AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST
Sanders wins Nevada caucuses, takes national Democratic lead
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Bernie Sanders scored a commanding victory in Nevada’s presidential caucuses on Saturday, cementing his status as the Democrats' national front-runner but escalating tensions over whether he’s too liberal to defeat President Donald Trump.
As Sanders celebrated, Joe Biden was in second place with votes still being counted. Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren trailed further behind. They were all seeking any possible momentum heading into next-up South Carolina and then Super Tuesday on March 3.
Nevada's caucuses were the first chance for White House hopefuls to demonstrate appeal to a diverse group of voters in a state far more representative of the country as a whole than Iowa and New Hampshire. Sanders, a 78-year Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist, won by rallying his fiercely loyal base and tapping into support from Nevada’s large Latino community.
In a show of confidence, Sanders left Nevada for Texas, which offers one of the biggest delegate troves in just 10 days on Super Tuesday.
“We are bringing our people together," he declared. “In Nevada we have just brought together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition which is not only going to win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep this country.”
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Security adviser: I've seen no intel of Moscow helping Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's national security adviser said he's seen no intelligence to show that Russia is interfering in the U.S. presidential campaign in hopes of reelecting President Donald Trump.
Robert O'Brien's comments come after conflicting accounts emerged from a recent closed-door briefing by intelligence officials, who spoke to lawmakers about Russian interference in the 2020 campaign. One intelligence official said that lawmakers were not told that Russia was working to directly aid Trump.
But other people familiar with the meeting said they were told the Kremlin was looking to help Trump's candidacy. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discussed the classified briefing.
“The national security adviser gets pretty good access to our intelligence," O'Brien said. “I haven't seen any intelligence that Russia is doing anything to attempt to get President Trump re-elected.”
O'Brien's comments were released Saturday in a transcript of an interview with ABC's “This Week" set to air on Sunday.
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Report finds Catholic charity founder sexually abused women
PARIS (AP) — A respected Catholic figure who worked to improve conditions for the developmentally disabled for more than half a century sexually abused at least six women during most of that period, according to a report released Saturday by the France-based charity he founded.
The report produced for L'Arche International said the women's descriptions provided enough evidence to show that Jean Vanier engaged in “manipulative sexual relationships” from 1970 to 2005, usually with a “psychological hold” over the alleged victims.
Although he was a layman and not a priest, many Catholics hailed Vanier, who was Canadian, as a living saint for his work with the disabled. He died last year at age 90.
“The alleged victims felt deprived of their free will and so the sexual activity was coerced or took place under coercive conditions,” the report,commissioned by L'Arche last year and prepared by the U.K.-based GCPS Consulting group, said. It did not rule out potential other victims.
None of the women was disabled, a significant point given the Catholic hierarchy has long sought to portray any sexual relationship between religious leaders and other adults as consensual unless there was clear evidence of disability.
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Charter bus rollover kills 3, injures 18 outside San Diego
PALA MESA, Calif. (AP) — A charter bus swerved on a rain-slicked Southern California highway and rolled down an embankment Saturday, killing three people and injuring 18 others, authorities said.
Several passengers were thrown from the bus, and one of the dead was trapped under the vehicle after it landed on its roof shortly after 10 a.m. off Interstate 15 in Pala Mesa, an unincorporated community about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of San Diego, North County Fire Protection District spokesman John Choi said.
“There were no seat belts on this bus,” Choi said. Another person who died was trapped inside the bus, he added.
The wounded were taken to three hospitals with varying injuries, Choi said.
A California Highway Patrol officer told the San Diego Union-Tribune thatone of the patients was in critical condition and three others suffered major injuries.
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Judge halts plan to move virus patients to California city
COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) — A court temporarily blocked the U.S. government from sending up to 50 people infected with a new virus from China to a Southern California city for quarantine after local officials argued that the plan lacked details about how the community would be protected from the outbreak.
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order late Friday to halt the transportation of anyone who has tested positive for the new coronavirus to Costa Mesa, a city of 110,000 in the heart of Orange County. U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Stanton scheduled a hearing on the issue Monday.
City officials quickly sought court intervention after learning from the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services that U.S. officials planned to start moving patients to a state-owned facility in Costa Mesa as early as Sunday.
They said in court documents that local officials were not included in the planning effort and wanted to know why the Fairview Developmental Center was considered a suitable quarantine site and what kind of safeguards were in place to prevent the possible transmission of the virus that has spread worldwide.
“The city has not been part of any of the process that led to the consideration of the site, and it would be unfair to not include us in this kind of significant decision that has great impact on our community," Mayor Katrina Foley told the Orange County Register.
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AP Exclusive: DEA agent accused of conspiring with cartel
MIAMI (AP) — A once-standout U.S. federal narcotics agent known for spending lavishly on luxury cars and Tiffany jewelry has been arrested on charges of conspiring to launder money with the same Colombian drug cartel he was supposed to be fighting.
