As Senate hearing set for Kavanaugh, new accuser emerges
WASHINGTON (AP) - Just as negotiators reached agreement on an extraordinary hearing for Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, a second allegation of sexual misconduct by the Supreme Court nominee put the White House and Senate Republicans on the defensive and fueled calls from Democrats to postpone further action on his confirmation.
A dayslong back and forth over the timing and terms of a hearing with Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, appeared to end Sunday with the announcement that they would appear separately Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The hearing promised a televised national drama as Ford tells her story of a high school sexual assault before skeptical Republicans, followed by Kavanaugh pleading his innocence and being grilled by Democrats.
Hours later, however, The New Yorker magazine reported online that Senate Democrats were investigating another woman's accusation of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh, this time dating to the 1983-84 academic year, Kavanaugh's first at Yale University.
The New Yorker said 53-year-old Deborah Ramirez described the incident in an interview after being contacted by the magazine. Ramirez recalled that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away, the magazine reported.
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Florence the week after: Thousands brace for more flooding
BLADENBORO, N.C. (AP) - Thousands of coastal residents remained on edge Sunday, told they may need to leave their homes because rivers are still rising more than a week after Hurricane Florence slammed into the Carolinas.
About 6,000 to 8,000 people in Georgetown County, South Carolina, were alerted to be prepared to evacuate ahead of a "record event" of up to 10 feet (3 meters) of flooding expected from heavy rains dumped by Florence, county spokeswoman Jackie Broach-Akers said. She said flooding is expected to begin Tuesday near parts of the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers and that people in potential flood zones should plan to leave their homes Monday.
The county's emergency management director, Sam Hodge, said in a video message posted online that authorities are closely watching river gauges and law enforcement would be going door to door in any threatened areas.
"From boots on the ground to technology that we have, we are trying to be able to get the message out," Hodge said in the video feed, advising people they shouldn't await an official order to evacuate should they begin to feel unsafe.
In North Carolina, five river gauges were still at major flood stage and five others were at moderate flood stage, according to National Weather Service. The Cape Fear River was expected to crest and remain at flood stage through the early part of the week, and parts of Interstate 40 are expected to remain underwater for another week or more.
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Tackling climate change to be key talking point at UN summit
BERLIN (AP) - With global temperatures rising, superstorms taking their deadly toll and a year-end deadline to firm up the Paris climate deal, leaders at this year's U.N. General Assembly are feeling a sense of urgency to keep up the momentum on combating climate change.
That's why, in between discussing how to tackle wars, poverty and deadly diseases around the world, leaders will be devoting substantial time in New York this week to the question of global warming and how to rein it in.
There'll be talk of emissions targets and the need to adapt to the inevitable changes already underway when small island states take the floor at the annual gathering. Ministers from major economies, meanwhile, will be meeting behind closed doors to discuss who will pay to help poor countries avoid the worst effects of global warming - and prevent a wave of climate refugees in future.
Outside the confines of the United Nations, campaigners and businesspeople will meet during New York Climate Week, while Wednesday will see the second edition of French President Emmanuel Macron's One Planet Summit.
About the only leader not expected to dwell on climate change is President Donald Trump, who last year announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris accord. He says it represents a bad deal for the American people.
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Mandela: A life of soaring symbolism, now harnessed by UN
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - Nelson Mandela's South African journey from anti-apartheid leader to prisoner to president to global statesman - the "Long Walk to Freedom" of his autobiography title - is one of the 20th century's great stories of struggle, sacrifice and reconciliation. Now the United Nations is seeking to harness its soaring symbolism.
The unveiling of a statue of Mandela, born 100 years ago, with arms outstretched at the U.N. building in New York on Monday opens a peace summit at the General Assembly, where world leaders will once again address the planet's pressing problems: war, poverty, disease, migration and climate change. They'll do so amid a massive security operation in a city where Mandela was welcomed by exultant crowds in 1990, a few months after he walked out of a South African jail, ending 27 years of imprisonment under the country's white minority government.
