Mounting confidence nerve gas was used in Syria attack

Mounting confidence nerve gas was used in Syria attack

Britain's United Nations Ambassador Matthew Rycroft speaks during a meeting of the Security Council on Syria at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, April 5, 2017. Rycroft said the attack in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province "bears all the hallmarks" of President Bashar Assad's regime and the Britain believes a nerve agent capable of killing over a hundred people was used.

   

BEIRUT (AP) -- Diplomats at the U.N. Security council sparred Wednesday over whether to hold President Bashar Assad's government responsible for a chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 people in northern Syria, while U.S. intelligence officials, Doctors Without Borders and the U.N. healthy agency said evidence pointed to nerve gas exposure.

The Trump administration and other world leaders said the Syrian government was to blame, but Moscow, a key ally of Assad, said the assault was caused by a Syrian airstrike that hit a rebel stockpile of chemical arms.

Early U.S. assessments showed the use of chlorine gas and traces of the nerve agent sarin in the attack Tuesday that terrorized the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, according to two U.S. officials who weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

Israeli military intelligence officers also believe Syrian government forces were behind the attack, Israeli defense officials told the Associated Press. Israel believes Assad has tons of chemical weapons still in his arsenal, despite a concerted operation three years ago by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to rid the government of its stockpile, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief the media. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also blamed the Syrian government for the attack.

In Khan Sheikhoun, rescue workers found terrified survivors still hiding in shelters as another wave of airstrikes battered the town Wednesday. Those strikes appeared to deliver only conventional weapons damage.

Among those discovered alive were two women and a boy found hiding in a shelter beneath their home, the Civil Defense search and rescue group told the AP.

The effects of the attack overwhelmed hospitals around the town, leading paramedics to send patients to medical facilities across rebel-held areas in northern Syria, as well as to Turkey. The Turkish Health Ministry said three victims died receiving treatment inside its borders. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for 

Human Rights monitoring group put the toll at 86 killed.

Victims of the attack showed signs of nerve gas exposure, the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders said, including suffocation, foaming at the mouth, convulsions, constricted pupils and involuntary defecation. Paramedics were using fire hoses to wash the chemicals from the bodies of victims.

Medical teams also reported smelling bleach on survivors of the attack, suggesting chlorine gas was also used, Doctors Without Borders said.

The magnitude of the attack was reflected in the images of the dead - children piled in heaps for burial, a father carrying his lifeless young twins.

The visuals from the scene were reminiscent of a 2013 nerve gas attack on the suburbs of Damascus that left hundreds dead and prompted an agreement brokered by the U.S. and Russia to disarm Assad's chemical stockpile. Western nations blamed government forces for that attack, where effects were concentrated on opposition-held areas.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis said during his general audience that he was "watching with horror at the latest events in Syria," and that he "strongly deplored the unacceptable massacre."

Tuesday's attack happened just 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Turkish border, and the Turkish government - a close ally of Syrian rebels - set up a decontamination center at a border crossing in the province of Hatay, where the victims were initially treated before being moved to hospitals.

At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley warned the Trump administration would take action if the Security Council did not in response to the attack.

"When you kill innocent children, innocent babies - babies, little babies - with a chemical gas that is so lethal, people were shocked to hear what gas it was, that crosses many, many lines," Donald Trump said in the White House Rose Garden. The president declined to say what the U.S. would do in response, but he did say that his "attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much."

The council was convened in an emergency session to consider a resolution that would back an investigation by the chemical weapons watchdog into the attack and compel the Syrian government to cooperate with a probe. It was drafted by the U.S., Britain and France.

Syria's government denied it carried out any chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, but Russia's Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory on the town's eastern outskirts.

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft dismissed that account, saying the U.K. had seen nothing that would suggest rebels "have the sort of chemical weapons that are consistent with the symptoms that we saw yesterday."

Diplomats were also meeting in Brussels for a major donors' conference on the future of Syria and the region. Representatives from 70 countries were present.

A top Syrian rebel representative said he held U.N. mediator Staffan De Mistura "personally responsible" for the attack. Mohammad Alloush, the rebels' chief negotiator at U.N.-mediated talks with the Syrian government, said the envoy must begin labeling the Syrian government as responsible for killing civilians. He said the U.N.'s silence "legitimizes" the strategy.

"The true solution for Syria is to put Bashar Assad, the chemical weapons user, in court, and not at the negotiations table," said Alloush, who is an official in the Islam Army rebel faction.

Syria's rebels, and the Islam Army in particular, are also accused of human rights abuses in Syria, but rights watchdogs attribute the overwhelming portion of civilian causalities over the course of the six-year war to the actions of government forces and their allies.

Worst humanitarian crisis hits as Trump slashes foreign aid

Worst humanitarian crisis hits as Trump slashes foreign aid
 

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- The world's largest humanitarian crisis in 70 years has been declared in three African countries on the brink of famine, just as President Donald Trump's proposed foreign aid cuts threaten to pull the United States from its historic role as the world's top emergency donor.

If the deep cuts are approved by Congress and the U.S. does not contribute to Africa's current crisis, experts warn that the continent's growing drought and famine could have far-ranging effects, including a new wave of migrants heading to Europe and possibly more support for Islamic extremist groups.

The conflict-fueled hunger crises in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan have culminated in a trio of potential famines hitting almost simultaneously. Nearly 16 million people in the three countries are at risk of dying within months.

Famine already has been declared in two counties of South Sudan and 1 million people there are on the brink of dying from a lack of food, U.N. officials have said. Somalia has declared a state of emergency over drought and 2.9 million of its people face a food crisis that could become a famine, according to the U.N. 

And in northeastern Nigeria, severe malnutrition is widespread in areas affected by violence from Boko Haram extremists.

"We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations," Stephen O'Brien, the U.N. humanitarian chief, told the U.N. Security Council after a visit this month to Somalia and South Sudan.

At least $4.4 billion is needed by the end of March to avert a hunger "catastrophe" in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in late February.

But according to U.N. data, only 10 percent of the necessary funds have been received so far.

Trump's proposed budget would "absolutely" cut programs that help some of the most vulnerable people on Earth, Mick Mulvaney, the president's budget director, told reporters last week. The budget would "spend less money on people overseas and more money on people back home," he said.

The United States traditionally has been the largest donor to the U.N. and gives more foreign aid to Africa than any other continent. In 2016 it gave more than $2 billion to the U.N.'s World Food Program, or almost a quarter of its total budget. That is expected to be reduced under Trump's proposed budget, according to former and current U.S. government officials.

"I've never seen this kind of threat to what otherwise has been a bipartisan consensus that food aid and humanitarian assistance programs are morally essential and critical to our security," Steven Feldstein, a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration, told The Associated Press.

In an interview last week with the AP in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected the proposed cuts to foreign aid. "America being a force is a lot more than building up the Defense Department," he said. "Diplomacy is important, extremely important, and I don't think these reductions at the State Department are appropriate because many times diplomacy is a lot more effective - and certainly cheaper - than military engagement."

The hunger crises in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan are all the more painful because they are man-made, experts said, though climate change has had some impact on Somalia and Nigeria's situations, said J. Peter Pham, the head of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council.

