US Officials: Confrontation With North Korea Not Imminent

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, right, and United States Forces Korea Commander Gen. Vincent Brooks, second from right, greets a helicopter flight crew as he arrives at Osan Air Base, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017, in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.

WASHINGTON (AP, AUGUST 13, 2017) — Senior U.S. national security officials say a military confrontation with North Korea's isn't imminent. But they're also saying that the possibility of war with the reclusive Asian nation is greater than it was a decade ago.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo (pahm-PAY'-oh) says there's "nothing imminent today." But Pompeo says on "Fox News Sunday" that North Korea's push to develop a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States "is a very serious threat and the administration is going to treat it as such."

President Donald Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, tells ABC's "This Week" that "we're not closer to war than a week ago, but we are closer to war than we were a decade ago."

Q&A: What Does The US Military Do On The Island Of Guam?

BY AUDREY MCAVOV

ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUGUST 10, 2017

Guam: U.S. territory and military outpost in the western Pacific Rim

HONOLULU — The small U.S. territory of Guam has become a focal point after North Korea's army threatened to use ballistic missiles to create an "enveloping fire" around the island. The exclamation came after President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang of "fire and fury like the world has never seen." Here's a look at the U.S. military's role on the island, which became a U.S. territory in 1898.

WHAT INSTALLATIONS ARE ON GUAM AND HOW SIGNIFICANT ARE THEY?

There are two major bases on Guam: Andersen Air Force Base in the north and Naval Base Guam in the south. They are both managed under Joint Base Marianas. The tourist district of Tumon, home to many of Guam's hotels and resorts, is in between.

The naval base dates to 1898, when the U.S. took over Guam from Spain after the Spanish-American War. The air base was built in 1944, when the U.S. was preparing to send bombers to Japan during World War II.

Today, Naval Base Guam is the home port for four nuclear-powered fast attack submarines and two submarine tenders.

Andersen Air Force Base hosts a Navy helicopter squadron and Air Force bombers that rotate to Guam from the U.S. mainland. It has two 2-mile (3-kilometer) long runways and large fuel and munitions storage facilities.

Altogether, 7,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed on Guam. Most are sailors and airmen. The military plans to move thousands of U.S. Marines to Guam from Okinawa in southern Japan.

Guam's total population is 160,000.

WHAT ROLES DO THE BASES PLAY IN THE REGION

Guam is strategically located a short flight from the Korean peninsula and other potential flashpoints in East Asia. Seoul is 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) to the northwest, Tokyo is 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) north and Taipei is 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) west.

Because Guam is a U.S. territory, the U.S. military may launch forces from there without worrying about upsetting a host nation that may object to U.S. actions.

The naval base is an important outpost for U.S. fast-attack submarines that are a key means for gathering intelligence in the region, including the Korean peninsula and the South China Sea where China has been building military bases on man-made islands.

HOW HAS THE U.S. USED GUAM TO ADDRESS THE THREAT FROM NORTH KOREA?

The U.S. military began rotating bombers — the B-2 stealth bomber as well as the B-1 and B-52 — to Andersen in 2004. It did so to compensate for U.S. forces diverted from other bases in the Asia-Pacific region to fight in the Middle East. The rotations also came as North Korea increasingly upped the ante in the standoff over its development of nuclear weapons.

In 2013, the Army sent a missile defense system to Guam called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense or THAAD.

It's designed to destroy ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight. A THAAD battery includes a truck-mounted launcher, tracking radar, interceptor missiles and an integrated fire control system.

WHAT'S THE HISTORY OF THE U.S. MILITARY ON GUAM?
The U.S. took control of Guam in 1898, when Spanish authorities surrendered to the U.S. Navy. President William McKinley ordered Guam to be ruled by the U.S. Navy. The Navy used the island as a coaling base and communications station until Japan seized the island on Dec. 10, 1941. The U.S. took back control of Guam on July 21, 1944.

During the Vietnam War, the Air Force sent 155 B-52 bombers to Andersen to hit targets in Southeast Asia. Guam was also a refueling and transfer spot for military personnel heading to Southeast Asia. Many refugees fleeing Vietnam were evacuated through Guam.

Postal Service: More Red Ink, Missed Payments As Mail Slumps

U.S. Postal Service letter carrier Jamesa Euler delivers mail in the rain in Atlanta. Buffeted by threats from Amazon drones and Uber to delivery by golf cart, the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service is counting on a different strategy to stay ahead in the increasingly competitive package business: more freedom to raise your letter prices.

WASHINGTON (AP, AUGUST 10, 2017) — The U.S. Postal Service warned Thursday that it will likely default on up to $6.9 billion in payments for future retiree health and pension benefits for the fifth straight year, citing a coming cash crunch that could disrupt day-to-day mail delivery.

The service said it expected cash balances to run low by October and to avoid bankruptcy would likely not make all of its payments as required under federal law. Postmaster General Megan Brennan stressed an urgent need for federal regulators to grant the Postal Service wide freedom to increase stamp prices to help cover costs, citing continuing red ink due to declining first-class mail volume and the expensive mandates for retiree benefits.

