Nation and World briefs for September 26

Collins’ opposition all but kills GOP health care drive

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last-gasp Republican drive to tear down former President Barack Obama’s health care law essentially died Monday as Maine Sen. Susan Collins joined a small but decisive cluster of GOP senators in opposing the push.

The Maine moderate said in a statement that the legislation would make “devastating” cuts in the Medicaid program for poor and disabled people, drive up premiums for millions and weaken protections Obama’s law gives people with pre-existing medical conditions. She said the legislation is “deeply flawed,” despite eleventh-hour changes its sponsors made in search of support.

Collins told reporters she made her decision despite a phone call from President Donald Trump, who’s been futilely trying to press unhappy GOP senators to back the measure.

“They’re still working it and a lot of conversations are going on,” No. 3 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota told reporters. But he conceded a revival would be “a heavy lift” and prospects were “bleak.”

The collapse marks a replay of the embarrassing loss Trump and party leaders suffered in July, when the Senate rejected three attempts to pass legislation erasing Obama’s 2010 statute.

With their narrow 52-48 majority and solid Democratic opposition, three GOP “no” votes would doom the bill. GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Texas’ Ted Cruz said they oppose the measure, though Cruz aides said he was seeking changes that would let him vote yes. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, remains undecided.

The Senate must vote this week for Republicans to have any chance of prevailing with their narrow margin. Next Sunday, protections expire against a Democratic filibuster, bill-killing delays that Republicans lack the votes to overcome.

Collins announced her decision shortly after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said “millions” of Americans would lose coverage under the bill and projected it would impose $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts through 2026.

North Korean diplomat says tweet by Trump ‘declared war’

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea’s top diplomat said Monday that a weekend tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump was a “declaration of war” and North Korea has the right to retaliate by shooting down U.S. bombers, even in international airspace.

It was the latest escalation in a week of undiplomatic exchanges between North Korea and the U.S. during the U.N. General Assembly’s annual ministerial meeting.

Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that the United Nations and the international community have said in recent days that they didn’t want “the war of words” to turn into “real action.”

But he said that by tweeting that North Korea’s leadership led by Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer,” Trump “declared the war on our country.”

Under the U.N. Charter, Ri said, North Korea has the right to self-defense and “every right” to take countermeasures, “including the right to shoot down the United States strategic bombers even when they’re not yet inside the airspace border of our country.”

Puerto Rico is in the dark in wake of Hurricane Maria

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Every night since Hurricane Maria hit, Miguel Martinez and his family have slept on mattresses on the porch to escape the heat inside their dark, stifling home. But it’s nearly impossible to sleep with temperatures in the mid-80s.

At least once a night they climb to the roof to catch a hint of breeze. Then the 51-year-old construction worker, his three children and one grandchild climb back down again.

“It’s a heat from hell,” Martinez said. “We don’t have a generator or a fan. We have nothing. The children get desperate. You want just a little bit of cold water, but there’s none.”

The power is still out on nearly all of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria smashed poles, snarled power lines and flooded electricity-generating plants, knocking out a grid that was already considered antiquated compared to the U.S. mainland. Generators are providing power to the fortunate few who have them, but nearly all the island’s 1.6 million electricity customers were still without power Monday and facing many, many hot days and dark nights to come.

Power was restored to a handful of hospitals and surrounding areas by Monday afternoon but Public Affairs Secretary Ramon Rosario said it will take months to fully restore power to the island.

More buildings, perhaps lives at risk following Mexico quake

MEXICO CITY (AP) — As many as 360 buildings and homes are in danger of collapse or with major damage in Mexico City nearly a week after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake completely collapsed 38 structures.

The risk of delayed collapse is real: The cupola of Our Lady of Angels Church, damaged and cracked by the Sept. 19 quake, split in half and crashed to the ground Sunday evening. There were no injuries.

Nervous neighbors continued calling in police on Monday as apparently new cracks appeared in their apartment blocks or existing ones worsened, even as the city struggled to get back to normality.

Officials said they had cleared only 103 of Mexico City’s nearly 9,000 schools to reopen Monday and said it could be two to three weeks before all were declared safe — leaving hundreds of thousands of children idle.

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said at least seven schools were among the buildings thought to be at risk of tumbling.

At several points in the city, employees gathered on sidewalks in front of their workplaces Monday refusing to enter, because they feared their buildings could collapse.

“We are afraid for our own safety,” said Maribel Martinez Ramirez, an employee of a government development agency who, along with dozens of coworkers, refused to enter their workplace Monday. “The building is leaning, there are cracks.”

Mancera said 360 “red level” buildings would either have to be demolished or receive major structural reinforcement. Another 1,136 were reparable, and 8,030 of the buildings inspected so far were found to be habitable.