South Sudan has been entrenched in civil war since late 2013 that has killed tens of thousands and prevented widespread cultivation of food. In Nigeria and Somalia, extremist groups Boko Haram and al-Shabab have proven stubborn to defeat, and both Islamic organizations still hold territory that complicates aid efforts.

If Trump's foreign aid cuts are approved, the humanitarian funding burden for the crises would shift to other large donors like Britain. But the U.S.'s influential role in rallying global support will slip.

"Without significant contributions from the U.S. government, it is less able to catalyze contributions from other donors and meet even minimal life-saving needs," Nancy Lindborg, president of the United States 

Institute of Peace, said in prepared remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, neighboring African countries will feel the immediate consequences of famine, experts said. On 

Thursday, the U.N. refugee chief said Uganda was at a "breaking point" after more than 570,000 South Sudanese refugees had arrived since July alone.

Others fleeing hunger could aim for Europe instead.

"We are going to see pressure on neighboring countries, in some cases people joining traditional migration routes both from the Sahel into Europe, or south into various destinations in Africa," Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told the AP.

"You have 19 countries facing some degree of food stress in Africa, and three of them are facing famine conditions. All three of them are facing conflict, and the vast majority of the countries facing more serious crises are non-democratic governments," Siegle said.

He described a series of possible consequences. Most likely there will be increased flows of people migrating from Somalia and the vast Sahel region north into Libya, where trafficking routes are a valuable source of finance for the Islamic State, he said.

Closer to home, people from South Sudan and Somalia seeking food likely will strain the resources of neighboring countries where political will and goodwill to refugees can be fleeting, said Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations and emergencies with the International Organization for Migration.

The regional consequences will depend on how the international community responds, Abdiker said.

Alex De Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation, summed up the situation: "Famine can be prevented if we want."

Police: Random racist violence ends in death of black man

Police: Random racist violence ends in death of black man
 

This composite screen shot shows the Twitter page of 66-year-old Timothy Caughman featuring his March 20, 2017, post and a photo he posted of himself in November 2016 after voting on election day, as seen on a computer monitor in New York on Thursday, March 23, 2017. The Twitter post was his last before being stabbed to death in New York while collecting bottles on the street. Police say James Harris Jackson, a white U.S. Army veteran from Baltimore bent on making a racist attack, took a bus to New York, randomly picked out a black man - Caughman - and killed him with a sword. Jackson turned himself in at a Times Square police station early Wednesday, about 25 hours after Caughman staggered into a police precinct bleeding to death.

  

NEW YORK (AP) -- One was a neighborly black man who lived in a rooming house in New York's Garment District, liked to collect autographs outside Broadway's theaters, struck up a Twitter friendship with a Hollywood actress and took photos of himself with Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce.

The other was a white Army veteran from outside Baltimore who was raised in what was described as a churchgoing and liberal family and served in Afghanistan.

Late Monday night, officials say, their paths crossed tragically on the streets of New York in a cold-bloodedly random act of racist violence by the white man.

As 66-year-old Timothy Caughman bent over a trash bin around the corner from his home, gathering bottles to recycle, James Harris Jackson attacked him from behind with a 2-foot sword and walked off, prosecutors say. A bleeding Caughman staggered into a police station and later died at a hospital.

On Thursday, Jackson, 28, was charged with murder as a hate crime. He said nothing in court.

"The defendant was motivated purely by hatred," said Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi, who added that the charges could be upgraded, "as this was an act most likely of terrorism."

Prosecutors said Jackson hated black men, especially those who dated white women.

He came to New York last week to make a splash in the media capital of the world by killing as many black men as possible, authorities said. He saw Caughman on the street and thought he would make good practice for a larger attack in Times Square, they said. But Caughman wound up the only victim.

After seeing his picture in the news, Jackson turned himself in at a police station. He was armed with two knives and told officers he had tossed the sword in a trash bin in Washington Square Park, officials said. It was later recovered.

Investigators said they were trying to determine exactly what drove Jackson to violence. They planned to 

search his laptop and phone and interviewed friends and family.

His attorney, Sam Talkin, said if the allegations are anywhere close to being true, "then we're going to address the obvious psychological issues that are present in this case."

Jackson was in the Army from 2009 to 2012 and worked as an intelligence analyst, the Army said. Deployed in Afghanistan in 2010-11, he earned several medals and attained the rank of specialist.

Dr. Scott Krugman, chairman of pediatrics at Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore and a friend of the family, said the allegations were out of character with his family's beliefs and the way he was raised.

Jackson's parents, David and Patricia Jackson, are active members of Towson Presbyterian Church and have two other sons. Patricia Jackson is a former teacher of English-language students in the Baltimore County school system and worked for Well for the Journey, a Christian nonprofit organization that helps people "integrate spirituality into their daily lives in a safe, inclusive space."

"They're liberal as liberal can be," Krugman said. "We were at a dinner party with them and everybody was complaining about the current administration and very open about rights for everybody and making sure we're not excluding immigrants, everything like that. I'm just beyond shocked right now."

In a statement, the Jackson family extended condolences to Caughman's family and said it was "shocked, horrified and heartbroken by this tragedy."

Caughman had lived for 18 years in a former hotel in Manhattan, sharing the building with tenants who were part of a temporary-housing program. Caughman was not part of the program; he was a tenant already living in the century-old, seven-story building.

He was "extremely respectful" of his neighbors and building workers, said Svein Jorgensen, the program's executive director. "He was a great tenant and someone that anyone would be glad to have as a neighbor." He added: "He was a gentleman."

Caughman displayed photos of himself with celebrities on his Twitter page, where he also showed that he was proud to have voted in the election. He struck up a longtime Twitter relationship with Shari Headley, the actress who played Eddie Murphy's love interest in "Coming to America."

After his death, she tweeted: "My heart is heavy typing this. Timothy Caughman was a fan of mine since 1991. He only spread LOVE. His murder was senseless."

His family was upset that he was initially portrayed in some news reports as a homeless man with a criminal past. He had a criminal history, but the most recent offense was a low-level pot arrest in 2002.

His cousin Seth Peek told The New York Times that in the 1970s and '80s, Caughman worked with young people in Queens as part of a youth program.

"He wasn't just a vagrant person collecting bottles," Peek said. "That was not just what his life was. He went to college, and he was concerned with young people in the neighborhood."

Obamacare repeal vote put off in stinging setback for Trump

Obamacare repeal vote put off in stinging setback for Trump

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. reacts to a reporters question on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 23, 2017, following a Freedom Caucus meeting. GOP House leaders delayed their planned vote on a long-promised bill to repeal and replace "Obamacare," in a stinging setback for House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump in their first major legislative test.

  

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After seven years of fervent promises to repeal and replace "Obamacare," President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders buckled at a moment of truth Thursday, putting off a planned showdown vote in a stinging setback for the young administration.

The White House insisted the House vote would still happen - Friday morning instead - but with opposition flowing from both strongly conservative and moderate-leaning GOP lawmakers, that was far from assured.

The delay was announced after Trump, who ran for president as a master deal-maker, failed to close the deal with a group of fellow Republicans in the first major legislative test of his presidency.

