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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2019
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
Harris opens
presidential bid
on Martin Luther
King Day
WASHINGTON
—
Kamala Harris, a fi rst-term
senator and former Califor-
nia attorney general known
for her rigorous questioning
of President Donald Trump’s
nominees, entered the Dem-
ocratic presidential race
today. Vowing to “bring our
voices together,” she would
be the fi rst woman to hold
the presidency and the sec-
ond African-American if she
succeeds.
Harris, who grew up in
Oakland, California, and is
a daughter of parents from
Jamaica and India, is one of
the earliest high-profi le Dem-
ocrats to join what is expected
to be a crowded fi eld. She
made her long anticipated
announcement on ABC’s
“Good Morning America.”
The 54-year old portrayed
herself as a fi ghter for jus-
tice, decency and equality
in a video distributed by her
campaign as she announced
her bid. “They’re the values
we as Americans cherish, and
they’re all on the line now,”
Harris says in the video. “The
future of our country depends
on you and millions of others
lifting our voices to fi ght for
our American values.”
Harris launched her pres-
idential bid as the nation
observes what would have
been the 90th birthday of the
slain civil rights leader Mar-
tin Luther King Jr. The tim-
ing was a clear signal that the
California senator— who has
joked that she had a “stroll-
er’s-eye view” of the civil
rights movement because
her parents wheeled her and
her sister Maya to protests —
sees herself as another leader
in that fi ght.
MLK holiday
offers stage for
Democratic
hopefuls
COLUMBIA, S.C. — In
addition to Sen. Kamala Har-
ris launching her presidential
campaign, other Democratic
presidential hopefuls are fan-
ning out across the country to
honor the civil rights leader
and make themselves heard
on the national stage.
An annual rally to observe
King’s birthday, held in the
capital of South Carolina,
a critical early-voting state
in the Democratic primary,
brought out two senators
expected to seek the White
House in 2020, Cory Booker
of New Jersey and Bernie
Sanders of Vermont.
In the nation’s capital,
former New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, who is
weighing a presidential bid,
spoke at a King event along-
side former Vice President
Joe Biden, who’s considering
his own 2020 run.
Two candidates who have
already opened exploratory
committees — Sens. Eliza-
beth Warren of Massachu-
setts and Kirsten Gillibrand of
New York — will also appear
at King-centered events.
President Donald Trump,
meanwhile, paid a visit to the
Martin Luther King Jr. memo-
rial in Washington to pay his
respects on a frigid and windy
day. He was joined by Vice
President Mike Pence, who
accompanied Trump in lay-
ing a wreath at the foot of the
memorial statue.
Frigid air, high winds blast eastern US
congress, shrugged off the
court’s warning and reiterated
his call for people to take to
the streets Wednesday — a
historic date commemorating
the end of Venezuela’s mil-
itary dictatorship in 1958 —
to demand Maduro abandon
power.
Dozens of foreign govern-
ments have refused to recog-
nize Maduro’s second term,
some saying they are ready to
recognize Guaido as interim
president until fair elections
can be held.
Shutdown goes
on as Trump offer
doesn’t budge
Democrats
Dennis Nett/The Post-Standard
A snow storm blasts Syracuse, New York on Sunday. The National Weather Service forecast temperatures more than
20 degrees below normal across the Northeast, with wind gusts up to 30 mph and wind chills approaching minus 40
degrees. The weather contributed to multiple deaths over the holiday weekend.
bers. He added: “We can con-
fi rm a combined U.S. and
Syrian partner force convoy
was involved” in the suicide
bomb attack.
Today’s bombing came
days after a suicide attack
killed 19 people, including
two U.S. service members
and two American civilians,
in the northern Syrian town
of Manbij. That bombing was
the deadliest assault on U.S.
troops in Syria since Amer-
ican forces moved into the
country in 2015.
The extremist group
claimed both attacks in state-
ments carried by its Aamaq
news agency. IS has been
driven from virtually all the
territory it once held in Syria
and Iraq but continues to carry
out attacks in both countries.
Israel jets strike
Iranian military
sites in Syria
JERUSALEM — The
Israeli military said its
jets struck Iranian military
targets in Syria early today,
an announcement that
marked a rare departure
from Israel’s yearslong pol-
icy of ambiguity regard-
ing activities in neighboring
Syria.
The military said the tar-
gets included munition stor-
age facilities, an intelli-
gence site and a military
training camp.
The strikes were in
response to a surface-to-sur-
face rocket that Iranian
forces fi red toward Israel on
Sunday that was intercepted
by Israel’s Iron Dome mis-
sile defense system over
a ski resort in the Golan
Heights. That launch fol-
lowed a rare Israeli daylight
air raid near the Damascus
International Airport.
The
Britain-based
Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said Mon-
day’s pre-dawn strikes
lasted for nearly an hour
and were the most intense
Israeli attacks since May.
It said 11 were killed in
the strikes. The Russian
military said four Syrian
troops were among those
killed in airstrikes that tar-
geted three different loca-
tions and damaged unspec-
ifi ed
infrastructure
at
Damascus airport.
Venezuela quells
soldiers’ revolt,
top court blasts
congress
CARACAS, Venezuela
— Venezuela plunged deeper
into turmoil today as secu-
rity forces put down a pre-
dawn uprising by national
guardsmen that triggered vio-
lent street protests and the
Supreme Court outlawed the
opposition-controlled con-
gress’ defi ant new leadership.
The mutiny triggered pro-
tests in a poor neighborhood
just a few miles from Vene-
zuela’s presidential palace. It
was dispersed with tear gas
as residents set fi re to a barri-
cade of trash.
Juan Guaido, president of
WASHINGTON — Thir-
ty-one days into the par-
tial government shutdown,
Democrats and Republicans
appeared no closer to end-
ing the impasse than when it
began, with President Don-
ald Trump lashing out at his
opponents after they dis-
missed a plan he’d billed as a
compromise.
Trump on Sunday branded
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
a “radical” and said she was
acting “irrationally.” The
president also tried to fend
off criticism from the right,
as conservatives accused him
of embracing “amnesty” for
immigrants in the country
illegally.
Trump offered on Satur-
day to temporarily extend
protections for young immi-
grants brought to the coun-
try illegally as children and
those fl eeing disaster zones in
exchange for $5.7 billion for
his border wall. But Demo-
crats said the three-year pro-
posal didn’t go nearly far
enough.
With hundreds of thou-
sands of federal workers set
to face another federal pay
period without paychecks,
the issue passed to the Sen-
ate, where Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell has agreed
to bring Trump’s proposal to
the fl oor this week.
I still have some chapters left to write,
things I want to do yet. Feel free to
take a vacation. I might do that, too.
Grateful to be here,
Ann
Islamic State group
targets US convoy
in northeast Syria
BEIRUT — An Islamic
State suicide bomber tar-
geted a joint convoy of U.S.
and allied Kurdish forces in
northern Syria today, mark-
ing the second attack against
U.S. troops in less than a
week and further highlighting
the dangers surrounding U.S.
plans to withdraw forces after
a declaration that the extrem-
ist group had been defeated.
Col. Sean Ryan said there
were no casualties among
the U.S.-led coalition mem-
p r ov idenceoregon . org / de a rnorthcoa s t