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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2017
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
Dems find Trump’s picks more
reasonable than Trump
WASHINGTON — The lack of fireworks surrounding Senate
consideration of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks
may reflect a belief by minority Democrats that the people cho-
sen are more reasonable than Trump.
It could also be the residue of a surprising number of state-
ments by Trump’s Cabinet choices contradicting the billionaire
businessman’s oft-stated positions on issues running the gamut
from Russia and NATO to nuclear weapons and Muslims.
This week’s confirmation hearings produced an odd politi-
cal chemistry where, for instance, one of the harshest examina-
tions of a Trump Cabinet choice came from one of Trump’s fel-
low Republicans, presidential campaign rival Sen. Marco Rubio.
Despite Democrats’ dismay over some of Trump’s selections,
the first week of nomination hearings was relatively tranquil, with
Democrats generally restrained in questioning even the more
contentious picks. The reason, according to a few Democrats:
The nominees are proving more palatable than Trump himself.
“As I meet members of the Cabinet I’m puzzled because
many of them sound reasonable,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illi-
nois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. “Far more reasonable than their
president.”
Watchdog probe to bring new
scrutiny for FBI’s Comey
WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey, already
under fierce public scrutiny for his handling of the election-year
probe of Hillary Clinton, faces a new internal investigation into
whether he and the Justice Department followed established pro-
tocol in the email server case.
The wide-ranging investigation from the Justice Depart-
ment’s inspector general will focus in part on Comey’s decision
to announce the findings of the FBI’s probe and on two letters
he sent to Congress in the days before the election that thrust the
matter back to the forefront.
It’s not clear how long the review will take, but there’s no
question the investigation will revisit intensely debated decisions
the FBI made during the investigation and revive questions of
whether the bureau took actions that might have influenced the
outcome.
The inspector general’s probe also is likely to bring unwanted
new attention to Comey, whom some Democrats have partially
blamed for Clinton’s loss to Trump, at a time when the FBI has
been trying to reassert its reputation as an independent and apolit-
ical law enforcement agency.
Comey said he was pleased about the review, which comes
in response to requests from members of Congress and the pub-
lic, and added that the FBI would cooperate fully with the inspec-
tor general.
Havana hails end to special US
immigration policy for Cubans
HAVANA — The Cuban government hailed President Barack
Obama’s decision ending automatic legal residency for any
Cuban who touches U.S. soil, while ordinary citizens mourned
the end of an easy pathway to a new life in the United States.
Average Cubans and opponents of the island’s communist
leaders said they expected pressure for reform to increase with
the elimination of a mechanism that siphoned off the island’s
most dissatisfied citizens and turned them into sources of remit-
tances supporting relatives who remained on the island.
The repeal of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy went into effect
immediately after a Thursday afternoon announcement. It fol-
lowed months of negotiations focused in part on getting Cuba to
agree to take back people who had arrived in the U.S.
Cubans fearful of an imminent end to a special immigration
status bestowed during the Cold War had been flocking to the
United States since the Dec. 17, 2014 announcement that the
U.S. and Cuba would re-establish diplomatic relations and move
toward normalization. About 100,000 left for the United States
after the declaration of detente, many flooding overland through
South and Central America and Mexico in an exodus that irritated
U.S. allies and other immigrant groups and spawned bitter com-
plaints from the Cuban government.
“It was creating serious problems for the security of Cuba, for
the security of the United States and for the security of our cit-
izens left vulnerable to human trafficking, migratory fraud and
violence as a result of the incentives created by these preferen-
tial policies,” said Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat for U.S.
affairs.
Syria says Israeli strikes hit near
airport west of Damascus
BEIRUT — Syria accused Israel of firing rockets early on Fri-
day that hit near a major military airport west of Damascus, trig-
gering a fire, and warned Israel of repercussions without specify-
ing whether it would retaliate for the attack.
The attack was the third such incident recently, according to
the Syrian government.
In a statement carried on the official news agency SANA, the
Syrian military said several missiles were launched just after mid-
night from an area near Lake Tiberias.
The rockets fell in the vicinity of the Mezzeh military airport
on the western edge of the Syrian capital. The statement did not
say whether there were any casualties.
Residents of Damascus reported hearing several explosions
that shook the city. The Mezzeh airport compound, located on
the southwestern edge of the capital, had been used to launch
AP Photo/Dave Martin
Cuban refugees float in seas, 60 miles south of Key West, Fla., in 1994. President Barack Obama announced Thursday he is
ending a longstanding immigration policy that allows any Cuban who makes it to U.S. soil to stay and become a legal resident.
attacks on rebel-held areas near Damascus and has come previ-
ously under rebel fire.