Still, leaders of the conservative Freedom Caucus said they were continuing to work with the White House late Thursday on their demands to limit the requirements on insurance companies now in place under former President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

"

I can tell you at this point we are trying to get another 30 to 40 votes that are now in the 'no' category to 'yes.' Once we do that I think we can move forward," said Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows of North Carolina.

The figures quoted by Meadows were startling since Republicans can lose only 22 votes in the face of united Democratic opposition. A tally by The Associated Press counts at least 31 solid "no" votes.

Moderate-leaning lawmakers were bailing, too, as the demands from conservatives pushed them even further from being able to support the GOP bill. The legislation would eliminate some of the requirements, taxes and penalties from Obama's health care law, but also would mean millions would lose their health insurance, older voters would pay higher premiums and Medicaid coverage would shrink for many low-income voters across the country.

GOP leaders planned to meet into the night to figure out how to try to resuscitate the bill. At the White House, Trump insisted just before the delay was announced that "we have a great bill and I think we have a very good chance."

As word trickled out that the vote was delayed, one reporter asked the president for a reaction, and Trump just shrugged. White House press secretary Sean Spicer had insisted earlier that Thursday's vote would happen and the bill would be approved.

There was "no plan B," the White House said.

The drama unfolded seven years to the day after Obama signed his landmark law, an anniversary GOP leaders meant to celebrate with a vote to undo the divisive legislation. "Obamacare" gave birth to the tea party movement and helped Republicans win and keep control of Congress and then take the White House.

Instead, the anniversary turned into bitter irony for the GOP, as C-SPAN filled up the time as the House recessed and lawmakers negotiated by playing footage of Obama signing the Affordable Care Act.

"In the final analysis, this bill falls short," GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state said in a statement Thursday as she became the latest rank-and-file Republican, normally loyal to leadership, to declare her opposition. "The difficulties this bill would create for millions of children were left unaddressed," she said, citing the unraveling of Medicaid.

The Republican legislation would halt Obama's tax penalties against people who don't buy coverage and cut the federal-state Medicaid program for low earners, which the Obama statute had expanded. It would provide tax credits to help people pay medical bills, though generally skimpier than Obama's statute provides. It also would allow insurers to charge older Americans more and repeal tax boosts the law imposed on high-income people and health industry companies.

The measure would also block federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year, another stumbling block for GOP moderates.

In a danger sign for Republicans, a Quinnipiac University poll found that people disapprove of the GOP legislation by 56 percent to 17 percent, with 26 percent undecided. Trump's handling of health care was viewed unfavorably by 6 in 10.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who as speaker was Obama's crucial lieutenant in passing the Democratic bill in the first place, couldn't resist a dig at the GOP disarray.

"You may be a great negotiator," she said of Trump. "Rookie's error for bringing this up on a day when clearly you're not ready."

Obama declared in a statement that "America is stronger" because of the current law and said Democrats must make sure "any changes will make our health care system better, not worse for hardworking Americans." Trump tweeted to supporters, "Go with our plan! Call your Rep & let them know."

Congressional leaders have increasingly put the onus on the president to close the deal, seemingly seeking to ensure that he takes ownership of the legislation - and with it, ownership of defeat if that is the outcome.

Yet, unlike Obama and Pelosi when they passed Obamacare, the Republicans had failed to build an outside constituency or coalition to support their bill. Instead, medical professionals, doctors and hospitals - major employers in some districts - the AARP and other influential consumer groups were nearly unanimously opposed. So were outside conservative groups who argued the bill didn't go far enough. The Chamber of Commerce was in favor.

Moderates were given pause by projections of 24 million Americans losing coverage in a decade and higher out-of-pocket costs for many low-income and older people, as predicted by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In an updated analysis Thursday, the CBO said that late changes to the bill meant to win over reluctant lawmakers would cut beneficial deficit reduction in half, while failing to cover more people.

And, House members were mindful that the bill, even if passed by the House, faces a tough climb in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear it will need to change to win the support needed to pass.

Documents detail Flynn payments from Russian interests

Documents detail Flynn payments from Russian interests
 

FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2017 file photo, then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn sits in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Documents released in a congressional inquiry show Flynn was paid more than $33,750 by RT, Russia’s government-run television system, for appearing at a Moscow event in December 2015. Flynn had retired months earlier as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Documenting more than $67,000 in fees and expenses paid before the presidential election to former national security adviser Michael Flynn by Russian companies, a Democratic congressman Thursday asked the Trump administration to provide a comprehensive record of Flynn's contacts with foreign governments and interests.

Flynn accepted $33,750 from Russia's government-run television system for appearing at a Moscow event in December 2015 - a few months before Flynn began formally advising President Donald Trump's campaign - and thousands more in expenses covered by the network and in speech fees from other Russian firms, according to the newly released documents.

Flynn's financial relationship with the RT network may violate a constitutional provision against gifts from foreign governments, said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who released documents obtained during the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's inquiry into Flynn's activities before Trump appointed him to become national security adviser.

In addition to the record of Flynn's foreign contacts, Cummings, the senior Democrat on the committee, also asked the Defense Department to compel Flynn to pay the money he received to the U.S. government.

"I am writing to request information about whether Gen. Flynn fully disclosed- as part of the security clearance and vetting process for his return to government- his communications with Russian agents, Turkish agents and other foreign agents, as well as his payments from foreign sources," Cummings wrote. Last week, Flynn registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent whose lobbying work may have benefited the Turkish government. The lobbying occurred before Election Day from August to November, during the period when Flynn was Trump's campaign adviser.

Trump fired Flynn as national security adviser last month, saying the former U.S. Army lieutenant general misled Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are part of House and Senate committee investigations into contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.

The newly-released files show that RT - designated by the U.S. intelligence community as a propaganda arm for Russia's government - also paid for luxury hotel stays and other expenses incurred by Flynn and his adult son, Michael Flynn Jr., during the Moscow trip.

Flynn, who was fired in August 2014 as chief of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the climax of the televised RT gala.

Cummings said Flynn's acceptance of payments from RT violated the emoluments provision of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits retired military officers from accepting gifts from foreign powers. RT identifies itself as an independent news network, but a report by U.S. intelligence agencies made public in January said RT has long been considered by the U.S. government a Russian propaganda arm.

In letters sent to Trump, Defense Secretary James Mattis and FBI Director James Comey, Cummings said Flynn "violated the Constitution by accepting tens of thousands of dollars from an agent of a global adversary that attacked our democracy." Cummings was referring to the intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia instigated cyber-hacking of Democratic party officials and organizations in the months before the presidential election.

The Defense Department has said retired military officers are covered by the emoluments clause because they could be recalled to military service. The department has also noted that the prohibition on accepting foreign gifts includes commercial groups controlled by foreign governments or others "considered instruments of the foreign government."

A Flynn spokesman said Flynn informed the DIA before he went to Moscow and after his return. Price Floyd, a spokesman for Flynn, said that "as many former government officials and general officers have done, Gen. Flynn signed with a speakers' bureau and these are examples of that work."

DIA spokesman Jim Kudla said Thursday that Flynn did report to the agency in advance that he was traveling to Moscow "in accordance with standard security clearance procedures."

