AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

White House says it won’t participate in impeachment hearing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House declared Sunday it would not participate in the first impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee as Democrats prepared to approve their report Tuesday making the case for President Donald Trump’s removal from office.

The Democratic majority on the House Intelligence Committee says its report will speak for itself in laying out possible charges of bribery or “high crimes and misdemeanours,” the constitutional standard for impeachment. After receiving the report, the Judiciary Committee would prepare actual charges.

That committee’s first hearing was already set for Wednesday and was expected to feature four legal experts who will examine questions of constitutional grounds as the committee decides whether to write articles of impeachment against Trump, and if so, what those articles would be.

The White House was invited to attend the Wednesday hearing, but its counsel declined in a fiery letter released Sunday evening.

“This baseless and highly partisan inquiry violates all past historical precedent, basic due process rights, and fundamental fairness,” said White House counsel Pat Cipollone, continuing the West Wing’s attack on the procedural form of the impeachment proceedings. Trump himself was scheduled to attend a summit with NATO allies outside London on Wednesday.

___

Death toll put at 20 for Mexico cartel attack near US border

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican security forces on Sunday killed seven more members of a presumed cartel assault force that rolled into a town near the Texas border and staged an hour-long attack, officials said, putting the overall death toll at 20.

The Coahuila state government said in a statement that lawmen aided by helicopters were still chasing remnants of the force that arrived in a convoy of pickup trucks and attacked the city hall of Villa Union on Saturday.

Gov. Miguel Angel Riquelme said late Sunday afternoon that authorities had determined the casualty count from the gunbattles stood at 14 gunmen dead and four police officers killed. He said two civilians also were slain by gunmen after being abducted.

The governor said six more officers were wounded as were four young people who had been taken by the attackers.

Francisco Contreras, an official in the state security agency, said later that the two slain civilians were a firefighter and an engineer who worked for the municipality. He said a second firefighter was missing.

___

Deadly storm moves cross country taking aim at Northeast

NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of flights were cancelled and thousands delayed for travellers heading home after the Thanksgiving holiday as a deadly winter storm moved to the Northeast on Sunday, packing one last punch of snow and ice.

The National Weather Service predicted more than a foot (0.3 metres) of snow in swaths of upstate New York and New England, as well as ice accumulations in parts of Pennsylvania.

“We’ve got our shovels ready. We’ve got the snowblower ready. We’re prepared,” said Paul Newman of Wethersfield, Connecticut.

In New York, numerous schools announced closings and Gov. Andrew Cuomo advised non-essential state employees to stay home as the storm was forecast to bring snow, sleet, wind and rain through the day Monday.

State police had responded to more than 550 storm-related crashes across New York by 7 p.m. Sunday and Cuomo placed National Guard personnel on standby. Icy roads caused numerous crashes on Interstate 84 in Pennsylvania on Sunday and a section of Interstate 81 north of Binghamton was closed because of icy conditions for a while.

___

UN chief warns of ‘point of no return’ on climate change

MADRID (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the world’s efforts to stop climate change have been “utterly inadequate” so far and there is a danger global warming could pass the “point of no return.”

Speaking before the start Monday of a two-week international climate conference in Madrid, the U.N. chief said the impact of rising temperatures — including more extreme weather — is already being felt around the world, with dramatic consequences for humans and other species.

He noted that the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical means to limit global warming, but “what is lacking is political will.”

“The point of no return is no longer over the horizon,” Guterres told reporters in the Spanish capital. “It is in sight and hurtling toward us.”

Delegates from almost 200 countries will try to put the finishing touches on the rules governing the 2015 Paris climate accord at the Dec. 2-13 meeting, including how to create functioning international emissions trading systems and compensate poor countries for losses they suffer from rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change.

___

The new ‘three amigos’ riding into Trump impeachment inquiry

WASHINGTON (AP) — The “three amigos” used to stand for one thing in Washington — the pack of globe-trotting senators led by John McCain who brought American idealism to the world’s trouble spots.

Now it refers to another trio, the Trump envoys who pushed Ukraine to pursue investigations of Democrats and former Vice-President Joe Biden.

The shift represents more than the appropriation of a name. It also marks a departure from efforts by the late Arizona senator to build bipartisan alliances and further broad foreign policy ideals pursued by Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. That approach is unrecognizable today as the GOP has become the party of Donald Trump and his “America First” approach.

“I knew the ‘three amigos’ and believe me, these are not three amigos like we were,” said Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic, then independent senator from Connecticut who was part of the original group with Republicans McCain and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Lieberman said he believes McCain, his longtime friend, would be “really upset about what’s happening in Ukraine now.”

