7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2018
WORLD IN BRIEF
White House
downgrades Kushner’s
security clearance
Associated Press
Dick’s ends sales of
assault-style rifles in stores
NEW YORK — Dick’s Sporting Goods, a
major U.S. retailer, will immediately halt sales
of assault-style rifles and high-capacity maga-
zines at all of its stores and ban the sale of all
guns to anyone under 21.
The announcement today comes as students
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland, Florida, return to class for the first
time since a troubled teenager killed 17 students
and educators with an AR-15 two weeks ago.
“When we saw what the kids were going
through and the grief of the parents and the kids
who were killed in Parkland, we felt we needed
to do something,” Chairman and CEO Ed Stack
said on “Good Morning America.”
Dick’s, one of the most well-known gun
retailers in the U.S., had cut off sales of assault-
style weapons at Dick’s stores following the
Sandy Hook school shooting. But sales had
resumed at its chain of stores under the name,
Field & Stream.
The decision to overhaul its own rules on
gun sales puts the company out front in a falling
out between corporate America and groups like
the National Rifle Association.
A number of major U.S. corporations includ-
ing MetLife, Hertz, Delta Airlines and First
National Bank of Omaha, one of the nation’s
largest privately held banks, cut ties with
the NRA in the days following the Parkland
shooting.
Stack today called for significant changes to
U.S. gun policy, and called on lawmakers to act
now. He also revealed that Nikolas Cruz, who
killed the students in Florida using an AR-15
assault-style rifle, had purchased a shotgun at a
Dick’s store within the past four months.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The body of Rev. Billy Graham is carried into the Capitol Rotunda.
Graham praised by Trump,
politicians as ‘America’s pastor’
WASHINGTON — He felt stung by the politics that helped define his life — and resolved
to keep a distance. But in death, the Rev. Billy Graham today received a rare tribute from the
nation’s top political leaders under the Capitol Rotunda.
“Here lies America’s pastor,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, gesturing to Graham’s casket
under the eye of the dome, surrounded by family, friends, lawmakers and a ring of paintings of
the nation’s founders.
President Donald Trump said his father was an admirer of Graham’s and that the “legendary”
American figure deserved to be recognized in the place “where the memory of the American peo-
ple is enshrined.”
Graham died a week earlier at age 99. Some 30 family members are accompanying Graham’s
casket to Washington, where he befriended presidents of both parties and counseled others over
seven decades. He is lying in honor before a funeral Friday near his home in Charlotte, North
Carolina.
Though he met every president since Harry Truman and counseled most, Graham grew wary
of politics after Watergate. He was closest to Richard Nixon but later said he felt used by him.
Nonetheless, Graham ministered to other presidents until his health began to fail about 10
years ago.
Graham is only the fourth private person to lie in honor since 1998. The others are two U.S.
Capitol Police officers who died in the line of duty in 1998 and civil rights hero Rosa Parks in
2005.
Trump invites lawmakers
to talk school safety, guns
WASHINGTON — President Donald
Trump was convening a bipartisan group of
lawmakers today to discuss school safety, as
Republican leaders showed little interest in pur-
suing stricter gun control laws and Democrats
pushed new restrictions following the Florida
shooting.
Ahead of the session, Senate Democrats
urged the president to follow through on his call
for “comprehensive background checks” by
endorsing legislation to extend the pre-purchase
reviews to online and gun show sales.
Legislation has been revived in the Senate to
close the gun show and online sales loophole.
Democrats appealed to Trump to use his influ-
ence on Capitol Hill, saying that if he endorses
a background check bill it would have a better
chance at passage.
Among those headed to the White House
are Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Sen. Joe
Manchin, D-W.Va., who are pushing their bill,
which failed twice in the Senate after the 2012
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, to
broaden background checks.
Trump had floated the idea of an age restric-
tion immediately after the Florida shooting but
has not talked about it in recent days. Trump
lunched recently with leaders of the National
Rifle Association, which opposes the proposal.
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Republican leaders, who have majority con-
trol of the House and Senate, are reluctant to
lead on legislation without knowing they have
Trump’s full support and can rely on his popu-
larity with a core flank of the GOP electorate to
shield them from political blowback.
But Trump, who is meeting with 17 sena-
tors and representatives from both parties, has
proven an inconsistent partner in such policy
debates, offering sweeping proposals — includ-
ing his tweet for stronger background checks —
only to drift from them.
WASHINGTON — The security clearance
of White House senior adviser and presiden-
tial son-in-law Jared Kushner has been down-
graded, significantly reducing his access to clas-
sified information, according to two people
informed of the decision.
Kushner had been operating with an interim
clearance at the “top secret/sensitive compart-
mented information” level for more than a year.
Now he is authorized to access information only
at the lower “secret” level.
Tuesday’s news set off rampant speculation
among Trump allies that Kushner’s days in the
White House might be numbered. On the same
day, the departure of a third Kushner ally in the
West Wing in as many months was announced.
And the selection of a Kushner ally to serve as
Trump’s 2020 campaign manager appeared to
suggest the campaign could provide Kushner
with a convenient place to land after his White
House duties end.
Kushner lost his access to the nation’s deep-
est secrets after chief of staff John Kelly ordered
that White House officials with interim clear-
ances pending since before June 1, 2017, be
cut off if they hadn’t received permanent clear-
ances by last Friday. A White House official
confirmed to The Associated Press that Kelly’s
order has been implemented.
President Donald Trump could have
reversed Kelly’s decision and unilaterally
offered Kushner a clearance, but deferred to
Kelly.
Manafort pleads
not guilty, gets
September trial date
WASHINGTON — President Donald
Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul
Manafort maintained his innocence today to
new charges he acted as an unregistered for-
eign agent and directed an international mon-
ey-laundering conspiracy.
Manafort appeared at the federal court-
house and entered a formal plea of not guilty
to a second indictment brought against him by
prosecutors working for special counsel Robert
Mueller. It was his first court appearance since
his co-defendant and longtime business asso-
ciate, Rick Gates, pleaded guilty and agreed to
cooperate with prosecutors.
Manafort had previously pleaded not guilty
in the case, but the latest indictment, which
mirrored the charges filed against him last
October, required him to formally enter a sec-
ond plea.
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