Separately, the Army is looking into the matter of Flynn's reporting and compensation, but has found no 

answers yet, according to spokesman Col. Pat Seiber.

Emails indicate Flynn initially asked for a higher fee than the $45,000 paid to his speakers' group, Leading Authorities Inc., but was asked to reduce his price. Flynn's take from RT was ultimately $33,750 after Leading Authorities received its commission.

"If Gen. Flynn is coming, we would like him to be front and central at the Moscow conference," an RT official told Flynn's representatives in a November 2015 email. During his Moscow stay, Flynn was interviewed by an RT personality on national security affairs before attending the lavish RT gala with Putin.

In an addition to the RT payments, Flynn was also paid $11,250 for two speeches in Washington - one in August for Volga-Dnepr Airlines, a Russian charter cargo airline, and a second, in September, for Kaspersky Government Security Solutions Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based cybersecurity firm.

Flynn and his son also received an unspecified amount in expenses paid by RT for business-class flights to and from Moscow and for their three-day stay at the Hotel Metropol. RT representatives said the stay offered tours of the Kremlin, RT headquarters, the Bolshoi Theater and art museums. Another attendee who took part in some of the tours told The Associated Press they did not see Flynn at those events.

Cummings said he has given the Trump administration, the FBI and the Defense Department until April 7 to produce documents related to Flynn's contacts with foreign nationals and any documentation of funds he received from foreign sources.

Cummings also asked for documents about Flynn's security clearance over the past 10 years. They include how Flynn answered questions about his contact with foreign nationals, his work for foreign governments and businesses, and any international real estate holdings.

The release of the documents comes one week after Flynn and his firm, Flynn Intel Group, registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents whose lobbying work may have benefited the government of Turkey.

The registration involved $530,000 worth of lobbying that Flynn's firm performed for a company owned by a Turkish businessman. In that filing, Flynn acknowledged the lobbying on behalf of the company, Inovo BV, "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey."

The AP reported last week that while Flynn was under consideration for the top national security post, his attorneys informed the presidential transition team that it was likely he would have to register as a foreign agent. After Flynn was appointed, his attorneys then notified the White House counsel's office that a filing was imminent.

The White House initially said it had no recollection of the second discussion but later acknowledged such a contact had occurred.

Trump's allies melting away on wiretapping claims

Trump's allies melting away on wiretapping claims

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., talks to reporters, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March, 15, 2017, about their investigation of Russian influence on the American presidential election. Both lawmakers said they have no evidence to back up President Trump's claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Plaza during the 2016 campaign.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump's explosive allegation that Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the presidential campaign has left him increasingly isolated, with allies on Capitol Hill and within his own administration offering no evidence to back him up.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he had not given Trump any reason to believe he was wiretapped by President Obama. Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said he had seen no information to support the claim and then went further. He suggested the U.S. president's assertion, made in a series of March 4 tweets, should not be taken at face value.

"Are you going to take the tweets literally?" Nunes said. "If so, clearly the president was wrong."

But Trump, in an interview Wednesday with Fox News, predicted there would be "some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks."

Trump's allegations have put him in a potentially perilous position as congressional investigations into Russia's involvement in the 2016 election - and possible Russian contacts with Trump associates - ramp up. The FBI is also investigating.

If no evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower emerges, his credibility would be newly damaged. If there is proof that the Obama administration approved monitoring of Trump or his associates, that would suggest the government had reason to be suspicious of their contacts with Russia and a judge had approved the surveillance.

The president, who appears to have made his allegation in a burst of anger, has asked lawmakers to investigate the claim. Lawmakers have since turned the question back toward the administration, asking the Justice Department to provide evidence of wiretapping activity.

The Justice Department missed a Monday deadline for providing the information to the House and was given a one-week extension.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who heads the Judiciary Committee's crime and terrorism subcommittee, said the FBI will provide a classified briefing on the matter "at some time in the future." Graham has previously said he would use subpoena power to get information from the FBI about whether a warrant was issued allowing the Obama administration to tap Trump's phones during the campaign.

Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone told The Associated Press Wednesday that he believes his own online exchanges with a Russian-linked hacker were obtained through a special warrant that allows the government to collect the communications of people suspected of being agents of a foreign nation. Stone communicated through Twitter direct messages with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker who has claimed responsibility for breaching the Democratic National Committee.

Stone said he was unaware at the time that U.S. officials believed the hacker had ties to Russia. He said he is willing to testify before any congressional committee that holds its hearings "in public and not behind closed doors."

The House intelligence committee will begin holding public hearings on Monday. Nunes said FBI Director James Comey and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, will testify.

Ahead of the hearing, the committee sent a letter to the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency requesting details by Friday about Americans who surfaced in intelligence collections last year.

Identities of Americans who show up in U.S. surveillance against foreign targets are generally concealed, but can be unmasked by intelligence agencies in certain circumstances. Those include situations when the communications contain information that a crime has or is about to be committed, when the Americans' identity is necessary to understand the importance of the foreign intelligence collected or when the communication provides information that an American may be an agent of a foreign power.

Asked whether Trump's communications may have been swept up in surveillance, Nunes said it was "very possible."

Sessions, a staunch supporter of Trump during the campaign, recused himself earlier this month from the Russia investigations after it was revealed that he did not disclose his own contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States. Asked Wednesday if he had ever briefed Trump on the investigation or given the president any reason to believe he had been wiretapped by the Obama administration, Sessions said, "The answer is no."

Trump has said little about his allegations against Obama, largely leaving it to White House aides to explain his inflammatory statements.

The White House appeared to be backing away from Trump's claims on Monday, with spokesman Sean Spicer saying the president was referring to general surveillance that may have been approved by the Obama administration. On Tuesday, Spicer said the president was "extremely confident" the Justice Department would provide evidence vindicating him.

Graham and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley have both said they will hold up hearings for Rod 

Rosenstein, Trump's nominee to serve as deputy attorney general, unless they get more information from the FBI. Given Sessions' recusal, Rosenstein would take over responsibility for any probes touching the Trump campaign and Russia's election meddling if he's confirmed.

"It's just too bad that we have to go to this length," Grassley said.

Russian agents, hackers charged in massive Yahoo breach

Russian agents, hackers charged in massive Yahoo breach

Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord, center, accompanied by U.S. Attorney for the Northern District Brian Stretch, left, and FBI Executive Director Paul Abbate, speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Wednesday, March 15, 2017. The Justice Department announced charges against four defendants, including two officers of Russian security services, for a mega data breach at Yahoo.

  

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Russian intelligence agents and a pair of hired hackers have been charged in a devastating criminal breach at Yahoo that affected at least a half billion user accounts, the Justice Department said Wednesday in bringing the first case of its kind against current Russian government officials.

In a scheme that prosecutors say blended intelligence gathering with old-fashioned financial greed, the four men targeted the email accounts of Russian and U.S. government officials, Russian journalists and employees of financial services and other private businesses, U.S. officials said.

Using in some cases a technique known as "spear-phishing" to dupe Yahoo users into thinking they were receiving legitimate emails, the hackers broke into at least 500 million accounts in search of personal information and financial data such as gift card and credit card numbers, prosecutors said.