___

July 25 forecast: Sunny, with cloud of impeachment for Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — The forecast for July 25 was typical for Washington: sunny, mid-80s. President Donald Trump had good reason to be feeling bright and sunny himself.

It was the morning after Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony at the conclusion of the Russia investigation, and Trump and his allies were expressing relief, thinking the rumblings about impeachment would at last fade, even if the special counsel hadn’t offered the president the total exoneration Trump claimed.

By 7:06 a.m., Trump was tweeting positive reviews from his favourite TV show, “Fox & Friends,” where co-host Ainsley Earhardt declared, “Yesterday changed everything, it really did clear the president.”

An hour later, Trump moved on to a tweet talking up his approval ratings, the stock market, unemployment and more. “Country doing great!” he wrote.

But a reconstruction of what started as an unremarkable summer Thursday reveals that even before daybreak, anxiety was coursing through the White House about a coming phone call that didn’t appear on the president’s public schedule.

___

Daughter in admissions scandal returns to YouTube channel

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Social media star Olivia Jade Giannulli on Sunday posted her first YouTube video since the arrest of her parents, actress Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, made her one of the most visible figures in the college admissions scandal that ensnared dozens of wealthy parents and their children.

“Welcome back to my YouTube channel, obviously I’ve been gone for a really long time,” Jade says in the two-minute video, titled “hi again,” posted to her account that has nearly 2 million subscribers.

She says she debated for months whether to return to her channel, which focused on fashion, beauty and video-diary entries about her life.

“I’m terrified to make this video and come back,” Jade says, “but I want to start taking smaller steps in the right direction.”

Loughlin and Giannulli are accused of paying $500,000 to have their two daughters labeled as recruits to the USC crew team so they could gain admission to the school, even though neither participated in the sport.

___

Rescuers search for girl, 6, missing after truck swept away

TONTO BASIN, Ariz. (AP) — Nine members of an Arizona family, together for the Thanksgiving holiday, were in an oversized military-style truck when they got stuck in a raging creek swollen by intense runoff from a powerful storm.

Four children and two adults got out and were rescued by helicopter, but three children stayed in the truck and it was later swept away.

Rescuers with helicopters, drones, boats, dogs and an army of volunteers searched frantically Sunday for a 6-year-old girl missing since Friday. Her brother and cousin, both 5, were found dead on Saturday.

“We want to bring her home safely to her family,” said Lt. Virgil Dodd of the Gila County Sheriff’s Office. “She needs to come home today, and we’re going to do that today.”

At dusk Sunday, rescuers said they found a shoe that might belong to the girl. The shoe was about 200 yards from where the family’s vehicle got stuck in the creek.

___

Century ago and today, Baghdad street a front line in revolt

BAGHDAD (AP) — When discontented Iraqis sought independence from British occupation in 1920, Baghdad’s most prestigious new boulevard, Rasheed Street, was the theatre of their revolt. Nearly 100 years later, the historic colonnade-lined avenue is a flashpoint in Iraq’s grassroots movement waving the banner of revolution against the country’s political system.

Once a bustling cultural hub in the heart of Baghdad, Rasheed Street has been a battle zone in recent days as security forces try to repel protesters. At least seventeen protesters have died, as Iraqi authorities used live fire, tear gas and rubber bullet to repel them from advancing beyond a concrete barrier which has effectively cut the street in half.

Protesters see Rasheed Street as key to protecting the nearby squares that are the epicenter of their movement, including Tahrir Square, where hundreds of demonstrators are camped.

But experts are concerned that damage from the fighting will reverse painstaking efforts to keep the street from falling into ruin.

Zainab Mustafa, head of a local NGO Lugal which works to develop Rasheed Street, went to Tahrir recently trying to persuade protesters to move their fight elsewhere.

___

Shelley Morrison, Rosario on ‘Will & Grace,’ dies at 83

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shelley Morrison, an actress with a 50-year career who was best known for playing a memorable maid on “Will & Grace,” died Sunday, her publicist said.

Morrison died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from heart failure after a brief illness, publicist Lori DeWaal told The Associated Press. She was 83.

Morrison played Rosario Salazar, a maid from El Salvador, in the original run of “Will & Grace” from 1999 to 2006, becoming part of a cast that won a Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble in a comedy series.

The character, originally written for a single episode, proved so popular in her interactions with co-star Megan Mullally that she would appear in 68 episodes during the NBC series’ eight seasons.

“Rosario is one of my all-time favourite characters,” Morrison said recently, according to a statement and biography announcing her death. “She reminds me a lot of my own mother, who loved animals and children, but she would not suffer fools. It is very significant to me that we were able to show an older, Hispanic woman who is bright and smart and can hold her own.”