Jose Irizarry and his wife were arrested Friday at their home near San Juan, Puerto Rico, as part of a 19-count federal indictment that accused the 46-year-old Irizarry of “secretly using his position and his special access to information” to divert millions in drug proceeds from control of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“It’s a black eye for the DEA to have one of its own engaged in such a high level of corruption," said Mike Vigil, the DEA's former Chief of International Operations. "He jeopardized investigations. He jeopardized other agents and he jeopardized informants."
Federal prosecutors in Tampa, Florida, allege the conspiracy not only enriched Irizarry but benefited two unindicted co-conspirators, neither of whom is named in the indictment. One was employed as a Colombian public official while the other was described as the head of a drug trafficking and money laundering organization who became the godfather to the Irizarry couple's children in 2015, when the DEA agent was posted to the Colombian resort city of Cartagena at the time.
When The Associated Press revealed the scale of Irizarry’s alleged wrongdoing last year, it sent shockwaves through the DEA, where his ostentatious habits and tales of raucous yacht parties with bikini-clad prostitutes were legendary among agents
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The Latest: Oddsmakers list Wilder versus Fury a tossup
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest from the rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury (all times local)
8:30 p.m.
Oddsmakers in this gambling city see the heavyweight title rematch between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury as a real tossup.
Wilder was a slight favorite in the hours before the fight, but the odds were about as close as they could be. Wilder was minus-120 and Fury even money to win, though there were plenty of other bets to keep bettors happy.
Among them was an 18-1 bet that the fight will end in a draw, like the first fight between the two heavyweights did 14 months ago in Los Angeles.
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Yemen's Houthi rebels impeding UN aid flow, demand a cut
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have blocked half of the United Nations’ aid delivery programs in the war-torn country — a strong-arm tactic to force the agency to give them greater control over the massive humanitarian campaign, along with a cut of billions of dollars in foreign assistance, according to aid officials and internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The rebel group has made granting access to areas under their control contingent on a flurry of conditions that aid agencies reject, in part because it would give the Houthis greater sway over who receives aid, documents and interviews show.
The Houthis' obstruction has hindered several programs that feed the near-starving population and help those displaced by the nearly 6-year civil war, a senior U.N. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation.
“Over 2 million beneficiaries ... are directly affected,” the official said.
The Houthis have been pushing back against U.N. efforts to tighten monitoring of some $370 million a year that its agencies already give to government institutions controlled mostly by the rebel group, documents show. That money is supposed to pay salaries and other administration costs, but more than a third of the money spent last year wasn’t audited, according to an internal document leaked to the AP.
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Germany admits there's a far-right problem, but what to do?
BERLIN (AP) — As Germany's president expressed his sympathy and shock during a candlelight vigil for nine people killed by an immigrant-hating gunman, a woman called out from the crowd, demanding action, not words.
But the country's leaders are struggling to figure out how to counter a recent rise in right-wing hate, 75 years after the Nazis were driven from power.
The shooting rampage Wednesday that began at a hookah bar in the Frankfurt suburb of Hanau was Germany's third deadly far-right attack in a matter of months and came at a time when the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has become the country's first political party in decades to establish itself as a significant force on the extreme right.
In the wake of the latest spasm of violence, Chancellor Angela Merkel denounced the “poison” of racism and hatred in Germany, and other politicians similarly condemned the shootings.
The rampage followed October’s anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue in Halle and the slaying in June of a regional politician who supported Merkel’s welcoming policy toward migrants. But Germany's top security official, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, said the trend goes back further, noting a 2016 attack on a Munich mall against migrants and a years-long cross-country killing spree against foreigners by a group calling itself the National Socialist Underground.
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Nassar victim slams Michigan for response to doctor abuse
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — The first woman who publicly accused convicted sports doctor Larry Nassar of sexual abuse said she is “horrified,” and “deeply disappointed” with the University of Michigan for how it has handled allegations of abuse by a late doctor at the school.
The university announced earlier this week five former patients of Dr. Robert E. Anderson alleged he sexually abused them during exams and a complaint in 2018 led to a police investigation.
“They had the choice 19 months ago to do the right thing and become leaders,” former gymnast Rachael Denhollander said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press. “They chose corruption - again - and they put the survivors in a place where they had no choice but to speak publicly.”
Robert Julian Stone said this week Anderson assaulted him during a medical appointment at the university’s health center in 1971. Stone said he alerted university officials last summer, inspired by the national #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct.
Stone was first interviewed by The Detroit News, which began reporting on the allegations before the university announced its investigation. Stone, 69, said he contacted the newspaper because he felt “stonewalled” by the school when he sought documentation on the investigation.