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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2017
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
Texas prepares as Harvey
strengthens to Category 2 storm
HOUSTON — Harvey continued to intensify as it steered for
the Texas coast, with the forecasters saying early Friday that it had
strengthened to a Category 2 storm.
The hurricane with the potential for up to 3 feet of rain, 125 mph
winds and 12-foot storm surges could be the fiercest such storm to
hit the United States in almost a dozen years. Forecasters labeled
Harvey a “life-threatening storm” that posed a “grave risk” as mil-
lions of people braced for a prolonged battering that could swamp
dozens of counties more than 100 miles inland.
Landfall was predicted for late Friday or early Saturday between
Port O’Connor and Matagorda Bay, a 30-mile stretch of coastline
about 70 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.
Harvey grew quickly Thursday from a tropical depression into
a Category 1 hurricane. Early Friday, the National Hurricane Cen-
ter reported it had become a Category 2 hurricane. Fueled by warm
Gulf of Mexico waters, it was projected to become a major Cate-
gory 3 hurricane.
The last storm of that category to hit the U.S. was Hurricane
Wilma in October 2005 in Florida.
South Korean court sentences
Samsung heir to 5 years prison
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean court sentenced the
billionaire chief of Samsung to five years in prison for bribery and
other crimes in a stunning downfall for the heir to South Korea’s
biggest family fortune and a global consumer electronics empire.
The Seoul Central District Court said Friday that Lee Jae-yong,
49, was guilty of offering bribes to Park Geun-hye when she was
South Korea’s president, and to Park’s close friend, to get govern-
ment support for efforts to cement his control over the Samsung
empire. The revelations that led to Lee’s arrest in February fed pub-
lic outrage which contributed to Park’s removal as president.
A panel of three judges also found Lee guilty of embezzling
Samsung funds, hiding assets overseas, concealing profit from
criminal acts and perjury. Prosecutors had sought a 12-year prison
term.
Lee was accused of offering $38 million in bribes to four entities
controlled by Choi Soon-sil, a long-time friend of Park, in exchange
for government help with a merger that strengthened Lee’s control
over Samsung after his father suffered a heart attack in 2014.
Samsung has not denied transferring corporate funds. But Lee,
vice chairman at Samsung Electronics and the Samsung founder’s
grandson, claimed innocence during the court hearing. He said he
was unaware of the foundations or the donations, which were over-
seen by other executives.
Thai military ruler says
authorities searching for ex-PM
BANGKOK — Thailand’s military ruler said authorities are
searching for Yingluck Shinawatra, the prime minister whose gov-
ernment he ousted in a coup three years ago, after she failed to
appear for a verdict Friday in a criminal case that could send her to
prison for 10 years.
Yingluck’s whereabouts were not immediately known, and her
absence fueled speculation that she might have left the country. Her
lawyer could not be reached for comment.
An official of Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party who is close to the
Shinawatra family told The Associated Press that she had left Thai-
land. The official gave no other details, and declined to be identi-
fied because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Yingluck, who became Thailand’s first female prime minister
when her party swept elections in 2011, is accused of negligence
in overseeing a money-losing rice subsidy program. She pleaded
innocent and decried the charges as politically motivated.
A verdict had been expected Friday, as thousands of Yingluck
supporters gathered outside the court and thousands of police stood
guard. But Yingluck never appeared, and a judge read out a state-
ment saying her lawyers had informed the court she could not
attend because of an earache.
GOP discord might not bode well
for raising debt ceiling
WASHINGTON — Fanning the flames of GOP discord, Pres-
ident Donald Trump is accusing Republican congressional leaders
botching efforts to avoid an unprecedented default on the national
debt. “Could have been so easy-now a mess!” Trump tweeted.
The president’s sharp words underscored the perilous state of
play as Congress heads into the fall without a clear plan to take care
of its most important piece of business: If it does not increase the
nation’s $19.9 trillion borrowing limit, the government could be
unable to pay its bills, jarring financial markets and leading to other
harsh consequences.
Trump unleashed his latest criticism of the GOP’s congressio-
nal leadership in a series of morning tweets Thursday that also
included a rebuke of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for his
inability to get the Senate to repeal the Obama health care law. The
harsh posts were fresh evidence of the president’s fraying relations
with fellow Republicans just when the White House and Capitol
Hill most need to be working in sync.
Critiquing GOP legislative strategy, Trump tweeted that he had
Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald
Water from Hurricane Harvey’s storm surge crashes through pylons at a fishing pier on Friday in Port Isabel, Texas.
asked McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan to attach the leg-
islation increasing the borrowing limit — a toxic vote for many
Republicans — to popular military veterans’ legislation that he
recently signed. The idea was floated in July but never gained
steam in Congress.
