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NATION/WORLD Thursday, September 6, 2018 Kavanaugh keeps mum on White House subpoenas, pardons during hearing By MARK SHERMAN AND LISA MASCARO Associated Press WASHINGTON — Pres- sured by Democrats with Don- ald Trump on their minds, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh rejected repeated efforts at Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing to reveal his views about a president pardoning himself or being forced to testify in a criminal case. For a second day, the judge nominated by Trump insisted to probing senators that he fully embraced the importance of judicial independence. But he refused to provide direct answers to Democrats who wanted him to say whether there are limits on a presi- dent’s power to issue par- dons, including to himself or in exchange for a bribe. He also would not say whether he believes the president can be subpoenaed to testify. “I’m not going to answer hypothetical questions of that sort,” Kavanaugh said in response to a question from Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont about pardons. Still, he began his long day in the witness chair by declaring that “no one is above the law.” The Senate Judicial Com- mittee hearing has strong political overtones ahead of the November congressio- nal elections, but as a practi- cal matter Democrats lack the votes to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation. They are concerned that Kavanaugh will push the court to the right on abortion, guns and other issues, and that he will side with Trump in cases stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. The 53-year-old appellate judge answered cautiously when asked about those matters. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh testifies be- fore the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. Protesters continued their efforts to interrupt the hear- ings, but senators basically ignored their shouts as they were removed by police. Democrats’ complaints also persisted that they were being denied access to records from Kavanaugh’s time in the George W. Bush White House. One TV viewer gave Kava- naugh a rave review. Trump said he had been watching the hearings and thought the Democrats were “grasping at straws” in ques- tioning the man he chose to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. He said he “saw some incredible answers to very complex questions.” The committee’s top Dem- ocrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, disagreed. “He’s not being very specific,” she said during a break in the proceedings. The Democrats weren’t the only ones who recognized the importance of questions about Trump and the Russia inves- tigation. Committee Chair- man Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Kavanaugh right away whether he would be independent from the presi- dent who chose him for highly prestigious lifetime position. Kavanaugh said, “The first thing that makes a good judge is independence, not being swayed by political or public pressure.” He cited historic cases including the Brown v. Board of Education ruling that deseg- regated schools and the U.S. v. Nixon decision that compelled the president to turn over the Watergate tapes — a ruling that Kavanaugh had previ- ously questioned. “That takes some back- bone,” he said of the justices who decided those cases. But when asked more spe- cific questions, including whether a president can be required to respond to a sub- poena, Kavanaugh said, “I can’t give you an answer on that hypothetical question.” The Supreme Court has never answered that question, and it is among the potentially most important since Trump could face a subpoena from special counsel Mueller. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, asked whether a president could be criminally investigated or indicted. Kavanaugh again said he had never taken a posi- tion on those issues, though he did write in a 1998 article that impeachment may be the only way to hold a president accountable while in office. “The Constitution itself seems to dictate, in addition, that congressional investiga- tion must take place in lieu of criminal investigation when the President is the subject of investigation, and that crim- inal prosecution can occur only after the President has left office,” he wrote in the Georgetown Law Review. On abortion, Kavanaugh said the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that ensures access to abortion has been affirmed “many times.” “Respect for precedent is important. ... Precedent is rooted right in the Constitu- tion itself,” he said. Quake in northern Japan causes landslides, power loss By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — A power- ful earthquake rocked Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido early Thurs- day, triggering landslides that crushed homes, knocking out power across the island, and forcing a nuclear power plant to switch to a backup generator. The magnitude 6.7 earth- quake struck southern Hok- kaido at 3:08 a.m. at the depth of 40 kilometers (24 miles), Japan’s Meteorological Agency said. The epicenter was east of the city of Toma- komai but the shaking also affected Hokkaido’s prefec- tural capital of Sapporo, with a population of 1.9 million. The Japanese national broadcaster NHK, citing its own tally, reported that 125 people were injured and about 20 were feared missing. Hok- kaido’s local disaster agency put the number of injured at 48. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said a man was found without vital signs in Tomakomai, but his status was unclear. Several people were reported missing in the nearby town of Atsuma, where a massive landslide engulfed homes. Reconstruction Minis- ter Jiro Akama told reporters that five people were believed to be buried in the town’s Yoshino district. Some of the 40 people stranded there were airlifted to safer grounds, NHK said. Aerial views showed doz- ens of landslides in the sur- rounding area, with practi- Kyodo News via AP This aerial photo shows houses destroyed by a landslide after an earthquake in Atsuma town, Hokkaido, northern Japan, Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018. A powerful earth- quake rocked Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido early Thursday, trig- gering landslides that crushed homes, knocking out power across the island, and forcing a nuclear power plant to switch to a backup generator. cally every mountainside a raw slash of brown amid deep green forest. Airports and many roads on the island were closed fol- lowing the early morning quake. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that 25,000 troops and other personnel were being dispatched to the area to help with rescue operations. National broadcaster NHK showed the moment the quake struck the city of Muro- ran, with its camera violently shaking and all city lights going black moment later. In Sapporo, a mudslide on a road left several cars half buried. Power was knocked out for Hokkaido’s 2.9 million households. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiro- EARTHLINK INTERNET HIGH SPEED INTERNET shige Seko told reporters that the extensive power outage was caused by an emergency shutdown of the main thermal power plant that supplies half of Hokkaido’s electricity. Utility officials were start- ing up hydroelectric plants, Seko said, adding that he hoped to get power back “within a few hours.” In the meantime, authorities sent power-generator vehicles to hospitals so enable them to treat emergency patients, he said. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that the authori- ties were doing their utmost to rescue and assess dam- age after receiving hundreds of calls about people missing and buildings collapsing. The central government set up a crisis management taskforce at the prime minis- ter’s office. Three reactors at the Tom- ari nuclear plant were offline for routine safety checks, but they are running on backup generators that kicked in after losing external power because of the island-wide blackouts, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said. Spent fuel in storage pools was safely cooled on backup power that can last for a week, the agency said. The powerful earth- quake and tsunami in March 2011 that hit northeast Japan destroyed both exter- nal and backup power to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing meltdowns. Get Connected for as low as Get Connected for as low as 14.95/mo. $ 49.99/mo. 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WASHINGTON (AP) — In a striking anonymous broadside, a senior Trump administration official wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times on Wednesday claiming to be part of a group of people “working dili- gently from within” to impede President Donald Trump’s “worst inclinations” and ill-conceived parts of his agenda. Trump said it was a “gutless editorial” and “really a disgrace,” and his press secretary called on the official to resign. Trump later tweeted, “TREASON?” and in an extraor- dinary move demanded that if “the GUTLESS anon- ymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to govern- ment at once!” The writer, claiming to be part of the “resistance” to Trump but not from the left, said, “Many Trump appoin- tees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our demo- cratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more mis- guided impulses until he is out of office.” The newspaper described the author of the column only as a senior offi- cial in the Trump administration. “It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Amer- icans should know that there are adults in the room,” the author continued. “We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.” The makeover of the Democratic Party WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic makeover is in full swing. With just a few primaries remaining before the deci- sive midterm elections in November, voters have dramat- ically reshaped the Democratic Party to become younger, more diverse and unquestionably liberal. The latest turn came Tuesday in Massachusetts, where Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley, 44, trounced 10-term congressman Mike Capuano, 66, in a Demo- cratic primary. It reprised a June primary upset in which self-proclaimed democratic socialist Alexandria Oca- sio-Cortez, 29, toppled New York congressman Joe Crowley, one of the House Democrats’ top leaders. They join minority candidates like Democratic gubernatorial nominees Stacey Abrams of Georgia and Andrew Gil- lum of Florida and a host of younger white candidates — including dozens of women and a gaggle of veterans — who are offering voters an antidote to President Don- ald Trump. “We are at a crossroads,” Pressley declared during a party unity rally Wednesday. “This can be our darkest hour or it can be our finest.” Outsider candidates are taking on establish- ment-aligned Democratic incumbents in the final prima- ries of the season over the coming week in states such as Delaware and Rhode Island. Blamed in baby’s death, weakening Gordon spreads rain inland DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. (AP) — Blamed for the death of a Florida baby and intense wind and rain that pummeled parts of the northern Gulf of Mexico coast, Tropical Depression Gordon weakened Wednesday but still spread bands of heavy rains across a swath of the South as it swirled over central Mississippi. It promised more of the same on a forecast track expected to take it northeast into Arkansas, which was forecast to get heavy rain from the system by Wednes- day night. By Saturday, what’s left of the storm was fore- cast to hook to the north, then northeast on a path toward the Great Lakes. National Weather Service offices in Mis- souri and Oklahoma said Gordon’s remnants could add to the rain caused by a frontal boundary already causing heavy rains in parts of the Midwest. Flash flood watches stretched from the Florida panhandle through parts of southwest Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and Illinois. Gordon never reached hurricane strength by the time it came ashore Tuesday night just west of the Mississip- pi-Alabama line. Its maximum sustained winds reached 70 mph. It knocked out power to at least 27,000 util- ity customers in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. By Wednesday afternoon the numbers were down to about 5,800 in Alabama, 3,000 in Mississippi and a little more than 2,000 in Florida. Pictures on social media showed damaged roofs and debris-strewn beaches and roads. However, no major damage or serious injuries were reported, other than the one fatality — a baby in a mobile home, struck by a large tree limb in Pensacola late Tuesday. Neighbors told a newspaper the victim was about 10 months old, but the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the child was 2 years old. No immediate ruling in GOP’s latest ‘Obamacare’ lawsuit AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The latest push to scrap the Affordable Care Act once and for all pressed ahead Wednesday as Republican-controlled states asked a fed- eral judge to finish what Congress started last year and bring the law that insures 20 million Americans to a halt. A small group of protesters, some holding signs read- ing “Save the ACA,” shouted across the street from a Fort Worth, Texas, courthouse where former President Barack Obama’s health care law is again under attack. At issue are core principles of the law, including protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions and limits on how much older customers can be charged. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor made no immedi- ate ruling following a four-hour hearing. Twenty GOP- led states brought the lawsuit, arguing that the entire health care law was rendered unconstitutional after Con- gress repealed the “individual mandate” that required most Americans to buy insurance or risk a tax penalty. “Texans and other Americans should be free again to make their own health care choices,” said Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the court challenge. 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