The Postal Service has already defaulted on $33.9 billion in health benefit pre-payments. Left unresolved, the rapidly growing debt means that American taxpayers eventually could be forced to cover the massive costs when future postal retirees seek to cash in on the benefits to which they are legally entitled.

The Postal Regulatory Commission is making a decision on stamp pricing next month. "Our financial situation is serious, but solvable," Brennan said, citing an unreasonable rate cap that restricts stamp price increases to the rate of inflation. "We're clearly looking for the PRC to establish a new pricing system for us."

The Postal Service on Thursday reported a quarterly loss of $2.1 billion, compared to a $1.6 billion loss in the same period ending June 30 last year. That came after double-digit growth in package delivery was unable to offset drop-offs in letter mail, which makes up more than 70 percent of total postal revenue.

Quarterly revenue came to $16.7 billion, a decline of $1 billion from the same period last year. After a 10-year review, the regulatory commission appears likely to give the Postal Service more flexibility to raise rates, marking the biggest change in its pricing system in nearly a half-century. The commission might limit how high prices could go, but the cost of a first-class stamp, now 49 cents, could jump. It's not known how much.

The Postal Service, an independent agency, is trying to stay financially afloat as it seeks to invest billions in new delivery trucks to get packages more nimbly to American homes. Mail volume is dropping and demand for package shipping is surging due to the growth of online retailers such as e-commerce giant Amazon. With the holiday season approaching, Brennan said the Postal Service planned additional temporary hiring and was looking to expand its package deliveries in the mornings, evenings and on Sundays.

"The competition is most intense," she said. The Postal Service is also urging Congress to provide relief from the mandate to pre-fund retiree health benefits. Legislation in 2006 required the Postal Service to fund 75 years' worth of retiree health benefits, something that neither the government nor private companies are required to do.

"Today's financial report shows the underlying business strength of the U.S. Postal Service while also indicating the need to address external matters beyond USPS control," said Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. "Congress should address the pre-funding burden it imposed in 2006."

To avoid bankruptcy, the post office has defaulted on the multibillion dollar health prepayments each year since 2012.

Follow Hope Yen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/hopeyen1

Trump Continues Taunts Of Senate GOP Leader Over Health Care

President Donald Trump, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., left, and House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. President Donald Trump resumed his taunts of his party's Senate leader, expressing disbelief that McConnell couldn't persuade a Republican majority to pass a health care bill.

WASHINGTON (AP, AUGUST 10, 2017) — President Donald Trump resumed his taunts of the Senate's top Republican on Thursday, expressing disbelief that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell couldn't persuade a GOP majority to pass a health care bill.

"Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal & Replace for 7 years, couldn't get it done. Must Repeal & Replace ObamaCare!" Trump tweeted Thursday. The president bristled this week after McConnell, R-Ky., told an audience in his home state that Trump had "not been in this line of work before" and had "excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process." Both before and after taking office, Trump spoke often about passing the massive health care overhaul quickly.

"Obviously, there's some frustration," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of Trump's tweets. She said the two men spoke by phone Wednesday and that the conversation included talk of health care. Sanders said she didn't know how long they talked.

Asked to respond to Trump's statement, McConnell spokesman David Popp said, "The leader has spoken repeatedly about the path forward regarding Obamacare repeal and replace on the Senate floor, at media availabilities and in Kentucky."

The Senate rejected three attempts by McConnell last month to approve legislation annulling and rewriting much of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care law. Nursing a 52-48 majority, McConnell needed support from 50 GOP senators to prevail because of unanimous Democratic opposition, but there were enough Republican "no" votes on each tally to sink the effort. Vice President Mike Pence would have broken cast a tie-breaking vote.

McConnell spelled out his view of the path forward in his Monday remarks to the Rotary Club in Florence, Kentucky. "If people can show me 50 votes for anything that would make progress on that, I'll turn back to it. But in the absence of that, we're going to be moving on. We have a number of things to do in September," he said.

McConnell cited must-pass bills that would prevent a government shutdown and a federal default, plus a GOP desire to turn to tax cuts. But he also kept the door open for a narrower health care effort aimed at stabilizing individual health insurance marketplaces around the country.

"I think no action is probably not going to work, because you've got a lot of private health insurance markets imploding," McConnell said. "So exactly what form that takes is unclear right now." A small handful of online exchanges created by Obama's law may have no insurers offering coverage next year, but many may have just one company selling policies. Many insurers around the country are proposing to raise premiums, often citing worries that the Trump administration will take steps to undermine the markets, such as halting federal subsidies they receive to lower costs for millions of people.

In Trump's shot at McConnell on Wednesday, he wrote on Twitter, "Senator Mitch McConnell said I had 'excessive expectations,' but I don't think so. After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?"

AP reporter Jonathan Lemire in Bridgewater, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

Guam's Residents Concerned But Have Faith In US Military

A B-1B Lancer bomber, left, taxies past a B-52 shortly after landing at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. The small U.S. territory of Guam has become a focal point after North Korea's army threatened to use ballistic missiles to create an "enveloping fire" around the island. The exclamation came after President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang of "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2017. (Masako Watanabe/Pacific Daily News via AP, File)

HAGATNA, GUAM (AP, AUGUST 10, 2017) — The tiny U.S. territory of Guam feels a strong sense of patriotism and confidence in the American military, which has an enormous presence on the Pacific island. But residents are increasingly worried over Washington's escalating war of words with North Korea.

