AP News in Brief at 12:14 a.m. EDT

Pregnant Chicago woman slain, baby cut from her womb

CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago woman who sold baby clothes to a pregnant woman and lured her back to her house with an offer of more clothing has been charged with murder after allegedly strangling the woman with a cord and cutting the infant from her womb, police said Thursday.

Clarisa Figueroa, 46, apparently wanted to raise another child two years after her adult son died of natural causes, investigators said.

“Words cannot express how disgusting and thoroughly disturbing these allegations are,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters at a news conference to announce the murder charges against Figueroa and her 24-year-old daughter, Desiree Figueroa. The mother’s boyfriend, 40-year-old Piotr Bobak, was charged with concealment of a homicide.

The charges come three weeks after 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez disappeared and a day after her body was discovered in a garbage can in the backyard of Figueroa’s home on the city’s Southwest Side, about 4 miles from her own home.

According to police, the young woman drove from her high school to Figueroa’s home in response to an offer of free clothes that Figueroa had posted on Facebook. When she arrived, police said, she was strangled and the baby cut from her body.

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Trump playing down threat of war with Iran

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he hopes the U.S. is not on a path to war with Iran amid fears that his two most hawkish advisers could be angling for such a conflict with the Islamic Republic.

Asked Thursday if the U.S. was going to war with Iran, the president replied, “I hope not” — a day after he repeated a desire for dialogue, tweeting, “I’m sure that Iran will want to talk soon.”

The tone contrasted with a series of moves by the U.S. and Iran that have sharply escalated tensions in the Middle East in recent days. For the past year, national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been the public face of the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

The friction has rattled lawmakers who are demanding more information on the White House’s claims of rising Iranian aggression. Top leaders in Congress received a classified briefing on Iran Thursday, but many other lawmakers from both parties have criticized the White House for not keeping them informed.

Iran poses a particular challenge for Trump. While he talks tough against foreign adversaries to the delight of his supporters, a military confrontation with Iran could make him appear to be backtracking on a campaign pledge to keep America out of foreign entanglements.

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Saudis blame Iran for drone attack amid calls for US strikes

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia accused Tehran of being behind a drone strike that shut down a key oil pipeline in the kingdom, and a newspaper close to the palace called for Washington to launch “surgical” strikes on Iran, raising the spectre of escalating tensions as the U.S. boosts its military presence in the Persian Gulf.

Concerns about possible conflict have flared after the U.S. dispatched warships and bombers to the region to counter an alleged but unspecified threat from Iran. There also have been allegations that four oil tankers were sabotaged Sunday off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, and Iran-aligned rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on the Saudi pipeline.

Fears have grown out of President Donald Trump’s decision last year to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers and impose wide-reaching sanctions — the latest levied as recently as last week — that have crippled Iran’s economy. But Trump took a soft tone Thursday, a day after tweeting that he expected Iran to look for talks. Asked if the U.S. might be on a path to war with the Iranians, the president answered, “I hope not.”

Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, who is King Salman’s son and the country’s deputy defence minister, tweeted that the drone attack on two Saudi Aramco pumping stations running along the East-West pipeline were “ordered by the regime in Tehran, and carried out by the Houthis” — a reference to the Yemeni rebel group.

A state-aligned Saudi newspaper went further, running an editorial calling for “surgical” U.S. strikes on Iran in retaliation. Iran has been accused by the U.S. and the U.N. of supplying ballistic missile technology and arms to the Houthis, which Tehran denies.

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US: Flynn described efforts to interfere with co-operation

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn told the special counsel’s office that people connected to the Trump administration and Congress sought to influence his co-operation with the Russia investigation, and he provided a voicemail recording of one such communication, prosecutors said in a court filing made public Thursday.

Meanwhile, the judge in the case ordered that portions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that relate to Flynn be unredacted and made public by the end of the month.

Thursday’s order from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan is the first time a judge is known to have directed the Justice Department to make public any portion of the report that the agency had kept secret. It could set up a conflict with Attorney General William Barr, whose team spent weeks blacking out from the report grand jury information, details of ongoing investigations and other sensitive information.

Prosecutors revealed details about Flynn’s communications in a court filing aimed at showing the extent of his co-operation with Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Flynn, a vital witness in the probe, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts during the presidential transition period in 2016 with the-then Russian ambassador to the United States.

Prosecutors did not identify the people with whom Flynn was in touch nor did they describe the exact conversations.

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Alabama man executed for helping commit a quadruple killing

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — A man condemned for his role in a quadruple killing that followed a dispute over a pickup truck was put to death Thursday in Alabama after declining to make any last-minute appeals.

Michael Brandon Samra, 41, was pronounced dead at 7:33 p.m. following a three-drug lethal injection at Holman prison, authorities said.

Samra and a friend, Mark Duke, were convicted of capital murder in the deaths of Duke’s father, the father’s girlfriend and the woman’s two elementary-age daughters in 1997. The two adults were shot and the children had their throats slit. Evidence showed that Duke planned the killings because he was angry his father wouldn’t let him use his pickup.

