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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2018
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
13 Russians charged in
Mueller investigation
WASHINGTON — Thirteen Russians
and three Russian entities were charged today
with an elaborate plot to interfere in the 2016
U.S. presidential election, federal prosecutors
announced.
The indictment, brought by the office of spe-
cial counsel Robert Mueller, alleges that Rus-
sians used bogus social media postings and
advertisements fraudulently purchased in the
name of Americans to sway political opin-
ion during the race between Republican Don-
ald Trump and Hillary Clinton, his Democratic
opponent.
The charges are the most direct allegation to
date of illegal Russian meddling in the election.
The goal, the indictment says, was to “sow
discord in the U.S. political system, including the
2016 presidential election.”
Charges include conspiracy, wire fraud, bank
fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The charges arise from Mueller’s investi-
gation into Russian interference in the election
and whether there was improper coordination
between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Before today, four people, including Trump’s
former national security adviser and former cam-
paign chairman, had been charged in Mueller’s
investigation.
The White House had no immediate response
to the indictment.
FBI received tip on
Florida shooter but
did not investigate
PARKLAND, Fla. — The FBI received a spe-
cific report in January that the suspect in the Flor-
ida school shooting could be plotting an attack,
but agents failed to investigate the tip, the agency
said today.
A tipster who was close to Nikola Cruz called
the FBI and provided information about Cruz’s
guns and his erratic behavior, including his
expressed desire to kill people and his disturbing
social media posts. The caller was concerned that
Cruz could attack a school.
In a statement issued today, the agency
acknowledged that the tip should have been
investigated thoroughly.
The FBI was also notified about a comment
on a YouTube video posted by a “Nikolas Cruz”
last year. It investigated the comment but did not
determine who made it.
Cruz has been charged with killing 17 peo-
ple at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland, north of Miami.
Also today, mourners gathered for the first
funeral for a shooting victim, packing the Star
of David chapel to remember 14-year-old Alyssa
Alhadeff.
Authorities have not described any specific
motive, except to say that Cruz had been kicked
out of the high school, which has about 3,000
students and serves an affluent suburb where
the median home price is nearly $600,000. Stu-
dents who knew him described a volatile teen-
ager whose strange behavior had caused others to
end friendships.
Wednesday’s shooting was the 17th incident
of gunfire at a U.S. school this year. Of these, one
involved a suicide, two involved active shooters
who killed students, two involved people killed
in arguments and three involved people who
were shot but survived. Nine involved no inju-
ries at all.
Magazine obtains
ex-playmate’s account
of Trump affair
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump
had a nine-month extramarital affair with the
1998 Playboy Playmate of the year beginning in
2006, showing the woman his wife’s bedroom
in Trump Tower and bringing her to his private
bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, according
to the woman’s eight-page, handwritten account
of the relationship obtained by The New Yorker
magazine.
The woman, Karen McDougal, confirmed in
the story published online today that she wrote
the account but said she was constrained in what
else she could say publicly about Trump because
she’d signed a confidentiality agreement.
The story said McDougal was paid $150,000
during the 2016 presidential campaign for the
rights to her story of an affair with any “then-mar-
ried man” by the supermarket tabloid National
Enquirer, which never ran it.
Just before Election Day, The Wall Street
Journal reported that the tabloid, whose publisher,
David Pecker, is a longtime friend of Trump’s,
had paid for McDougal’s story but wasn’t print-
ing it, a tabloid industry practice known as “catch
and kill.”
Former staffers at American Media Inc., the
company that publishes the Enquirer and other
gossip sites, have told The Associated Press the
company often bought the rights to unflattering
stories about certain celebrities. The practice,
described by six former employees who had par-
ticipated in such deals, could give Pecker lever-
age over celebrities so that he could elicit future
favors, such as appearing on his magazines’
covers.
The White House said Trump denies hav-
ing an affair with McDougal. The alleged affair
occurred not long after Trump married his third
wife, Melania, who had recently given birth to a
son, the magazine reported.
Senate rejects
immigration bills; young
immigrants in limbo
WASHINGTON — The Senate has left hun-
dreds of thousands of “Dreamer” immigrants
in limbo, rejecting rival plans that would have
spared them from deportation and strengthened
the nation’s border security. Senators dealt Pres-
ident Donald Trump an especially galling defeat
as more than a quarter of fellow Republicans
abandoned him on an issue that helped propel
him to the White House.
