Trump defends pardons for rioters and suggests Proud Boys could have place in politics
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on his first full day in office Tuesday defended his decision to grant clemency to people convicted of assaulting police officers during the 2021 attack on the Capitol and suggested there could be a place in American politics for the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, extremist groups whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the U.S.
The president also continued to dismantle the government's promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI. The White House issued a memo placing on paid leave all federal staff who work on those efforts, with plans to lay them off soon. DEI trainings were also canceled.
Trump's actions were the latest step in his drive to overhaul Washington and erase the work of President Joe Biden's administration.
A priority for Trump has been helping supporters who laid siege to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, making their pardons his first official action once he returned to the White House after his inauguration on Monday.
Among the roughly 1,500 people pardoned by Trump were more than 200 who pleaded guilty to assaulting police. At least 140 officers were injured during the riot — many beaten, bloodied and crushed by the crowd — as Trump's supporters tried to overturn Biden's election victory.
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22 states sue to stop Trump's order blocking birthright citizenship
Attorneys general from 22 states sued Tuesday to block President Donald Trump's move to end a century-old immigration practice known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that U.S.-born children are citizens regardless of their parents’ status.
Trump's roughly 700-word executive order, issued late Monday, amounts to a fulfillment of something he's talked about during the presidential campaign. But whether it succeeds is far from certain amid what is likely to be a lengthy legal battle over the president's immigration policies and a constitutional right to citizenship.
The Democratic attorneys general and immigrant rights advocates say the question of birthright citizenship is settled law and that while presidents have broad authority, they are not kings.
“The president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, write the 14th Amendment out of existence, period,” New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said.
The White House said it's ready to face the states in court and called the lawsuits “nothing more than an extension of the Left's resistance."
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Trump administration directs all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on leave
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump 's administration moved Tuesday to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off.
The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and insisted on restoring strictly “merit-based” hiring.
The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by President Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It’s using one of the key tools utilized by the Biden administration to promote DEI programs across the private sector — pushing their use by federal contractors — to now eradicate them.
The Office of Personnel Management in a Tuesday memo directed agencies to place DEI office staffers on paid leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday and take down all public DEI-focused webpages by the same deadline. Several federal departments had removed the webpages even before the memorandum. Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and end any related contracts, and federal workers are being asked to report to Trump's Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any DEI-related program has been renamed to obfuscate its purpose within 10 days or face “adverse consequences.”
By Thursday, federal agencies are directed to compile a list of federal DEI offices and workers as of Election Day. By next Friday, they are expected to develop a plan to execute a “reduction-in-force action” against those federal workers.
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A frigid storm drops rare snow on Houston and New Orleans as Florida readies plows in the Panhandle
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A rare frigid storm charged through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday, blanketing New Orleans and Houston with snow that closed highways, grounded nearly all flights and canceled school for more than a million students more accustomed to hurricane dismissals than snow days.
The storm prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border, and snowplows were at the ready in the Florida Panhandle.
In the Texas capital, two people died in the cold weather, according to a statement from the city of Austin. No details were provided, but the city said emergency crews had responded to more than a dozen “cold exposure” calls. Officials said one person died from hypothermia in Georgia.
Snow covered the white-sand beaches of normally sunny vacation spots, including Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Pensacola Beach, Florida. The heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain hitting parts of the Deep South came as a blast of Arctic air plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze.
A powdery South made for some head-turning scenes — a snowball fight on a Gulf Shores beach, sledding in a laundry basket in Montgomery, Alabama, pool-tubing down a Houston hill.
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Pete Hegseth's former sister-in-law alleges abuse against second wife in affidavit to Senate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators vetting the nomination of Pete Hegseth for defense secretary received an affidavit Tuesday from a former sister-in-law alleging that the onetime Fox News host was abusive to his second wife, to the point where she feared for her safety. Hegseth denies the allegations.
The sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, was formerly married to the nominee's brother, and in an affidavit obtained by The Associated Press, she said she believes that Pete Hegseth is “unfit” to run the Defense Department based on what she witnessed and heard. She said she first relayed her allegations to the FBI in December but was concerned that the information was not shared with Congress as senators consider Hegseth's nomination to lead the Pentagon.
The affidavit describes Hegseth’s treatment of his second wife, Samantha, and alleges repeat drunkenness and a domestic situation where Samantha Hegseth had a safe word to indicate if she was in danger at home. Danielle Hegseth said Samantha texted that safe word to her sometime in 2015 or 2016, which prompted her to call a third party for help.
“I have chosen to come forward publicly, at significant personal sacrifice, because I am deeply concerned by what Hegseth’s confirmation would mean for our military and our country,” she said.
An attorney for Pete Hegseth vehemently denied the allegations. Tim Parlatore said the affidavit was filled with “belated claims” by an ex-relative with “an axe to grind against the entire Hegseth family.”