"South Africa will be free," Mandela said during that visit, and indeed, he became the country's first black president in its first multi-racial elections four years later. His death in 2013 at age 95 brought a global outpouring of grief and tributes.
But there is something of a distinction between the main global perception of Mandela - the moral colossus whose resolve and generosity of spirit, tactical as well as genuine, inspired people in Colombia, Northern Ireland and other places struggling with seemingly intractable conflicts - and a growing body of opinion at home that he and his party were too quick to accommodate South Africa's white minority, which lost political control but still dominates industry in one of the world's most economically unequal societies.
Despite South Africa's sense of unfinished business, it is a country enormously proud of the tall, charismatic orator with a broad smile and ironclad principles whose image and words were banned by his former captors, rendering him virtually invisible to the outside for decades. Mandela's universality means that he also belongs to the world, which has wrestled with a fresh set of economic and political ruptures of late.
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As Venezuelans go hungry, Trump targets food corruption
PANAMA CITY (AP) - The June meeting was conducted behind closed doors far from the klieg-light attention normally focused on Venezuela.
Around a U-shaped table in a hotel towering above the Panama Canal, U.S. Treasury Department officials distributed a list of suspected shell companies that they believe senior Venezuelan officials have used across the globe to siphon off millions of dollars from food import contracts amid widespread starvation in the oil-rich nation.
The two-day meeting, and several others that have taken place since April, are part of a sustained campaign by the Trump administration to pressure President Nicolas Maduro by striking at the wallets of the top officials in his socialist administration.
"They know we're after them, and they know we're after them on a multinational basis because we're beginning to see the networks morph and new shell companies stand up and existing ones wound down," Marshall Billingslea, the assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing, said in an interview on the sidelines of the meeting.
At that gathering, financial forensic investigators from the U.S. and three conservative Latin American allies - Mexico, Panama and Colombia - traced transactions by companies believed to be controlled by a government-connected businessman, according to several participants who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations were private.
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Amid furor, Trump pushes pause on deciding Rosenstein's fate
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) - As Air Force One streaked across the desert sky and Las Vegas faded in the distance, President Donald Trump began seeking opinions.
The TVs on the plane, tuned as always to Fox News, carried headlines about an explosive new story: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had suggested wearing a wire to secretly record Trump, and raised the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.
On the flights both to and from a Missouri rally, Trump polled staff on the plane, called his outside network of advisers and kept a careful eye on what his favorite hosts on his favorite network were recommending.
The messages were mixed, but more were in favor of containing the urge to fire Rosenstein, a move that would declare open warfare with the Justice Department and cast doubt on the future of the special counsel's Russia probe, according to two people familiar with the exchanges but not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.
Trump, though telling confidants that he felt the moment was another example of the "Deep State" and media conspiring to undermine him, held off dismissing Rosenstein. For now.
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At UN, unrepentant Trump set to rattle foes, friends alike
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) - President Donald Trump is poised to redouble his commitment to "America First" on the most global of stages this week.
In the sequel to his stormy U.N. debut, Trump will stress his dedication to the primacy of U.S. interests while competing with Western allies for an advantage on trade and shining a spotlight on the threat that he says Iran poses to the Middle East and beyond.
One year after Trump stood at the rostrum of the U.N. General Assembly and derided North Korea's Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man," the push to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula is a work in progress, although fears of war have given way to hopes for rapprochement.
Scores of world leaders, even those representing America's closest friends, remain wary of Trump. In the 12 months since his last visit to the U.N., the president has jolted the global status quo by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, starting trade conflicts with China and the West and embracing Russia's Vladimir Putin even as the investigation into the U.S. president's ties to Moscow moves closer to the Oval Office.
Long critical of the United Nations, Trump delivered a warning shot ahead of his arrival by declaring that the world body had "not lived up to" its potential.
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In a first, Hong Kong bans pro-independence political party
HONG KONG (AP) - Authorities in Hong Kong on Monday took an unprecedented step against separatist voices by banning a political party that advocates independence for the southern Chinese territory on national security grounds.