"We will not allow individuals, groups, nation states or a combination of them to compromise the privacy of our citizens, the economic interests of our companies or the security of our country," said Acting Assistant 

 Attorney General Mary McCord, the head of the Justice Department's national security division.

One of the defendants, a Canadian and Kazakh national named Karim Baratov, has been taken into custody in Canada. Another, Alexsey Belan, is on the list of the FBI's most wanted cyber criminals and has been indicted multiple times in the U.S. It's not clear whether he or the other two defendants, Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, will ever step foot in an American courtroom since there's no extradition treaty with Russia.

"I hope they will respect our criminal justice system," McCord said.

The indictment identifies Dokuchaev and Sushchin as officers of the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB. Belan and Baratov were paid hackers who were directed by the FSB to break into the accounts, prosecutors said.

Yahoo didn't disclose the breach until last September when it began notifying hundreds of millions of users that their email addresses, birth dates, answers to security questions and other personal information may have been stolen. Three months later, Yahoo revealed it had uncovered a separate hack in 2013 affecting about 1 billion accounts, including some that were also hit in 2014.

U.S. officials said it was especially galling that the scheme involved officers from a Russian counterespionage service that theoretically should be working collaboratively with its FBI counterparts.

"Rather than do that type of work, they actually turned against that type of work," McCord said.

Paul Abbate, an FBI executive assistant director, said the bureau had had only "limited cooperation with that element of the Russian government in the past," noting that prior U.S. demands to turn over Belan had been ignored.

Though the Justice Department has previously charged Russian hackers with cybercrime - as well as hackers sponsored by the Chinese and Iranian governments - this is the first criminal case to implicate the Russian government so directly in cybercrime and to name as defendants sitting members of the FSB for hacking charges.

The announcement comes as federal authorities investigate Russian interference through hacking in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. One of the defendants, Belan, was among the Russians sanctioned last year following those campaign hacking efforts, though U.S. officials said the investigations were separate.

The indictment, which includes charges of economic espionage, trade secret theft and unauthorized access to protected computers, arise from a compromise of Yahoo user accounts that began at least as early as 2014.

The Justice Department's assertion that the FSB was directing the hacking likely provides significant political and legal cover for Yahoo, which saw its multibillion-dollar deal with Verizon teeter after it was forced to warn consumers that their private information might have been exposed.

Companies are far more likely to be blamed for security incompetence, with all the attending legal and PR exposure, when their networks are compromised by thieves or wayward teenagers than when they become the targets of sophisticated espionage carried out by foreign governments.

In a statement, Chris Madsen, Yahoo's assistant general counsel and head of global security, thanked law enforcement agencies for their work.

"We're committed to keeping our users and our platforms secure and will continue to engage with law enforcement to combat cybercrime," he said.

Rich Mogull, CEO of the security firm Securosis, said the indictment "shows the ties between the Russian security service and basically the criminal underground," something that had been "discussed in security circles for years."

Cyber criminals gave Russian officials access to specific accounts they were targeting, and in return, Russian officials helped the criminals to evade authorities and let them keep the type of information that hackers that hack for money tend to exploit such as email addresses and logins and credit card information.

Mogull said he was surprised the Justice Department was able to name specific individuals and issue the indictment.

"We've come to expect that you don't really figure out who performs these attacks," he said. The fact that the indictment ties together the FSB and criminals is a new development, he said. "It will be very interesting to see what comes up in court, and how they tie those two together."

Man charged with threatening Jewish centers to frame his ex

 Man charged with threatening Jewish centers to frame his ex

 

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, center, member of Congress's bipartisan task force combating anti-Semitism, speaks with a reporter after holding a press conference to address bomb treats against Jewish organizations and vandalism at Jewish cemeteries, Friday March 3, 2017, at the Park East Synagogue in New York.

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- A former journalist fired for fabricating details in stories made at least eight of the scores of threats against Jewish institutions nationwide, including a bomb threat to the Anti-Defamation League, as part of a bizarre campaign to harass and frame his ex-girlfriend, federal officials said Friday.

Juan Thompson was arrested in St. Louis and appeared there in federal court Friday on a cyberstalking charge. He politely answered questions and told the judge he had enough money to hire a lawyer.

A crowd of supporters who attended said Thompson had no criminal record. His lawyer didn't comment.

Federal officials have been investigating 122 bomb threats called in to Jewish organizations in three dozen states since Jan. 9 and a rash of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries.

Thompson started making threats Jan. 28, a criminal complaint said, with an email to the Jewish History Museum in New York written from an account that made it appear as if it were being sent by an ex-girlfriend.

"Juan Thompson put 2 bombs in the History Museum set to go off Sunday," it said.

He followed that up with similar messages to a Jewish school in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and to a school and community center in Manhattan, authorities said.

In another round of emails and phone calls, he gave the woman's name, rather than his own, the court complaint said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations received an anonymous email saying the woman put a bomb in a Dallas Jewish center.

Thompson, who's black, then took to Twitter: "Know any good lawyers?" he wrote. "Need to stop this nasty/racist #whitegirl I dated who sent a bomb threat in my name." He later tweeted to the Secret Service: 

"I'm been (sic) tormented by an anti-Semite. She sent an antijewish bomb threat in my name. Help."

But police say it was a hoax created to make the woman look guilty. Thompson also made threats in which he identified the woman as the culprit, authorities said. It's unclear why Jewish organizations were targeted.

Republican President Donald Trump suggested in a meeting Tuesday with state attorneys general the threats against Jewish community centers may have been designed to make "others look bad," according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Trump also has condemned violence against Jewish organizations.

Thompson was fired from the online publication The Intercept last year after being accused of fabricating several quotes and creating fake email accounts to impersonate people, including the Intercept's editor-in-chief. One of the stories involved Dylann Roof, the white shooter of black worshippers at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

Thompson had written that a cousin named Scott Roof claimed the gunman was angry that a love interest chose a black man over him. A review showed there was no cousin by that name. The story was retracted.

The Intercept wrote Friday it was "horrified" to learn of Thompson's arrest.

Thompson had been accused of bizarre behavior before.

Doyle Murphy, a reporter at the Riverfront Times, an alternative weekly in St. Louis, said he was subjected to social media harassment after writing about Thompson's troubled past in the fallout from his firing at The Intercept.

Murphy said Thompson set up anonymous accounts on Twitter and other social media posing as a woman who claimed she had been sexually assaulted by Murphy. Murphy said he contacted Twitter but every time one fake account was taken down a new one popped up. He said he contacted police but there was little they could do.

"It was a nightmare, and there's not a whole lot I could do about it," Murphy said.

The Federal Communications Commission said Friday it will grant an emergency waiver allowing Jewish community centers and their phone carriers to track the numbers of callers who make threats, even if the callers try to block the numbers. It said Democratic U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer had requested such a waiver earlier in the week.

According to the criminal complaint, Thompson and the ex-girlfriend, a social worker, broke up last summer. The following day, her boss received an email purporting to be from a national news organization saying she'd been pulled over for drunken driving.

