Sessions questioned in Russia probe, Trump may be up soon

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions was questioned for hours in the special counsel's Russia investigation, the Justice Department said, as prosecutors moved closer to a possible interview with President Donald Trump about whether he took steps to obstruct an FBI probe into contacts between Russia and his 2016 campaign.

The interview with Sessions last week makes him the highest-ranking Trump administration official, and first Cabinet member, known to have submitted to questioning. It came as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates whether Trump's actions in office, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey, constitute improper efforts to stymie the FBI investigation.

With many of Trump's closest aides having now been questioned, the president and his lawyers are preparing for the prospect of an interview that would likely focus on some of the same obstruction questions. Expected topics for any sit-down with Mueller, who has expressed interest in speaking with Trump, would include not only Comey's firing but also interactions the fired FBI director has said unnerved him, including a request from the president that he end an investigation into a top White House official.

In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said he was "not at all concerned" about what Sessions may have told the Mueller team.

The recent questioning of the country's chief law enforcement officer shows the investigators' determined interest in the obstruction question that has been at the heart of the investigation for months through interviews of many current and former White House officials.

___

Top Democrat rescinds offer of $25 billion for Trump's wall

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer has pulled back an offer of $25 billion for President Donald Trump's long-promised southern border wall, as lawmakers scrambled to figure out how to push a deal to protect 700,000 or more so-called Dreamer immigrants from deportation.

Schumer had made the offer last Friday in a last-ditch effort to head off a government shutdown, then came scalding criticism from his party's liberal activist base that Democrats had given up too easily in reopening the government without more concrete promises on immigration.

"We're going to have to start on a new basis, and the wall offer's off the table," Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday.

The shutdown battle — settled mostly on Trump's terms — complicated the already difficult search for an immigration pact: GOP hard-liners appeared emboldened, while Democrats absorbed withering criticism from progressives. Neither development seemed likely to push the combatants toward the compromises needed to produce a bill that can pass both the tea party-driven House and the more pragmatic Senate.

Still, there were fresh signs of a willingness to keep hunting for a solution, with a flurry of meetings on Capitol Hill and an assessment from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that "I don't think they're that far apart."

___

'People just ran': Students fled for lives in fatal shooting

BENTON, Ky. (AP) — They ran silently, too stunned to shout.

Some of the children ran into classrooms to hide from the boy with the gun. Some ran out of the building, into the fields, across the streets, through the doors of nearby businesses.

"No one screamed," said 16-year-old Alexandria Caporali, recounting the moment her high school became the site of the latest American mass shooting. "It was almost completely silent as people just ran."

Bailey Nicole Holt and Preston Ryan Cope, both 15, were killed and another 17 people injured when a classmate opened fire Tuesday morning in the school's busy atrium, a common area in the center of Marshall County High School, where several hallways meet and children gather before classes.

The trauma consumed the rural town of about 4,300 people, where nearly everyone has a connection to the school. Parents left cars on both sides of an adjacent road, desperately trying to find their teenagers; business owners pulled fleeing children to safety; a state trooper rushed to the school, terrified he would find his own daughter among the dead.

___

'Enjoy hell:' Doctor's sentence next for assaulting gymnasts

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — After listening to the riveting pleas of more than 150 victims, a judge is set to sentence a Michigan doctor who parlayed his reputation and personal charm into years of sexual abuse by molesting Olympic gymnasts and other young female athletes instead of solving their sports injuries.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina will hear from a few more victims and then send Larry Nassar to prison Wednesday, the seventh day of a remarkable hearing that has given the girls, young women and their parents a chance to confront him in court. He faces a minimum prison term of 25 to 40 years but it could go higher.

Among those expected to speak on the last day: Rachael Denhollander, a Kentucky woman who contacted Michigan State University police in 2016 after reading reports about how USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, mishandled complaints of sexual misconduct. Nassar worked at Michigan State and also was the national gymnastics squad's doctor.

Nassar, 54, eventually pleaded guilty to assaulting seven people in the Lansing area, including Denhollander, but the sentencing hearing has been open to anyone who said they were a victim. His accusers said he would use his ungloved hands to penetrate them, often without explanation, while they were on a table seeking help for various injuries.

The accusers, many of whom were children, said they trusted Nassar to care for them properly, were in denial about what was happening or were afraid to speak up. He sometimes used a sheet or his body to block the view of any parent in the room.

___

Refugees more than once, Rohingya fear return to Myanmar

KUTUPALONG REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh (AP) — Mohammad Younus is a refugee for the second time.

The 30-year-old Rohingya Muslim, who has been slowly rebuilding a shadow of a normal life in a sprawling and squalid refugee camp in Bangladesh, is no mood to return home to Myanmar.

After Myanmar expressed readiness to start receiving an estimated 680,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled incredible violence over the last five months, Younus said he would rather die in the camp than go back again to the land of his birth.

"They have been killing Muslims for a long time now," he said. "We run and come to Bangladesh. Then we go back. We come back to Bangladesh, and go back again. They continue the killings."

