English Classes, Legal Services Cut For Immigrant Kids

In this April 19, 2019 file photo, migrant children play soccer at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children on Good Friday in Homestead, Fla. The government has stopped reimbursing some contracted shelters for the cost of teaching immigrant children English-language courses and providing legal services and recreational activities. The Health and Human Services department notified shelters around the country recently that it was not going to reimburse them for teachers' pay or other costs. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

BY ASTRID GALVAN, ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

PHOENIX (AP) — Immigrant children in the care of the U.S. government may no longer have access to English-language courses and legal services, officials said Wednesday.

The Health and Human Services department notified shelters around the country last week that it was not going to reimburse them for teachers’ pay or other costs such as legal services or recreational equipment. The move appears to violate a legal settlement known as the Flores agreement that requires the government to provide education and recreational activities to immigrant children in its care.

But the agency says it doesn’t have the funding to provide those services as it deals with a soaring number of children coming to the U.S., largely from Central America.

It’s now up to the various nonprofit and private organizations that care for the children to cover the cost of teachers, supplies, legal services and even recreational activities and equipment — if they can, or choose to.

Health and Human Services says it currently has 13,200 children in its care, and more are coming. The Border Patrol said Wednesday that 11,500 children without a parent crossed the border just last month. The kids are transferred to the care of Health and Human Services after the Border Patrol processes them. Health and Human Services contracts out their care and housing to nonprofits and private companies.

“As we have said, we have a humanitarian crisis at the border brought on by a broken immigration system that is putting tremendous strain (on the agency),” Health and Human Services spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said. “Additional resources are urgently required to meet the humanitarian needs created by this influx - to both sustain critical child welfare and release operations and increase capacity.”

Health and Human Services is seeking nearly $3 million in emergency funding to cover more beds and provide basic care.

An official at one of the shelter providers said the government notified them on May 30 that they wouldn’t be reimbursing costs of providing education and other activities. The providers pay for things like teacher salary upfront and are then reimbursed by the government.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said his employer was scrambling to figure out how it would cover the cost of teachers. The provider hasn’t laid anyone off, but worries about children who desperately need to learn English and be intellectually stimulated.

Advocates are also worried about the ramifications of cutting recreational activities. Funding cuts may result in physical education coordinators from being let go and in a lack of adults who can supervise children playing outside.

“The kids are inside 23 hours, and the hour they spend outside is a real lifeline for them,” said J.J. Mulligan, an attorney at the Immigration Law Clinic at University of California, Davis, who has visited and spoken to many of the children at the facilities. “Most of them come from Latin American countries where soccer is king, so the ability to play with their friends really brings them joy in dark circumstances.”

In a memo to staff obtained by The Associated Press, Southwest Key interim CEO Joella Brooks said she was working with the government to figure out why the funding had ended and how it can continue to offer the services. Southwest Key is a nonprofit and the largest provider of shelters for immigrant children.

“In the meantime, remember the service, encouragement and compassion you provide to these youth every day matters a great deal. Please continue to stay focused on taking good care of them,” Brooks wrote.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, was critical of the cuts.

“By eliminating English classes and legal aid that are critical to ensuring children successfully navigate the asylum process, the Trump Administration is essentially condemning children to prison and throwing away the key until their imminent deportation,” Grijalva, who represents a district on the border, said in a statement.

Gomez Licon reported from Miami. Associated Press journalist John Mone contributed to this report.

Trump Halts Fetal Tissue Research By Government Scientists

In this Aug. 17, 2009 file photo, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md. The Trump administration is ending the medical research by government scientists using human fetal tissue. Officials said Wednesday government-funded research by universities will be allowed to continue, subject to additional scrutiny. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

BY RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, LAURAN NEERGAARD

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Wednesday that it is ending medical research by government scientists that uses human fetal tissue, overriding the advice of scientists who say it has led to lifesaving medical advances and handing abortion opponents a major victory.

The Health and Human Services Department said in a statement that government-funded research by universities that involves fetal tissue can continue for now, subject to additional scrutiny — although it also ended one major university project that used the tissue to test HIV treatments. That school — University of California, San Francisco — called the decision “politically motivated.”

Administration officials said the federal policy changes will not affect privately funded research.

Ending the use of fetal tissue by the National Institutes of Health has been a priority for anti-abortion activists, a core element of President Donald Trump’s political base. A senior administration official said it was the president’s call. The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

But research using fetal tissue has led to lifesaving advances , including development of vaccines for rubella and rabies and drugs to treat HIV. Scientists around the country denounced the decision, saying that fetal tissue was critically needed for research on HIV vaccines, treatments that harness the body’s immune system to battle cancer, and other health threats, including some to fetuses themselves.

“Prohibiting valuable research that uses fetal tissue that is otherwise going to be discarded doesn’t make any sense,” said Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, a regenerative medicine specialist at the University of California, San Diego. “It blocks important future research vital to the development of new therapies.”

The government’s own top medical scientist, NIH Director Francis Collins, said as recently as last December that he believes “there’s strong evidence that scientific benefits come from fetal tissue research ,” and that fetal tissue, rather than any alternatives, would “continue to be the mainstay” for certain types of research for the foreseeable future.

