NATION/WORLD
Saturday, August 26, 2017
East Oregonian
for determining whether transgender people
could be allowed to enter the military.
Mattis delayed that to Jan. 1, 2018, and
Trump has now instructed Mattis to extend it
indefi nitely.
But on the question of what will happen
to those transgender individuals who already
are serving openly — estimated to number
in the low hundreds — Trump seemed to
leave wiggle room for exceptions. A White
House offi cial who briefed reporters on the
presidential order would not say whether
Trump would permit any exceptions.
Menacing Harvey
reaches Texas coast
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) —
Hurricane Harvey was on the verge of
reaching Texas on Friday, bringing fi erce
winds and torrential rain to a wide swath of
the state’s Gulf Coast and prompting tens
of thousands of residents fl eeing inland in
hopes of escaping its wrath.
The National Hurricane Center said the
eyewall of the dangerous Category 4 storm
reached the Texas coast Friday evening,
suggesting that the eye of the storm would
soon make landfall.
With time running out, residents fl ed
Friday from the path of the increasingly
menacing-looking hurricane as it took aim at
an area of Texas that includes oil refi neries,
chemical plants and dangerously fl ood-prone
Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned that the
monster system would be “a very major
disaster,” and the forecasts drew fearful
comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, one of the
deadliest ever to strike the U.S.
As night fell, punishing winds had
already begun to cause damage in downtown
Corpus Christi, the city closest to the center
of the storm. A trash can lid skipped across
a parking lot behind hotels on the seawall.
In the city of 325,000 residents, a traffi c
light post was toppled but still lit, its wires
unearthed.
Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters,
Harvey grew rapidly, accelerating from
a Category 1 early in the morning to a
Category 4 by evening. Its transformation
from an unnamed storm to a life-threatening
behemoth took only 56 hours, an incredibly
fast intensifi cation.
North Korea fi res three
short-range missiles;
U.S. says tests fail
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Three
North Korea short-range ballistic missiles
failed on Saturday, U.S. military offi cials
said, which, if true, would be a temporary
setback to Pyongyang’s rapid nuclear and
missile expansion.
The U.S. Pacifi c Command said in a
statement that two of the North’s missiles
failed in fl ight after an unspecifi ed distance,
and another appeared to have blown up
immediately. It added that the missile posed
no threat to the U.S. territory of Guam,
which the North had previously warned it
would fi re missiles toward.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the
projectiles fi red from the North’s eastern
coast fl ew about 155 miles, though it did not
mention any failures. It said South Korea and
U.S. militaries were analyzing the launch
and didn’t immediately provide more details.
RNC votes to condemn
white supremacists over
groans of some
Courtney Sacco /Corpus Christi Caller-Times via AP
A power generator tips in front of Texas’ CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital in Corpus
Christi, Texas, as Hurricane Harvey hits Friday.
Obama’s ever was.
Trump’s early descent in the polls
defi es some longstanding patterns about
how Americans view their president. Such
plunges are often tied to external forces that
the president only partially controls, such
as a sluggish economy or an all-consuming
international crisis. In Trump’s case, the
economy is humming and the foreign crises
have been kept to a minimum.
National security aide
Sebastian Gorka leaves
White House
WASHINGTON (AP) — Controversial
White House national security aide Sebastian
Gorka tells The Associated Press he has
resigned from his position.
A White House offi cial, however, says
Gorka did not resign but “no longer works at
the White House.”
That offi cial was not authorized to discuss
the matter publicly and spoke on condition
of anonymity.
Gorka is declining to discuss the reasons
he has left the White House, but is pointing
toward excerpts from his resignation letter
that were posted Friday evening by The
Federalist website.
Gorka wrote that “the individuals who
most embodied and represented the policies
that will ‘Make America Great Again,’ have
been internally countered, systematically
removed, or undermined in recent months.”
Gorka’s departure comes a week after the
exit of chief strategist Steve Bannon from
the White House.
Upset with Trump’s
response, economic aide
mulled quitting
Trump setting records
for low approval
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump
started as the most unpopular new president
in the history of modern polling. After seven
months, things have only gotten worse.
Plunging into undesirably uncharted
territory, Trump is setting records with his
dismally low approval ratings, including the
lowest mark ever for a president in his fi rst
year. In fact, with four months left in the
year, Trump has already spent more time
under 40 percent than any other fi rst-year
president.
At 34 percent, his current approval rating
is worse than former President Barack
WASHINGTON (AP) — President
Donald Trump’s top economic adviser
sharply denounced the president’s response
to the racial violence in Charlottesville,
saying in an interview that he felt
“compelled” to speak out. Gary Cohn,
who is Jewish, was so upset by Trump’s
comments that he wrote a letter of
resignation but never submitted it.
“Citizens standing up for equality and
freedom can never be equated with white
supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK,”
Cohn told The Financial Times in an
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interview published Friday. “I believe this
administration can and must do better in
consistently and unequivocally condemning
these groups and do everything we can to
heal the deep divisions that exist in our
communities.”
It was an extraordinary public rebuke
of the president by a senior adviser, and
came just as Cohn will be a key fi gure in the
administration’s fall push for sweeping tax
reforms. It also played out as Cohn emerged
as a candidate to replace Janet Yellen as
chairman of the Federal Reserve when her
term ends in February.
Cohn told associates he expressed his
unhappiness to Trump in a conversation
a week ago at the president’s New Jersey
golf club and considered stepping down,
according to a person familiar with the
conversations but not authorized to speak
publicly about private talks. Two people
familiar with his thinking said he’d written a
resignation letter but then pocketed it.
Trump tells Mattis
to indefi nitely ban
transgender recruits
WASHINGTON (AP) — President
Donald Trump on Friday directed the
Pentagon to extend indefi nitely a ban on
transgender individuals joining the military,
but he appeared to leave open the possibility
of allowing some in uniform to remain.
Trump gave Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
authority to decide the matter of openly
transgender individuals already serving,
and he said that until the Pentagon chief
makes that decision, “no action may be taken
against” them.
The Obama administration in June 2016
had changed longstanding policy, declaring
that troops could serve openly as transgender
individuals. And it set a July 2017 deadline
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The
Republican National Committee walked the
tightrope Friday in carefully but resolutely
denouncing white supremacist groups
without criticizing President Donald Trump,
who waffl ed in his own statements in the
wake of the deadly clash in Virginia this
month.
Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee,
the RNC approved a raft of resolutions,
including one asserting “Nazis, the KKK,
white supremacists and others are repulsive,
evil and have no fruitful place in the United
States.”
And while the vote was unanimous,
some members had grumbled the resolution
was unnecessary and refl ected unnecessary
defensiveness.
Right-wing groups
cancel rallies in
San Francisco Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two
right-wing rallies planned for the weekend in
the San Francisco Bay Area were canceled
Friday, with organizers citing threats from
left-wing agitators, but local offi cials said
they remained concerned about the potential
for violence.
A Saturday “freedom rally” planned near
the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
was canceled by the group Patriot Prayer,
which said it would hold a news conference
at a city park instead.
Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson said his
followers would instead attend an anti-
Marxist rally in nearby Berkeley on Sunday,
but a short time later the organizer of that
rally called it off.
“I am asking that no one come to my
event,” Andrea Cummings said in a lengthy
statement issued via Facebook. She said she
had “grave concerns for the safety of the
people attending my event.”
Cummings said her rally was “to speak
out against the political violence happening
to people who do not agree” with left-wing
ideology, and that the meaning was being
lost as rhetoric around the rally escalated.
However, she said she “alone” would still
show up Sunday.
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