Judge partially lifts Trump administration ban on refugees

SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge in Seattle on Saturday partially lifted a Trump administration ban on certain refugees after two groups argued that the policy i

U.S. District Judge James Robart heard arguments Thursday in lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish Family Service, which say the ban causes irreparable harm and puts some people at risk. Government lawyers argued that the ban is needed to protect national security.

Robart ordered the federal government to process certain refugee applications. He said his order applies to people "with a bona fide relationship to a person or entity within the United States."

President Donald Trump restarted the refugee program in October "with enhanced vetting capabilities."

The day before his executive order, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats sent a memo to Trump saying certain refugees must be banned unless additional security measures are implemented.

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Trump supporters greet tax law with shrugs and measured hope

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Ask someone like Sam Banks about the tax plan President Donald Trump signed into law Friday, and you hear something other than the effusive joy Republicans in Congress put on display this week.

The $1.5 trillion plan cuts taxes broadly while bestowing its richest benefits on companies and wealthy individuals. It is the first major legislative achievement for a president who rode to the White House with the full-throated backing of people like Banks who felt America's economic policies needed a drastic overhaul.

Yet Banks, a 50-year-old farmer in sparsely populated southwestern Iowa, regards the tax plan with a blend of indifference and uncertainty tinged with hope.

"They had to do something, though it took them long enough," Banks said of the president and the Congress his party fully controls. "It's going to help the companies. It's got to help me a little, I suppose."

In pockets of the country where Trump scored big with voters last year, the response to the tax overhaul is mainly a muted one. You'll get a few blank stares, some confusion and a bit of hedged optimism. What you won't hear is excitement.

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3 Miss America officials resign, 1 apologizes to ex-winner

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The top leadership of the Miss America Organization, implicated in an email scandal that targeted past pageant winners for abuse based on their appearance, intellect and sex lives, resigned on Saturday, with the outgoing president apologizing to a winner whose weight he ridiculed.

The president, Josh Randle, told The Associated Press his comment responding to an email to his private account about the physical appearance of 2013 winner Mallory Hagan came months before he started working for the Miss America Organization in 2015. But he said it was wrong.

"I apologize to Mallory for my lapse in judgment," Randle said on Saturday. "It does not reflect my values or the values I worked to promote at the Miss America Organization. Although this terrible situation was not caused or driven by me, in light of recent events and new developments, I am no longer willing to continue in my capacity as president and earlier today offered my resignation to the MAO Board of Directors."

Randle said his resignation was voluntary and had not been requested by the board of Miss America, which is based in Atlantic City.

Hagan did not respond to a message seeking comment on the resignations of Randle, CEO Sam Haskell and Chairwoman Lynn Weidner, a former Miss New Jersey.

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AP FACT CHECK: Tax plan shows 2 things can be true at once

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two things can be true at once. President Donald Trump's tax overhaul is slanted to the rich, as Democrats say and Republicans like to ignore. It also comes with tax cuts for average people, which Democrats bypass in slamming Trump's "betrayal" of the middle class.

Trump's signing of the tax bill into law Friday capped a week also marked by a national security speech in which Trump misrepresented the records of his predecessors in his ceaseless effort to claim achievements that in many cases remain ambitions.

A look at statements by a variety of political players over the past week:

TRUMP: "The bottom line is, this is the biggest tax cuts and reform in the history of our country. This is bigger than, actually, President Reagan's many years ago." — remarks to reporters Friday.

THE FACTS: Not so, in either case. For months Trump has refused to recognize larger tax cuts in history, of which there have been many, or to grant that other presidents have enacted big tax cuts since Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The White House won't explain how he arrives at his conclusion.

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Judge: American accused of fighting for IS must get lawyer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled Saturday that the U.S. military must provide legal counsel to an American citizen who was picked up months ago on the Syrian battlefield and accused of fighting with Islamic State militants.

The unidentified American, who has not been charged, surrendered to U.S.-backed fighters in Syria around Sept. 12 and is currently being held in Iraq as an unlawful enemy combatant.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a court petition challenging his detention and asking to act on his behalf to provide him access to legal counsel.

Late last month, the U.S. government acknowledged that it has detained an American citizen accused of fighting with IS for months without fulfilling his request to see a lawyer. Responding to a court order, the government said the man picked up on the Syrian battlefield indicated he was willing to talk to FBI agents but "felt he should have an attorney present."

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied the Defense Department's motion to dismiss the matter and ordered the military to let the ACLU "immediate and unmonitored access to the detainee" so that it can determine whether he wants the ACLU to represent him. The judge also ordered the Defense Department not to transfer the detainee until the ACLU tells the court of the detainee's wishes.

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Rough times for smugglers who knitted N. Korea to the world

JIAN, China (AP) — The former smuggler sits on the floor by a muted TV set, smoking cheap North Korean cigarettes one after the other. His hands are rough from years of hard work. His belt is knotted to keep his pants from slipping around his pole-thin waist.

The mountains of North Korea, his homeland not even a mile away, fill the room's only window.