“Today, fetal tissue is still making an impact, with clinical trials underway using cells from fetal tissue to treat conditions including Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and spinal cord injury,” said Doug Melton, co-director of Harvard’s Stem Cell Institute and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Last year, the administration announced a review of whether taxpayer dollars were being properly spent on fetal tissue research. As a result, NIH froze procurement of new tissue. On Wednesday, the administration also said it is not renewing an expiring contract with the University of California, San Francisco, that used fetal tissue to create a human-like immune system in mice for HIV research.

University Chancellor Sam Hawgood said in a statement that the Trump administration action ended a 30-year partnership with NIH. “UCSF exercised appropriate oversight and complied with all state and federal laws,” said Hawgood. “We believe this decision to be politically motivated, shortsighted and not based on sound science.”

HHS says it is trying to balance “pro-life” and “pro-science” imperatives.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a statement that the Trump administration has “once again done the right thing in restoring a culture of life to our government.”

The Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect lawmakers opposed to abortion, said in a statement that taxpayer funding ought to go to promoting alternatives to using fetal tissue in medical research. The NIH is funding a $20 million program to “develop, demonstrate, and validate experimental models that do not rely on human fetal tissue from elective abortions.”

That idea got strong support from a Republican senator who oversees NIH funding.

“Today’s action is a significant pro-life victory,” Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri said in a statement. NIH “has directed funding toward the development of alternative research methods that do not rely on human fetal tissue from elective abortions and I remain supportive of that effort.”

But the scientific consensus is there is no adequate substitute for fetal tissues in some research areas. For example, to learn how the mosquito-borne Zika virus moves from a pregnant woman’s bloodstream into her fetus and attacks the developing brain — and how to prevent that — requires studying fetal brain cells, neuroscientist Sally Temple of the Neural Stem Cell Institute in New York wrote in the journal Science this year.

“Despite the president’s pledge to ‘end the HIV epidemic,’ today’s announcement poses a direct threat to crucial research to find treatments for HIV and other health threats,” Megan Donovan of the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. “Ideologues should not be allowed to stand in for real doctors and scientists when the government is making decisions about lifesaving medicine.”

The government has funded research using fetal tissue for decades, under administrations of both political parties.

Officials said there are currently at least three active federal research projects that involve human fetal tissue, and possibly as many as 12. Among university research projects funded by the government, officials said, fewer than 200 of 50,000 rely on human fetal tissue.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research questioned whether the new scrutiny that university projects will face will follow long-accepted ethical guidelines or instead block the research for ideological reasons.

Aside from the canceled UCSF contract, no university-led programs will be affected for the time being, the administration said. New projects that propose to use fetal tissue and current projects up for renewal will be subject to additional reviews.

Former NBA Legend Mutombo Fosters Young African Talent

Dikembe Mutombo. Image via Google.

BY ELIZABETE CASIMIRO

LUANDA, ANGOLA (VOA)  —  Africa's professional basketball league, due to be launched in 2020, is expected to be a showcase for new talent. With the support of Africa-born former professional stars like Dikembe Mutombo, young talent already have the incentive to step up their game.

Sitting on the benches at Kilamba Arena, former NBA star and Hall of Famer Dikembo Mutombo was helping set up a National Basketball Association-supported clinic, to train and observe new talent in Luanda, the capital of Angola, where he made a visit in May and spoke to the young players.

Mutombo is following his roots, as he was born in and grew up in Kinshasa, a 45-minute flight from Angola, before he became an NBA all-star.

"I think my presence means a lot to these young people who are playing the game here, that I am still caring about them. We are following them and we want them to succeed and we want the game of basketball to continue to grow in the continent,” Mutombo said.

The clinic was organized by Will Voigt, an American basketball coach, who is now coaching the Angola national basketball team. After training Nigeria's team, he is helping Angola to build the next generation of players. He instructs and gives guidance to local coaches and young players.

"We are trying the best as we can to give them a fair opportunity to learn and grow. We already have seen what players from the continent can do when given them,” Voigt said.

Olumide Oyedeji, one of the former NBA players who came with Mutombo, believes that African basketball is growing and that it has overcome the times when the game was dominated by a few countries, like Angola and Egypt.

He hopes one day an Africa national team might reach the FIBA world top 10.

"We have a chance; we just need to keep playing and getting better, beside the fact that it must start with each step. I believe we are taking the right steps,” Oyedeji said.

As the search for new talent takes place, Angola hosted the final of the FIBA-Africa Basketball League 2019. Local home team Primeiro de Agosto won the competition, beating Association Sportive de Sale 83-71 to get a record ninth African title. The team was given awards by NBA Africa Vice President Amadou Gallo Fall, Mutombo, Oyedeji, Jean Jacques Conceicao and Minnesota Timberwolves forward Luol Deng.

Now FIBA-Africa is getting ready to launch the first Pan-African professional basketball league with support from the NBA. Anibal Manave is the newly appointed president of the board for the Basketball Africa League, or BAL.

"The concept for this is African. It is not a national, but African awards. That is why we give the opportunity for the countries to have, apart from foreign players, African players as well,” Manave said.

The new BAL is scheduled to begin play in January with 12 club teams from across Africa.

The teams will be chosen through regional competitions and the top teams will advance to the BAL.