The harassment got worse, authorities said. She received an anonymous email with nude photos of herself and a threat to release them. Her company, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness, got faxes saying she was anti-Semitic. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children got a note saying she watched child porn.

Thompson's IP address was used for the emails, but he told police his computer had been hacked, the complaint said.

The ADL said Thompson had been on its radar since he fabricated the story about Roof. According to ADL research, Thompson also claimed he wanted to dismantle the system of "racial supremacy and greedy capitalism that is stacked against us." He said he was going to run for mayor of St. Louis to "fight back against Trumpian fascism and socio-economic terrorism."

FBI Director James Comey met with Jewish community leaders Friday to discuss the recent threats, the agency said.

University City, Missouri, police Lt. Fredrick Lemons told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that detectives will question Thompson about the 154 headstones toppled last month at a Jewish cemetery there.

AP Exclusive: Ex-congregants reveal years of ungodly abuse

AP Exclusive: Ex-congregants reveal years of ungodly abuse

In this 2012 photo provided by a former member of the church, Word of Faith Fellowship leader Jane Whaley, center, holds a baby, accompanied by her husband, Sam, center right, and others during a ceremony in the church's compound in Spindale, N.C. From all over the world, they flocked to this tiny town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, lured by promises of inner peace and eternal life. What many found instead: years of terror _ waged in the name of the Lord.

  

SPINDALE, N.C. (AP) -- From all over the world, they flocked to this tiny town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, lured by promises of inner peace and eternal life. What many found instead: years of terror - waged in the name of the Lord.

Congregants of the Word of Faith Fellowship were regularly punched, smacked, choked, slammed to the floor or thrown through walls in a violent form of deliverance meant to "purify" sinners by beating out devils, 43 former members told The Associated Press in separate, exclusive interviews.

Victims of the violence included pre-teens and toddlers - even crying babies, who were vigorously shaken, screamed at and sometimes smacked to banish demons.

"I saw so many people beaten over the years. Little kids punched in the face, called Satanists," said Katherine Fetachu, 27, who spent nearly 17 years in the church.

Word of Faith also subjected members to a practice called "blasting" - an ear-piercing verbal onslaught often conducted in hours-long sessions meant to cast out devils.

As part of its investigation, the AP reviewed hundreds of pages of law enforcement, court and child welfare documents, along with hours of conversations with Jane Whaley, the evangelical church's controlling leader, secretly recorded by followers.

The AP also spent more than a year tracking down dozens of former disciples who scattered after leaving the church.

Those interviewed - most of them raised in the church - say Word of Faith leaders waged a decades-long cover-up to thwart investigations by law enforcement and social services officials, including strong-arming young victims and their parents to lie.

They said members were forbidden to seek outside medical attention for their injuries, which included cuts, sprains and cracked ribs.

Several former followers said some congregants were sexually abused, including minors.

The former members said they were speaking out now due to guilt for not doing more to stop the abuse and because they fear for the safety of the children still in the church, believed to number about 100.

In the past, Whaley has strongly denied that she or other church leaders have ever abused Word of Faith members and contended that any discipline would be protected by the First Amendment's freedom of religion tenets.

She and church attorney Josh Farmer turned down repeated AP requests for interviews to discuss the fresh allegations from the dozens of former congregants. But hours after the AP's stories were released, the church posted a statement on its website calling the allegations false and contending they were made by "certain former members" out to target the church.

"We do not condone or allow abuse - in any form - at our church. Period," the statement said.

The ex-members said the violence was ever-present: Minors were taken from their parents and placed in ministers' homes, where they were beaten and blasted and sometimes completely cut off from their families for up to a decade.

For several years, males perceived as the worst sinners were kept in a four-room former storage facility in the compound called the Lower Building. They were cut off from their families for up to a year, never knew when they would be released, and endured especially violent, prolonged beatings and blastings, according to more than a dozen of those interviewed.

Teachers in the church's K-12 school encouraged students to beat their classmates for daydreaming, smiling and other behavior that leaders said proved they were possessed by devils, the former followers said.

"It wasn't enough to yell and scream at the devils. You literally had to beat the devils out of people," said Rick Cooper, 61, a U.S. Navy veteran who spent more than 20 years as a congregant and raised nine children in the church.

Word of Faith Fellowship has been scrutinized on numerous occasions by law enforcement, social services agencies and the news media since the early 1990s- all without significant impact, mostly because followers refused to cooperate.

Some former members offered a more doctrinal explanation for their decades of silence: Frequent warnings by Whaley that God would strike them dead if they betrayed her or her church.

Word of Faith Fellowship was founded in 1979 by Whaley, a petite former math teacher, and her husband, Sam, a former used car salesman.

They are listed as co-pastors but all of those interviewed said it is Jane Whaley - a fiery, 77-year-old Christian Charismatic preacher - who maintains dictatorial control of the flock and also administers some of the beatings herself.

She has scores of strict rules to control congregants' lives, including whether they can marry or have children. At the top of the list: No one can complain about her or question her authority. Failure to comply often triggers a humiliating rebuke from the pulpit or, worse, physical punishment, according to most of those interviewed.

Under Jane Whaley's leadership, Word of Faith grew from a handful of followers to a 750-member sect, concentrated in a 35-acre complex protected by tight security and a thick line of trees.

The group also has nearly 2,000 members in churches in Brazil and Ghana, and affiliations in other countries.

Those attending the church's twice-a-year international Bible seminars were encouraged to move to Spindale, a community of 4,300 midway between Charlotte and Asheville. It wasn't until they sold their homes and settled in North Carolina that the church's "dark side" gradually emerged, former members said.

By then - isolated from their families and friends, and believing Whaley was a prophet - they were afraid to leave or speak out, they said.

Given what they characterize as Whaley's record for retribution against those she sees as traitors, the former members said they hope there is strength and protection in speaking out in numbers.

"For most of my life, I lived in fear. I'm not scared anymore," said John Cooper, one of Rick Cooper's sons.

Still, many former church members say the memories - and the nightmares - never seem to fade, and they live in fear for their family members still inside.

Danielle Cordes, now 22, said she has deep psychological scars from spending more than three-quarters of her life in Whaley's world.

Three years ago, the last time she tried to visit her parents' house, her father slammed the door in her face without saying a word. To this day, whenever she calls, family members hang up.

"I need my family and they're gone," she said.

Said Rick Cooper: "You're cut off from everyone in the world. The church - and Jane - is the only thing you know. You believe she's a prophet - she has a pipeline to God. So you stand by while she rips your family apart. I'm not sure how you ever get over that."

Trump travel ban faces biggest legal test yet

Trump travel ban faces biggest legal test yet

Baraah Alawdi, originally from Yemen, poses for photos next to an unidentified artist's mannequin placed outside of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017. President Donald Trump's travel ban faced its biggest legal test yet Tuesday as a panel of federal judges prepared to hear arguments from the administration and its opponents about two fundamentally divergent views of the executive branch and the court system.

 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- President Donald Trump's travel ban faced its biggest legal test yet Tuesday as a panel of federal judges prepared to hear arguments from the administration and its opponents about two fundamentally divergent views of the executive branch and the court system.

