Nation and World briefs for March 2

Suspects charged with murder of Kim Jong Nam

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Their eyes red and heads bowed, two young women accused of smearing VX nerve agent on the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader were charged with murder Wednesday in a Malaysian court.

The women, who arrived in court protected by masked special forces carrying machine guns, are at the center of the bizarre killing of Kim Jong Nam on Feb. 13 at a busy Kuala Lumpur airport terminal. Many speculate the attack was orchestrated by North Korea, but it denies any role.

“I understand but I am not guilty,” Vietnamese suspect Doan Thi Huong told the court in English after the murder charge was read.

The other suspect, Indonesian Siti Aisyah, nodded as her translator told her, “You are accused of murdering a North Korean man at the departure hall” of the Kuala Lumpur airport.

The women did not enter pleas because the magistrate court where they appeared has no jurisdiction over a murder case. Lead prosecutor Iskander Ahmad told the court he will ask for the case to be transferred to a higher court and for the women to be tried together.

Each faces a mandatory death sentence if convicted.

Deadly storm in Midwest sounded like ‘explosion of glass’

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A deadly spring-like storm that one Illinois resident described as sounding like “an explosion of glass” damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes in that state and others, blew cars off a major Missouri highway and forced people in an Arkansas town to huddle for safety in a high school.

Tornadoes were blamed in three deaths amid a large swath of destruction through the central U.S. before rumbling eastward. Forecasters said up to 95 million people are potentially in the storm’s path as it moves toward the mid-Atlantic states and southern New England. Forecasters said cities including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., could be at risk.

Officials in Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Missouri were assessing damage after storms Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

In northern Illinois, an uprooted tree killed 76-year-old Wayne Tuntland of Ottawa. More than a dozen others were injured. In the small community of Naplate, next to Ottawa, about a quarter of the roughly 200 homes were damaged, Fire Chief John Nevins said.

Debbie Loughridge, 61, and her son were inside their Naplate home, riding out the storm in the bathtub. Firefighters rescued them after the roof was torn off.

Trump’s immigration mixed message draws skepticism

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump surprised congressional leaders when he suddenly suggested he was open to broad immigration reform. But while there is appetite on Capitol Hill for legislation, there is also skepticism, and the president’s hard-line rhetoric over the past two years could make a compromise bill much harder.

Trump signaled a potential shift on Tuesday in a private meeting with news anchors. He told them he was open to legislation that would give legal status to some people living in the U.S. illegally and provide a pathway to citizenship to those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Those private comments raised expectations that he might make a similar call in his prime-time address. Instead, Trump pledged to vigorously target people living in the U.S. illegally who “threaten our communities” and prey on “innocent citizens,” words similar to his campaign speeches.

The mixed messaging underscored the uncertainty about the president’s intentions, and drew a mixed reaction on Capitol Hill. While some in his party could welcome a new push for comprehensive immigration reform, it’s far from clear exactly what that might entail. Trump spent his campaign whipping his supporters into a frenzy on the issue, painting a picture of a nation overrun by violent people living here illegally, committing crimes and stealing American jobs.

That’s left many Democrats skeptical and Republicans on both sides of the issue appearing to hear what they want.

Fillon vows to stay in French presidential race

PARIS (AP) — The French presidential campaign lurched across another speed bump Wednesday as conservative candidate Francois Fillon defiantly vowed to stay in the race despite being notified he might face preliminary corruption charges in two weeks.

Fillon, a former prime minister and once the front-runner in France’s two-round April-May presidential election, announced that he was summoned to appear before judges March 15 for allegedly using taxpayers’ money to pay family members for jobs that might not have existed.

The right-wing Republicans party candidate denounced the summons, saying it amounted to a “political assassination.” Then he went further, saying France’s entire presidential election was being taken out by an over-eager judicial process that was bulldozing the campaign. He appealed to citizens to “resist” and judge for themselves.

France’s highest court bemoaned the “high-voltage atmosphere” in the political arena. In an unusual statement, the Court of Cassation said the judicial system needs neither support nor criticism because “judges follow their own rhythm in full independence … and are duty-bound not to engage in the electoral debate.”

Gene therapy lets a French teen dodge sickle cell disease

(AP) A French teen who was given gene therapy for sickle cell disease more than two years ago now has enough properly working red blood cells to dodge the effects of the disorder, researchers report.

The first-in-the-world case is detailed in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

About 90,000 people in the U.S., mostly blacks, have sickle cell, the first disease for which a molecular cause was found. Worldwide, about 275,000 babies are born with it each year.

“Vexing questions of race and stigma have shadowed the history of its medical treatment,” including a time when blacks who carry the bad gene were urged not to have children, spurring accusations of genocide, Keith Wailoo of Princeton University wrote in a separate article in the journal.

The disease is caused by a single typo in the DNA alphabet of the gene for hemoglobin, the stuff in red blood cells that carries oxygen. When it’s defective, the cells sickle into a crescent shape, clogging tiny blood vessels and causing bouts of extreme pain and sometimes more serious problems such as strokes and organ damage. It keeps many people from playing sports and enjoying other activities of normal life.

Why deporting undocumented immigrants could slow US economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — If President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on illegal immigration leads to large-scale deportations, among those hurt could be the U.S. economy.

That’s the view of many economists, who say the United States can’t afford to suddenly lose vast numbers of the immigrants who work illegally picking fruit and vegetables, building houses, busing tables, staffing meat-packing plants and cleaning hotel rooms.

Immigrants living illegally in the United States account for roughly 18 percent of employment in agriculture, 13 percent in construction and 10 percent at restaurants, hotels and casinos, according to a study done last year by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“The economic shock would cause widespread ramifications,” says Ben Gitis, director of labor market policy at the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank.

Addressing Congress on Tuesday night, Trump vowed to build “a great, great wall” to bar Mexican from entering the United States illegally. Even as he spoke, the president said, U.S. authorities were deporting the “bad ones.”

Trump idea to expand health care competition faces hurdles

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Allowing insurers to market health care policies across state lines is one of President Donald Trump’s main ideas for bringing down costs.

While supporters of the idea cast it as a way to make insurance policies more competitive, critics say it’s unlikely to result in more affordable plans and could undermine stronger consumer protections in states such as California and Hawaii. Such a “race to the bottom” could leave some older consumers with health problems unable to afford coverage.

And there’s another complication: Trump’s proposal appears unlikely to pass Congress unless Democrats cooperate. Congressional aides involved with health care legislation say the proposal to allow cross-state insurance sales would need 60 votes in the Senate.

In his speech to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump said the nation must turn to new ideas to help control costs.

“The time has come to give Americans the freedom to purchase health insurance across state lines,” the president said.