Oakland Becomes 2nd US City To Legalize Magic Mushrooms

In this Friday, May 24, 2019 photo a vendor bags psilocybin mushrooms at a cannabis marketplace in Los Angeles. Oakland City Council will vote Tuesday, June 4, 2019, to decriminalize the possession and use of entheogenic, or psychoactive, plants and fungi. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

BY SAMANTHA MALDONADO

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Oakland on Tuesday became the second U.S. city to decriminalize magic mushrooms after a string of speakers testified that psychedelics helped them overcome depression, drug addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The City Council voted unanimously to decriminalize the adult use and possession of magic mushrooms and other entheogenic, or psychoactive, plants and fungi. Denver voters in May approved a similar measure for people 21 and older.

Speakers overwhelmingly supported the move, describing substances such as ayahuasca and peyote as traditional plant-based medicines.

Use of the plants “saved my life,” said one man who described himself as a former heroin addict. “I don’t how to describe it other than miraculous.”

Some offered mystical descriptions of the hallucinogens as providing spiritual healing.

The vote makes the investigation and arrest of adults who grow, possess, use or distribute entheogenic plants one of the lowest priorities for police. No city funds could be used to enforce laws criminalizing the substances, and the Alameda County District Attorney would stop prosecuting people who have been apprehended for use or possession.

Councilmember Noel Gallo, who introduced the resolution, had said decriminalizing such plants would enable Oakland police to focus on serious crime.

Amendments offered by Councilmember Loren Taylor added caveats that the substances “are not for everyone,” recommending that people with PTSD or major depression seek professional help before using them and that people “don’t go solo” but seek expert guidance and have a trusted friend present during the use.

The ordinance also directs the city administrator to come back within a year to provide the council with an assessment of the law’s community impact.

“Entheogenic plants and fungi are tremendous for helping to enable healing, particularly for folks who have experienced trauma in their lives,” Carlos Plazola, chair of the advocacy group Decriminalize Nature Oakland, said before the council meeting. “These plants are being recommended pretty extensively undercover, underground, by doctors and therapists.”

The Oakland Police Department did not respond to emailed messages from the Associated Press seeking comment before the meeting. Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick declined to comment.

Magic mushrooms would remain illegal under both federal and state laws. Entheogenic substances are considered Schedule 1 drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act, which categorizes drugs that have potential for abuse and no medical value.

Skeptics had raised concerns about unsafe use, especially in schools.

To address such concerns, Gallo said earlier, lawmakers would have to establish rules and regulations about the use of such substances, including what exactly can be used, how to use them and what associated risks are.

Entheogenic plants have long been used in religious and cultural contexts. Gallo remembers his grandmother treating his family members with plants, including entheogenic ones, for a variety of ailments.

“Growing up in the Mexican community, this was our cure,” Gallo said. Hemp oils, mushrooms and yerba buenas — an aromatic plant known for its medicinal properties — “that was our Walgreens. We didn’t have a Walgreens. We didn’t have a way to pay for any drugs. These are plants we have known for thousands of years in our community and that we continue to use.”

Sudanese Protesters: Death Toll In Military Crackdown At 60

In this frame grab from video provided by Sudan TV, Lieutenant General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council, TMC, makes a broadcast announcement in Khartoum, Sudan, Tuesday, June 4, 2029. The TMC on Tuesday said that they want to stage early elections in the country and that all agreements with protest leaders have been cancelled. The statement came a day after a pro-democracy sit-in outside the army command base in the capital Khartoum was violently overrun by the ruling army. Protest organizers said 35 people died in the carnage Monday. (Sudan TV via AP)

BY BASSAM HATOUM, SAMY MAGDY

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — The death toll in the Sudanese military’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and their peaceful sit-in camp this week reached 60 on Wednesday, protest organizers said.

The mounting casualties are the latest challenge to the protest movement, which now aims to show it can keep up pressure in the streets after its central rallying point — the weeks-long sit-in outside the military headquarters in the country’s capital, Khartoum — was wiped out on Monday.

In April, the movement succeeded in forcing the military to remove Sudan’s longtime strongman, Omar al-Bashir. It then kept its sit-in going, demanding that the generals who took power hand over authority to civilians.


The last previously reported death toll stood at 40 but the Sudan Doctors Committee said security forces killed at least 10 people on Wednesday in Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman. That came after another 10 people were killed on Tuesday, including five in the White Nile state, three in Omdurman and two in Khartoum’s Bahri neighborhood.

The doctors’ committee is the medical arm of the Sudanese Professionals Association, which has been spearheading protests against army rule. The medical group also said hundreds were wounded in clashes in the past two days.

Activists Mohammed Najib and Hashim al-Sudani said there were street battles late Tuesday and early Wednesday in Khartoum’s Bahri and Buri districts between protesters and security forces mainly from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

“In Buri, there were lots of shootings and tear gas,” al-Sudani said. “They tried to force people into narrow streets” to beat them.

On Monday, members of the RSF, which human rights groups say carried out rapes, torture and killings of civilians in Sudan’s Darfur region, and other troops waded into the protest camp outside the military’s headquarters in Khartoum, opening fire and burning down tents. Other troops crushed two smaller sit-ins organized by the protesters elsewhere.

After al-Bashir’s ouster, for weeks, the military and protest leaders negotiated over the makeup of a transitional council meant to run the country for three years before elections. Protesters demand that civilians dominate the council, but the generals resisted.