Families of the victims thanked law enforcement and the community for support in a statement read by Prison Commissioner Jeff Dunn after the execution.

“This has been a painful journey. Today justice was carried out,” said the statement from relatives, six of whom were witnesses.

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Trump changes immigration plan focus to ‘merit’ over family

WASHINGTON (AP) — Unveiling a new immigration plan, President Donald Trump said Thursday he wanted to provide a sharp contrast with Democrats, and he did — aiming to upend decades of family-based immigration policy with a new approach that favours younger, “totally brilliant,” high-skilled workers he says won’t compete for American jobs.

Trump’s sweeping immigration plan is more a campaign document than anything else. It’s a White House attempt to stretch beyond the “build-the-wall” rhetoric that swept the president to office but may not be enough to deliver him a second term. As Trump heads into reelection season, his campaign sees the plan as a way to help him look more reasonable on a signature issue than he often seems — and to cast Democrats as blocking him.

“We want immigrants coming in. We cherish the open door,” Trump said in a Rose Garden speech as Cabinet members and Republican lawmakers filled the front rows.

Trump said his new system, with points given for those with advanced degrees, job offers and other attributes, will make it exactly “clear what standards we ask you to achieve.”

Nowadays, “we discriminate against genius,” he said, using a softer tone than his usual fiery campaign rallies. “We discriminate against brilliance. We won’t anymore once we get this passed.”

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4th death of migrant child since December raises new alarms

HOUSTON (AP) — Advocates raised new alarms Thursday about the U.S. government’s treatment of migrant families after a 2 1/2-year-old Guatemalan child became the fourth minor known to have died after being detained by border agents since December.

“The death of a single child in custody of our government is a horrific tragedy,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, chair of the advocacy group Families Belong Together. “Four in six months is a clear pattern of wilful, callous disregard for children’s lives.”

The boy died Tuesday after several weeks in the hospital, American and Guatemalan authorities said. Tekandi Paniagua, Guatemala’s consul in Del Rio, Texas, said the boy had a high fever and difficulty breathing, and authorities took him to a children’s hospital where he was diagnosed with pneumonia.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the boy’s mother told Border Patrol agents her son was ill on April 6, three days after they were apprehended near an international bridge in El Paso, Texas.

The agency said the child was taken to a hospital in Horizon City, Texas, that day, and transferred to Providence Children’s Hospital in El Paso the next day.

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F-16 fighter crashes into California warehouse, pilot ejects

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — An F-16 fighter jet crashed Thursday into a warehouse just outside March Air Reserve Base in California, sending a dozen people to hospitals for evaluation after they were exposed to debris, authorities said.

The pilot ejected and parachuted to safety, said Maj. Perry Covington, the base’s director of public affairs. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

Interstate 215, which runs between the base and the warehouse, was closed in both directions, backing up rush-hour traffic for miles.

Television news showed a large hole in the roof and sprinklers on inside the building about 65 miles (105 kilometres) east of Los Angeles.

Cellphone photos and video from inside showed what appeared to be the tail of the plane buried in twisted metal and piles of cardboard boxes.

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GOP braces for fight as Roy Moore weighs AL Senate re-run

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative lightning rod Roy Moore of Alabama is considering a fresh run for Senate next year.

The former state Supreme Court chief justice was the narrow loser of a turbulent special election for the same Senate seat in 2017. His campaign was battered by allegations of long-ago sexual harassment of teenagers, which he denied.

National Republican leaders are signalling that they’ll try preventing their party from nominating Moore — as they unsuccessfully tried doing two years ago.

Moore’s defeat made him the first Republican in reliably red Alabama to lose a Senate race in a quarter century. National party leaders say a Moore nomination would endanger what they view as a strong shot at defeating Sen. Doug Jones , the Democrat and former federal prosecutor who upset Moore two years ago.

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I.M. Pei, architect who designed Louvre Pyramid, dies at 102

NEW YORK (AP) — I.M. Pei (PAY), the versatile, globe-trotting architect who revived the Louvre with a giant glass pyramid and captured the spirit of rebellion at the multi-shaped Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has died at age 102.

Pei’s death was confirmed Thursday by Marc Diamond, a spokesman for the architect’s New York firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. One of Pei’s sons, Li Chung Pei, told The New York Times his father had died overnight.

Pei’s works ranged from the trapezoidal addition to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the chiseled towers of the National Center of Atmospheric Research that blend in with the reddish mountains in Boulder, Colorado.

His buildings added elegance to landscapes worldwide with their powerful geometric shapes and grand spaces. Among them are the striking steel and glass Bank of China skyscraper in Hong Kong and the Fragrant Hill Hotel near Beijing.

His work spanned decades, starting in the late 1940s and continuing through the new millennium. Two of his last major projects, the Museum of Islamic Art, located on an artificial island just off the waterfront in Doha, Qatar, and the Macau Science Center, in China, opened in 2008 and 2009.

The Associated Press

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