Trump said that because legislators didn’t follow that strategy,
“now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on
Debt Ceiling approval.”
Saudi-led airstrikes kill 14
civilians in Yemen’s capital
SANAA, Yemen — Airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition targeted
Yemen’s capital early on Friday, hitting at least three houses in
Sanaa and killing at least 14 civilians, including women and chil-
dren, residents and eyewitnesses said.
The attack was the latest by the coalition, which has been wag-
ing a relentless air campaign against Yemen’s Iran-backed Shiite
rebels for the past two years in an effort to bring the internationally
recognized government back to power.
Recently, the strikes in and around the capital, Sanaa, target-
ing army compounds and other locations of the rebels known as
Houthis, have intensified. On Wednesday, coalition fighter jets
struck a hotel in the town of Arhab, north of Sanaa, killing at least
41 people.
Friday’s strikes hit the city’s southern neighborhood of Fag
Attan. The death toll was expected to rise further as rescuers pulled
more victims from under the rubble.
The escalation comes amid signs of fracturing between the two
main components of the rebel alliance in Sanaa, the Houthis and
loyalists of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh — a standoff that
has triggered fears of street violence.
Weekly anti-Netanyahu
rallies grow larger in Israel
JERUSALEM — Engulfed in a string of scandals, Prime Min-
ister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself facing a growing grass-
roots protest movement demanding his indictment and removal
from office.
Weekly anti-corruption vigils in front of the home of Israel’s
attorney general have gone from a trickle to drawing thousands of
people, and the recent arrest of the two main organizers seems to
spell stress within Netanyahu’s circle while further energizing his
opponents.
The unlikely duo spearheading the protest effort could not be
more different. One used to hobnob in the most exclusive circles of
power, while the other is a former maintenance man at the prime
minister’s residence. Once dismissed as disgruntled fringe char-
acters, Eldad Yaniv and Meni Naftali have together galvanized a
movement that has rattled Netanyahu’s grip on power.
“Netanyahu sees our protest as a clear and present danger to his
continued rule, and that is why he is trying to harm us,” said Yaniv,
who was arrested with Naftali last week on their way to a protest.
“Our goal is more than just replacing Netanyahu,” he said. “It’s
to create a new contract between politicians and the public so that
the next prime minister is not investigated by police.”
In dispute over statues,
where do you draw the line?
NEW YORK — It’s not just about Robert E. Lee and Stone-
wall Jackson.
The national soul-searching over whether to take down mon-
uments to the Confederacy’s demigods has extended to other his-
torical figures accused of wrongdoing, including Christopher
Columbus (brutality toward native Americans), the man for whom
Boston’s Faneuil Hall is named (slave trader) and former Philadel-
phia Mayor Frank Rizzo (bigotry).
Historians interviewed by The Associated Press offered varying
thoughts about where exactly the line should be drawn in judging
someone’s statue-worthiness, but they agreed on one thing: Scrap-
ping a monument is not a decision that should be made in haste
during political fervor.
“If we do this in some willy-nilly way, we will regret it,” cau-
tioned Yale University historian David Blight, an expert on slav-
ery. “I am very wary of a rush to judgment about what we hate and
what we love and what we despise and what we’re offended by.”
Blight and other historians say the way to determine whether to
remove these monuments, Confederate and otherwise, is through
discussions that weigh many factors, among them: The history
behind when and why the monument was built. Where it’s placed.
The subject’s contribution to society weighed against the alleged
wrongdoing. And the artistic value of the monument itself.
Florida executes convicted
double-murderer using new drug
STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Thursday put a man to death with
an anesthetic never used before in a U.S. lethal injection, carrying
out its first execution in more than 18 months on an inmate con-
victed of two racially motivated murders.
Authorities said 53-year-old Mark Asay, the first white man
executed in Florida for the killing of a black man, was pronounced
dead at 6:22 p.m. Thursday at the state prison in Starke. Asay
received a three-drug injection that began with the anesthetic,
etomidate.
Though approved by the Florida Supreme Court, etomidate has
been criticized by some as being unproven in an execution. Eto-
midate replaced midazolam, which became harder to acquire after
many drug companies began refusing to provide it for executions.
Prosecutors say Asay made racist comments in the 1987 fatal
shooting of a 34-year-old black man, Robert Lee Booker. Asay also
was convicted of the 1987 murder of 26-year-old Robert McDow-
ell, who was mixed race, white and Hispanic. Asay had hired
McDowell, who was dressed as a woman, as a prostitute, and killed
him after learning his true gender, prosecutors said.
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