He spent nearly all his 50-some years in those mountains, sometimes earning more than $1,500 in just one trip along the secret trails and quiet river crossings of the China-North Korea border. He smuggled everything from TVs to clothes into North Korea, a nation shaped by decades of repression and isolation. He smuggled out mushrooms, ginseng and the occasional bit of gold.

"I could bring in 10 televisions at once, the same thing for refrigerators," he says, smiling broadly. "In the past, I could bring in so much stuff."

But no more.

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Mosul's morgue men endured worst of Islamic State butchery

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — The young man ended up on the morgue's examining table in two parts.

He had been seized for selling cigarettes, a crime usually punished by flogging by the Islamic State group extremists who had occupied Mosul. But while he was being whipped, he shouted a curse insulting religion. On the spot, they cut off his head for blasphemy.

Sameh al-Azzawi, the 35-year-old medical assistant examining him, was sick of seeing Mosul's youth butchered for the slightest reason. The man was a newlywed. His family was waiting outside; it was one of the occasional times when the fanatics allowed the return of someone killed by the group. So al-Azzawi violated the rules: He picked out some thick thread and quickly sewed the man's head back on, then zipped him up in the body bag. He could sew a head back on a body in four minutes.

The family quietly thanked him.

The morgue in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was where atrocity met bureaucracy, the processing point for the machine of butchery that the Islamic State group created across its territory in Iraq and Syria. Every day, the doctors and staff witnessed the worst of what the militants were capable of inflicting on a human being, constantly fearing they could be next.

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For Mideast, 2018 could be a pivotal year in war and peace

CAIRO (AP) — Will 2018 dampen the fires that rage across the Middle East? Although skepticism is understandable, there is a glimmer of change.

The fight against the Islamic State group is mostly over, and the war in Syria may finally be winding down. The region is transitioning from fighting those wars to dealing with their aftermath — the destruction and dispersal of populations they wrought and the political fallout. Iran's influence has grown after its proxies were generally successful, and even its nuclear deal with the West remains in place. In rival Saudi Arabia, a youthful new leader is promising long-delayed modernization at home and greater confrontation with Iran in the region. Donald Trump in the White House adds a mercurial element to an exceedingly combustible brew.

If pessimism reigns, much can be traced to the failure of the 2010-11 Arab Spring revolts against despotism. Instead of the democratic tsunami many envisaged, a string of wars has followed. Libya seems doomed to chaos and the war in Yemen is a genuine humanitarian crisis. In many places the old guard remains in place. So spectacular is the wreckage that almost no one refers to the Arab Spring without irony any more.

Egypt, which gripped the world's attention when street demonstrations — and the military — toppled Hosni Mubarak seven years ago, may be the best example of the scaled-down ambition. After several years of mayhem it seems more stable now, the economy starting to grow and tourism up. Jihadi terrorism remains a problem, though, especially in the Sinai Peninsula and against Christians, and freedoms have been curtailed. Still, there is little sense of foment in the streets — where protests are severely restricted — and barring a surprise, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi can expect to win re-election in a few months.

Across the border in Israel, there is more prospect for change as long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces corruption investigations that could lead to his removal or early elections. Netanyahu, albeit bellicose, has been cautious — but he also seems wedded to a ruinous status quo with the Palestinians. He could be replaced by a greater firebrand or by the moderate center-left, which would create new opportunities.

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1 body recovered, 36 feared dead in Philippine mall fire

DAVAO, Philippines (AP) — Philippine firefighters recovered one body from a burning shopping mall Sunday and there was "zero" chances of survival for 36 other trapped people inside the four-story building in southern Davao city, an official said.

Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said firefighters told distraught relatives of the 36 trapped employees of a business outsourcing company at the top floor of the NCCC Mall that nobody could survive the extreme heat and thick black smoke.

"They were told that the chances of survival are zero," she said, adding that one of those trapped may be a Chinese or a South Korean, based on the name.

It is unclear when firefighters can break into most areas of the mall, where the blaze was put under control Sunday morning although smoke continued to billow from the building. The firefighters won't stop until all those reported missing are found, Duterte-Carpio said.

Investigators will determine the cause of the fire and the prospects of criminal lawsuits against the mall owners and officials would depend on the outcome of the investigation, said the mayor, who is the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte.

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Typhoon ravages south Philippines with 120 dead, 160 missing

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AP) — One of the deadliest storms to hit the Philippines this year blew out of the country's south Sunday after leaving more than 120 people dead and 160 missing in landslides and flash floods.

Tropical Storm Tembin strengthened into a typhoon before moving into the South China Sea. Most of the dead and missing were reported in the hard-hit provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur and on the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Intense rainfall in the mountains most likely caused landslides that blocked rainwater, said Marina Marasigan of the government's disaster-response agency. When the naturally formed dams broke from the pressure, torrents of rainwater smashed into the villages below.

Mayor Bong Edding of Sibuco town blamed logging operations in the mountains for flash food that swept away houses with more than 30 residents. Five bodies have been recovered so far in the village and a search and rescue was continuing.

A large number of dead and missing was also reported in Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur provinces, where floodwaters from a mountain washed away several riverside houses.