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Israel's top general resigns over Oct. 7 failures, adding to pressure on Netanyahu
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's top general resigned Tuesday, taking responsibility for security failures tied to Hamas' surprise attack that triggered the war in Gaza and adding to pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has delayed any public inquiry that could potentially implicate his leadership.
While a fragile new ceasefire in the Gaza Strip held, Israel launched a “significant and broad” military operation in the occupied West Bank, killing at least nine people and injuring 40, Palestinian officials said.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi is the most senior Israeli figure to resign over the security and intelligence breakdown on Oct. 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led militants carried out a land, sea and air assault into southern Israel, rampaging through army bases and nearby communities.
The attack — the single deadliest on Israel in its history — killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and the militants abducted another 250. More than 90 captives are still in Gaza, around a third believed to be dead.
Halevi's resignation, effective March 6, came days into the ceasefire with Hamas that could lead to an end to the 15-month war and the return of remaining captives. Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, head of Israel's Southern Command, which oversees operations in Gaza, also resigned.
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South Korea to shrink biomass energy subsidies after criticism over link to deforestation
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The South Korean government will reduce subsidies for biomass energy after rising domestic and international criticism of its link to deforestation. Environmental activists generally applauded the reforms but criticized loopholes and slow timelines for phasing out the subsidies.
“While not without caveats, (the) decision by the South Korean government demonstrates that large-scale biomass power has no place in a renewable energy future,” Hansae Song, program lead at South Korea-based nongovernmental organization Solutions for Our Climate, said in an email to The Associated Press.
Biomass power, predominantly generated by burning wood, is growing globally as countries accelerate their transition to use cleaner energy — even though many scientists and environmentalists see it as problematic. In South Korea, it's the second-largest source of renewable energy.
South Korea has subsidized biomass energy with millions of dollars for more than a decade via their renewable energy certificates program. In a single recent the government gave approximately $688 million to support power plants using biomass, according to a press release from South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
Faced with limited domestic forest resources, South Korea’s biomass power industry has structured its business model around importing large volumes of wood pellets at lower prices from forest-rich nations. In 2023, imports accounted for 82% of the country’s wood pellet demand, making South Korea the world’s third-largest importer of biomass fuels, after the United Kingdom and Japan. An AP report found that biomass imported from Indonesia was linked to deforestation of natural, intact forest.
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The ash left behind by the Los Angeles wildfires might be toxic, experts warn
Toni Boucher threw up the first time she saw the charred remains of her home and neighborhood after this month’s deadly Los Angeles-area wildfires. Now she wonders if it’s worth it to go back to sift through the ashes and try to find her grandmother’s wedding ring.
It’s not just that she’s worried about the trauma she experienced from seeing the destruction in Altadena, where Boucher, 70, has lived for decades. She is also concerned about possible health risks.
“They talk about asbestos and they’re talking about lead and they’re talking about all of the things that have burned in the loss of the homes and the danger of that,” Boucher said.
Experts warn that the blazes unleashed complex chemical reactions on paint, furniture, building materials, cars, electronics and other belongings, turning ordinary objects into potentially toxic ash that requires protective gear to handle safely. The ash could include harmful lead, asbestos or arsenic, as well as newer synthetic materials.
“Ash is not just ash. Go back to the garage or what’s in your home. What is your furniture made out of? What are your appliances made out of? What is your house made out of?” asked Scott McLean, a former deputy chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's communications bureau. “A lot of it’s petroleum product and different composites that are extreme hazards due to fire when they combust."
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At least 76 people killed in a hotel fire at a ski resort in Turkey
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A fire raged through a 12-story hotel at a popular ski resort in northwestern Turkey early Tuesday during a school holiday, killing at least 76 people — at least two of them when they jumped from the building to escape the flames, officials said.
At least 51 people also were injured in the fire at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya, in Bolu province’s Koroglu mountains, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of Istanbul, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. The fire occurred near the start of a two-week winter break for schools, when hotels in the region are packed.
“Our hearts are broken. We are in mourning, “ Yerlikaya told reporters outside the hotel. ”But you should know that whoever is responsible for causing this pain will not escape justice."
Atakan Yelkovan, a hotel guest staying on the third floor, told the IHA news agency there was chaos on the upper floors as other guests tried to escape, including by trying to climb down from their rooms using sheets and blankets.
“People on the upper floors were screaming. They hung down sheets ... Some tried to jump,” Yelkovan said.
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Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
NEW YORK (AP) — Used to leading off, Ichiro Suzuki got antsy when he had to wait.
Considered a no-doubt pick for baseball's Hall of Fame and possibly the second unanimous selection, he waited by the phone for the expected call Tuesday. Fifteen minutes passed without a ring.
“I actually started getting kind of nervous,” he said through a translator. “I was actually relieved when I first got the call.”
Suzuki became the first Japanese player chosen for the Hall, falling one vote shy of unanimous when he was elected along with CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.
Quite the journey for a 27-year-old who left the Pacific League's Orix BlueWave in November 2000 to sign with Seattle as the first Japanese position player in Major League Baseball.
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