Nation and World briefs for April 27

Trump plan would cut taxes for companies — and people, too

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump proposed dramatic cuts in corporate and personal taxes Wednesday in an overhaul his administration asserts will spur national economic growth and bring jobs and prosperity to America’s middle class. But his ambitious plan is alarming lawmakers who worry it will balloon federal deficits.

The plan would reduce investment and estate taxes, helping the wealthy. But administration officials said several other tax breaks that help well-to-do taxpayers would be eliminated and the plan would largely help the middle class.

The White House has yet to spell out how much of a hole the tax cuts could create in the federal budget, maintaining that the resulting economic growth would eliminate the risk of a soaring government deficit— if not actually cause the red ink to diminish.

The outlined changes to the tax code are the most concrete guidance so far on Trump’s vision for spurring job growth and fulfilling his promise to help workers who have been left behind by an increasingly globalized economy.

“He understands that there are a lot people who work hard and feel like they’re not getting ahead,” said Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council. “I would never, ever bet against this president. He will get this done for the American people.”

Neanderthals in California? Maybe so, provocative study says

NEW YORK (AP) — A startling new report asserts that the first known Americans arrived much, much earlier than scientists thought — more than 100,000 years ago __ and maybe they were Neanderthals.

If true, the finding would far surpass the widely accepted date of about 15,000 years ago.

Researchers say a site in Southern California shows evidence of humanlike behavior from about 130,000 years ago, when bones and teeth of an elephantlike mastodon were evidently smashed with rocks.

The earlier date means the bone-smashers were not necessarily members of our own species, Homo sapiens. The researchers speculate that these early Californians could have instead been species known only from fossils in Europe, Africa and Asia: Neanderthals, a little-known group called Denisovans, or another human forerunner named Homo erectus.

“The very honest answer is, we don’t know,” said Steven Holen, lead author of the paper and director of the nonprofit Center for American Paleolithic Research in Hot Springs, South Dakota. No remains of any individuals were found.

Venezuelan forces use tear gas to block latest protest march

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Thousands of protesters marched again in Venezuela’s capital Wednesday, with the rejuvenated anti-government movement showing no sign of letting up on political unrest that has been blamed for 29 deaths in recent weeks.

The mass of demonstrators paraded through downtown Caracas in an attempt to deliver a message to the national ombudsman, whose job is to stand up for citizens’ rights but who the opposition has tagged the “defender of the dictator.” The march was stopped before reaching his office as state security forces unleashed tear gas on protesters on the city’s main highway.

“The repression is very strong,” Luis Florido, an opposition lawmaker, said as he dodged plumes of tear gas.

In the latest tally of deaths, opposition leaders said Juan Pablo Pernalete Llovera, 20, was killed after being struck in the head by a tear gas canister in Caracas. Two other deaths were reported Wednesday: Efrain Sierra, 28, who died from a gunshot in the stomach during a protest in Tachira, and Christian Humberto Ochoa Soriano, 22, killed during a demonstration Monday in Valencia, east of Caracas.

The protest came as Venezuela’s socialist government threatened to pull out of the Organization of American States over criticism of the administration’s handling of its political opponents.

Mnuchin: Trump has ‘no intention’ of releasing tax returns

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump “has no intention” of releasing his tax returns to the public, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Wednesday, asserting Americans have “plenty of information” about the president’s financial matters.

For decades, presidents have released their tax returns. But Trump has so far refused, saying that he would share the tax documents only after the Internal Revenue Service completes an “audit” of them.

He’s never disclosed proof of an audit and tax lawyers say there’s nothing preventing him from releasing his returns if he’s under one.

Trump said before he launched his campaign that he’d release them if he ever ran for office.

“If I decide to run for office, I’ll produce my tax returns, absolutely,” he told an Irish television station in 2014. “And I would love to do that.”

Dispute over health payments defused, spending bill on track

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and congressional Democrats on Wednesday defused a tense standoff over payments for the working poor under the health care law, keeping a massive government spending bill on track just days ahead of a shutdown deadline.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday backed away from a threat to immediately withhold payments to help people with modest incomes with out-of-pocket medical expenses under Democrat Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The dispute with Democrats, especially House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, threatened to hold up the $1 trillion-plus spending bill. A temporary funding bill expires Friday at midnight, and GOP leaders readied plans to pass another short-term spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend — Trump’s 100th day in office.

The weeks-long sniping over the health care issue had snagged the talks, which have progressed steadily for weeks and gained momentum earlier this week after Trump dropped demands for immediate money for building his long-promised border wall.

“Our major concerns in these negotiations have been about funding for the wall and uncertainty about the … payments crucial to the stability of the marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi said in a statement. “We’ve now made progress on both of these fronts.”

Le Pen upstages Macron in battle for blue-collar votes

AMIENS, France (AP) — Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen turned an appliance factory into a battleground Wednesday for France’s blue-collar vote, upstaging rival Emmanuel Macron with a surprise campaign stop at the plant threatened with closure.

Chaotic scenes followed as Macron, a pro-European Union centrist, sought to wrestle back the initiative by making his own, impromptu stop at the Whirlpool clothes-dryer plant in Amiens, spending over an hour in Le Pen’s wake trying to reason with angry employees who asked why the former finance minister hadn’t come there earlier.

The remarkable drama, broadcast live on French news channels, transformed the plant in northern France into a symbol of the diametrically opposed campaigns of Le Pen and Macron before their May 7 runoff election.

As Macron met elsewhere with the workers’ union leaders, Le Pen displayed her political guile by grabbing the spotlight and popping up outside the factory itself. Surrounded by employees in bright-yellow hazard vests, she declared herself the workers’ candidate and vowed that if elected, she would not let the factory close.

“We’ll get you out of here,” Le Pen said as she hugged a woman in the crowd outside the plant, its fences decorated with workers’ banners. “I am the candidate of workers, the candidate of the French who don’t want their jobs taken away.”

US colleges confront a new era of sometimes-violent protest

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Fearing a return to violent protests that roiled campuses in the 1970s, colleges and universities are re-examining how to protect free speech while keeping students and employees safe in a time of political polarization.

Campus police are trying new tactics to try to keep events peaceful, while other schools have abruptly canceled controversial speakers over safety concerns, as the University of California, Berkeley, did with conservative writer Ann Coulter’s appearance, originally scheduled for Thursday.

In response to earlier rioting at Berkeley, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators last month put on daylong protest preparation and response training sessions at Chapman University in Orange, California, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and the University of Maryland, attended by law enforcement from about 40 colleges and universities. Another training session will take place Thursday at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

“Our mission is basically to protect the university’s mission, which is to have civil debate and present both sides of an issue and have things be done in a way that’s civil,” said the association’s president, Randy Burba, police chief at Chapman. “It’s a challenge to make that happen when there’s really opposing sides and views, but that’s really what we’re supposed to do.”

Burba declined to offer specifics about the training, to avoid disclosing proprietary police tactics.