Few answers on travel ban as launch deadline looms ADVERTISING Few answers on travel ban as launch deadline looms WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration expects to launch a limited version of its travel ban on six mostly Muslim countries
Few answers on travel ban as launch deadline looms
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration expects to launch a limited version of its travel ban on six mostly Muslim countries on Thursday, but has yet to say how it will be implemented or what it will do to avoid the chaos that accompanied the initial ban.
Government lawyers were working on guidelines Tuesday, one day after the Supreme Court partially reinstated the ban ahead of hearing arguments in October. The court said the administration can block travelers from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen unless they can prove a “bona fide relationship” with a person or entity in the United States.
The court offered only broad guidelines about what would constitute such a relationship — suggesting it would include a close relative, a job offer or an invitation to lecture.
The court ordered similar limitations on President Donald Trump’s plan to temporarily halt all refugee admissions. But that may have minimal effect for now. Of the 50,000 refugees the government planned to accept in the current budget year, more than 48,900 have been allowed to enter the U.S.
The State Department has said that the few remaining refugees to be admitted this year will not have to prove a “bona fide relationship.” A new cap won’t be in place until the start of the budget year in October, around the time that the Supreme Court considers the case.
Colombia takes big step to peace as rebels lay down guns
MESETAS, Colombia (AP) — Colombia reached a major milestone on its road to peace Tuesday as leftist rebels relinquished some of their last weapons and declared an end to their half-century insurgency.
The historic step was taken as President Juan Manuel Santos traveled to this demobilization camp in Colombia’s eastern jungles to join guerrilla leaders as they begin their transition to civilian life.
In a short, symbol-filled ceremony, United Nations observers shut and padlocked the last containers storing some of the 7,132 weapons that members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have turned over the past few weeks at 26 camps across the country. Yellow butterflies were released and an AK-47 converted into an electric guitar rang out plaintive chords in honor of the long conflict’s victims.
“By depositing the weapons in the U.N. containers, the Colombians and the entire world know that our peace is real and irreversible,” Santos, winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, told an audience of former rebel fighters dressed in white shirts with cuffed hands shaped in a heart and a Spanish hashtag reading “Our only weapon are words.”
Though hundreds of FARC caches filled with larger weapons and explosives are still being cleared out, the U.N. on Monday certified that all individual firearms and weapons, except for a small number needed to safeguard the soon-to-disband camps, have been collected.
New cyberattack wallops Europe; spreads more slowly in US
PARIS (AP) — A new and highly virulent outbreak of data-scrambling software caused disruption across the world Tuesday. Following a similar attack in May , the fresh assault paralyzed some hospitals, government offices and major multinational corporations in a dramatic demonstration of how easily malicious programs can bring daily life to a halt.
Ukraine and other parts of Europe were hit particularly hard by the new strain of ransomware — malicious software that locks up computer files with all-but-unbreakable encryption and then demands a ransom for its release. As the malware began to spread across the United States, it affected companies such as the drugmaker Merck and Mondelez International, the owner of food brands such as Oreo and Nabisco. But its pace appeared to slow as the day wore on.
The origins of the malware remain unclear. Researchers picking the program apart found evidence its creators had borrowed from leaked National Security Agency code, raising the possibility that the digital havoc had spread using U.S. taxpayer-funded tools.
“The virus is spreading all over Europe and I’m afraid it can harm the whole world,” said Victor Zhora, the chief executive of Infosafe IT in Kiev, where reports of the malicious software first emerged earlier on Tuesday.
In Ukraine, victims included top-level government offices, where officials posted photos of darkened computer screens; energy companies; banks; and even cash machines, gas stations, and supermarkets. Multinational companies, including the global law firm DLA Piper and Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk were also affected, although the firms didn’t specify the extent of the damage.
US to Syria: ‘Heavy price’ awaits any chemical weapons use
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration threatened Tuesday that Syria will pay “a heavy price” if it follows through on what the U.S. says are preparations for another chemical weapons attack — warning of action that could plunge America deeper into a civil war alongside the fight against Islamic State militants.
The chemical threat and sudden White House warning illustrate the challenging complexities of the fighting in Syria, a country whose territory was used by IS to march into Iraq in 2014 and prompt a U.S. return to the Middle East’s battlefield. Washington now has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 1,000 in Syria.
President Donald Trump has said he won’t stand for Syria’s use of chemical weapons, which are banned under international law and are particularly worrisome in the Arab country because they could fall into extremists’ hands.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said it detected “active preparations” by Syria for a chemical attack from the same air base where Syrian aircraft embarked on a sarin gas strike on April 4, killing almost 90 people. Days later, Trump ordered a cruise missile attack against the base in retaliation.
The Syrian government has denied it ever used banned chemicals, and it rejected Washington’s latest allegation Tuesday.
3 Chicago police officers indicted in Laquan McDonald case
CHICAGO (AP) — Three Chicago police officers were indicted Tuesday on felony charges that they conspired to cover up the actions of a white police officer who shot and killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, saying the officers lied when they alleged the teenager “aggressively” swung a knife at officers and attempted to get up from the ground still armed with the knife after he was shot.
In an indictment approved Monday and announced Tuesday, a Cook County grand jury alleges that one current and two former officers lied about the events of Oct. 20, 2014 when Officer Jason Van Dyke shot the black teenager 16 times.
The narratives of the officers contradict what can be seen on police dashcam video, in which the teenager can be seen spinning after he was shot and falling to the ground as the officer continues to fire shots into his body. The indictment further alleged that officers lied when they said McDonald ignored Van Dyke’s verbal commands and that one of the officers reviewed a report that claimed the other two officers were, in fact, victims of an attack by McDonald.
“The co-conspirators created police reports in the critical early hours and days following the killing of Laquan McDonald that contained important false information in an attempt to prevent or shape any criminal investigation,” according to the indictment in which the three are charged with felony counts of obstruction of justice, official misconduct and conspiracy.
Patricia Brown Holmes, who was appointed special prosecutor last July to investigate officers at the scene and involved in the investigation of the shooting, said in a separate news release that the three — David March, Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney — “coordinated their activities to protect each other and other members of the Chicago Police Department by furnishing false information, making false police reports, failing to report or correct false information, ignoring contrary information or evidence, obstructing justice, failing to perform a mandatory duty, and performing acts each knew to be forbidden to perform…”
FBI locates car related to missing Chinese scholar case
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — The FBI says it has located the car that a missing Chinese scholar studying at the University of Illinois was last seen getting into earlier this month.
The FBI said in a Tuesday statement that it’s received “numerous leads” regarding the black Saturn Astra and won’t need any further information on the vehicle. Authorities also said they’ve developed “several additional leads” in the investigation.
FBI spokesman Brad Ware declined to give further details.
Twenty-six-year-old Yingying Zhang’s disappearance has been labeled a kidnapping but police haven’t ruled out other scenarios. Surveillance video on June 9 showed her getting into the vehicle.
Local police and the FBI say Zhang’s case is top priority.