Trump, on Twitter today, accused Democrats
of abandoning Dreamers because they wouldn’t
back his immigration plan. “Cannot believe how
BADLY DACA recipients have been treated by
the Democrats...totally abandoned! Republicans
are still working hard.”
Also defeated Thursday was a compromise
by a bipartisan group of senators that would have
shielded the young immigrants and financed
Trump’s demands for money to build his border
wall, though more gradually than he wants. Eight
Republicans joined most Democrats in backing
that plan, but it fell short after the White House
threatened a veto and GOP leaders opposed it.
The day’s votes, in which four separate pro-
posals were defeated, illustrated anew Congress’
steep challenge in striking a deal on an issue that’s
proven intractable for years and on which each
party’s most fervent supporters refuse to budge.
The outcome suggests there may be no perma-
nent solution soon to help the young immigrants,
despite their sky-high support in public polling.
The Senate votes left the young immigrants
facing a March 5 deadline that Trump has given
Congress to restore the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, that he
annulled last year. Federal courts have blocked
him temporarily from dismantling the Obama-
era initiative, but without congressional action,
the immigrants will face growing risks of depor-
tation as their protections expire.
Romney makes
it official: He’s running
for Utah Senate seat
SALT LAKE CITY — Former presidential
hopeful Mitt Romney is running for a Utah Sen-
ate seat, officially launching his political come-
back attempt today by praising his adopted home
state as a model for an acrimonious national gov-
ernment in Washington.
Having been one of the Republican Par-
ty’s fiercest internal critics of President Donald
Trump, Romney didn’t mention the administra-
tion or Trump himself in a campaign announce-
ment posted online. The closest allusion to
Trump was Romney noting that Utah “welcomes
Terror and heroism revealed in
Oregon climbing death 911 calls
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — The first
thing that Braton Jurasevich
noticed as he clambered down
Mount Hood toward his fallen
fellow mountain climber was
the blood — a lot of it.
The critically injured
climber, later identified as Miha
Sumi, was sprawled with his
feet above his head on an icy
slope about 10,300 feet (3,140
meters) up the mountain.
Moments before, Sumi had
slipped while descending from
the summit and plummeted
head over heels down a snow-
field on Oregon’s tallest peak
— his fall witnessed by nearly
a half-dozen other climbers
who called 911 as they watched
helplessly.
Sumi would be pronounced
dead at a Portland hospital later
Tuesday after being airlifted off
the slope. But when Jurasevich
arrived, he was still alive.
“I’m the only one with eyes
on the individual right now
and I’m still 200 feet above the
climber. He is not moving. I’m
working my way down on a
bad spot. I came across blood.
There’s a big blood trail,” he
tells the 911 dispatcher at the
beginning of a call made public
by the Clackamas County Sher-
iff’s Office late Wednesday.
Sumi had come to rest in the
shadow of a rocky outcropping
known as Crater Rock, stuck in
a chute that acted like a natu-
ral funnel for a barrage of rocks
that slammed down the moun-
tain as the sun warmed the ice
and sent ice and rocks plum-
meting downhill.
As Jurasevich inched closer,
those rocks careened past, mak-
ing rumbling sounds in the
background of the call. A terri-
fied Jurasevich tells the operator
he’s not an experienced climber
and doesn’t know what he’s
doing, but will stay with Sumi
until help arrives.
“Oh my God, a rock just
went right by him. The sun’s
out and it’s bad. The whole hill
AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus
Oregon’s Mount Hood is
seen Tuesday from Timber-
line Lodge on the south
side of the mountain.
is falling apart,” he says, breath-
ing heavily into his mobile
phone.
“We’re still taking rocks and
ice. ... Can you take a message
for my mom for me? Tell her I
love her,” Jurasevich says a few
moments later. “I’m in a bad
spot.”
The dramatic call is part of
a release of three hours of 911
calls from the chaos on Mount
Hood. While the 911 operator
was on the line with Jurasevich,
other climbers also called in to
report seeing Sumi fall or to
report that they were in trouble.
A woman who had been
climbing with Sumi called 911
to report she and two others
were stranded high up Mount
Hood, pinned down by sheets
of falling ice and tumbling
rocks and unable to reach him.
“We just want to know
what’s going on with our
friend,” the woman, Kim-
berly Anderson, says to the dis-
patcher while crying.
