Trump summons security team, calls Iran attack ‘big mistake’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared Thursday that “Iran made a very big mistake” by shooting down a U.S. surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz and gathered top national security officials at the White House to discuss options.

Asked earlier in the day about a U.S. response to the attack, the president said pointedly, “You’ll soon find out.” But he also suggested that shooting down the drone was a foolish error rather than an intentional escalation of the tensions that have led to rising fears of open military conflict.

“I find it hard to believe it was intentional, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said at the White House. “I think that it could have been somebody who was loose and stupid that did it.”

The downing of the huge, unmanned aircraft , which Iran portrayed as a deliberate defence of its territory rather than a mistake, was a stark reminder of the risk of military conflict between U.S. and Iranian forces as the Trump administration combines a “maximum pressure” campaign of economic sanctions with a buildup of American forces in the region.

On Thursday, Iran called the sanctions “economic terrorism,” insisted the drone had invaded its airspace and said it was taking its case to the United Nations in an effort to prove the U.S. was lying about the aircraft being over international waters. It accused the U.S. of “a very dangerous and provocative act.”

___

Booker campaign gets 2020 jolt with pushback against Biden

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cory Booker’s supporters have spent months waiting for a moment when the charismatic senator could break through a crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates. That opening came when Joe Biden clumsily talked about segregationists, prompting Booker to push back at his 2020 rival to great effect.

The New Jersey senator called on Biden to apologize Wednesday after the former vice-president nostalgically referenced the “civility” he maintained during his time in the Senate with two segregationist Democrats in the 1970s despite their vast distance in ideology. After Biden pushed back, saying Booker should apologize to him because the senator “knows better,” Booker called for the Democratic Party to choose a presidential nominee who can be “sensitive” to the “hurt and pain” caused by Biden noting that the two senators had called him “son” instead of “boy,” a reference to the racist way many whites addressed black men at the time.

Biden called Booker on Wednesday night about the matter, but tension between the two Democrats continued into Thursday. During the call, “Cory shared directly what he said publicly,” Booker spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said in a statement. “Cory believes that Vice-President Biden should take responsibility for what he said and apologize to those who were hurt.”

Booker clarified Thursday night on MSNBC that he doesn’t want Biden to apologize to him directly, but “to the American people, and having this discussion with all of us.”

The schism between the two candidates, who at times offer a similar emphasis on collaboration with the GOP despite mounting polarization under President Donald Trump, promises to reverberate this weekend in a pivotal early voting state. They are the final two hopefuls set to speak to the South Carolina Democratic Party during its 21-candidate convention on Saturday.

___

North says Kim, China’s Xi discussed Korean Peninsula issues

BEIJING (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping held broad discussions over the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and called for stronger bilateral ties in the face of “serious and complicated changes” in the region, the North’s state media said Friday.

The Korean Central News Agency said the leaders reached “shared understanding” on the issues they discussed but the report did not give any specifics on the stalled nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament.

“The supreme leaders …. broadly exchanged their opinions on the political situation of the Korean Peninsula and other serious international and regional issues,” the KCNA said. They assessed that deepening their relationship was in line with the “mutual interest of the two countries in face of serious and complicated changes in the environment and would be favourable for the region’s peace, stability and development.”

Chinese state media earlier reported that Kim told Xi he is waiting for a desired response from Washington and the U.S. should meet North Korea halfway to “explore resolution plans that accommodate each other’s reasonable concerns.”

Xi said his government is willing to play a constructive role in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. “The international community expects the U.S. and North Korea to continue to talk and achieve results,” he said, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

___

Appeals court allows Trump abortion rules to take effect

New Trump administration rules imposing additional hurdles for women seeking abortions can take effect while the government appeals decisions that blocked them, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

The rules ban taxpayer-funded clinics from making abortion referrals and prohibit clinics that receive federal money from sharing office space with abortion providers — a rule critics said would force many to find new locations, undergo expensive remodels or shut down.

More than 20 states and several civil rights and health organizations challenged the rules in cases filed in Oregon, Washington and California. Judges in all three states blocked the rules from taking effect, with Oregon and Washington courts issuing nationwide injunctions. One called the new policy “madness” and said it was motivated by “an arrogant assumption that the government is better suited to direct women’s health care than their providers.”

But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco called the rules “reasonable” and said they accord with a federal law that prohibits taxpayer funds from going to “programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”

“If the program refers patients to abortion providers for family planning services, then that program is logically one ‘where abortion is a method of family planning,’” the panel wrote.

___

Migrant children describe neglect at Texas border facility

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A 2-year-old boy locked in detention wants to be held all the time. A few girls, ages 10 to 15, say they’ve been doing their best to feed and soothe the clingy toddler who was handed to them by a guard days ago. Lawyers warn that kids are taking care of kids, and there’s inadequate food, water and sanitation for the 250 infants, children and teens at the Border Patrol station.

The bleak portrait emerged Thursday after a legal team interviewed 60 children at the facility near El Paso that has become the latest place where attorneys say young migrants are describing neglect and mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. government.

Data obtained by The Associated Press showed that on Wednesday there were three infants in the station, all with their teen mothers, along with a 1-year-old, two 2-year-olds and a 3-year-old. There are dozens more under 12. Fifteen have the flu, and 10 more are quarantined.

