12A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2016
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
AP Interview: Iraqi leader
predicts IS collapse in Mosul
BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says
Islamic State group fighters lack the courage to put up long-
term resistance in Mosul, despite unleashing hundreds of car
bombs that have killed and maimed Iraqi soldiers and civilians
as the fight for Iraq’s second-largest city appears set to extend
well into next year.
“We have seen the whole organization collapsing in terms
of standing in the face of our own armed forces,” al-Abadi said.
“The success of liberating a huge area indicates that Daesh
does not have the gut now or the motivation to fight as they
were doing before,” he added, using the Arabic acronym for the
extremist group.
In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, al-Abadi
said Mosul was now completely encircled and that the speed
with which the area was secured surpassed his expectations. He
declined to say how many Iraqi troops have been killed since
the operation began six weeks ago but said the rate of battlefield
losses was “sustainable.”
The prime minister said he expects the incoming Trump
administration to grant Iraq a greater degree of logistical support
in its war on terror, and dismissed suggestions by Donald Trump
in the election campaign that he would seize some of Iraq’s oil
production as a kind of “reimbursement” for U.S. efforts in Iraq.
Trump said in September that he would “take the oil” from
Iraq, claiming that the Iranians would step in otherwise.
Trump summons Romney for
second look as staffers squabble
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s hunt for a secretary of
state is veering into dramatic terrain, with the president-elect
summoning Mitt Romney back for a second look as a top aide
leads a public pressure campaign against the pick.
Trump has a follow-up meeting today with the 2012 GOP
presidential nominee, who has become a symbol of the internal
divisions agitating the transition team. He also plans to sit with
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. On Monday, Trump spent an hour with
retired Gen. David Petraeus, a new contender.
Aides were divided over Trump’s choices, particularly the
prospect that Trump could tap Romney for the top-tier diplo-
matic post. In an unusual public airing of internal machinations,
Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway on Sunday warned
that the president-elect’s supporters would feel “betrayed” if he
tapped Romney as secretary of state.
Exiting Trump Tower on Monday night, Vice Presi-
dent-elect Mike Pence simply teased “a number of very import-
ant announcements tomorrow.”
One announcement expected today was Georgia Rep. Tom
Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump has selected Price for the role, according to a person
familiar with the decision. The person was not authorized to
discuss the nomination publicly ahead of the announcement
and so insisted on anonymity.
Young immigrants who came
forward worried about future
WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of young immi-
grants living in the country illegally willingly came out of the
shadows and identified themselves to the Obama administra-
tion on the promise that they’d be safe from deportation and
allowed to work.
Some may now regret that decision.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to immediately
scrap the program that protected these immigrants. If he does,
it’s not clear whether he would take action against the more than
741,000 participants. But if he decides to pursue them, the gov-
ernment now has their addresses, photographs and fingerprints.
Twenty-year-old Nancy Villas was among the first to apply
for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the
summer of 2012, waiting in line hours at a sign-up site at Chi-
cago’s Navy Pier. Since then she’s been working part time at a
child care center to pay for college classes. Now she’s worried
she may eventually be forced to return to Mexico, a country she
left when she was 9.
“I knew it was the only way to have better opportunities,”
Villas said. “I took the risk without thinking that somebody
would want to take it away.”
Ohio State attack: Terrorism
eyed as police seek more info
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Investigators are looking into
whether a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University that
injured 11 people was an act of terror by a Somali-born student
who had once criticized the media for its portrayal of Muslims.
The attacker, identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, plowed
his car into a group of pedestrians on campus shortly before 10
a.m. Monday, and then got out and began stabbing people with
a butcher knife before he was shot to death by a campus police
officer, authorities said.
A motive was not immediately known, but police said they
were investigating whether it was a terrorist attack.
Artan was born in Somalia and was a legal permanent U.S.
resident, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to
discuss the case and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The
FBI joined the investigation.
Ohio State University police Chief Craig Stone said Artan
deliberately drove his small gray Honda over a curb outside an
engineering classroom building and then began knifing people.
Officer Alan Horujko, 28, who was nearby because of a gas
leak arrived on the scene and shot the driver in less than a min-
ute, Stone said.
Trek to Castro’s final resting
spot traces revolution’s past
HAVANA — After his band of bearded rebels won power
in 1959, Fidel Castro embarked on a victory tour delivering
speeches to cheering crowds stretching from the eastern Cuban
city of Santiago to Havana. Starting Wednesday, his ashes will
retrace that journey in a solemn procession to his final resting
spot.
