Lawmakers, activists call for release of Seattle ‘dreamer’
Lawmakers, activists call for release of Seattle ‘dreamer’
SEATTLE (AP) — Immigration activists and some U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday called for the immediate release of a Seattle-area man who was detained last week despite his participation in a federal program to protect those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
Lawyers for Daniel Ramirez Medina, 23, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him last Friday morning when they went to his father’s house in Seattle to arrest the father.
Ramirez, who is Mexican, twice passed background checks as part of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, most recently for a two-year renewal issued last May, his lawyers said in court documents.
ICE has said Ramirez admitted to the agents that he was a gang member and was arrested as a threat to public safety. But his lawyers and sympathetic lawmakers insisted Wednesday has no criminal record, held down a job and is the father of a young child who is a U.S. citizen.
“Immigration authorities have no reason and no right to hold someone who has been granted deferred action, holds a valid work permit, and is an asset to his family and his community,” said U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois, in a statement. “Just let him go.”
Trump’s secretary of state on the spot on 1st foreign trip
BONN, Germany (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has his work cut out for him.
On his first overseas trip as America’s top diplomat this week, Tillerson will face a blizzard of questions about the Trump administration’s foreign policy from nervous Asian and European allies. And there will be penetrating inquiries from America’s watchful rivals like Russia and China, who will be eager to seize on miscues or gaffes for their own advantage.
Tillerson arrived in Germany late Wednesday for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Group of 20 nations. He will be playing defense amid the chaos and turmoil caused by the firing of national security adviser Michael Flynn for misleading officials about his contacts with Russia.
In Bonn, the Cold War capital of the former West Germany, Tillerson will come face-to-face on Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a seasoned and wily diplomat who sparred, often successfully, with past U.S. secretaries of state.
President Donald Trump chose Tillerson for the job in part because of his business experience and relationship with Russia while he was CEO of oil giant Exxon Mobil. His meeting with Lavrov will be a first test of whether that business acumen — which led to great profits for Exxon and Russian President Vladimir Putin bestowing a friendship award upon him — can translate into success in a high-stakes diplomatic arena.
Pentagon boss to NATO nations: Increase military spending
BRUSSELS (AP) — In an ultimatum to America’s allies, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told fellow NATO members Wednesday to increase military spending by year’s end or risk seeing the U.S. curtail its defense support — a stark threat given Europe’s deep unease already over U.S.-Russian relations.
Echoing President Donald Trump’s demands for NATO countries to assume greater self-defense responsibility, Mattis said Washington will “moderate its commitment” to the alliance if countries fail to fall in line. He didn’t offer details, but the pressure is sure to be felt, particularly by governments in Europe’s eastern reaches that feel threatened by Russian expansionism.
Trump’s Russia policy remains a mystery for many of America’s closest international partners. As a candidate, the Republican president steered clear of criticizing Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he wanted a new era of cooperation between the former Cold War foes.
But that possibility grew murkier this week as Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, over the retired Army lieutenant general’s communications with Russia before Trump took office. The departure of Flynn, who also promoted the idea of working with Moscow, has added to speculation about how the U.S.-Russian relationship might evolve.
Amid the uncertainty from Washington, the Kremlin may be testing the West’s resolve. A U.S. defense official said this week that Russia has deployed a cruise missile in violation of a Cold War-era nuclear arms control treaty. And violence has sporadically re-ignited in eastern Ukraine, where the U.S. and its partners say Moscow continues to back a separatist insurgency.
30 days, 2 bills passed: Nebraska session marred by gridlock
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers like to ridicule Washington for its gridlock and partisan bickering, insisting that East Coast politicians should learn the “Nebraska way” of seeking pragmatic, common-sense solutions.
But despite having only a single, nonpartisan chamber, state senators have become so engrossed in an argument about debate rules that they have passed just two bills in a month, and there’s no compromise in sight.
The deliberations in Lincoln are part of an effort to make it easier to overcome filibusters. All the talk has eaten up more than a third of the 90-day legislative session that began in January.
“This can’t be Groundhog Day tomorrow,” Speaker Jim Scheer said Wednesday as he implored lawmakers to work together. “We can’t come with the same attitudes, the same misgivings, the same mistrust. We have to change ourselves.”
If senators don’t change course, the session could go down as one of the least productive in state history. Last year, senators had passed 26 bills by this point. In the 2015 session, they had approved nine measures. And in 2014, they adopted 18 proposals.
Police: 2 bodies found in Indiana are missing girls
DELPHI, Ind. (AP) — Two bodies found along a northern Indiana stream are those of two teenage girls who went missing Monday and their deaths are being investigated as homicides, authorities said on Wednesday.
State Police Sgt. Kim Riley said autopsies performed Wednesday determined that the bodies are those of Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, both of Delphi.
Their bodies were found Tuesday afternoon along Deer Creek near Delphi, about 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis. Police said the girls’ bodies were about three-quarters of a mile from an abandoned railroad bridge where they were dropped off Monday to go hiking.
Riley said an FBI team remains at the crime scene collecting evidence.
Riley said authorities are not yet releasing the girls’ cause or manner of deaths, citing the ongoing double homicide investigation.