The people of Guam woke up Thursday to another pointed threat from Pyongyang, which vowed to complete a plan to attack waters near the island by mid-August — adding a timeline to a threat from a day earlier that North Korea would create an "enveloping fire" around Guam.

Like other U.S. territories, Guam has a sometimes complicated relationship with the U.S. mainland but many across the island say despite the threats and concerns they feel reassured and protected by the military — especially in times of tense, geopolitical sparring.

About 160,000 people live on the island, which extends about 12 miles (19.31 kilometers) at its widest. The American military presence on Guam consists of two bases — Andersen Air Force Base in the north and Naval Base Guam in the south — which are home to 7,000 U.S. troops.

"I feel that the presence of the military on Guam will help us a lot," said Virgie Matson, 51, a resident of Dededo, Guam's most populated village. "They are here to protect the islands, just in case something happens."

The possibility of a nuclear confrontation is considered remote but international alarm has been escalating in recent days. In the latest development, Gen. Kim Rak Gyom, who heads North Korea's rocket command, said in a statement carried by state media that his country was "about to take" military action near Guam. He said the North would finalize a plan by mid-August to fire four mid-range missiles hitting waters 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometers) away from the island.

It's not the first time North Korea has threatened Guam, which is a crucial, strategic hub for U.S. forces in the Pacific. Andersen Air Force Base houses a Navy helicopter squadron and Air Force bombers that rotate to Guam from the U.S. mainland, including the B-2 stealth bomber, B-1 and B-52. Their location in a U.S. territory means its military is just hours from potential flashpoints in the western Pacific.

Naval Base Guam is an important outpost for U.S. fast-attack nuclear powered submarines that are a key means for gathering intelligence in the region, including off the Korean peninsula and in the South China Sea where China has been building military bases on man-made islands that have stirred tension across Asia.

The U.S. military has said it plans to increase its presence on Guam and will move thousands of U.S. Marines currently stationed in Japan to the island between 2024 and 2028. "I'm pro military buildup," said resident Gus Aflague, 60, whose grandfather and brother both joined the U.S. Navy.

"North Korea has always threatened other countries. They threatened U.S., other countries, and they threaten Guam. It's a propaganda, that's how I feel," he said but added that the military offered an extra reassurance. "I feel safe with our military presence here — Andersen and the Navy."

There's a sense of patriotism among those who cite the island's history of Guam residents serving in the U.S. military. The U.S. took control of Guam in 1898, when Spanish authorities surrendered to the U.S. Navy.

During the Vietnam War, the Air Force sent 155 B-52 bombers to Guam to hit targets in Southeast Asia. Guam was also a refueling and transfer spot for people heading to Southeast Asia, and many refugees fleeing Saigon were evacuated through Guam.

But there's also some resentment about not being able to vote in the general election for U.S. president. Guamanians have served in all major U.S. wars since World War II and see military service as a source of pride. A huge red, white and blue ribbon is outside the airport terminal.

Resident Isaac Camacho, 19, says he feels Guam's relationship with the U.S. mainland is "a little misunderstood on their part." "They believe that we are not true U.S. citizens, when we do have plenty of Chamorro people going into the U.S. military and serving for their country and dying for their country," he said. Chamorros are the indigenous people of Guam. "And not a lot of Americans know that."

Guam is about 2,100 miles (3,380 kilometers) southeast of Pyongyang and 3,800 miles (6,115 kilometers) west of Honolulu in the Pacific Ocean. For years, North Korea has claimed Guam is within its missiles' striking distance, making furious statements each time when the U.S. flew powerful bombers from the island's air base to the Korean Peninsula.

In August last year, the North's Foreign Ministry warned that all U.S. military bases in the Pacific including Guam would "face ruin in the face of all-out and substantial attack" by the North's military. In 2013, state media cited leader Kim Jong Un as having ordered his military to prepare plans on launching strikes on U.S. military bases in Guam, Hawaii and South Korea as well as the American mainland.

Guam is armed with the U.S. Army's defense system known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, which can intercept missiles.

McAvoy reported from Honolulu. Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco contributed reporting.

North Korea Details Plan To Fire Missile Salvo Toward Guam

The U.S. Pacific territory of Guam is a major military hub to U.S. bombers.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP, AUGUST 10, 2017) — North Korea has announced a detailed plan to launch a salvo of ballistic missiles toward the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, a major military hub and home to U.S. bombers. If carried out, it would be the North's most provocative missile launch to date.

The announcement Thursday warned that the North is finalizing a plan to fire four of its Hwasong-12 missiles over Japan and into waters around the tiny island, which hosts 7,000 U.S. military personnel on two main bases and has a population of 160,000.

Japan and South Korea vowed a strong reaction if the North were to go through with the plan. It said the plan, which involves the missiles hitting waters 30 to 40 kilometers (19 to 25 miles) from the island, could be sent to leader Kim Jong Un for approval within a week or so. It would be up to Kim whether the move is actually carried out.

It is unclear whether — or exactly why — North Korea would risk firing missiles so close to U.S. territory. Such a launch would almost compel the United States to attempt an intercept and possibly generate further escalation.

