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

Republicans risking conservative backlash over immigration

NEW YORK (AP) — The push toward immigration votes in the House is intensifying the divide among Republicans on one of the party’s most animating issues and fueling concerns that a voter backlash could cost the GOP control of the House in November.

To many conservatives, the compromise immigration proposal released this past week by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is little more than “amnesty.”

One tea party group described the Republican plan as “the final betrayal.” Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, who is close to President Donald Trump, tweeted Friday that Ryan is “trying to open our borders even more and give illegal immigrants the biggest amnesty in American history.”

Passage of the bill could alienate conservatives and depress turnout at a time when enthusiasm among Democrats is high. Yet scuttling the bill could turn off independent voters, an especially important bloc for House Republicans competing in dozens of districts that Democrat Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential election.

“The GOP’s in a tough spot,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz. “The hardcore Trump voter has a different point of view than the ever-important independent voter, and there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.”

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Immigrants fleeing gangs prefer taking chance for US asylum

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — The MS-13 gang made Jose Osmin Aparicio’s life so miserable in his native El Salvador that he had no choice but to flee in the dead of night with his wife and four children, leaving behind all their belongings and paying a smuggler $8,000.

Aparicio is undeterred by a new directive from Attorney General Jeff Sessions declaring that gang and domestic violence will generally cease to be grounds for asylum. To him, it’s better to take his chances with the American asylum system and stay in Mexico if his bid is denied.

“Imagine what would happen if I was deported to El Salvador,” he said Wednesday as he waited at the border to enter the U.S.

The directive announced Monday could have far-reaching consequences because of the sheer volume of people like Aparicio fleeing gang violence, which is so pervasive in Central America that merely stepping foot in the wrong neighbourhood can lead to death.

The Associated Press interviewed several asylum-seekers this past week at a plaza on the border, and each of them cited gang violence as the main factor in fleeing their homelands. They planned to press on with their asylum requests in spite of the new rule.

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Ex-rebel looks to defy odds in Colombia presidential race

ZIPAQUIRA, Colombia (AP) — Gustavo Petro began his long ascent to the cusp of Colombia’s presidency in this self-built barrio named after South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

In 1983, equipped with little more than a shovel and a surplus of revolutionary ideals, the then-clandestine militant led some 400 squatter families in a months-long battle with local authorities to secure a plot of land to build their ramshackle homes here in Zipaquira, a city north of Bogota. Their rallying cry was: “A roof and a dignified life.”

Thirty five years later, the founders of the “Bolivar 83” barrio still living in the slum celebrate Petro’s rise as their own. The leftist candidate will face off against conservative Ivan Duque on Sunday in Colombia’s presidential runoff election.

“He taught us to call each other comrades, not neighbours,” remembers Ana Miriam Chitiva, pointing to photos hung on her home’s wall of the barrio’s early days, when the bespectacled, introverted Petro would help her lug concrete pipes and carve out dirt roads from the rocky, forested hillside.

The same crusading spirit has accompanied Petro throughout his four-decade political ascent. He’s gone from fearless lawmaker who tormented Colombia’s political class, to the renegade mayor of Bogota who took on powerful private interests and now a surprise, surging finalist in the country’s first presidential election since the signing of a historic peace accord.

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Arizona Republicans brush off talk about McCain Senate seat

PHOENIX (AP) — Sen. John McCain’s legacy was thrust into focus nearly one year ago when he announced his brain cancer diagnosis. The six-term Senator and decorated Vietnam War veteran is now fighting the illness from his beloved Arizona, and filling the role of one of the few Congressional Republican voices to publicly rebuke Trump administration decisions.

Yet the question of what happens if McCain steps down from office before 2022 is a lingering one, casting an uncomfortable haze around the future of a seat that can’t quite ever be filled.

“John McCain is a one-of-a-kind politician, and there’s no replacing him,” said Stan Barnes, an Arizona Republican consultant. “No one serving in political office today remembers a time when John McCain was not representing us in Washington.”

Some Arizona Republicans have criticized conversations about the future of McCain’s seat as inappropriate. But reflections around the 81-year-old statesman’s life, legacy and status as a national political figure have resurfaced via a new HBO documentary, “John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and his new memoir, “The Restless Wave.”

The McCains have a family retreat south of Sedona, Arizona, along tree-lined Oak Creek. Daughter Meghan McCain was married there.

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump on FBI, phantom law on migrant kids

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is claiming exoneration in the Russia matter from a Justice Department report that actually offers him none. He’s also branding fired FBI chief James Comey a criminal, though the report in question makes no such accusation.