Surge in targeted killings
of al-Qaida operatives in Syria
BEIRUT — The convoy of vehicles was driving on a dirt road
in northwestern Syria when the aerial attack by the U.S.-led coa-
lition struck, turning the vehicles into balls of fire and the people
inside into unrecognizable charred corpses.
Among the eight dead was Khattab al-Qahtani, a senior
al-Qaida official from the Persian Gulf region with reported ties
to Osama bin Laden, as well as a Syrian al-Qaida commander
from the country’s east and a militant belonging to the Turkistan
Islamic Party, a faction of Chinese jihadis fighting in Syria.
The New Year’s Day attack was the first in a wave of airstrikes
that has targeted al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria at an unprecedented
rate, killing more than 50 militants allied with the international
terror group since the beginning of the year.
In the throes of a brutal civil war now in its sixth year, Syria
has one of the largest and most active concentrations of al-Qaida
fighters in the world. The U.S.-led coalition has been targeting the
extremist group for years, hunting some of its most senior offi-
cials, including members of the so-called Khorasan group, which
Washington describes as an internal branch of al-Qaida that plans
attacks against Western interests.
It’s not clear what is behind the recent surge in targeted
killings.
Iraqi forces enter Mosul
University in battling IS for city
IRBIL, Iraq — Iraqi special forces entered the Mosul Univer-
sity on Friday, a tactical achievement and an incremental step in
in battling Islamic State militants for control of the city, accord-
ing to senior Iraqi officers.
The troops entered the university grounds in the morning
hours and managed to secure parts of the compound, which is
located in eastern half of Mosul, said two officers, speaking on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk
to reporters.
Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil confirmed the account and added
that Iraqi forces were now fighting fierce battles with IS fighters
inside the complex.
The development comes a day after Iraqi army forces north
of the city linked up with troops pushing in from the city’s east-
ern edge.
The sprawling university compound, a symbolic landmark in
Iraq’s second-largest city, was once used by IS militants as a base.
Iraqi officials had said that the militants also used the school’s
chemistry labs to produce chemical weapons.
DOJ to release report on
Chicago police abuses
CHICAGO — The Justice Department plans to release a
major report Friday on the Chicago Police Department after a
yearlong civil rights investigation, one that is expected to find a
pattern and practice of violations over many years.
Officials from the DOJ in Washington, D.C., and from the
U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago were expected to make the
report public on Friday. Based on similar reports on other cities,
Chicago’s is likely to run well over 100 pages.
The DOJ launched its investigation of the 12,000-officer force
— one of the nation’s largest — in 2015 the wake of a video
showing a white officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan
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McDonald 16 times. The video prompted protests and calls for
radical reforms.
An official familiar with the report has told The Associated
Press the report would find Chicago police violated constitutional
rights over years, but declined to offer details. He spoke on condi-
tion of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pushed through some
reforms since the investigation began, including an overhaul of
a police oversight body and issuing body cameras to officers
on patrol. But the report is expected to call for additional, more
sweeping changes.
Lie detectors trip applicants at
border agency
SAN DIEGO — David Kirk was a career Marine pilot with a
top-secret security clearance and a record of flying classified mis-
sions. He was in the cockpit when President George W. Bush and
Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden traveled around the
nation’s capital by helicopter.
With credentials like that, Kirk was stunned to fail a lie detec-
tor when he applied for a pilot’s job with U.S. Customs and Bor-
der Protection, which guards 6,000 miles of border with Mexico
and Canada. After two contentious polygraph sessions that lasted
a combined eight hours, Kirk said, he drove home “with my tail
between my legs,” wondering how things had gone so wrong.
Two out of three applicants to the CBP fail its polygraph,
according to the agency — more than double the average rate of
eight law enforcement agencies that provided data to The Associ-
ated Press under open-records requests.
It’s a big reason approximately 2,000 jobs at the nation’s larg-
est law enforcement agency are empty, with the Border Patrol, a
part of CBP, recently slipping below 20,000 agents for the first
time since 2009. And it has raised questions of whether the lie
detector tests are being properly administered.
CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske said the failure rate is
too high, but that it’s largely because the agency hasn’t attracted
the applicants it wants. He and other law enforcement experts
contend the polygraphs are generally working as intended at
the agency, which has been trying to root out bribery and other
corruption.
Millennials are falling behind
their boomer parents
SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Baby Boomers: your
millennial children are worse off than u.
With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn
20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite
being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal
Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.
The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about
a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the
anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the
net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while
their student debt is drastically higher.
The generational gap is a central dilemma for the incoming
presidency of Donald Trump, who essentially pledged a return to
the prosperity of post-World War II America. The analysis also
hints at the issues of culture and identity that divided many vot-
ers, showing that white millennials — who still earn much more
than their blacks and Latino peers — have seen their incomes
plummet the most relative to boomers.
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