North Korea, no stranger to bluffing, frequently uses extremely bellicose rhetoric with warnings of military action to keep its adversaries on their heels. It generally couches its threats with language stating it will not attack the United States unless it has been attacked first or has determined an attack is imminent.

But the statement raised worries amid threats from both sides. Following reports that U.S. intelligence suggests the North might be able to pair a nuclear warhead with a missile capable of reaching targets on the United States mainland, President Donald Trump warned North Korea that "it faces retaliation with fire and fury unlike any the world has seen before."

Pyongyang, meanwhile, has been louder in its complaints against a new and tough round of sanctions imposed by the United Nations, with strong U.S. backing, and Washington's use of Guam as a staging ground for its stealth bombers, which could be used to attack North Korea and are a particularly sore point with the ruling regime in Pyongyang.

Its reported plan is extremely specific, suggesting it is actually plotting a launch. The report said the Hwasong-12 rockets would fly over Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi prefectures in Japan and travel "1,065 seconds before hitting the waters 30 to 40 kilometers away from Guam." It said the Korean People's Army Strategic Force will finalize the plan by mid-August, present it to Kim Jong Un and "wait for his order."

"We keep closely watching the speech and behavior of the U.S.," it said. Such a move would not merely be a test launch, but a demonstration of military capabilities that could easily lead to severe consequences.

South Korea's military responded by saying North Korea will face a "stern and strong" response from Washington and Seoul. Taking it a step further, Japan's Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told parliament a missile attack on the U.S. territory would be a Japanese national emergency because it would threaten Japan's existence as a nation.

If North Korea were to actually carry it out — even if it aimed at hitting the waters off Guam and not the island itself — that would clearly pose a potential threat to U.S. territory and put the United States in a much more complicated situation than it has been during previous missile launches.

Guam lies about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) from the Korean Peninsula, and it's extremely unlikely Kim's government would risk annihilation with a pre-emptive attack on U.S. citizens. It's also unclear how reliable North Korea's missiles would be against such a distant target, but no one was writing off the danger completely.

Washington has been testing its missile defenses in response to the North's stepped-up development and the current escalation of tensions could lead to pressure for the U.S. military to try to shoot down the North's missiles in midflight if they are heading toward Guam.

That would likely open up a set of very major problems, including the possibility of both a very high-profile failure or a miscalculation of Washington's intentions and a more deadly pre-emptive strike by the North — which has missiles able to hit Tokyo and conventional weapons that could devastate South Korea's capital of Seoul.

The Hwasong-12, which was revealed for the first time at a military parade in April, is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that is believed to have a radius of more than 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles). It can be fired from mobile launchers, making it hard to detect and destroy on the ground.

By launching a salvo of four, the North would be attempting to make it harder for the U.S. to intercept all of the incoming missiles. Its stated flight path over Japan is also very aggressive — it has recently tried to avoid flying over neighboring countries by shooting its missiles up at a very high angle to land in the ocean.

Washington, meanwhile, has been giving out mixed signals about its intentions. While Trump was threatening annihilation and boasting from the New Jersey golf resort where he's vacationing that he has made the U.S. nuclear arsenal "far stronger and more powerful than ever before," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to calm the sense of crisis.

"Americans should sleep well at night," Tillerson told reporters. "Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours."

FBI Agents Searched Former Trump Campaign Chair's Home

Then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort walks around the convention floor before the opening session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. A spokesman for President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, says that FBI agents served a search warrant at one of his homes.

WASHINGTON (AP, AUGUST 09, 2017) — FBI agents looking for financial documents have searched one of the homes of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, whose past foreign political work has been swept into the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A Manafort spokesman confirmed the search Wednesday.

Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement that FBI agents had obtained a warrant and searched one of Manafort's homes, but he would not say when the search occurred or what it was for. "Mr. Manafort has consistently cooperated with law enforcement and other serious inquiries and did so on this occasion as well," Maloni said.

The Associated Press has learned the warrant for the search on July 26 at Manafort's home in Alexandria, Virginia, sought information including tax documents and banking records. The Washington Post first reported the raid.

Manafort has been a subject of a longstanding FBI investigation into his dealings in Ukraine and work for the country's former president, Viktor Yanukovych. That investigation has been incorporated into the probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is also scrutinizing Manafort's role in the Trump campaign as he looks into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion with Trump associates.

Manafort, who led the Trump campaign for several months, has denied any wrongdoing. He also spoke behind closed doors to Senate investigators for an interview just one day before the search of his home.

The use of a search warrant indicates that law enforcement officials have convinced a judge there is probable cause to believe a crime may have been committed. A house raid can be seen as an aggressive tactic given that Manafort has been cooperating with congressional investigators and has turned over hundreds of pages of documents. It could indicate law enforcement was looking for records beyond what Manafort provided.

Word of the raid is the latest revelation about Mueller's investigation, which had been operating in relative secrecy compared with numerous congressional probes looking at the election. In recent days, it's become clear the former FBI director is using a grand jury in Washington in addition to one in the Eastern District of Virginia, where investigators also have been looking into former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Also, FBI agents have been asking witnesses since the spring about $530,000 worth of lobbying and investigative work carried out by Flynn's firm, Flynn Intel Group, according to a person familiar with the investigation. That work sought the extradition of an exiled Turkish cleric living in the U.S. Through his attorney, Flynn has declined to comment on the investigation.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive details of the investigation, said FBI agents have also been asking about Flynn's business partner, Bijan Kian, who served on the Trump presidential transition . Kian has not responded to multiple attempts to contact him over several months.