Younus first fled with his family in 1991 as a 4-year-old, when his parents joined a wave of 250,000 Rohingya escaping forced labor, religious persecution and attacks from Buddhist mobs in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, where most Rohingya live. Three years later, the family returned home, fooled, he says, by the promises made by the U.N. refugee agency and Myanmar's government.

___

DA seeks to bar parents from contacting 13 kids kept captive

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The parents accused of torturing 12 of their children and keeping them chained to beds for months and so malnourished their growth was stunted will appear in court Wednesday as prosecutors ask a judge to bar them from contacting their kids.

The court proceeding is the latest step as authorities seek to sever ties between David and Louise Turpin and their 13 children — between 2 and 29 years old — who were rescued from their home in Perris, California, on Jan. 14. They have pleaded not guilty to torture, abuse and other charges.

Riverside County prosecutors are seeking a protective order that would prohibit the Turpins from having any contact with their children, district attorney's office spokesman John Hall said.

The case has attention from around the world and about 20 people from across the U.S., including nurses and psychologists, have offered to take the seven adult children and six minors and keep them together. The Riverside University Health System Foundation, which is collecting money for the siblings, so far has received 1,500 donations totaling $120,000, spokeswoman Kim Trone said.

Sheriff's deputies arrested the husband and wife after their 17-year-old daughter climbed out a window and called 911. Authorities found the siblings in the family's filthy California home, three of whom were shackled to beds. Neighbors and relatives said they were unaware of the children's treatment until authorities arrested the parents and revealed what they found inside.

___

Foreigners linked to Palestinians face Israeli visa troubles

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — American Kate Hamad doesn't dare leave Ramallah, fearing trouble, even deportation, if stopped at an Israeli checkpoint on the outskirts of the autonomous Palestinian city in the West Bank.

Israel rejected her request for a visa renewal three months ago, she said, even though her Palestinian husband and their three youngest children have West Bank residency. She appealed, but hasn't heard back. "You really feel trapped and you really feel scared," said the 32-year-old from Grimes, Iowa.

Hamad is among a growing number of foreigners in the West Bank who are having Israeli visa problems, according to Palestinian officials and Israeli lawyers.

They said that over the past year, Israel has made it harder for those with ties to Palestinians to stay in the West Bank on spouse or work visas, harming families, universities and even a school teaching Western classical music to Palestinian children.

COGAT, a branch of the Israeli Defense Ministry, denied it has adopted tougher rules, saying visa applications are judged on a case-by-case basis. It did not respond to requests to provide statistics.

___

US officials defend trade moves as Davos braces for Trump

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Top U.S. officials trumpeted America's commitment to free and fair trade while bracing for possible retaliation by China over new U.S. import tariffs, ahead of a much-ballyhooed visit by President Donald Trump to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross met with journalists Wednesday as the largest-ever U.S. delegation to the annual Davos gathering of business leaders, globalists, academics and other elites prepared for Trump's arrival a day later.

Trump's visit has sparked scattered, small protests in Switzerland and some participants among the 3,000 on hand say he's not welcome because of his controversial tweets, "America First" tack, and trade policies that have raised hackles abroad.

Mnuchin has brushed off concerns about a possibly tough reception, saying: "We don't have to worry about this crowd ... Our objective is to be here to interact with important counterparts."

He also said that America's stronger economic fortunes have a positive impact abroad.

___

Oprah visits Alabama grave of woman honored in Globes speech

ABBEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Oprah Winfrey has visited the grave of a black Alabama woman whose rape by six white men in 1944 drew national attention and whose story was highlighted in Winfrey's recent Golden Globes speech.

Winfrey said in an Instagram post that on assignment for "60 Minutes," she ended up in the town of Abbeville where Recy Taylor suffered injustice, endured and recently died.

Taylor was 24 when she was abducted and raped as she walked home from church in Abbeville. The NAACP assigned Rosa Parks to investigate the case, and she rallied support for justice for Taylor.

Two all-white, all-male grand juries decline to indict the men who admitted they assaulted her.

Taylor died in December, just before her 98th birthday.

___

Chung's stunning run continues into Australian Open semis

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Serving for a spot in the Australian Open semifinals and with the score at 40-love, Hyeon Chung started thinking how he might celebrate being the first Korean to reach the last four of a Grand Slam.

Not so fast. He hadn't let up when upsetting No. 4 Alexander Zverev or six-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic en route to the quarterfinals, but he let his guard down for a few points against No. 97-ranked Tennys Sandgren.

He missed four match points in the last game and had to fend off two break points, including one in a 31-shot rally dominated by slice backhands, before finally beating Sandgren 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-3 at Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday.

"In last game, I think at 40-love ... if I win one more point, I make history in Korea. I have to think about the ceremony, something," he said, explaining how he got slightly ahead of himself. "After deuce, break point. I was like, no, nothing to do with ceremony. But just keep playing — keep focused."

Then he fully embraced the moment, joking with Jim Courier in an on-court TV interview, introducing the audience to his parents and his coach, and taking the microphone to speak in Korean to millions of new tennis fans back home.