The trip is fraught with symbolism as the island nation pre-
pares to bury the only leader it has known in 57 years besides
his younger brother, Raul Castro. The six-day Caravan of Free-
dom that Fidel Castro led in 1959 was among his most trium-
phant moments. As Castro’s remains are prepared for the return
to Santiago, the state is rekindling images of a younger Castro
whose legacy they vow to keep alive.
“Fidel will always be that restless youth and tireless revolu-
tionary, who attacked the Moncada, arrived aboard the Granma
yacht to forge the path to freedom, fought like a lion in the
Sierra Maestra and crossed the country in the Caravan of Vic-
tory,” proclaimed an article in Granma, the official Communist
Party newspaper, a day after Castro’s death.
Free swim: Kids take lessons seriously
Continued from Page 1A
Oller, who left behind a $4.5
million bequest when she died
in 2010, with express instruc-
tions that it be used to provide
the opportunity for locals to
swim.
Oller’s will provided
money for building a pool, but
not for insuring it, maintaining
it or employing people to run
it. Oller’s will also stated that
if the city didn’t build the pool
within five years, the trust-
ees should fund another proj-
ect that would increase local
access to swimming educa-
tion, thus paving the way for
the deal with the aquatic cen-
ter. A similar arrangement with
also made with the smaller
Dunes pool in Klipsan.
A really positive thing
“All the kids are all dif-
ferent levels when they come
in,” explained Genesee Den-
nis, the interim supervisor at
the Astoria Aquatic Center.
“Some are blowing bubbles,
some are not even comfort-
able putting their face in the
water. We break them up into
groups and work to improve
on their skills.”
According to fourth-grade
teacher Rose Nisbet, there was
another important component.
“There was a day desig-
nated for safety,” she said,
Damian Mulinix/For EO Media Group
Caiden Burke and Marcus Chatfield of Naselle School swim with their classmates during
a recent lesson at the Astoria Aquatic Center. The kids seem to take the lessons seriously.
during the final lesson last
week. “So let’s say there’s a kid
in the river and he needs to be
pulled out, how are you going
to pull that child out? We live
on the Naselle River, so they
felt it was pretty important to
have a day dedicated to that.”
And it seems the kids take
the lessons, and the opportu-
nity, pretty seriously.
“The kids really seem to
enjoy it, and the kids tend to
be on their best behavior,” said
Donlon. “Some kids might be
having a bad week, but when
that swim day comes up they
don’t want to be in the office
with me. It’s a really positive
thing for them.”
And the kids seem to agree.
“We learned how to do
the dolphin thing. Where you
move like a dolphin in the
water. I just can’t do it,” said
fourth-grader Kennedy Penn-
tila. “I learned how to jump in
without breathing in the water
or plugging my nose.”
Fourth-grader
Audrey
Muessig said the swim instruc-
tors were “really, really nice,”
and said she learned something
called “chicken, airplane, sol-
dier.” After a brief demonstra-
tion from one of her friends,
it was clear she was describ-
ing a way of remembering the
proper form for doing a type of
swim stroke.
Donlon said he expects
the lessons to continue going
forward, but does not see it
expanding to include other
grades.
Seaside: Appointment may happen on Dec. 12
Continued from Page 1A
Within the ranks
Johnson, council president
and representative of the city’s
Ward 3, indicated his willing-
ness to serve the unexpired
term.
A councilor since 2002,
Johnson was upset in the
November election to Horning,
a geologist who ran on the issue
of emergency preparedness.
“Having lost the election,
I still feel I am qualified to be
mayor,” Johnson said at the
workshop.
Johnson pointed to his own
12 years experience on the
Planning Commission and 16
years on the City Council.
“I feel I’ve got a strong rela-
tionship with the city staff and
with the councilors,” Johnson
said. “Every time I’ve been
asked as council president to
run the meeting, I’ve always
brought everyone into the fold,
and always listened to what
they’ve had to say. I think I’ve
worked well, I think I’ve been
a good leader and I love this
city.”
If appointed, he said he
intended to step down at the
end of the term. “I feel 16 years
Don Johnson
Jay Barber
on the council and two years
as mayor — that’s more than
plenty.”
Barber, a retired college
president, foundation director
and ordained minister, served
as a councilor and two-term
mayor in Red Bluff, California,
a position which, he said, gave
him experience dealing with
the public.
He and his wife Jan have
lived full-time in Seaside since
2006.
Barber was selected in 2009
to fill the unexpired council
term of the late Gary Diebolt.
Barber won election for Ward 1
in 2010 and again in 2014.
