Report: Trump wanted Mueller fired, backed off

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller last June, but he backed off the order after White House lawyer Don McGahn threatened to resign, according to a report Thursday in The New York Times.

The newspaper reports that Trump demanded Mueller's firing just weeks after the special counsel was first appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

McGahn said he would not deliver the order to the Justice Department, according to The Times, which cites four people familiar with the request by the president.

Trump argued at the time that Mueller could not be fair because of a dispute over golf club fees that he said Mueller owed at a Trump golf club in Sterling, Va. The president also believed Mueller he had a conflict of interest because he worked for the same law firm that was representing Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday night. Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer working on the response to the Russia probe, declined comment Thursday night.

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Trump plan offers citizenship path to 1.8 million immigrants

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House unveiled a proposal Thursday that provides a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants living in the country illegally, in exchange for new restrictions on legal immigration and $25 billion in border security. The plan was applauded by some in Congress, but blasted by conservative activists as "amnesty" and slammed by a slew of Democrats, who accused President Donald Trump of holding "Dreamers" hostage to his hard-line immigration agenda.

Senior White House officials cast the plan as a centrist compromise that could win support from both parties and enough votes to pass the Senate. But it comes with a long list of concessions that many Democrats, and also conservative Republicans, especially in the House, may find impossible to swallow.

The plan would provide a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 690,000 younger immigrants protected from deportation by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — as well as hundreds of thousands of others who independent estimates say qualify for the program, but never applied.

Trump announced last year that he was doing away with the program, but gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative fix.

The plan would not allow parents of those immigrants to seek lawful status, the officials said.

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Trump in Davos: threatens Palestinians, reassures Brits

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — President Donald Trump barreled into a global summit in the Swiss Alps on Thursday, threatening to stop U.S. aid to the Palestinians and dismissing as a "false rumor" the idea that there are tensions in the U.S. relationship with Britain.

Trump's debut appearance at the glitzy World Economic Forum was hotly anticipated, with longtime attendees of the free-trade-focused event wondering how the "America First" president would fit in. Crowds clustered around Trump as he entered the modern conference hall, the president telling passers-by that he was bringing a message of "peace and prosperity."

Trump framed his visit as a sign of positive things happening for the U.S. economy.

"When I decided to come to Davos, I didn't think in terms of elitist or globalist, I thought in terms of lots of people that want to invest lots of money and they're all coming back to the United States, they're coming back to America," the president told CNBC.

His meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally, was their first since the president announced earlier this month that he would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. embassy there. The declaration delighted Netanyahu and outraged Palestinians, who declared a new U.S.-led peace push dead and refused to meet with Vice President Mike Pence during his recent visit to the Mideast.

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Hospital fire kills nearly 40 people in South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A fire that started Friday morning in a hospital emergency room in South Korea killed nearly 40 people, mainly from inhaling smoke, and injured dozens more in one of the country's deadliest blazes in recent years.

Several injured are in critical condition and the toll is feared to increase, fire officials said.

Sejong Hospital in the southeastern city of Miryang had a total of 194 patients before the fire at its general medical ward and its nursing ward for the elderly. The blaze began at the general ward's first-floor emergency room and most of the dead were from the first and second floors, the National Fire Agency official said.

The cause of the fire wasn't immediately determined. Miryang fire officials put out the blaze at 10:26 a.m., nearly three hours after it started and preventing it from reaching the upper floors. The hospital's operations were suspended after the fire.

Most of the 39 deaths appeared to be due to suffocation, with only one suffering burns, said an agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to media.

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Gymnasts' parents say they'll 'never get rid of the guilt'

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Some parents thought they were misinterpreting the doctor's techniques. Others assumed their children were lying or mistaken.

But as more details emerged, the mothers and fathers had to face an awful truth: A renowned sports doctor had molested their daughters.

These parents, many fighting back tears, confronted Larry Nassar during his long sentencing hearing, lamenting their deep feelings of guilt and wondering how they could have missed the abuse that sometimes happened when they were in the same room.

"I willingly took my most precious gift in this world to you, and you hurt her, physically, mentally and emotionally. And she was only 8," Anne Swinehart told Nassar. "I will never get rid of the guilt that I have about this experience."

Many of the young athletes had come to Nassar seeking help with gymnastics injuries. He was sentenced Wednesday to up to 175 years in prison after admitting sexually assaulting patients under the guise of medical treatment while employed by Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, the sport's governing body, which also trains Olympians.

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More than 20 WH employees quizzed by Mueller, lawyer says

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 20 White House employees have given interviews to the special counsel in his probe of possible obstruction of justice and Trump campaign ties to Russian election interference, according to a document released Thursday that underscores the breadth of the investigation.

The document, released by President Donald Trump's attorney John Dowd, details what the White House calls its unprecedented cooperation with Robert Mueller's investigation, including that it has turned over more than 20,000 pages of records. The president's 2016 campaign has turned over more than 1.4 million pages.