In recent months, Flynn and Manafort have turned over documents to congressional committees investigating the election interference. One focus of the multiple probes, including Mueller's, is a June 2016 meeting Manafort attended with Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. That meeting, held at Trump Tower in New York, was described to Trump Jr. in emails as part of a Russian government effort to help the Trump campaign by passing along information that could be used against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

During his Senate intelligence committee interview , Manafort provided his recollection of the Trump Tower meeting and turned over contemporaneous notes he took during the gathering. The interview was confined to that meeting.

Manafort has also turned over other documents to the Senate intelligence committee as well as about 400 pages of records to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee said Wednesday it has also received about 250 pages of documents from Trump Jr. and about 20,000 pages from the Trump campaign.

The content of the documents was not immediately clear. The committee said it received the Manafort and Trump campaign documents on Aug. 2 and the records from Trump Jr. on Aug. 4. Judiciary committee leaders have also been in talks with Trump Jr. and Manafort about private interviews. The committee initially called for them to testify publicly, but lawmakers have since said they were negotiating the terms of their appearances.

Follow Chad Day and Eric Tucker on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChadSDay and https://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

Vote Count Begins In Kenya's Fiercely Contested Election

Lydia Gathoni Kiingati, 102, casts her vote just after dawn at a polling station in Gatundu, north of Nairobi, Kenya, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2017. Kenyans are going to the polls to vote in a general election after a tightly-fought presidential race between incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta and main opposition leader Raila Odinga.

NAIROBI, KENYA (AP, AUGUST 08, 2017) — Polls closed across Kenya after millions voted peacefully Tuesday in a fiercely contested election pitting President Uhuru Kenyatta against challenger Raila Odinga in the East African country known for its stability but also its divided ethnic allegiances.

Long lines formed at many of Kenya's 40,000 polling stations before dawn, but the Kenyan election commission tweeted in the evening that the balloting concluded "with minimal hitches." Some sites remained open to process those people still waiting to cast their votes.

In preliminary results, Kenyatta was ahead with 55.4 percent while Odinga had 43.9 percent after votes from nearly one-quarter of 40,883 polling stations had been counted, according to the Kenyan election commission.

Authorities hope to avoid the post-election violence a decade ago when ethnic divisions fueled unrest that killed more than 1,000 people. A 2013 vote was mostly peaceful despite opposition allegations of vote-tampering.

Reaction to the result could partly depend on the performance of Kenya's electoral commission, which will collect and count the ballots in the coming days. In addition to the bitterly contested presidential race, more than 1,800 elected positions were at stake, including governors, legislative representatives and county officials.

By law, election officials have up to a week to announce results, though many analysts believe the outcome of the presidential race will be declared far sooner, possibly within one or two days. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is the chief election observer for The Carter Center, described it as "an inspiring day in Kenya watching democracy in action."

"Enthusiastic voters not fazed by long lines," he tweeted. More than 300 people, including ethnic Maasai draped in traditional red blankets, waited for hours in the dark before a polling station opened in the Rift Valley town of Il Bissil. Kenyan TV also showed lines of voters in the port city of Mombasa. In some locations, inmates in striped prison garb cast ballots under the watch of guards.

Because Kenya is an African leader, its election is a closely watched event across the continent and beyond. Its diversity, symbolized by the gulf between its so-called Silicon Savannah ambitions for a booming tech industry and the poverty and lack of services found in shantytowns or remote rural areas, as well as its complex ethnic patchwork, mirror the potential for advancement, and the obstacles to it, across the wider region.

"If the elections are not fair, if there was rigging, people will definitely go to the streets," said Sophia Ajwang, a 29-year-old student in Kisumu city. However, Moses Otieno, a 33-year-old businessman, said that Kenyans desperately want to avoid another bout of election unrest.

"We've learned a lot in the past, so we don't want such repetition in this election," Otieno said. "That's why we will accept whatever outcome it is." Three polling stations in the Laikipia area were "affected by insecurity," but security forces restored order and polling resumed, the election commission said. Farms and homes in Laikipia County have been under siege for more than a year from herders who say they are desperate for grazing land for their animals; some farmers believe the land invasions are politically motivated.

Kenyatta, the 55-year-old son of Kenya's first president after independence from British colonial rule, campaigned on a record of major infrastructure projects, many backed by China, and claimed strong economic growth. Odinga, 72, also the son of a leader of the independence struggle, has cast himself as a champion of the poor and a harsh critic of endemic corruption.

However, many voters were expected to vote along ethnic lines. Kenyatta is widely seen as the candidate of the Kikuyu people, the country's largest ethnic group. Odinga is associated with the Luo voting bloc, which has never produced a head of state. There are six other presidential candidates, though they lack the wide support of the top two.

