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

Democrats clash over health insurance, economy

MIAMI (AP) — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised her hand as one of the only Democratic presidential contenders willing to abolish her own private health insurance in favour of a government-run plan, demanding “structural change” in the economy and the government as Democrats met on the debate stage for the first time in the 2020 presidential season.

Warren’s position highlighted a rift within her party’s most ambitious contenders over how to approach inequality in America in a prime-time meeting that marked the unofficial starting line for the Democratic Party’s quest to wrest the White House from Donald Trump and deny him a second term.

The debate marked a new phase in the 2020 presidential season as Democrats seek to break out from the crowded field. While the candidates have been courting voters in key states for several months already, the vast majority of the nation has yet to pay close attention to the diverse field.

On immigration, the Democratic presidential hopefuls were united in blaming Trump for the deaths of a migrant father and his toddler daughter whose bodies were seen in searing photographs after they drowned in the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Former Obama administration housing chief Julian Castro said, “Watching that image of Oscar and his daughter Valeria was heartbreaking. It should also piss us all off.”

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AP FACT CHECK: Claims from the 1st Democratic debate

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ten Democrats seeking the presidency tussled on a Miami stage Wednesday night in the opening debate of the 2020 campaign, with 10 more on tap Thursday.

A look at some of their statements and how they compare with the facts:

JULIAN CASTRO, former federal housing secretary: “I would do something starting with something we should have done a long time ago, which was to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. And also pursue legislation so women are paid equal pay for equal work in this country. It’s past time we do that.”

THE FACTS: It would be past time if it hadn’t already happened. It has been illegal to pay men more than women for the same work, or vice versa, since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963. Disparities, however, persist despite the law.

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Better conditions for migrant children at troubled facility

CLINT, Texas (AP) — Migrant children being housed at a Border Patrol facility near El Paso appeared mostly clean and were being watched by hallway monitors on Wednesday, less than a week since they reported living there in squalid conditions with little care and inadequate food, water and sanitation.

U.S. officials opened the building to journalists, offering an inside glimpse of the station in Clint for the first time since lawyers who met with young migrants there told The Associated Press they saw 250 infants, children and teens locked up for up to 27 days in what was designed to be a short-term holding facility.

The lawyers described hearing about and seeing children taking care of children, and at least one sick 2-year-old boy without a diaper who had wet his pants, his shirt smeared in mucus.

On Wednesday, the situation seemed to have improved: children appeared to be wearing clean clothes, and at least a half dozen hallway monitors were brought in to help watch the 117 children being housed there — less than half the number of young migrants who were crammed into the facility last week.

The children were housed in an industrial garage filled with bunk beds, or in cells with bunk beds and cots that included a bathroom area separated by a cinder block partition. The doors were left unlocked and the kids were free to move around.

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Leaks, accusations and staff shuffle: Turmoil inside DHS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaks. Pointed accusations. A top official’s resignation. And above all, increasingly dire conditions for migrants — those who make it across the border and those who fail, as captured in the searing images of a father clutching his child, both drowned , on the banks of the Rio Grande.

Ever engulfed in turmoil under President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has entered a new stage of dysfunction and finger-pointing as the administration continues to rearrange staff and push hardline rhetoric and policies that have failed to contain a surge in illegal border crossings, according to more than a dozen current and former administration officials, congressional aides and people familiar with the events. Many spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.

The squabbling and jockeying over jobs come amid outrage over reports of children being held in squalid conditions and families dying as they try to make it to the U.S.

Over the past week alone, a scrapped immigration roundup targeting families prompted infighting and accusations of leaking. The acting leaders at both U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which manages the border, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles immigration enforcement inside the country, have either stepped down or been reassigned. And questions remain about whether the president has confidence in the man he recently tapped to head the sprawling DHS, acting secretary Kevin McAleenan.

The leadership merry-go-round has spun so many times that it’s hard to keep track of who is in charge of what. And most of those leaders have not been officially nominated by Trump, let alone confirmed by the Senate.

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‘They died in each other’s arms,’ migrant’s mother says

SAN MARTIN, El Salvador (AP) — The mother of a man who drowned alongside his 23-month-old daughter while trying to cross the Rio Grande into Texas says she finds a heartbreaking photograph of their bodies hard to look at but takes some comfort in knowing “they died in each other’s arms.”

Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria were swept away by the current near Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, this week. The grim photo shows the girl tucked inside her father’s shirt for protection with her arm draped over his neck — an image that underscores the dangers migrants and asylum-seekers face trying to make it to the United States and the desperate measures they resort to in the face of policies designed to deter them.

“It’s tough, it’s kind of shocking, that image,” the 25-year-old man’s mother, Rosa Ramírez, told The Associated Press. “But at the same time, it fills me with tenderness. I feel so many things, because at no time did he let go of her.”

“You can see how he protected her,” she said. “They died in each other’s arms.”