However, the number of voluntary interviews, including eight people from the White House counsel's office, also suggests the scope of Mueller's work so far. And the document confirms Mueller's interest in the circumstances surrounding two men the president fired: former FBI Director James Comey and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

An additional 28 people affiliated with the Trump campaign have also been interviewed by either the special counsel or congressional committees probing Russian election meddling, the document notes. It does not name the people nor provide a breakdown of how many were interviewed by Mueller's team.

According to Dowd, the White House produced nearly 13,000 pages of documents related to Comey and "issues regarding Michael Flynn and Russia."

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Kentucky shooting suspect ordered held; vigil for victims

BENTON, Ky. (AP) — The 15-year-old boy accused of gunning down classmates at a western Kentucky high school was ordered held on murder and assault charges as the shaken community where it happened strained to cope with the devastation.

On Thursday, a juvenile court judge found probable cause to keep detaining the teenager as authorities gather evidence to support trying him as an adult for the attack at Marshall County High School, Assistant Marshall County Attorney Jason Darnall said. Authorities, meanwhile, are seeking to gather evidence for a grand jury, hoping to discover why a handgun was turned on a crowd of classmates, all 14 to 18, as they waited for the morning bell Tuesday.

Although the legal process has begun for the suspect, others in the small rural community sought to overcome the shock of Tuesday's shooting that left two people dead and 18 injured with a show of solidarity. Hundreds gathered amid flickering candles after nightfall Thursday to honor the victims as many wept.

Nearly 300 people, many with faces visibly etched with pain, thronged a park as firefighters raised a large American flag in the crisp night air. Many teens, cupping candles in their palms, hugged and looked on somberly. One girl's candle shook in her hands as she sobbed, and others cried when another girl sang "Amazing Grace."

"It always happens somewhere else, you know, but this week it was our community," said Misti Drew, an organizer of the vigil. With faces aglow from the candles, participants lofted banners and some wore T-shirts embossed with the words, "Marshall Strong."

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Congressman who settled complaint won't seek re-election

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who settled a former aide's sexual harassment complaint with taxpayer money informed party and campaign officials Thursday that he will not seek re-election, a decision that came as party officials had begun to search for a replacement candidate.

The complaint by a former aide three decades younger than U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan came to light Jan. 20 in a New York Times report, citing unnamed people. The accuser's lawyer, Alexis Ronickher, called the allegations "well-grounded" and a "serious sexual harassment claim."

Meehan, 62, is a four-term congressman and former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia. In an effort to fend off the accusation, the married father of three had described the woman in an interview as a "soul mate," and acknowledged that he had lashed out when he discovered she had begun dating another man. But he contended that he had done nothing wrong and had never sought a romantic relationship with her.

Meehan's decision came as he faced calls from Democrats and rallies outside his district office demanding his resignation, and as Republicans began to lose confidence that Meehan could win re-election in the closely divided district in moderate southeastern Pennsylvania where Republicans fear an anti-Trump wave. On Wednesday night, the comedian Stephen Colbert skewered Meehan in a four-minute monologue on his show.

"Unfortunately, recent events concerning my office and the settlement of certain harassment allegations have become a major distraction," he wrote in a letter to his campaign chairman. "I need to own it because it is my own conduct that fueled the matter."

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Woods brings back big crowds, big cheers with a 72

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Tiger Woods has been away from the PGA Tour too long to know for certain when a shot is as good as it looks.

This was a 6-iron on the par-3 16th hole on the South Course at Torrey Pines, from 188 yards to a slightly elevated green with a pin tucked behind a deep bunker. The sun was setting behind the Pacific late Thursday afternoon, and the glare made it tough to follow the flight of the ball.

"We can't see anything land from back there, so we're just listening for some noise," Woods said. "And people started cheering."

The ball rolled to the hole and broke a few inches in front of the cup for a tap-in birdie .

Woods brought big crowds back to golf in his latest return to the PGA Tour, and he even produced a few big roars.

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Factories make unexpected legacy for Ivanka Trump in China

XIANGYANG, China (AP) — The young woman, new to the grind of Chinese factory life, knew the man who called himself Kalen only by the photo on his chat profile. It showed him with a pressed smile holding a paper cup in a swank skyscraper somewhere late at night.

Yu Chunyan and her friends didn't know what to make of him. Some thought his eyes were shifty. Others said he looked handsome in a heroic sort of way.

Yu was among the doubters. The daughter of factory workers, Yu paid her way through college by working in factories herself. She and thousands of other students had toiled through the summer of 2016 assembling iPhones at a supplier for Apple Inc., but they hadn't been paid their full wages.

Kalen was offering to help — and asking nothing in return.

This struck Yu as suspicious. If there was one thing she had learned in her 23 years it was this: "There's no free lunch."