The crackdown put an end to the relative peace that surrounded the talks and signaled the military had lost patience with activists’ demands. The result puts the two sides on the path of a potentially longer confrontation with increasing violence.

In a televised speech early Tuesday, the military council’s head, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, blamed protest leaders for the volatile situation, accusing them of drawing out negotiations and trying to exclude some “political and security forces” from taking part in any transitional government.

He announced the military would unilaterally form an interim government and hold elections sooner, within seven to nine months, under international supervision. He said any agreements reached earlier in the negotiations with the demonstrators were canceled.

Protesters rejected the move because it would put the military in charge of running the election.

Since Monday, tensions remain high in Khartoum and elsewhere as demonstrators stage scattered rallies and block main roads with barricades. Security forces have been seen in online videos, patrolling Khartoum districts.

Madani Abbas Madani, a leading activist, said the protesters would continue an open-ended civil disobedience campaign until the overthrow of the ruling military council.

“What happened on Monday was a systematic and planned attempt to impose repression on the Sudanese people,” he said in televised comments late Tuesday.

Magdy reported from Cairo.

NIGERIA: The Imo Fiasco: Time To Legislate Handover

Rochas Okorocha

BY STEVE OSUJI

OWERR (SUN NEWS ONLINE) -- It is a perverse and graceless state out here in Imo State. One is not talking about the sheer dishevelment and post hurricane scenarios right from the Government Lodge down to the lost corners of the state. If a governor’s dwelling place is in a state of disgrace, there is no telling how the rest of his domain would be. No, I talk not about the bad behaviours of our immediate past governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha; it’s about the long-term debilitating effect of bad governance and about solution.

Again, this is not even about the heavy physical damage he inflicted on a once-beautiful, serene and upwardly mobile state. It is about the violence done to our psyche, our esteem and worst of all, our institutions. It can be said that where there are no institutions, there really is no life in the true sense of it because there is no human essence; no culture, no tradition and of course no civilization. In this new age of mankind, institution is everything. Peoples and countries that understand that institutions are sacrosanct; those who have the best institutions will always lead the world.

But the Okorocha mystique was to obliterate and vanquish institutions. Thus for eight years, he waged a relentless war against all the institutions there were in Imo state. And of course he left no institutional edifice of his time; not a trace. He did not only crash all systems, he pulled out the memory card and yanked the hard drive. Imo today can be likened to a vacuous state; a blind blunder-head groping about in the dark. Imo is devoid of any institutional memory whatsoever.

Consider this scenario: Commissioners for Information for eight years were eight. There were about five Secretaries to the State Government, about four commissioners for Land. This was the trend in his governance. Then there was balkanization of ministries and agencies, merging and de-merging including new ones like ministry of Happiness and all that jazz.

All of these were happening on the whims of Number one; as His Excellency woke up each day. Strategic appointees of state were called up and yanked off even before they were seated. In a situation like this, hardly any record is kept; there was no proper understanding of the importance of documentation and archiving, the state was run on the run so to speak. In an environment like this, it would of course be difficult to have a proper report of stewardship or give account; especially if there was no intention to hand over in the first place as was the case with former Governor Okorocha. It is this manner of dilemma besetting the immediate past administration that has made it very difficult if not impossible for it to handover its affairs of eight years.

Of course, anyone who knows about the running of government would discern that a proper handover could not be achieved by the Okorocha Administration. That there was no formal handover was made plain at the inauguration of the Secretary of the Imo State Government recently. During the occasion, Governor Emeka Ihedioha had called up the sitting Permanent Secretary of Government House who was the most senior personnel left to take the in-coming members of the new administration round the offices. He was asked about the status of formal handing over. The Principal Secretary had told the audience in the hall that no handover had been put to effect whereupon there was much angry rumbling in the audience.

It must be noted that there was no formal meeting between the governor-elect and the sitting governor in Imo State since the election was won and lost. Here was no cooperation in the activities leading to the inauguration. A sham joint transition committee was set up by the Okorocha administration which proposed elaborate project visit, but it was only a ruse to distract the in-coming government.

There have also been photographs of the cover of a handover note flying about in the social media. Some handover note, a man with understanding would wonder. Even if we assume that some notes are contained in that cover, the natural question to ask is that is that all Owelle Okorocha has to handover after eight years? For those who know, one consultancy and design report on one major road would be bulkier that Okorocha’s eight-year report of stewardship. Owelle Okorocha has forgotten so soon how then Governor Ikedi Ohakim handed over to him in 2011.

According to officials who witnessed the ceremony held in the Exco Chamber of Imo government House between top government officials led by Ohakim and the then in-coming governor-elect Okorocha and his team. According to report, the atmosphere was convivial between the sitting governor and the in-coming one.

Ohakim was said to have brought a truck load of documents representing his four years of stewardship which made Owelle Okorocha to joke that he wished all the documents were cash. Ohakim also handed Okorocha other paraphernalia of office as well as giving him confidential executive briefing. It was a serious and comprehensive state ceremony; it was an act of governance and statecraft. More remarkable, it was an act of grace and statesmanship. Managing a state is not only a serious business, it is a divine trust, it is about the lives of millions of people and must be carried out with the sobriety and in deed solemnity that it requires. But Owelle Okorocha turned governance into a plaything, an infantile affair and for eight years, the governance of Imo State was like children playing in the sand, trying to reenact governance within the ambit of their childish estimations. The result today is pathetic to behold.

