perform abortions, or provide abortion information, to all organizations receiving U.S. global health assistance.

Trump’s memorandum reinstituting the policy directs top U.S. officials for the first time to extend the anti-abortion requirements “to global health assistance furnished by all departments or agencies.”

Suzanne Ehlers is president of Population Action International, which lobbies for women’s reproductive health. She told The Associated Press on Tuesday that groups in 60 countries receiving $9 billion in health assistance are now covered by the ban.

She said Americans should be “outraged” at what she called an attempt “to cut off life-saving basic health services to the poorest women anywhere in the world.”

In a new Gambia, the prison doors begin to swing open

BANJUL, Gambia (AP) — Gambian soldiers picked up Tijan Barrow, beat him with their guns and threw him into a cell at the notorious National Intelligence Agency prison. His alleged crime: Creating and selling T-shirts for the opposition.

In the final days of his crumbling rule, defeated leader Yahya Jammeh turned again to the tactics that human rights groups had long accused his government of using against opponents during his more than 22 years in power.

Now, after Jammeh’s weekend flight into exile, the country’s prison doors are starting to swing open.

On Saturday, as Jammeh departed and a new democratic era began in this tiny West African country, Tijan and a number of others were released. Officials with the incoming government vow that more will follow.

“All political detainees without trial to be released immediately,” the spokesman for the coalition backing new President Adama Barrow, Halifa Sallah, announced Tuesday. He did not say how many people might be freed, but he encouraged victims’ families to come forward.