Nation and World briefs for August 10

Trump hits McConnell for Senate crash of Obama health repeal

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump scolded his own party’s Senate leader on Wednesday for the crash of the Republican drive to repeal and rewrite the Obama health care law, using Twitter to demand of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, “Why not done?”

Trump fired back at the Kentucky Republican for telling a home-state audience this week that the president had “not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process.”

The exchange came less than two weeks after Senate rejection of the GOP effort to scuttle President Barack Obama’s health care law, probably McConnell’s most jolting defeat as leader and Trump’s worst legislative loss. The House approved its version in May, but its Senate failure — thanks to defecting GOP senators — marked the collapse of the party’s attempt to deliver on vows to erase Obama’s statute it’s showcased since the law’s 2010 enactment.

“Senator Mitch McConnell said I had ‘excessive expectations,’ but I don’t think so,” Trump tweeted. “After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?”

Trump had repeatedly used Twitter to pressure McConnell to find the votes to approve the health care bill, even saying hours after its failure that GOP senators “look like fools.”

US oil industry pushes back on sanctions against Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The Trump administration’s decision on Wednesday to slap sanctions on eight members of Venezuela’s all-powerful constitutional assembly brings to 30 the number of government loyalists targeted for human rights abuses and violations of democratic norms since anti-government protests began in April.

But even as the list of targeted individuals grows longer, promised economic sanctions have yet to materialize amid an outcry by the U.S. oil industry that a potential ban on petroleum imports from Venezuela — the third-largest supplier to the U.S. — would hurt U.S. jobs and drive up gas costs.

The sanctions announced Wednesday focused on current or former Venezuelan government officials accused by the U.S. of supporting President Nicolas Maduro’s creation of a special assembly charged with rewriting Venezuela’s constitution — a move the U.S. says is an attempt by Maduro to shore up his grip on power.

Since its election last month, the 545-member assembly has declared itself superior to all other government institutions and ousted Venezuela’s chief prosecutor, a vocal critic of Maduro.

The U.S. Treasury Department took the unusual step of sanctioning Maduro himself last month, freezing any assets he may have in the U.S. and blocking Americans from doing business with him.

Man ambushes French soldiers in car attack, later arrested

LEVALLOIS-PERRET, France (AP) — A man rammed his car into a group of soldiers near Paris, injuring six of them, and then was cornered by police in a highway manhunt — the latest in what’s become a disturbingly familiar pattern of attacks targeting French security forces.

It’s unclear what motivated the driver, who was hospitalized with bullet wounds after the calculated morning ambush and an hours-long police chase. Authorities said he deliberately accelerated his BMW into a cluster of soldiers in what prosecutors are investigating as a potential terrorist attack.

President Emmanuel Macron went to Twitter to express his “congratulations to the forces of order that apprehended the perpetrator of the attack,” and also to urge continued vigilance across the country.

Macron’s government painted the incident in the suburb of Levallois-Perret as proof of the need to approve a new security law that critics contend infringes on liberties and would put France in a permanent state of emergency.

Wednesday’s attack caused no deaths and hurt no civilians, but still set nerves on edge: It was the seventh attempted attack on security forces guarding France this year alone. While others have targeted prominent sites like the Eiffel Tower, Wednesday’s attack hit the leafy, relatively affluent suburb of Levallois-Perret that is home to France’s main intelligence service, the DGSI, and its counterterrorism service.

Up to 50 migrants ‘deliberately drowned’ off Yemen, UN says

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Up to 50 migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia were “deliberately drowned” when a smuggler forced them into the sea off Yemen’s coast, the U.N. migration agency said Wednesday, calling the drownings “shocking and inhumane.”

International Organization for Migration staffers found the shallow graves of 29 of the migrants on a beach in Shabwa during a routine patrol, the agency’s statement said. The dead were buried by those who survived.

At least 22 migrants remained missing, the IOM said. The passengers’ average age was around 16, the agency said.

The narrow waters between the Horn of Africa and Yemen have been a popular migration route despite Yemen’s ongoing conflict. Migrants try to make their way to the oil-rich Gulf countries.

The smuggler forced more than 120 migrants into the sea Wednesday morning as they approached Yemen’s coast, the IOM statement said.

Critics say vote fraud panel could create target for hackers

CHERRY HILL, N.J. (AP) — Officials from both major political parties had a consistent answer last year when asked about the security of voting systems: U.S. elections are so decentralized that it would be impossible for hackers to manipulate ballot counts or voter rolls on a wide scale.

But the voter fraud commission established by President Donald Trump could take away that one bit of security.

The commission has requested information on voters from every state and recently won a federal court challenge to push ahead with the collection, keeping it in one place.

By compiling a national list of registered voters, the federal government could provide one-stop shopping for hackers and hostile foreign governments seeking to wreak havoc with elections, critics say.

“Coordinating a national voter registration system located in the White House is akin to handing a zip drive to Russia,” said Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat who has refused to send data to the commission.

AP Interview: DeVos says she didn’t decry racism enough

WASHINGTON (AP) — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday distanced herself from her comment earlier this year about the nation’s historically black colleges and universities being pioneers of school choice, saying that in the past “there were no choices” for African-Americans in higher education.

“When I talked about it being a pioneer in choice it was because I acknowledge that racism was rampant and there were no choices,” DeVos said in an interview with The Associated Press in her office at the Education Department. “These HBCUs provided choices for black students that they didn’t have.”

DeVos, who marks six months in office this week, alienated many African-Americans in February when she described historically black colleges as “real pioneers when it comes to school choice.” In May, she was booed while attending the commencement ceremony at a historically black college in Florida.

“My intention was to say they were pioneering on behalf of students that didn’t have another choice. This was their only choice,” DeVos said. “At the same time I should have decried much more forcefully the ravages of racism in this country.”

The Trump administration and DeVos have come under criticism from civil rights advocates for undoing some civil rights protections, including rescinding Obama-era federal guidance that instructed schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice and President Donald Trump calling for banning transgender individuals from serving in the military.

Alert driver’s tip led to capture of police killing suspect

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A man charged in the shooting death of a western Missouri police officer was arrested after an alert driver provided a tip that the fugitive was wandering within miles of where the killing took place, a law enforcement official said.

The driver reported seeing Ian McCarthy walking along a state highway near Bucksaw Marina, just east of Clinton, and he was arrested without incident late Tuesday, Sgt. Bill Lowe of the Missouri Highway Patrol said at a news conference later that night.

The arrest ended a two-day manhunt that began after 37-year-old Clinton police officer Gary Michael was shot to death during a traffic stop Sunday night in Clinton, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of Kansas City.

Michael and McCarthy had exchanged gunfire before the officer died and the driver fled. Lowe said McCarthy, 39, was suffering from a gunshot wound when a patrol trooper arrested him. Lowe declined to provide specifics about the gunshot wound.

McCarthy was taken to a Kansas City area hospital for treatment and then was taken into custody at the Henry County jail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday on charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Online court records as of Wednesday do not show whether McCarthy has an attorney.