It is true that there were other wayward governors who practically absconded from government house without the right and proper transition procedures. This is unacceptable and indeed a crime to the people of the states they had governed for so long and abandoned at the end stage.

By this piece advocates for a legislation to set the standards and procedures for ‘trasitioning’ from one government/administration to the other. This is both for the states and the federal government. In fact we suggest a publication of each state’s audited accounts of an administration before a formal handover of office. The law may also stipulate that an out-going governor MUST as a matter of duty, personally account for his stewardship at the handover ceremony.

This is a challenge to both the National Assembly and the States’ Houses of Assembly. A well made law would keep state executives on their toes as they run their states on a daily basis knowing that they would have to give a thorough account at the end of the day. This way, no in-coming governor would be left high and dry the way the Rochas Okorocha left Emeka Ihedioha. We must relentlessly interrogate the way our country is run if we want to march in stride with the rest of the world.

Osuji is Media Aide to Governor Emeka Ihedioha

SOURCE: DAILY SUN

We’ll Not Run Govt Of Propaganda – Ihedioha

Imo State Governor Emeka Ihedioha. Image via Daily Sun

BY GEORGE ONYEJIUWA

OWERRI (DAILY SUN) -- Imo State Governor, Emeka Ihedioha, has said his administration would not be run on propaganda.

This was just as he reiterated that his government would recover all assets, property, funds and private lands forcefully acquired by the immediate past governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha and officials of his administration.

He also disclosed his administration would set up team of legal experts for the review and update of the extant laws of the state to be in tandem with the objective of his administration to develop both infrastructurally and industrially.

The governor stated this, yesterday, while declaring open a three-day retreat/orientation for Imo State House of Assembly members-elect of the ninth Assembly held at the Crystal Lake Resort, Oguta.

“We are not going to run an administration based on propaganda and we will not be distracted by those who have already decided to bad mouth us. What we promised the people of the state is that besides restoring the state to progress, we are going to recover all looted funds, assets, property and private lands that were forcefully acquired by the immediate past governor, Rochas Okorocha and officials of his administration. We are compiling a comprehensive list of those involved in the criminal act and would soon be forwarded to security agencies.

“You cannot run a state the way you like, you don’t just take away the property of a state; that is stealing and we will criminalise you. If government is run the way the immediate past administration did, former governors of the state would have left nothing for their successors. I can’t just swallow the lie that I have been handed over to when I wasn’t.”

He maintained that his administration is going to review all land allocations immediately, stressing that it did not matter when it was back dated as the administration has already secured the services of forensic experts to determined the actual date when such lands were allocated.

He re-emphasised his commitment to qualitative education, poverty and unemployment alleviation, wealth creation, massive investment in agriculture, good quality health care for the people as well as an enabling environment to make the state a preferred destination for business.

Trump-GOP Split: Senators Loudly Oppose Mexico Tariff Threat

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks to reporters following the weekly policy lunches on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

BY LISA MASCARO, LUIS ALONSO LUGO AND DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare confrontation, Republican senators declared deep opposition Tuesday to President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on all goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico. But it’s unclear they have the votes to stop him, and Trump said they’d be “foolish” to try.

All sides, including officials from Mexico meeting with Trump negotiators in Washington this week, remain hopeful that high-level talks will ease the president away from his threat. But with the tariffs set to start next Monday — and Trump declaring them “more likely” than not to take effect — fellow Republicans in Congress warned the White House they are ready to stand up to the president.

The public split and looming standoff over 5% tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico revealed a fundamental divergence in values between the president and his party. Trump uses tariffs as leverage to get what he wants — in this case to force Mexico to do more to halt illegal immigration. For Republicans, tariffs are counter to firmly rooted orthodoxy and viewed as nothing more than taxes they strenuously oppose.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said with understatement, “There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that’s for sure.”

At a lengthy closed-door lunch meeting at the Capitol, senators took turns warning Trump officials there could be trouble if the GOP-held Senate votes on disapproving the tariffs. Congressional rejection would be a stiff rebuke to Trump, even more forceful than an earlier effort to prevent him from shifting money to build his long-promised border wall with Mexico.

“Deep concern and resistance,” is how Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas characterized the mood. “I will yield to nobody in passion and seriousness and commitment to securing the border, but there’s no reason for Texas farmers and ranchers and manufacturers and small businesses to pay the price of massive new taxes.”

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who was among the senators who spoke up, said, “I think the administration has to be concerned about another vote of disapproval. ... I’m not the only one saying it.”

The outcome would be uncertain — Trump could try to veto a disapproval resolution as he did before. But many Republicans who voted against Trump earlier this year actually supported his ultimate goal of building the border wall. They were just uneasy with his executive reach to do it. Now, the president doesn’t have anywhere near the same backing for the tariffs.

The GOP opposition is grounded in fears over what Trump’s tariffs would do to the livelihoods of ordinary Americans . Senators worry they would spike U.S. consumers’ costs , harm the economyand imperil a major pending US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.

With jitters running high, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday he’s prepared to respond to protect the economy, and stocks rallied on that signal that the Fed will likely cut interest rates later this year.