The government will ask a federal appeals court to restore Trump's executive order, contending that the president alone has the power to decide who can enter or stay in the United States. But several states have challenged the ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations and insisted that it is unconstitutional.

Tuesday's hearing was to unfold before a randomly selected panel of judges from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It was unlikely the court would issue a ruling Tuesday, with a decision expected later this week, court spokesman David Madden said.

Whatever the court eventually decides, either side could ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who on Friday temporarily blocked Trump's order, has said a judge's job is to ensure that an action taken by the government "comports with our country's laws."

Trump said Tuesday that he can't believe his administration has to fight in the courts to uphold his refugee and immigration ban, a policy he says will protect the country.

"And a lot of people agree with us, believe me," Trump said at a roundtable discussion with members of the National Sheriff's Association. "If those people ever protested, you'd see a real protest. But they want to see our borders secure and our country secure."

The same day, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told lawmakers that the order likely should have been delayed at least long enough to brief Congress about it.

The Justice Department filed a new defense of the ban Monday. Lawyers said it was a "lawful exercise" of the president's authority to protect national security and said Robart's order should be overruled.

The filing with the appeals court was the latest salvo in a high-stakes legal fight surrounding Trump's order, which temporarily suspends the country's refugee program and immigration from seven countries with terrorism concerns.

Washington state, Minnesota and other states say the appellate court should allow a temporary restraining order blocking the travel ban to stand as their lawsuit moves through the legal system.

The panel hearing the arguments includes two Democrat-appointed judges and one Republican appointee.

The appeals court over the weekend refused to immediately reinstate the ban, and lawyers for Washington 

and Minnesota argued anew on Monday that any resumption would "unleash chaos again," separating families and stranding university students.

The Justice Department responded that the president has clear authority to "suspend the entry of any class of aliens" to the U.S. in the name of national security. It said the travel ban was intended "to permit an orderly review and revision of screening procedures to ensure that adequate standards are in place to protect against terrorist attacks."

The challengers of the ban were asking "courts to take the extraordinary step of second-guessing a formal national security judgment made by the president himself," the Justice Department wrote.

It's possible that the panel could make a ruling on a technical point, rather than the larger merits of the case. Under 9th Circuit case law, temporary restraining orders cannot be appealed, a point noted by the states.

An analysis on that point would include examining whether the lower court's order is properly classified as a temporary restraining order rather than as another type of order, a preliminary injunction, noted Arthur Hellman, a federal courts scholar at University of Pittsburgh Law School.

If the case does end up before the Supreme Court, it could prove difficult to find the necessary five votes to undo a lower court order. The Supreme Court has been at less than full strength since Justice Antonin Scalia's death a year ago. The last immigration case that reached the justices ended in a 4-4 tie.

How and when a case might get to the Supreme Court is unclear. The travel ban itself is to expire in 90 days, meaning it could run its course before a higher court takes up the issue. Or the administration could change it in any number of ways that would keep the issue alive.

After Robart's ruling, the State Department quickly said people from the seven countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - with valid visas could travel to the U.S.

A graduate student who had traveled to Libya with her 1-year-old son to visit her sick mother and attend her father's funeral was back in Fort Collins, Colorado, on Monday after having been stopped in Jordan on her return trip. She was welcomed with flowers and balloons by her husband and other children.

Syrian immigrant Mathyo Asali said he thought his life was "ruined" when he landed at Philadelphia International Airport on Jan. 28 only to be denied entry to the United States. Asali, who returned to Damascus, said he figured he'd be inducted into the Syrian military. He was back on U.S. soil Monday.

"It's really nice to know that there's a lot of people supporting us," Asali told Gov. Tom Wolf, who greeted the family at a relative's house in Allentown.

States challenging the ban have been joined by technology companies, who have said it makes it more difficult to recruit employees. National security officials under President Barack Obama have also come out against it.

Appeals court weighs Trump ban as travelers arrive to tears

Appeals court weighs Trump ban as travelers arrive to tears

Nazanin Zinouri, 29, is greeted at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in Greer, S.C., with kisses from her dog Dexter and well-wishers holding signs reading "Welcome Home" on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017. Zinouri, an Iranian engineer and Clemson University graduate, had been unable to return to the United States because of the executive order President Donald Trump signed that limited travel to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The fierce battle over President Donald Trump's travel and refugee ban edged up the judicial escalator Monday, headed for a possible final face-off at the Supreme Court. Travelers, temporarily unbound, tearfully reunited with loved ones at U.S. airports.

The Justice Department filed a new defense of Trump's ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations as a federal appeals court weighs whether to restore the administration's executive order. The lawyers said the travel ban was a "lawful exercise" of the president's authority to protect national security and said a judge's order that put the policy on hold should be overruled.

The filing with the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the latest salvo in a high-stakes legal fight surrounding Trump's order, which was halted Friday by a federal judge in Washington state.

The judges are to hear arguments Tuesday.

The appeals court earlier refused to immediately reinstate the ban, and lawyers for Washington and Minnesota - two states challenging it - argued anew on Monday that any resumption would "unleash chaos again," separating families and stranding university students.

The Justice Department responded that the president has clear authority to "suspend the entry of any class of aliens" to the U.S. in the name of national security. It said the travel ban, which temporarily suspends the country's refugee program and immigration from seven countries with terrorism concerns, was intended "to permit an orderly review and revision of screening procedures to ensure that adequate standards are in place to protect against terrorist attacks."

The challengers of the ban, the Justice Department wrote, were asking "courts to take the extraordinary step of second-guessing a formal national security judgment made by the president himself pursuant to broad grants of statutory authority."

Whatever the appeals court decides, either side could ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

It could prove difficult, though, to find the necessary five votes at the high court to undo a lower court order; the Supreme Court has been at less than full strength since Justice Antonin Scalia's death a year ago. The last immigration case that reached the justices ended in a 4-4 tie.

The president's executive order has faced legal uncertainty ever since Friday's ruling by U.S. District Judge James Robart, which challenged both Trump's authority and his ability to fulfill a campaign promise.

The State Department quickly said people from the seven countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - could travel to the U.S. if they had valid visas. The Homeland Security Department said it was no longer directing airlines to prevent affected visa holders from boarding U.S.-bound planes.

On Monday in Colorado, a graduate student who had traveled to Libya with her 1-year-old son to visit her sick mother and attend her father's funeral was back in Fort Collins after having been stopped in Jordan on her return trip. She was welcomed with flowers and balloons by her husband and other children.

Two Yemeni brothers whose family has sued over the travel ban, and who'd been turned away in the chaotic opening days of the order, arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, where they were greeted by their father.

"America is for everybody," Aqel Aziz said after greeting his sons.

Syrian immigrant Mathyo Asali said he thought his life was "ruined" when he landed at Philadelphia International Airport on Jan. 28 only to be denied entry to the United States. Asali, who returned to Damascus, said he figured he'd be inducted into the Syrian military. He was back on U.S. soil Monday.

"It's really nice to know that there's a lot of people supporting us," Asali told Gov. Tom Wolf, who greeted the family at a relative's house in Allentown.

The legal fight involves two divergent views of the role of the executive branch and the court system.