Another shaken climber
called moments after Sumi’s
fall to say he wanted to climb
down to his friend but was in a
perilous position.
“I’m not sure if I can get to
him. It’s far, it’s really far,” said
the friend, Matt Zavortink. “I
thought maybe I thought I saw
him moving, but I can’t tell. I’d
expect severe injuries.”
The unidentified female 911
operator stayed on the phone
with Jurasevich for more than
two hours as he tried to save
Sumi, first by himself and then
with the help of several other
climbers who reached the scene.
The climbers first reported
Sumi’s pulse was 64 and he was
breathing regularly, but they
began rescue breaths and then
CPR as his pulse faded and his
breathing became erratic and
then stopped. The callers con-
tinued CPR for 90 minutes
until a rescue helicopter arrived,
even though Sumi’s pupils were
fixed and dilated.
The call is punctuated by
warning shouts about tumbling
rocks. At one point, the climb-
ers move their backpacks above
Sumi’s head to protect him.
“Hey Miha, if you can hear
us, hang in there,” Jurasevich
can be heard saying. “You’re
looking good, you’re doing
good. We’re going to get you a
ride out of here.”
Anderson, the female caller
in Sumi’s party, was evacu-
ated from the mountain nearly
seven hours later on a sled after
she became unable to move
for reasons that have not been
explained by authorities.
The other climbers were
either brought down by snow
tractor or hiked out with
rescuers.
It was unclear how Jurasev-
ich and the other climbers who
helped Sumi got off Mount
Hood.
Jurasevich did not answer
his phone Thursday and his
voicemail was full.
About 10,000 people climb
Mount Hood each year, mak-
ing it one of the most popular
snow-covered peaks in the U.S.
Its proximity to Portland and its
accessibility contribute to that
popularity. But conditions on
the peak, which has 11 active
glaciers, can be dangerous.
More than 130 people have
died on the 11,240-foot (3,429-
meter) mountain, including
seven school children and two
teachers who froze to death
in 1986 and several climb-
ers whose bodies haven’t been
found.
Associated Press writer
Steven Dubois in Portland
contributed to this report.
legal immigrants from around the world,” while
“Washington sends immigrants a message of
exclusion.”
Romney, 70, will be the heavy favorite for the
Senate seat being opened by Sen. Orrin Hatch’s
retirement. Hatch was among the first Republi-
cans to pitch Romney as his potential successor.
Leading up to Romney’s widely anticipated
announcement, confidantes said he intends to
focus his campaign on Utah, where he moved
with his wife, Ann, after losing the 2012 presi-
dential election to incumbent Democrat Barack
Obama.
“Utah has a lot to teach the politicians in
Washington,” Romney said in his announcement,
noting that “on Utah’s Capitol Hill, people treat
one another with respect.”
Food box idea
draws ire from
Democrats, advocates
WASHINGTON — The Trump administra-
tion is pushing what it calls a “bold new approach
to nutrition assistance”: replacing the traditional
cash-on-a-card that food stamp recipients cur-
rently get with a pre-assembled box of canned
foods and other shelf-stable goods dubbed
“America’s Harvest Box.”
Office of Management and Budget Direc-
tor Mick Mulvaney likened the box to a meal
kit delivery service, and said the plan could save
nearly $130 billion over 10 years. But the idea,
tucked into President Donald Trump’s 2019 bud-
get, has caused a firestorm, prompting scathing
criticism from Democrats and nutrition experts
who say its primary purpose is to punish the poor.
“The main goal is to alleviate food insecurity,
and the reason SNAP is so successful is because
it gives low-income families the autonomy and
dignity to make their own food choices,” said
Craig Gundersen, a professor in agricultural
strategy at the Department of Agricultural and
Consumer Economics at the University of Illi-
nois at Urbana-Champaign. Gundersen said peo-
ple will leave the program as a result of the shift.
SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assis-
tance Program — is the official name for the food
stamp programs.
Under the proposed plan, households that
receive more than $90 in SNAP benefits each
month — roughly 81 percent of households in
the program, or about 16.4 million — would be
affected.
The proposal doesn’t include any concrete
details about how much the program would cost
or how it would be implemented, saying only that
states will be given flexibility to distribute the
boxes “through existing infrastructure, partner-
ship, and/or directly to residences through com-
mercial and/or retail delivery services.”
Lawmakers say they aren’t even sure where
the idea came from.
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