Search teams were still digging through dangerous piles of rubble Monday, hoping against the odds to find survivors. The city has accounted for 186 of the 325 dead nationwide.

Iraq’s Kurds vote on independence, raising regional fears

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi Kurds voted Monday in a landmark referendum on supporting independence, a move billed by the Kurdish leadership as an exercise in self-determination but viewed as a hostile act by Iraq’s central government. Neighboring Turkey even threatened a military response.

To Baghdad, the vote threatens a redrawing Iraq’s borders, taking a sizeable part of the country’s oil wealth with it. For Turkey and Iran, leaders feared the move would embolden their own Kurdish populations.

The vote — likely to be a resounding “yes” when official results are revealed later this week — is not binding and will not immediately bring independence to the autonomous region. Nevertheless, it has raised tensions and fears of instability in Iraq and beyond.

Just hours after polls closed Monday night across the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, the Defense Ministry announced the launch of “large-scale” joint military exercises with Turkey.

Earlier in the day, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey threatened the Kurdish region with military intervention. Iran — which also opposed the vote — held military exercises along their border Sunday.

The Iraqi Kurdish push for independence has been made even more combustible because Kurdish forces captured extensive territory in fighting against the Islamic State group in the past year. Those areas run from northwestern Iraq to the Iranian border on the east — including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Baghdad claims those territories, but the Kurds say they are part of their zone and some residents there are participating in the referendum.

GOP, White House eye deep cuts to corporate tax rate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and congressional Republicans are finalizing a tax plan that would slash the corporate rate while likely reducing the levy for the wealthiest Americans, with President Donald Trump ready to roll out the policy proposal at midweek.

The grand plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code would be the first major overhaul in three decades, delivering on a Trump campaign pledge and providing a sorely needed legislative achievement. It also is expected to eliminate or reduce some tax breaks and deductions.

The plan would likely cut the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans, now at 39.6 percent, to 35 percent, people familiar with the plan said Monday. They spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.

In addition, the top tax for corporations would be reduced to around 20 percent from the current 35 percent, they said. It will seek to simply the tax system by reducing the number of income tax brackets from seven to three.

Trump has said he wanted to see a 15 percent rate for corporations, but House Speaker Paul Ryan has called that impractically low and risking adding to the soaring $20 trillion national debt.

Trump hangs on to feud with NFL, revives issue with tweets

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is indulging in his favorite kind of drama — personal, aggressive, culturally volatile and entirely of his own making.

And his feud with the NFL shows no signs of abating, with the president tweeting early Monday morning: “The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!”

NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart fired back Monday in a conference call defending players’ rights to peacefully protest what they view as racial inequality and police brutality.

“Everyone should know, including the president, this is what real locker room talk is,” Lockhart said, in an apparent reference to the “Access Hollywood” tapes in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women.

Trump’s spat with athletes comes as the president prepares to sell a tax overhaul plan and revive health care legislation — his party’s top legislative priorities.

Weiner gets 21 months in prison for sexting

NEW YORK (AP) — Anthony Weiner’s sexting compulsion cost him his seat in Congress, his shot at becoming New York mayor and his marriage, and may have even denied Hillary Clinton the presidency. On Monday, it cost him his freedom.

Weiner, 53, dropped his head into his hands and wept as a federal judge sentenced him to 21 months behind bars for illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl, his tears flowing long after the gavel came down on a case he called his “rock bottom.”

As his parents but not his wife looked on in the courtroom, the New York Democrat was given until Nov. 6 to report to prison for misconduct that included getting the North Carolina high school student to strip and touch herself on Skype and Snapchat.

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote cited a need in such a highly publicized case to “make a statement that can protect other minors.”

The judge said Weiner’s habit of exchanging sexually explicit messages and pictures with young women shows a “very strong compulsion” — so strong that “despite two very public disclosures and the destruction of his career on two occasions, he continued with the activity.”

Court: Texas can enforce more of ‘sanctuary cities’ law

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas can require law enforcement to honor federal immigration requests to detain people in local jails for possible deportation under a new “sanctuary cities” law supported by the Trump administration, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

But the unanimous ruling of a three-judge panel in New Orleans includes the caveat that not every detainer request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be honored. It says local agencies must cooperate “according to existing ICE detainer practice and law.”

Lawyers for opponents of the Texas law said the caveat could limit the sweep of the ruling in a way that won’t lead to a drastic change in how local authorities deal with federal agents.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed the decision as allowing the state to “enforce the core” of the law known at Senate Bill 4. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling negates some of U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia’s Aug. 31 halt to much of the law one day before it was to go into effect.

“We are pleased today’s 5th Circuit ruling will allow Texas to strengthen public safety by implementing the key components of Senate Bill 4,” Paxton said in a statement.