"I feel positive because we ran a positive campaign," Kenyatta, who seeks a second term, said after voting in his birthplace of Gatundu, north of Nairobi. Odinga voted in the poor area of Kibera, an opposition stronghold in the capital, Nairobi.

"Uhuru must go," chanted his supporters, referring to the president by his first name. The winner of the presidential race must get more than 50 percent of the votes as well as one-quarter or more votes in at least 24 of Kenya's 47 counties, according to officials. If the front-runner falls short of those benchmarks, the two top contenders will contest a run-off vote.

Kenyatta and Odinga also faced off in the 2013 election. Kenyatta won by a thin margin, with just over 50 percent of the vote; Odinga alleged voting irregularities and took his case to Kenya's highest court, which ruled in Kenyatta's favor by validating the results.

Kenya has nearly 20 million registered voters out of a population of more than 40 million.

Associated Press journalists Tom Odula in Nairobi and Jerome Delay in Il Bissil contributed.

Report Reveals Underground US Haven For Heroin, Drug Users

A man prepares heroin he bought on the street to be injected at the Insite safe injection clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The facility is promoted by its founders as a safe, humane facility for drug abusers. A report released Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2017, in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine revealed that a safe haven for drug users to inject themselves with heroin and other drugs has been quietly operating in the United States for the past three years. Researchers didn’t disclose the location of the site. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP, AUGUST 08, 2017) — A safe haven where drug users inject themselves with heroin and other drugs has been quietly operating in the United States for the past three years, a report reveals. None were known to exist in the U.S. until the disclosure in a medical journal, although several states and cities are pushing to establish these so-called supervised injection sites where users can shoot up under the care of trained staff who can treat an overdose if necessary.

In the report released Tuesday, two researchers said they've been evaluating an underground safe place that opened in 2014. As a condition of their research, they didn't disclose the location of the facility — which is unsanctioned and potentially illegal — or the social service agency running it.

The researchers offered little data, and their main finding was that no one died while injecting at the safe place. There were two overdoses on site, which were reversed by staff members using the overdose medication naloxone.

Advocates and some politicians in recent years have called for government-sanctioned injection sites as the U.S. grapples with the opioid epidemic. More than 52,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2015 — the most ever — fueled by soaring abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers. Government statistics for the first nine months of last year, also released Tuesday, show overdose death rates continuing to spiral.

Some say the new report could have an impact on efforts to establish safe injection sites around the U.S. Such sites have been backed by lawmakers in New York, California and other states, along with officials in cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Ithaca, New York.

"It shows people that it's possible" to operate one of these in the U.S., said Lindsay LaSalle, an attorney with Drug Policy Alliance who has helped draft safe haven legislative proposals in six states.

Injection sites are legal in countries including Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland where medical professionals monitor drug users. They also provide clean needles to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like HIV or hepatitis C. Ideally, they also steer users into treatment and other services.

Some experts say new approaches are needed to fight the opioid epidemic, including safe havens. But they've faced legal and political hurdles. Critics have argued these places may undermine prevention and treatment, and seem to fly in the face of laws aimed at stopping use of deadly illicit drugs.

Safe injection sites are different from syringe exchange programs, which were once controversial but now exist in 33 states. The underground safe haven is open between four and six hours a day, five days a week, according to Alex Kral, a San Francisco-based researcher with RTI International, and Peter Davidson of the University of California, San Diego. Their report was published online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The space consists of two rooms — an "injection room" with five stainless steel stations with mirrors and stools and a room next door where users are monitored afterward. There are trained staff on hand, but no one who is medically licensed, according to the researchers. Smoking is not allowed there, but drugs like heroin, pain pills, cocaine and methamphetamine are.

Use of the space was by invitation only. Most visitors are white, homeless men. It was used 2,500 times over two years by over 100 people, although researchers say the exact number of participants isn't known because the facility relies on anonymous surveys.

There's no data on deaths or drug use by clients who injected when the site was closed and it's not known whether any went into treatment, Kral said. The study also didn't look at issues opponents worry about, like whether creation of a safe place is associated with an increase in people beginning to try drugs, said Jonathan Caulkins, a drug policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University who nonetheless applauded the organization's effort to try to stop overdose deaths.

Entrenched Poverty Tough To Shake In The Mississippi Delta

BY EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUGUST 07, 2017

Graph, Otibehia Allen, a single mother of five, stands outside her rented mobile home in Jonestown, Miss. Allen works 30 hours a week as a data entry clerk and transportation dispatcher for a medical clinic, pulling in barely over minimum wage. She doesn’t own a car, and public transportation is not widely available. To get from home in Jonestown to work or even to go grocery shopping about 13 miles (21 kilometers) away in Clarksdale, Allen often pays people for a ride, sometimes $20 a pop.

JONESTOWN, MISS. (AP) — Otibehia Allen is a single mother who lives in a rented mobile home in the same isolated, poor community where she grew up among the cotton and soybean fields of the Mississippi Delta

During a summer that feels like a sauna, the trailer's air conditioner has conked out. Some nights, Allen and her five children find cooler accommodations with friends and relatives. Other nights, they sleep in the trailer with box fans circulating the stuffy air.