John Lee, the territory's secretary for security, announced that the Hong Kong National Party will be prohibited from operation from Monday.
Lee's announcement did not provide further details. But Hong Kong's security bureau had previously said in a letter to the National Party's leader, 27-year-old Andy Chan, that the party should be dissolved "in the interests of national security or public safety, public order or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others." Chan had no immediate comment.
That letter had cited a national security law that has not been invoked since 1997. The ban is likely to raise further questions about Beijing's growing influence in the former British colony, which was promised semi-autonomy as part of the 1997 handover. Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials have warned separatist activity would not be tolerated.
The perception that Beijing is reneging on its promise of semi-autonomy and eroding Hong Kong's free elections and freedom of speech is helping fuel a rising generation of young activists calling for greater autonomy, if not outright independence.
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Michelle Obama drums up voter participation at Nevada rally
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Former first lady Michelle Obama held a campaign-style rally in Las Vegas on Sunday to urge Nevadans to register to vote and cast ballots this fall, warning them that sitting out means someone else will make decisions for them.
"We get the leaders we vote for. We get the policies we vote for. And when we don't vote, that's when we wind up with government of, by and for other people," Obama told about 2,000 people inside a high school gymnasium.
The event was the first of two rallies the former first lady is scheduled to headline for the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization she co-chairs, When We All Vote.
She has long been one of the most popular draws among Democrats. But she has kept a low profile since leaving the White House in January 2017. Obama has limited her political commitments for now to helping When We All Vote, which says it encourages participation regardless of political affiliation.
It's unclear whether she will stump for Democratic candidates this year, but former President Barack Obama has made appearances in California and Ohio to support Democrats. He has also endorsed more than 80 Democrats up and down the ballot in more than a dozen states.
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Actor James Woods bashes Twitter after getting locked out
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Actor James Woods has been locked out of his Twitter account over a tweet he sent out months ago that was found to be in violation of Twitter's rules.
The tweet was posted July 20 and includes a hoax meme that said it came from Democrats and encouraged men not to vote in the midterm elections. Woods got an email from Twitter on Thursday saying the tweet "has the potential to be misleading in a way that could impact an election." The email says Woods can use his account again if he deletes the tweet.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Woods said this means he'll be allowed back on Twitter only if he decides to do what Twitter says. He says he won't do that, and he won't delete the tweet.
"Free speech is free speech - it's not Jack Dorsey's version of free speech," Woods said, referring to Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey.
Twitter said it doesn't comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons. A spokesman for the social media platform said by email that he had nothing more to share when asked if Dorsey would respond directly to Wood's comments.
Link textbacklinkexchanges.com
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News Pictures AP News in Brief at 12:09 a.m. EDT
You don’t have to pack away your bikini just because you’re the wrong side of 20. These body-beautiful stars reveal their secrets to staying in shape and prove you can smoulder in a two-piece, whatever your age. Read on and be bikini inspired!
TEENS
Hayden Panettiere
Size: 8
Age: 18
Height: 5ft 1in
Weight: 8st
To achieve her kick-ass figure, Hayden – who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes – follows the ‘quartering’ rule. She eats only a quarter of the food on her plate, then waits 20 minutes before deciding whether she needs to eat again.
Hayden says: “I don’t have a model’s body, but I’m not one of those crazy girls who thinks that they’re fat. I’m OK with what I have.”
Nicollette says: “I don’t like diets – I see it, I eat it! I believe in eating healthily with lots of protein, vegetables and carbs to give you energy.”
kim cattrall
Size: 10-12
Age: 52
Height: 5ft 8in
Weight: 9st 4lb
SATC star Kim swears by gym sessions with Russian kettle bells (traditional cast-iron weights) and the South Beach Diet to give her the body she wants. To avoid overeating, Kim has a radical diet trick – squirting lemon juice on her leftovers – so she won’t carry on picking.
Kim says: “I am no super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.”
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