Fallout from the internal report by the department’s inspector general capped a week of diplomacy with North Korea, trade spats on several fronts and growing attention to an immigration policy that is splitting children from parents after their arrests at the border. Trump dropped misrepresentations into the mix at every turn.

A week in review:

TRUMP: “I think that the report yesterday, maybe more importantly than anything, it totally exonerates me. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. And if you read the report, you’ll see that. … I think that the Mueller investigation has been totally discredited.” — remarks to reporters Friday.

THE FACTS: The report neither exonerated nor implicated Trump. It did not make any findings about collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. It did not discredit, or give credence to, special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation into Russian interference in the election and ties between the Trump campaign and Russians. The report was about the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email practices.

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17 killed in stampede after brawl at crowded Caracas club

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Seventeen people were killed at a crowded nightclub in Venezuela’s capital Saturday after a tear gas device exploded during a brawl and triggered a desperate stampede among hundreds gathered for a graduation celebration, government officials said.

Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the incident at the “Los Cotorros” club in the middle-class neighbourhood of El Paraiso left eight minors dead and five injured. Eight people were detained, including two teens believed responsible for setting off the tear gas canister.

Family members wept and embraced one another after identifying the remains of their loved ones at a nearby hospital. Outside the club, several mismatched shoes, including a sandal with a puckered red lip decoration, lay on the sidewalk.

“All I know is my son is dead,” Nilson Guerra, 43, told local journalists.

More than 500 people were believed to be inside the club when the fight broke out. Julio Cesar Perdomo said his injured son told him the tear gas was launched from inside a bathroom and that partygoers tried to flee but found the club’s door closed. Pictures posted by Reverol on Twitter show a narrow staircase leading to a metal door.

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Taxi hits pedestrians near Moscow’s Red Square, injuring 8

MOSCOW (AP) — Eight people, including two from Mexico, were injured Saturday when a taxi crashed into pedestrians on a sidewalk near Red Square in Moscow.

Russian police said the driver in the crash has been detained. Moscow’s traffic monitoring agency said the driver claimed the crash wasn’t premeditated.

Video circulating on Russian social media and some news websites showed the taxi approaching a stopped line of cars, then veering onto the sidewalk and striking pedestrians. It then hit a traffic sign and bystanders tried to wrestle the driver out of the taxi, but he broke their grip and ran away; it was not clear how he was finally detained.

The source of the video wasn’t specified, but it appeared to be a handheld recording of footage from a video monitor.

Russia is hosting the World Cup and the capital’s streets have been crowded with foreign visitors. The accident took place on Ilinka Street, about 200 metres (650 feet) from Red Square and Moscow’s famous GUM shopping arcade, an area popular with tourists.

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Cooling towers imploded at Florida power plant

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Two cooling towers – both well over the length of a football field – came tumbling down in seconds on Saturday in Florida as part of an effort to dismantle a power plant.

The identical, 462-foot towers were imploded at St. Johns River Power Park in Jacksonville. After counting backward to one, a large blast sent the towers to the ground amid wild cheers. A huge cloud of smoke and dust plumed out and engulfed nearby trees.

Jacksonville Electric Authority and Florida Power & Light contracted Total Wrecking & Environmental to handle the implosion of the cooling towers and demolition of the power park for $14.5 million. The project is expected to be completed in April 2020.

They were the second tallest cooling towers to be imploded in the world, Total Wrecking & Environmental said.

Preparation took about 10 weeks for the implosion. It was over in just more than 10 seconds. More than 1,500 pounds of dynamite and 12,000 linear feet of detonation were used.

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Jay-Z, Beyonce release surprise album ‘Everything Is Love’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jay-Z and Beyonce are keeping up a family tradition, dropping a surprise album before anyone knew it was coming.

The couple released a joint album that touches on the rapper’s disgust at this year’s Grammy Awards and features a shout out from their daughter Blue Ivy to her siblings.

The nine-track album “Everything Is Love” dropped Saturday on the Tidal music streaming service that Jay-Z partially owns.

The album features Beyonce rapping on songs more than she has done on previous releases.

One song that has a profanity in its title includes Jay-Z lashing out at the Grammys. He was the top nominee at February’s awards show, but left empty-handed.

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Column: Tiny Iceland neutralizes Messi and Argentina

MOSCOW (AP) — When the final whistle blew, Lionel Messi angrily kicked away the ball like it was poison and tore off his captain’s armband as though it was cursed.

A superstar of football knocked off his pedestal at the World Cup.

By a bunch of guys from Iceland.

Iceland.

Population 350,000.