The government has asserted that the president alone has the power to decide who can enter or stay in the United States, while Robart has said a judge's job is to ensure that an action taken by the government "comports with our country's laws."

His Friday ruling triggered a Twitter rant by Trump, who dismissed Robart as a "so-called judge." On Sunday, Trump tweeted, "Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!"

States challenging the ban have been joined by technology companies, who have said it makes it more difficult to recruit employees. National security officials under President Barack Obama have also come out against it. A declaration filed by John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, former secretaries of state, and others said the ban would disrupt lives and cripple U.S. counterterrorism partnerships without making the nation safer.

"It will aid ISIL's propaganda effort and serve its recruitment message by feeding into the narrative that the United States is at war with Islam," they wrote.

How and when a case might get to the Supreme Court is unclear. The travel ban itself is to expire in 90 days, meaning it could run its course before a higher court takes up the issue. Or the administration could change it in any number of ways that would keep the issue alive.

The bench also could be full, with a new ninth justice on board, by the time the court is ready to hear arguments. If Judge Neil Gorsuch is confirmed this spring as Senate Republicans hope, chances of a tie vote would disappear.

Longtime US residents, aspiring citizens caught up in ban

Longtime US residents, aspiring citizens caught up in ban

CORRECTS SPELLING TO ABDOLLAH INSTEAD OF ABDULLAH - Abdollah Mostafavi, center, arriving from Tehran, Iran, is met by his family including son-in-law Nasser Sorkhavi, left, daughter Mozhgan Mostafavi, second from right, and grandson Kourosh Sorkhavi at San Francisco International Airport Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, in San Francisco. Mostafavi was held at the airport for some time as a result of President Donald Trump's executive order barring citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S.

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A woman traveling to Indiana to care for her cancer-stricken mother, a family physician who has lived in the U.S. for two decades, and a Minneapolis woman about to become a U.S. citizen were among those caught in the net cast by President Donald Trump when he banned travelers from entering the country from Muslim-majority nations.

Here are their stories:

---

Sahar Algonaimi, a 58-year-old Syrian woman coming to the U.S. to care for her cancer-stricken mother was put on a plane Saturday and sent back to Saudi Arabia hours after arriving at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

When her 76-year-old mother became ill, Algonaimi's sister, Nour Ulayyet, asked her to come to their home in Valparaiso, Indiana, to help take care of her. Their mother underwent a mastectomy Friday.

Algonaimi had visited just last year and still had a U.S. visa good until June 2018.

After texting to say her plane had touched down, she never arrived at the gate. A man identifying himself as an immigration officer eventually called Ulayyet to say her sister was being put aboard a flight back to Saudi Arabia, where she teaches school.

"I asked if I could speak to a supervisor," Ulayyet said. "He was very nice, very sympathetic, but he said, 'Literally for me to help I'm going to be breaking the law and I'm not going to break the law.'"

Before Algonaimi left officials had her sign paperwork that she told her sister she didn't understand. It canceled her visa.

"I really can't put it in words how much sadness I feel and the sense of injustice we feel," Ulayyet said Sunday as she choked up.

---

Dr. Sarwa Aldoori, a family physician from Bakersfield, California, was returning home Saturday from an eight-day religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia when she was startled to be pulled aside from the rest of her group.

"Everything was OK until I got to the customs checking point and my colleagues and friends went through and the guy looked at my passport and eyed me and he said step aside," Aldoori said Sunday, her voice shaking as she tearfully described the ordeal.

She was released and reunited with her husband after nine hours.

Aldoori, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., said she made a similar pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last year - "a very special visit in the life of every Muslim" - without incident.

As she cried and asked to know why she couldn't leave the airport this time, the doctor, who has lived in the United States since 1996, said an officer finally told her, "It's because you were born in Iraq."

"I looked at him and I said, 'You know, I am 62 years old. What did I do wrong?' He didn't say anything, he just looked at the floor and said have a seat."

Although angry and shaken, she said she still plans to become a U.S. citizen someday.

"I'm not going to let something like that stop me," she said defiantly. "We used to have decent people in government and now we don't."

---

Fateme Farmad was returning from Iran to her Minneapolis home with her 11-month-old son when she was detained and questioned for more than 12 hours at Los Angeles International Airport.

Farmad and her family had traveled to Iran last month to visit relatives. Her husband, Masoud Samet, returned to the U.S. for work on Jan. 6 while she and other family members stayed for a wedding.

When the group returned Saturday, her brother, a U.S. citizen, was immediately allowed back in. She, her son and her mother were detained.

"They are OK, but they are very tired and the situation was unexpected and very horrible," said her husband.

Attorneys who filed legal action demanding Farmad's release accused officials at the airport of attempting to coerce her into signing papers relinquishing her permanent resident status.

Farmad, who has lived in the United States for five years, is scheduled to take her oath of citizenship on Feb. 13.

---

Nazanin Zinouri had only been in Iran a couple of days for a family visit when she began to hear rumors that citizens of Muslim-majority nations would be banned from returning to the United States.

The U.S. resident of nearly seven years tried to return home immediately but flights were delayed in Tehran by heavy snow. She'd only gotten as far as Dubai when the ban went into effect and authorities refused to let her board a plane to the United States.

She said by phone Sunday she's been spending her time following the news and worrying about her rescue dog, Dexter, her home, her car and her job. She works for a technology firm in South Carolina.

"What's going to happen to my dog? My dog is sick. Is anyone going to adopt him?" she asked. "Am I going to lose my job forever?"

Zinouri, 29, has a master's degree from Northern Illinois University and a Ph.D. from Clemson University.

She had gone to Iran to see her mother, brother and sister.

---

Abdollah Mostafavi was traveling to San Francisco for hip replacement surgery when the 80-year-old green-card holder was suddenly stopped at San Francisco International Airport.

Mostafavi, who has relatives in Canada and the U.S., splits his time between those countries and his native Iran.

When he was finally released after six hours Saturday his 8-year-old grandson ran to hug him as his 46-year-old daughter fought back tears.

"I'm worried sick," his daughter, Mozhgan Mostafavi, had told the AP as she waited at the airport for him. "I don't know any Iranians who have been in a terrorist attack. It's so dehumanizing. It's so insulting. I grew up during the Revolution in Iran and I feel that same suffocation. It's hard to breathe."

She said Sunday her father told her he'd been held for hours in a room with about 15 other Iranians.

"He said it seemed they had the order to detain them but had no idea what to do next," she said.

---

An Iraqi immigrant couple who arrived in Maine with two daughters just days before citizens of Muslim-majority nations were banned from entering the country are awaiting word on the fate of their oldest daughter, who didn't get out in time.

Labed Alalhanfy, his wife, Soso, and their 13- and 19-year-old daughters arrived in the United States from Baghdad on Tuesday.

Their 20-year-old daughter, Bananh, a student at the American University in Iraq, had planned to join them shortly.

"She is now very anxious and scared," said Alalhanfy.

He described his family as secular Muslims, which puts his daughter at some risk of remaining in Iraq without her family.

"The neighbors will start to notice. People will start questioning, especially because she is female. It is a critical situation," Alalhanfy said Saturday in an interview with the Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/2k5RGhO).