Mexico is concerned about the tariffs as well, but top officials seemed optimistic about a resolution.

“By what we have seen so far, we will be able to reach an agreement,” Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said during a news conference at the Mexican Embassy in Washington. “That is why I think the imposition of tariffs can be avoided.”

Trump, during a press conference in London, offered mixed messages.

“We’re going to see if we can do something,” he said on the second day of his state visit to Britain.

“But I think it’s more likely that the tariffs go on,” he said. He also said he doubted Republicans in Congress would muster the votes against him. “If they do, it’s foolish.”

The Mexican officials arrived in Washington over the weekend as Mexico launched a diplomatic counteroffensive and fresh negotiations. On Tuesday, Mexico’s trade negotiator Jesus Seade was meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Ebrard will meet Wednesday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Republican senators are hopeful those talks will prevent the tariffs. But if negotiations should fail, the lawmakers warn they may have no choice but to take action to stop Trump.

“Our hope is the tariffs will be avoided,” McConnell said.

Lawmakers and business allies worry the tariffs will derail the long-promised United-States-Mexico-Canada trade deal— a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement that Trump campaigned against and promised to replace.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, told reporters Tuesday the tariffs make passage of USMCA “more difficult.”

Questions remained, meanwhile, over how, exactly, the president would invoke executive authority to slap tariffs on the Mexican goods -- and what Congress could do to block him.

Trump has indicated he will rely on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a national emergency executive action he can take without congressional approval.

But lawmakers say they can quickly vote on a resolution to disapprove. That’s what happened earlier this year when Congress, stunned by Trump’s claim of executive power, tried to block him from taking funds for the border wall with Mexico. Congress voted to disapprove of Trump’s actions, but the president vetoed the resolution.

This time, Republicans warn the numbers could be higher against the president — possibly a veto-proof majority in the Senate. But it’s unclear the president could be blocked in the House where Republicans may be less likely to oppose him.

Democrats — and some Republicans — doubt the tariffs will ever take effect. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that “Trump has a habit of talking tough and then retreating.”

Trump struck back against Schumer on Twitter, insisting the tariff threat was “no bluff.”

Earlier Tuesday, Trump claimed “millions of people” are entering the U.S. through Mexico and criticized congressional Democrats for not passing new laws. He said, “Mexico should not allow millions of people to try and enter our country.”

It is unclear what more Mexico can do — and what would be enough — to satisfy Trump on illegal immigration, a signature issue of his presidency.

The United States has not presented concrete benchmarks to assess whether the U.S. ally is sufficiently stemming the migrant flow from Central America. Mexico calls the potential tariffs hurtful to the economies of both countries and useless to slow the northbound flow of Central American migrants.

Associated Press writer Padmananda Rama contributed.

NIGERIA: Imo Frees 101-Year-Old Prisoner

Celestine Egbunuche and his son Paul have been in jail for over 18 years for murder. Image via BBC.

MAGNUS EZE

ENUGU (DAILY SUN) -- The Imo State Government has granted pardon to Nigeria’s oldest prisoner, Pa Celestine Egbunuche.

Egbunuche, who would be 101 years on August 4, has for over 18 years lived in desolation and hopelessness within the confines of Enugu Maximum Prison.

Daily Sun reliably gathered that his release was one of the last actions taken by former governor Rochas Okorocha before he vacated the Douglas House, Owerri, on May 28.

The Global Society for Anti-Corruption (GSAC), a non-governmental organization (NGO), last year, petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari and Okorocha seeking pardon for the inmate.

The NGO, in letters dated September 5, 2018 and signed by its President, Franklin Ezeona, had urged that the centenarian be freed to go home and die peacefully.

South East/South South Regional Director of GSAC, Mrs. Amaka Nweke, confirmed the development yesterday, disclosing that the prison authorities in Enugu were already perfecting papers for his release any moment from now.

Pa Egbunuche hails from Akokwa in Ideato North Local Government Area of Imo State, and was condemned to death along with his son, Paul Egbunuche, and another relation, now 88.

They were said to have been involved in a land dispute in which somebody slumped and died in the process.

Daily Sun had, in an exclusive report of August 8, 2018, captioned, “Nigeria’s oldest prisoner clocks 100 in Enugu,” jolted the world with the pathetic story of the centenarian, who reportedly lost his sight few days after the birthday.

The news went viral on the social media, raising questions to how a centenarian could still be in prison in Nigeria, when in other climes, inmates above 65 years are eligible for either parole or state pardon.

Abuja-based rights lawyer, Ugochukwu Ezekiel, who had lent voice to the call for Pa Egbunuche’s release, yesterday asked government not to abandon the man but instead, he should be fully rehabilitated.

SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE

California Man Freed From Life Prison Sentence For Joyriding

This photo provided by Mayer Brown LLP shows Kenneth Oliver, right, after his release from prison, posing for a selfie with his father Dr. Bernard Oliver on Tuesday, June 4, 2019. Kenneth Oliver, a California man, has been freed from prison after serving 23 years of his life sentence on a joyriding conviction. It included eight years in solitary confinement for possessing a book written by the co-founder of a notorious prison gang. (Bernard Oliver/Mayer Brown LLP via AP)

BY DON THOMPSON

SACRAMENTO, CALIF (AP) - A California man was freed from prison after serving 23 years of his life sentence on a joyriding conviction, including eight years in solitary confinement for possessing a book written by the co-founder of a notorious prison gang.