Allen works 30 hours a week as a data entry clerk and transportation dispatcher for a medical clinic, pulling in barely over minimum wage. She doesn't own a car, and public transportation is not widely available. To get from home in Jonestown to work or even to go grocery shopping about 13 miles (21 kilometers) away in Clarksdale, Allen often pays people for a ride — sometimes $20 a pop.

"It's not easy raising five children alone," Allen said, fighting back tears. "No, you didn't ask me to have them, true. So, I chose to. So that means I'm responsible for these people." Persistent poverty shapes daily existence in this expanse of agricultural flatland that gave birth to the blues. Jobs are scarce. Schools struggle for funding. Tens of thousands of families receive government food aid and health insurance.

Fifty years ago, Democratic Sens. Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Joe Clark of Pennsylvania toured the Delta and saw ramshackle houses and starving children.

Curtis Wilkie was a young reporter covering the senators' tour for a Delta newspaper, the Clarksdale Press Register.

At one stop, Wilkie recalled, "There was a little infant in a dirty diaper crawling around on the floor and eating rice — grains of rice that were on the floor that were dirty. ... Kennedy knelt by the child and didn't say a word, was stroking the little child's cheeks and his forehead."

Mississippi's congressional delegation in 1967, led by Democratic Sens. James Eastland and John Stennis and Rep. Jamie Whitten, resisted federal funding for food programs and for Head Start, a preschool program that many conservatives saw as a threat to the state's white, segregationist power structure because it educated poor black children.

Wilkie said the trip had an enormous impact on Kennedy, whose eyes welled with tears at the sight of the child: "No question that once he got back to Washington, he became a more passionate advocate for rural people."

Kennedy ran for president in 1968. Moments after winning the California primary, he was assassinated.

Mississippi's second-term Republican governor, Phil Bryant, was born to a blue-collar family in the Delta in 1954. He frequently says he doesn't want people to be dependent on government. Under his tenure, Mississippi's been one of 19 states rejecting expansion of Medicaid, the federal and state health insurance program for the poor, under the health care law signed by former President Barack Obama.

Bryant, who supports President Donald Trump, says job creation is the best way to combat poverty. Since he became governor, Mississippi has offered incentives to attract two tire manufacturing plants — one is open, the other being built. Neither is in the Delta.

Although opportunities have improved in the past 50 years, the Delta remains one of the most deprived regions in the U.S. The national poverty rate is about 15 percent; it's 22 percent for Mississippi. In most Delta counties, it's 30 to 40 percent.

Kennedy and Clark were accompanied to the Delta in 1967 by Marian Wright, a young civil rights lawyer working in Mississippi. In 1973, after she married and added to her name, Marian Wright Edelman founded Children's Defense Fund, a national group that advocates for social services for the poor.

Edelman recently returned to Mississippi to examine how poverty continues shaping lives of people like Allen, the 32-year-old single mother. Both Edelman and Allen said they worry the Trump administration will cut social services that help the poor.

In Allen's two-bedroom trailer, her boys sleep in one room, her girls in another while she stays on the couch. She buys groceries in bulk because it's cheaper, and she knows how far she can stretch a family pack of chicken from the Piggly Wiggly.

Allen's children, 9 to 14, are covered by Medicaid. She got a raise a few months ago — 40 cents an hour, just enough to make her lose her own Medicaid coverage. Her back and arms are in constant pain, but she won't see a doctor.

"I don't want to make a bill that I can't pay," Allen said.

Dr. Barbara Ricks, a 49-year-old pediatrician, grew up poor in the Delta. Her family received food stamps; she attended Head Start and paid for college with scholarships and jobs.

She has practiced medicine since 1999 in Greenville, one of the larger Delta cities — population 31,500.

Ricks said about 95 percent of her patients are on Medicaid, some from small, rural communities 40 or 50 miles away because there are few clinics closer to home. She said patients from financially stable households generally are in better health than those living in poverty, who often deal with stress, obesity and diabetes.

Concealing names to protect privacy, she said one of her patients is an 11-year-old boy with asthma who lives with his grandmother because his mom, single and unemployed, is overwhelmed raising his five younger siblings. He's been hospitalized because his grandmother, who also cares for an adult relative, leaves him "minimally supervised" and misses regular asthma treatments, the doctor said.

Ricks said another patient is an infant whose mother is a 15-year-old student. Though the mother intends to go to college, she sometimes misses days or weeks of class to care for her baby.

"Poverty is a social problem, but it's also a medical problem," Ricks said. "These kids have so many things working against them. And, although poor outcomes are expected, we should not accept it."

Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus .

State-Of-The-Nation: Senators To Talk With Buhari – Ben Bruce

BY LEVINUS NWABUGHIOGU

VANGUARD NIGERIA

AUGUST 05, 2017

Senator Ben Bruce (Via Vanguard)

ABUJA, NIGERIA (VANGUARD) – To urgently rescue Nigeria from pangs of poverty and under development, the Senator representing Bayelsa East in the Nigerian Senate, Mr. Ben Bruce on Friday gave hints of a possible high powered meeting between the Senate and President Mohammadu Buhari anytime next week upon his return to Nigeria.

Recall that President Buhari left the shore of the country on May 7 for a follow-up on his medical consultations.

 Though, no specific date had been officially given for the president’s return, speculation is however, rife of his possible return next week.

