AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

Puerto Rico prepares for massive protest to expel governor

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico is bracing for what many people expect to be one of the biggest protests ever seen in the U.S. territory as irate islanders pledge to drive Gov. Ricardo Rosselló from office.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to take over a busy highway Monday morning to press demands that Rosselló resign over an obscenity-laced leaked online chat the governor had with allies as well as federal corruption charges levelled against his administration.

The anticipated march in the capital of San Juan comes a day after Rosselló announced that he will not quit, but sought to calm the unrest by promising not to seek reelection or continue as head of his pro-statehood political party. That only further angered his critics, who have mounted street demonstrations for more than a week.

___

Nadler: Mueller hearing to air evidence of Trump wrongdoing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday that this week’s hearing with Robert Mueller will air “very substantial evidence” of wrongdoing by President Donald Trump and make a public case for impeachment. Republicans pledged sharp questioning of the special counsel about what they see as a “one-sided” Russia investigation.

Days before back-to-back hearings Wednesday, both sides seemed to agree that Mueller’s testimony could be pivotal in shifting public opinion on the question of “holding the president accountable.”

“This is a president who has violated the law 6 ways from Sunday,” said the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. He argued that Mueller’s report lays out “very substantial evidence” that Trump is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanours,” the constitutional standard for impeachment.

“We have to present — or let Mueller present — those facts to the American people … because the administration must be held accountable and no president can be above the law,” Nadler said.

The House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee will question Mueller in separate hearings on his 448-page report released in April. While the report did not find sufficient evidence to establish charges of criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to swing the election, it said Trump could not be cleared of trying to obstruct the investigation . But Mueller believed Trump couldn’t be indicted in part because of a Justice Department opinion against prosecuting a sitting president.

___

Administration pauses enforcement of abortion restriction

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is giving taxpayer-funded family planning clinics more time to comply with its new rule that says they no longer can refer women for abortions.

But the clinics reacted warily to the administration’s enforcement pause, and the widening rift could eventually affect basic health services for many low-income women.

A notice sent Saturday night to representatives of the clinics by the Department of Health and Human Services said the government “does not intend to bring enforcement actions” against clinics that are making “good-faith efforts to comply.” A copy of the notice, which includes a new timetable for the clinics, was provided to The Associated Press.

The department had said last Monday that it would require immediate compliance. That caught clinics off guard and led Planned Parenthood and other providers to say they would defy the order.

In a statement Sunday, the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association called the administration’s action “wholly insufficient.” The umbrella group, which represents the clinics, is suing in federal court to block the abortion restrictions.

___

Clashes involving Hong Kong’s protest movement grow violent

HONG KONG (AP) — Clashes involving Hong Kong’s protest movement escalated violently late Sunday as police launched tear gas at protesters who didn’t disband after a massive march and subway riders were attacked by masked assailants who appeared to target the pro-democracy demonstrators.

The firing of tear gas was the latest confrontation between police and protesters who have taken to the streets for almost two months to fight a proposed extradition bill and call for electoral reforms in the Chinese territory.

The march had been peaceful when it reached its police-designated end point in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district in the late afternoon, but thousands continued onward, at various points occupying key government and business districts. They then headed for the Liaison Office, which represents China’s Communist Party-led central government within the city.

Protesters threw eggs at the building and spray-painted its surrounding surveillance cameras. China’s national emblem, which adorns the front of the Liaison Office, was splattered with black ink. The Liaison Office said in comments published on Chinese state media that the acts “openly challenged the authority of the central government and touched the bottom line of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle.”

Later, police threw tear gas canisters at protesters to try to disperse them. Protesters scattered, some heading back in the direction of a key business and retail district. Police remained in place, protecting themselves with shields. Police said on their official social media accounts that protesters threw bricks and petrol bombs at them and attacked the Central police station.

___

Olympic robots offer ‘virtual’ attendance, help out on field

TOKYO (AP) — A cart-like robot scuttles across the field to bring back javelins and discuses. A towering screen-on-wheels is designed for “virtual” attendance. The cute ones are, naturally, the likeness of the Olympic and Paralympic mascots.

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp., a major Olympic sponsor, is readying various robots for next year’s Tokyo Olympics. The robots were shown to reporters for release Monday.

The mascot robots have moving limbs and its eyes change to the image of stars and hearts. It cannot speak at all or walk very well. But the engineer in charge, Tomohisa Moridaira, suggested various possibilities, such as getting the robot to hold the Olympic torch using magnets.

The T-TR1, developed by Toyota’s robotics institute in the U.S., highlights “virtual mobility,” taking the automaker’s usual business of transportation to another dimension. It’s a moving human-size display designed to represent people who can’t be there.

Think a faraway grandma at a child’s birthday party or a legendary athlete not able to attend but “virtually” taking part in Olympic festivities.

___

Teen mom, newborn eye new life from Tijuana migrant shelter

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — The tiny, month-old boy slept soundly on the bottom bunk, seemingly undisturbed by the squealing Central American toddlers running by and a kitten leaping from the neighbouring bed.

About 25 people sleep in the cinderblock room crammed with seven bunkbeds at a Tijuana shelter overflowing with migrants, primarily from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador but also from as far away as Africa. Each bunk bed is like a makeshift home where families pass their days waiting — waiting for their number to be called at the U.S.-Mexico border so they can apply for asylum in the United States, or waiting on a Mexican visa to be able to work.