His attorneys say it's unconscionable that he was set to die in prison for nonviolent crimes.

Kenneth Oliver, now 52, was given the life sentence at 29 under California's strict "three strikes" sentencing law for repeat felons.


Voters eased the law in 2012 to allow life sentences only when the third strike is for a serious or violent felony.

But Oliver was ineligible for a new sentence because he was found with purported gang materials including a book called "Blood In My Eye," completed by Black Guerilla Family co-founder George Jackson days before he died during a bloody attempt to escape from San Quentin State Prison in 1971.

Oliver was freed Monday after Los Angeles County prosecutors dropped their objections "in the interest of justice," and after the state corrections department expunged his gang-affiliation record and paid him a $125,000 settlement for his time in solitary.

"It's almost impossible to believe that what happened to Ken happened here in California. You know, people think of this as an enlightened state and both the sentence and the time in (solitary confinement) don't square with that," said Ward Johnson, lead counsel on the case at the Mayer Brown law firm.

Oliver was arrested while a passenger in a stolen vehicle and pleaded guilty to taking a vehicle without permission. A stolen handgun was later found in his hotel room, prosecutors said. It was the latest in a string of crimes dating to an armed robbery when he was 16.

Los Angeles County prosecutor Nicol Walgren said she was impressed by Oliver's rehabilitation in prison and preparation for a successful life outside. She called him the kind of prisoner that voters envisioned when they eased the three strikes law.

"Ken's sentence of 50 (years)-to-life was much longer than (for) rapists and murderers," said Michael Romano, director and founder of the Three Strikes and Justice Advocacy Projects at Stanford Law School. "There should be some proportionality."

Voters agreed when they opted to free nearly 3,000 third-strike inmates, Romano said. Yet he estimated that another 200 to 500 qualifying inmates remain incarcerated largely because they can't afford the legal team that worked for free on Oliver's behalf.

"I really haven't wrapped my head around it fully," Oliver said 24 hours after his release and after he and his father, a university dean in Georgia, celebrated with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. "I do feel like time has passed me by but I'm trying not to be negative about it."

He's now in a transitional housing program and plans to become a paralegal, helping others through social justice programs while reconnecting with his three adult children.

He couldn't understand being sent to solitary confinement for possessing a book readily available in most campus libraries, but spent his time studying the law and filing the federal lawsuit that eventually helped lead to his release.

"You're single-celled for most of the time and every time you leave the cell or are escorted out you have to strip naked and bend over and cough," Oliver said of his time in solitary. Exercise was three hours a day in a six-by-nine foot "dog kennel."

"Some people go crazy in there," he said. "Me, I chose to read and try to find a way out of there and not let that circumstance define me."

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Homelessness Jumps 12% In L.A. County And 16% In The City; Officials ‘Stunned’

Sheriff Deputy Sgt. William Kitchin talks with Leah Davalos under an overpass while she was recorded for the 2019 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count in the City of Commerce. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

BY BENJAMIN DRESKES, DOUG SMITH

LOS ANGELES (LOS ANGELES TIMES) -- In a hard reality check for Los Angeles County’s multibillion-dollar hope of ending homelessness, officials reported Tuesday that the number of people living on the streets, in vehicles and in shelters increased by about 12% over last year.

The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase.

And as in past years, most — about 75% — were living outside, fueling speculation of a growing public health crisis of rats and trash near homeless encampments downtown.

The findings in L.A. follow a string of similarly dire point-in-time counts from across California, as government officials struggle to respond more forcefully to the state’s abject lack of affordable housing. The shortage is driving up rental prices, forcing people onto the streets at a rapid pace.

“At this point of unprecedented wealth in the county of Los Angeles, we are equally confronted with unprecedented poverty manifesting itself in the form of homelessness,” Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas told The Times.

In a statement, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called the increase in homelessness “heartbreaking,” but said he was he hopeful about the city’s recent work to alleviate the crisis, including an investment of $42 million to respond to public health concerns and intensify street-based services.

“This work has never been for the faint of heart, and we cannot let a set of difficult numbers discourage us, or weaken our resolve,” Garcetti said in a statement to The Times.

But among others in L.A. County, the point-in-time count crushed the optimism from last year’s tally, when a modest decrease in homelessness was recorded. The uptick left officials struggling to understand how the tide could have turned so badly in a year when millions of dollars had been spent rolling out new initiatives to move people into shelters and permanent housing.

Volunteer Barbara Petersmeyer counts homeless during a three-day 2019 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count last January in Los Angeles. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Funds from the 2017 Measure H sales tax reached full strength last year and expanded homeless services got more people off the street than ever before — a little more than 20,000 into some form of housing, according to the county. Yet the number of people becoming homeless outpaced those historic gains.

“Last year's count, we felt we were trimming in a way that would suggest we were getting our arms around this,” Ridley-Thomas said. “And yet this year we are pretty well stunned by this data.”

Tuesday’s supervisors meeting was packed with homeless and housing advocates, some of whom yelled, “Shame on you!” and “That’s an undercount!” when county officials showed the point-in-time count on a large screen.