Ramírez had shared a sea-green brick home with barred windows in San Martin on the outskirts of the capital, San Salvador, with her son, his 21-year-old wife Tania Vanessa Ávalos and their daughter until the young family decided to make the journey north.

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Senate passes $4.6B border aid measure; Pelosi seeks talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — The GOP-held Senate on Wednesday passed a bipartisan $4.6 billion measure to deliver aid to the southern border before the government runs out of money to care for thousands of migrant families and unaccompanied children.

The sweeping 84-8 vote came less than 24 hours after the Democratic-controlled House approved a similar measure backed by liberals. The House bill , which contained tougher requirements for how detained children must be treated, faced a White House veto threat and was easily rejected by the Senate.

As a result, it remained unclear how the two chambers would resolve their differences and send President Donald Trump a compromise measure that he would sign.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats would propose changes to the Senate legislation on Thursday, and spokesman Drew Hammill said they planned to quickly push the amended measure through the House. That still left questions about whether the Senate and Trump would accept the revisions and how quickly the Senate could act.

“We pray that the White House and the Senate will join us in embracing the children and meeting their needs,” Pelosi said in a written statement after meeting privately with other top House Democrats.

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Latest sex accusation against Trump lands with a thud

Nearly a week after the latest sexual misconduct accusation against President Donald Trump, the story has largely landed with a thud.

Some see the muted response to author E. Jean Carroll’s allegation of Trump assaulting her in a department store dressing room more than two decades ago as yet another example of the divisive Politics of Trump: Those who support him dismiss it as fake news. Those against him see it as confirmation of what they knew all along.

“Essentially, you’re either for him or against him, and if you’re for him, it doesn’t matter what he’s done,” said Larry Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “It really is remarkable. He simply is exempt from the rules everyone else must obey.”

It’s a cycle that’s been repeated before. After more than a dozen women came forward during Trump’s 2016 campaign with allegations of sexual misconduct years earlier, Trump called them “liars” who sought to harm his campaign with “100-per cent fabricated” stories. When the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged weeks before the election of him bragging about grabbing women by the genitals, he dismissed it as “locker room talk.”

In the case of Carroll, a feature writer and longtime Elle advice columnist, her accusation was revealed in an excerpt to an upcoming book, leading Trump and others to cast her aside as an opportunist. Her book, “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal,” describes what she calls a lifetime of encounters with predatory men, starting with her early years as an Indiana cheerleader and pageant winner.

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Ex-USC gynecologist charged in sex assaults of 16 patients

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former longtime gynecologist at the University of Southern California was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting 16 women at the student health centre, the first criminal counts in a case that already has seen USC offer to pay $215 million to settle potentially thousands of claims.

Dr. George Tyndall, 72, worked at USC for nearly three decades, and news of his arrest on 29 felony charges that could send him to prison for 53 years was welcomed by women who accuse him of misconduct and lawyers representing them.

Some, however, criticized the delay in filing charges after allegations against the doctor first surfaced in May 2018.

Authorities said Wednesday the investigation is continuing and more charges could follow.

“It was time to seek justice,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said at a news conference.

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New software glitch found in Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jet

A new software problem has been found in the troubled Boeing 737 Max that could push the plane’s nose down automatically, and fixing the flaw is almost certain to further delay the plane’s return to flying after two deadly crashes.

Boeing said Wednesday that the FAA “identified an additional requirement” for software changes that the aircraft manufacturer has been working on for eight months, since shortly after the first crash.

“Boeing agrees with the FAA’s decision and request, and is working on the required software to address the FAA’s request,” Boeing said in a statement.

Government test pilots trying out Boeing’s updated Max software in a flight simulator last week found a flaw that could result in the plane’s nose pitching down, according to two people familiar with the matter. In both Max crashes, the plane’s flight-control software pushed the nose down based on faulty readings from one sensor.

The people said fixing the issue might be accomplished through software changes or by replacing a microprocessor in the plane’s flight-control system. One said the latest setback is likely to delay the plane’s return to service by an extra one to three months. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss aspects of the review process that are not public.

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Zuckerberg says company ‘evaluating’ deepfake video policy

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company is evaluating how it should handle “deepfake” videos created with artificial intelligence and high-tech tools to yield false but realistic clips.

In an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said it might make sense to treat such videos differently from other misinformation such as false news. Facebook has long held that it should not decide what is and isn’t true, leaving such calls instead to outside fact-checkers.

But Zuckerberg says it’s worth asking whether deepfakes are a “completely different category” from regular false statements. He says developing a policy on these videos is “really important” as AI technology grows more sophisticated.

Facebook, like other social media companies, does not have a specific policy against deepfakes, whose potential threat has emerged only in the last couple of years. Company executives have said in the past that it makes sense to look at them under the broader umbrella of false or misleading information. But Zuckerberg is signalling that this view might be changing, leaving open the possibility that Facebook might ban deepfakes altogether.

Doing so, of course, could get complicated. Satire, art and political dissent could be swept up in any overly broad ban, creating more headaches from Facebook.