More people arrive each day and now their future is even more uncertain. Under a new Trump administration policy announced last week, migrants who pass through another country — like Mexico — on their way to the U.S. will be ineligible for asylum.

For 16-year-old Milagro de Jesús Henríquez Ayala, her cramped corner bunk covered in eight backpacks with donated diapers, toys and clothing is not the ideal spot for raising her newborn son, but it is the best place she has found since she left her violent homeland of El Salvador with her younger sister, Xiomara, after gangs threatened their family.

The sisters, who were 15 and 13 at the time, were part of an untold number of Central American minors who travelled without their parents, accompanied only by other migrants, in a caravan that crossed Mexico and landed in this crime-ridden city in November. Henríquez Ayala became pregnant by her then-boyfriend during the trip, before arriving in Tijuana.

___

In some states, GOP sees the recall as its way back to power

DENVER (AP) — Republicans frustrated by losing their grip on political power in some Western states have begun deploying a new weapon: the recall.

Once reserved for targeting corrupt or inept elected officials, the recall has become part of the toolkit for Republicans seeking a do-over of election results. One GOP strategist in Colorado has put a name to it — “recall season.”

To be sure, Democrats also have used recalls, most notably in Wisconsin, where they tried unsuccessfully to oust then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2012 over his actions to weaken public sector unions.

But Republicans have been mounting recall efforts against Democratic state lawmakers and governors at an unprecedented rate over the past two years in a handful of Western states, at the same time their political fortunes in those states have been declining.

In 2018, they recalled a freshman state senator in California as a way to temporarily undo a Democratic supermajority.

___

Heat and humidity grip East Coast as Midwest gets reprieve

BOSTON (AP) — The East Coast on Sunday sweated through another day of extreme heat and humidity as organizers in Boston cancelled a benefit run, Delaware Civil War re-enactors got the day off and the New York Police Department implored residents to take it easy.

“Sunday has been cancelled,” the NYPD jokingly tweeted . “Stay indoors, nothing to see here. Really, we got this.”

The central part of the country, meanwhile, enjoyed some relief as a cold front moved steadily southward and eastward across the country, bringing down the temperatures. But the cooler weather settling in Monday and Tuesday is also bringing severe storms packed with powerful winds and heavy rains that have already caused damage in the Midwest. The National Weather Service warns flash flooding might be possible in some areas.

From the Carolinas to Maine, daytime highs reached the upper 90s Sunday. Coupled with high humidity, temperatures felt as hot as 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) in places.

“There’s no point being out,” Washington, D.C., bus driver Ramieka Darby remarked while taking a quick break amid temperatures of nearly 100 degrees (37.8 Celsius).

___

Could coastal mansions become eligible for disaster aid?

OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. (AP) — On an exclusive Connecticut peninsula, where signs warn outsiders to stay off private roads, eight multimillion-dollar homes with sprawling yards along the Long Island Sound are poised to become eligible for taxpayer-funded disaster aid.

That’s despite the fact that the Fenwick neighbourhood of Old Saybrook is in a potentially perilous position, hovering where the Connecticut River meets the sound. A 1938 hurricane washed many Fenwick homes out to sea, including that of Katharine Hepburn’s family.

The eight homes, a short distance from the rebuilt Hepburn house where the actress died in 2003, currently lie in a coastal protection zone that bans homeowners from receiving federal funds to fix storm damage. The goal is to create a disincentive for new development in areas vulnerable to storms. Half the homes were built after the zone was created nearly four decades ago.

But a proposed massive overhaul of the protection system to correct mapping mistakes and other errors would lift the prohibition on aid for the Fenwick homes and more than 900 other structures along the East Coast from New Hampshire to Virginia. That would allow the owners to buy lower-cost flood insurance backed by the federal government and potentially benefit from millions of dollars in other federal aid to fix infrastructure including roads and bridges.

The proposed changes, expected to go before Congress for approval next year, are drawing criticism from watchdog groups that say making so many more properties eligible for federal aid would stress already strained disaster relief programs and is a step in the wrong direction at a time when scientists expect stronger and more frequent storms because of climate change.

___

1960s prankster Paul Krassner, who named Yippies, dies at 87

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul Krassner, the publisher, author and radical political activist on the front lines of 1960s counterculture who helped tie together his loose-knit prankster group by naming them the Yippies, died Sunday in Southern California, his daughter said.

Krassner died at his home in Desert Hot Springs, Holly Krassner Dawson told The Associated Press. He was 87 and had recently transitioned to hospice care after an illness, Dawson said. She didn’t say what the illness was.

The Yippies, who included Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and were otherwise known as the Youth International Party, briefly became notorious for such stunts as running a pig for president and throwing dollar bills onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Hoffman and Rubin, but not Krassner, were among the so-called “Chicago 7” charged with inciting riots at 1968’s chaotic Democratic National Convention.

By the end of the decade, most of the group’s members had faded into obscurity. But not Krassner, who constantly reinvented himself, becoming a public speaker, freelance writer, stand-up comedian, celebrity interviewer and author of nearly a dozen books.

“He doesn’t waste time,” longtime friend and fellow counterculture personality Wavy Gravy once said of him. “People who waste time get buried in it. He keeps doing one thing after another.”

The Associated Press