Board chair Janice Hahn admitted that getting chronically homeless people off the streets seems to be taking longer.

“The residents are seeing more encampments, more people sleeping on the sidewalks in dirty, unhealthy and heartbreaking conditions,” she said. “They are frustrated by this problem. We need to give people answers.”

But bracing for what appeared to be difficult years ahead, L.A. city and county officials have backed off their one-time mantra of “ending homelessness,” and are fully linking the crisis on the region’s streets to a housing crisis that is beyond their control.

“If we don't change the fundamentals of housing affordability, this is going to be a very long road,” Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said in a briefing with The Times. “If we don't get ahead of affordability, we're going to be very hard pressed to get ahead of homelessness.”

Both Lynn and Ridley-Thomas rejected the idea that new programs and resources to address homelessness had not been effective.

“Overall, the service portion of the effort on mental health, substance use, the issue of housing, rent subsidies, those are important and we should stay the course,” Ridley-Thomas said. “Where we have to work much harder is in the area of affordable housing.”

Without the flow of new dollars for services, Lynn said, the point-in-time count would have been worse and more closely resembled the dramatic jumps in neighboring Southern California counties and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Orange County changed the way it conducted its count and recorded a 43% increase from its last count in 2017. Ventura, San Bernardino and Kern counties all reported increases of 20% or more.

Lynn pointed to two vulnerable groups as proof that resources work. Even though nearly 3,000 more veterans were reported homeless last year, there was no noticeable change in the number of homeless veterans on the street. Families experiencing homelessness grew by 8% with nearly 8,000 families being provided homes.

One of the largest increases, however, was among people 18 to 24 years old. Lynn said a 24% jump was partly the result of a change in the methodology of the count. But still, he said, “there was a significant increase, many more unsheltered. We were able to house more youth this year than last year, but this is an overflow population.”

Also exceeding the county average was a 17% spike of the chronically homeless — people with a mental or physical impairment who have been on the street or in shelter for more than a year.

Lynn said the dent made in that population by transitioning nearly 5,000 people into permanent housing was overshadowed by the phenomenon of people “aging in” — those who were counted last year but, at that point, weren’t “chronic” because they had only been homeless for less than a year.

The growth of homelessness was also uneven across L.A. County. The Westside experienced the largest increase at 19%, following a year in which its numbers were down by even more. The San Gabriel Valley was close behind with a 17% increase, marking the second consecutive year its homeless population had grown.

Two relative bright spots were Pasadena and Long Beach, which along with Glendale conduct their own counts. Pasadena saw a 20% drop, while Long Beach remained relatively flat with only a 2% increase since 2017.

Long Beach’s mayor, Robert Garcia, credited the influx of county and state funds for helping execute a plan to put more people into shelters. But he said that about 52% of the city’s homeless population was homeless for the first time. “People need to understand the link between homelessness and housing affordability,” he said.

The effects of a sizzling rental market and the soaring cost of living in Los Angeles were palpable at the newly opened temporary shelter in Councilman Gil Cedillo’s district near MacArthur Park Lake.

Garcetti committed to opening shelters in every council district, but the results have been slow. Only three have opened. The one in Cedillo’s district began serving 28 single women and five families last month.

Inside, Anna Gray watched her two sons Patrick, 5, and Harold, 9, bounce around the spartan room as she recounted her life. Gray had lived in a studio for five years and had fallen behind on the rent. When the landlord wanted to raise it to market rate, she realized she wouldn’t be able to afford it.

She has been moving from shelter to shelter ever since.

“At one point I had two jobs, I was working, had a car and still couldn’t find housing,” Gray said. “Let’s be real. I’m a single mom. I have all these struggles in life.”

This year’s dramatic increase in homelessness has spurred United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the mega nonprofit that provided financial support, volunteers and messaging for the Measure H tax hike and the city’s Proposition HHH homeless housing bond, to reevaluate its efforts, President and Chief Executive Elise Buik said. For a decade the agency has zeroed in on homelessness, but now it is looking to broaden its agenda to take on housing.

“We haven’t focused as much on affordable housing, but we are now,” Buik said. “We’ve got to start getting more affordable housing in the region.”

Similarly, nonprofits such as the People Assisting The Homeless, or PATH, which builds affordable housing and runs shelters, have begun to call for change at the state level to help address what’s playing out on the street. Los Angeles County needs almost 517,000 more units of affordable rental housing to meet demand, and a renter needs to make $47.52 per hour, which is more than triple the minimum wage, to pay the median monthly rent of $2,471, according to a recently released report by the California Housing Partnership.

“As rent continues to increase and wages remain stagnant, the potential for individuals to fall into homelessness increases,” said Joel John Roberts, chief executive of PATH. “To counteract this imbalance, we must continue to invest in solutions like permanent supportive housing and push for legislation in Sacramento.”

As head of a city-county bureaucratic agency that was formed primarily as a conduit for homelessness funds and to conduct the annual count, Lynn said he can do little more than react to those root causes.

“We're the safety net of last resort,” Lynn said. “I can't fix poverty. I can't fix housing affordability. I can't fix the criminal justice system. I can't fix the foster system. But the poverty rate here is crushing a lot of Angelenos, and the economy that is booming so well is leaving out a large number of people.”

Times staff writers Dakota Smith and Matt Stiles contributed to this report.