His “good working rela-
tionship” with the city manager
would be an asset as mayor,
Barber said. “That cannot be
overstated in terms of its value.
Tom Horning
If the mayor and city manager
don’t have a positive working
relationship, nothing ever gets
done in a progressive way.”
Councilor Dana Phillips
said she “highly respected”
Johnson, but in the aftermath of
Johnson’s election defeat, she
urged the selection of Barber
for the city’s top spot.
Should
Johnson
be
appointed mayor, “I’m not sure
what we’re saying to your con-
stituents that voted somebody
else in to fill your position,”
Phillips said.
New name surfaces
At the council’s regular
meeting, Horning’s name was
added to the mix.
John Dunzer, a perennial
candidate for county and Sea-
side offices, including Sea-
side mayor, chided councilors
for failing to look outside their
ranks.
Horning’s election to the
council was not a “repudia-
tion” of Johnson, but a public
endorsement of Horning’s mes-
sage of emergency prepared-
ness, Dunzer said
Horning received 58 per-
cent of the vote to Johnson’s 41
percent.
“I look at all the people up
here and all of you were run-
ning on the Don Johnson ticket
and not on the on the plat-
form of Mr. Horning,” Dun-
zer said. “It would be my hope
you would all get behind Mr.
Horning, who has somewhat
of a mandate from the people
of Seaside of what the hell they
want to have happen.
“I don’t really care who you
select or what you do,” Dun-
zer added. “I just want you to
get behind this mandate to get
things moving on emergency
prep. If we would just put our
heads together, there are a lot of
things we can do to save peo-
ple’s lives.”
A mayoral appointment
could be made by a council
motion at the Dec. 12 meeting,
Winstanley said.
Review: Unclear if an oversight or not
Continued from Page 1A
While state officials who
designed the scope of work
for the audit included a ques-
tion about how conflicts are
identified, they did not ask for
an assessment of how much
weight ODOT employees give
conflicts in the process of rec-
ommending contractors to the
Oregon Transportation Com-
mission, which officially hires
the contractors.
It’s unclear whether the
omission was an oversight
or was discussed and then
rejected, said Bret West, act-
ing chief administrative officer
at the Department of Admin-
istrative Services. West, who
has overseen the ODOT audit
for the state since May, said he
was not involved in shaping the
original work plan for the audit.
Other questions in the work
plan dealing with communica-
tion processes and transparency
may help to reveal whether
there are problems with con-
flicts of interest, West said.
In September, the state
awarded a nearly $1 million
contract to New York-based
McKinsey & Company to con-
duct the audit.
Before McKinsey won the
contract, state officials had
hired John L. Craig, a for-
mer ODOT contractor, to per-
form the audit. Ironically, the
state later revoked Craig’s con-
tract after revelations about his
close ties with ODOT and an
unearthed email showing he
had sought to replace the agen-
cy’s director, Matt Garrett.
Addressing the weight
ODOT gives conflicts in hiring
contractors should have been
part of the plan, said Mike Hol-
lern, a member of an oversight
committee that helped shape
the audit’s scope of work.
“In one of the early drafts,
there was some discussion, and
I think some of the concerns
from some of the legislators
perhaps had to do with con-
flicts of interest being a seri-
ously-investigated, dealt-with
issue,” said Hollern, who also
is a former state transportation
commissioner.
In another example of con-
flicts at ODOT, an agency
trucking official Gregg Dal
Ponte took a job with a firm
that sells products to the indus-
try he regulates, according to a
report in June by the Portland
Tribune.
Dal Ponte headed the agen-
cy’s motor carrier division
while working for a New Zea-
land corporation called ERoad.
ODOT officials insisted the
arrangement complied with
state ethics law, but the practice
has raised questions about the
agency’s credibility, the Port-
land Tribune reported.
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Fo r a $10 d o n a tio n , w e w ill pla ce a ha n d m a d e hea rt o rn a m en t
o n a tree in m em o ry o r ho n o r o f the perso n yo u cho o se.
In
Memory
of
In
Honor
of
Name on ornament:
Send acknowledgment to:
Name and address
1.
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3.
TAX DEDUCTIBLE: Make checks payable to Lower Columbia Hospice at Columbia Memorial Hospital.
Please m ark location of the tree you w ish to decorate:
Your name:
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Address:
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City/State/Zip:
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M a il fo rm a n d d o n a tio n to :
Hea rts for Hos p ice, c/ o Low er Colu m bia Hos p ice, 2111 Excha n g e S t., A s toria , O reg on 97103