Three girls told attorneys they were trying to take care of the 2-year-old boy, who had wet his pants and no diaper and was wearing a mucus-smeared shirt when the legal team encountered him.

“A Border Patrol agent came in our room with a 2-year-old boy and asked us, ‘Who wants to take care of this little boy?’ Another girl said she would take care of him, but she lost interest after a few hours and so I started taking care of him yesterday,” one of the girls said in an interview with attorneys.

___

Witness at Navy SEAL trial: I killed victim out of mercy

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A witness called to testify against a fellow Navy SEAL charged with murder has admitted that he killed the victim — a wounded Islamic State fighter — in an act of mercy, a bombshell that didn’t deter the military from its case.

Corey Scott, a medic, told a military jury Thursday that he asphyxiated the adolescent Iraq war prisoner after Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher unexpectedly stabbed the boy in 2017.

A visibly angry prosecutor accused Scott of lying, saying he had told investigators a different story several times and changed it only after he was granted immunity and ordered to testify.

It’s a big boost for Gallagher, who is fighting charges of premeditated murder in the boy’s death and attempted murder in the shooting of civilians.

The Navy said in a statement it will not drop the murder charge and it’s up to jurors to decide the credibility of witnesses.

___

Plot that wounded Ortiz unraveled because of many mistakes

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Alberto Rodríguez Mota had one job: taking a photo of the man that his crew of hired killers was supposed to fatally shoot at an outdoor cafe, according to Dominican authorities.

But the lighting was bad. And the target, an auto-shop owner, was sitting behind a white beverage cooler. In the photo sent to the hit man, he looked like a dark, blurry figure in white pants, the Dominican police chief and attorney-general said.

Hours later, on the evening of June 9, the hitman approached a hulking figure in a dark top and white pants and fired a single shot into his back. Instead of killing his intended target, he had wounded David Ortiz, the baseball superstar almost universally adored in his native Dominican Republic and much of the sports-loving world.

As the former Red Sox slugger lay on the floor of the Dial Bar and Lounge, the hitman’s motorcycle driver skidded in a panic and was grabbed by enraged fans, who beat him bloody before handing him over to police. Within an hour of being put into motion, the plot began to unravel. A series of amateurish mistakes soon led to at least 11 arrests. The hired killers seemed to be incapable of doing anything right, from targeting their victim to covering their tracks.

As Ortiz recovers in a Boston hospital, officials say he was the victim not of a bizarre plot against a beloved sports figure but a string of incompetent criminal mishaps that included misidentifying the most famous Dominican in the world, an instantly recognizable 6-foot-3 inch, 250-pound international celebrity.

___

Suspect in death of California officer has a troubled past

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man with a history of domestic violence restraining orders gunned down a rookie California police officer and continued firing, preventing other officers from reaching their wounded colleague for 45 minutes, authorities said Thursday.

An armoured vehicle eventually was used to reach Officer Tara O’Sullivan and take her to a hospital, where she later died.

O’Sullivan, 26, and other officers were helping a woman gather her belongings from a Sacramento home as part of a domestic violence call when the shooting occurred Wednesday evening.

A day later, police had not revealed key details about what happened, including whether the man was already on the property when officers arrived, where on the property the shooting occurred, or why it took so long for O’Sullivan to be pulled to safety.

Police identified the suspect as 45-year-old Adel Sambrano Ramos of Sacramento and said his standoff with police lasted eight hours, with five officers firing their weapons.

___

Roy Moore running for Senate despite discouragement from GOP

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Roy Moore announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate on Thursday, defying Republican leaders who urged the polarizing jurist not to run for the Alabama seat they hope to reclaim in 2020.

A former chief justice known for hardline stances against gay marriage and for the Ten Commandments, Moore is aiming for an eventual rematch against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who beat him in the 2017 special election . Moore criticized that loss amid accusations of sexual misconduct as the result of “fraudulent” tactics and fired back at recent efforts to dissuade him from a 2020 bid.

“Can I win? Yes, I can win. Not only can I — they know I can,” Moore said during his announcement in Montgomery.

“People in Alabama are not only angry, they are going to act on that anger,” Moore said. “The people of Alabama are tired of politicians saying one thing and doing another.”

After the announcement, Jones told The Associated Press that Moore’s candidacy “is not good for the state of Alabama.”

___

Pelicans take Zion Williamson with No. 1 pick in NBA draft

NEW YORK (AP) — Zion Williamson plays with force and ferocity, a Hulk in hightops who looks as though he’d never show a soft side.

Draft night proved otherwise.

Williamson was the No. 1 pick of the New Orleans Pelicans — a surprise to nobody who watched basketball this past season. But afterward he couldn’t hide his emotions, even though he along with everyone else knew what would happen Thursday night.

“Because I love the game of basketball,” he said. “You can hear people say things like, ‘Oh, that it was likely I was going to go No. 1.’ But I guess you don’t know until you actually go through it. Hearing my name called and I was able to make it on stage without a tear, shake the commissioner’s hand, but in the interview my mom was standing beside me, and my emotions just took over.”

There might be tears of joy in New Orleans, too, after the Pelicans were able to get the Duke powerhouse who is considered one of the most exciting prospects in years.