Speaking to Vanguard on Friday on the State of the Nation, Bruce who fumed at the incremental hardship agreed to the feelings that Nigeria has seriously lagged behind in its developmental strides in the last two years, saying that the country was momentarily in a big trouble.

According him, a lot of public policies have become antiquated and could not drive Nigeria’s economy in a 21 century world.

He said: “Nigeria has not really made any progress in the last 2 years. I think we are in big trouble right now. When the President gets back, we would need to sit down with him and have a conversation. There is no point having a conversation with anybody who is not a president.

“I am thinking the Senate. We will have a conversation. A bipartisan team will go and meet with Mr. President and have a conversation with him. Not APC senators meeting the president but the Senate meeting him and have a conversation on the future of Nigeria. That’s what I am gonna propose. That we sit down with him and discuss the issues. He’s the president and you can’t change that and I respect constitutional authority. He is the President of Nigeria and we will sit down with him and discuss the problems facing the country. In 2019 when there is another president, that will no another issue. But right now, he is the president and we need to sit down with him and discuss the issues. I understand he will be here next week.

“Let’s talk to the President directly. I think it is important to speak with the President Buhari.

” On the issues to confront the President with, Senator Bruce said it was all encompassing.

“All the issues affecting the country. This is my proposal. I am going to sit down with the Senate President and say, look, let’s sit down with the President. He’s not an APC President. He’s president of Nigeria. So, I don’t want say APC governors, senators seeing him. He should see Nigeria not APC. This is what I am gonna request, hopefully it will be granted and we are gonna have a conversation.

 “Everything agitates my mind. The economy is in trouble, there is inflation, unemployment, schools, every year, a million kids cannot go to school. Automobile policy of Nigeria is 1922 policy. Mass transit policy is 1825. Our educational policy is 1942 policy. Are you kidding? We are in the stone age. These are not caused by him. I don’t want to accuse anybody but previous government did a lousy job. You have a educational policy set up by the colonial masters, have you changed that? Do you have a policy on Power, Health? Name one rich man who does not send his child, or himself to be treated abroad. You spend millions of Naira in Ghana every year on education. You have the health stories in India. So, what is going right? That has to be dealt with. We need to discuss it. I am not a critic, not here to run down anybody but I have a solution to our problem”, he said.

The Senator who hails from oil rich Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region stated that the zone is a time bomb waiting to explode.

He said that the agitations were becoming so serious that an urgent dialogue between the agitators and the federal government needed to hold.

He said: “I think there should be a discussion. The Niger Delta is heavily underdeveloped. There is a lot of people to blame. In the past, federal government, state government, NDDC, everybody made a terrible mistake about Niger Delta. Nobody is exempt. It doesn’t matter whether you are military, PDP, APC, whoever, everybody is guilty. Now, I cannot erase the past. The past is the past but going forward, the area must be developed. There has to be a programme to develop the Niger Delta. And dialogue must take place for the place to be developed. I cannot look at a young man who is dying of poverty and say he has no right to agitate.

“I have no right to say that and at the same time I will not encourage him to go carry a gun and kill somebody. At the same time, I am encouraging the government to understand there is a time bomb that had exploded several times and the next time, it explodes, there will be no oil for anybody. So, I urge everybody to sit on a roundtable and resolve the problem and should be focusing on developments not enriching individuals.

 I will never support enriching individuals.” Senator Bruce also regretted that devolution of power Bill didn’t pass in the last constitutional amendment voting by the National Assembly.

He however gave a glimpse of hope that the Bill would be revisited when the National Assembly resumes from its 6 weeks holiday.

 The Senator also expressed the same optimism on the two gender Bills: Indegeneship/Citizenship and 35 percent affirmative action for women as Commissioners and Ministers that failed during the voting exercise.

 “I voted for devolution of power. But I think there was not enough education. A lot of people didn’t really understand it. I think we moved too fast. But the Senate President has said when we come back, we will sit down. I think a lot fears from our brothers in the other parts of the country. So, I don’t want to blame anybody on that issue. I think we did very well with the Bills we passed. When we come back, we may explain it properly to those who have opposed it. I think there will be consensus and it will pass. I am confident about that.

“One of the senators got up and said, look in his state, they don’t have enough qualified women and we burst out laughing. I don’t wanna run down anybody. But I think we need to educate people. Don’t assume everybody is as smart as you are or as liberal as you are. I think the biggest mistake is that you have a collection of people we need to educate and tell them that gender equality is the greatest gift you can give a people. It doesn’t destroy anybody or take away the right of a man. So, instead of attacking them, let’s educate them. I don’t wanna run down anybody. Let’s educate them”, he said.

Speaking on the performance of N-Power job which is one of the social intervention prgrammes on job creations, Bruce who is also a business magnate likened the scheme to a waste of financial resources.

“When you spent 75 percent of your budget on current expenditure, I have a bill coming up which will limit expenditure by 50 percent by law and it will pass. You have DGs flying first class. You have people traveling all over the world to have meetings. Why can’t you have meetings in Nigeria? I saw the budget. Do you know the waste in the budget? If you run Nigeria as private company, you will fire 75 percent of people who run the country. Go and see the budget, it is total waste and this has been going on for a long time. It has nothing to do with APC”, he said.