The Latest: Spanish police fire rubber bullets to thwart migrant escape attempt
BERLIN (AP) - The latest news as countries across Europe cope with the arrival of thousands of migrants and refugees. All times local (CET):
11:45 a.m.
Spanish media say police fired rubber bullets at migrants in a detention center in the southern city of Valencia after about 50 tried to escape.
Media including the leading El Pais and El Mundo newspapers say the disturbance started late Sunday night when a guard was assaulted and migrants took his keys. Reports say some went on to the roof of the building and threw stones and branches at guards while others burned mattresses in an outdoor area of the center.
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Germany’s Merkel demands EU partners share in burden of human tide from troubled nations
BERLIN (AP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reflecting on “a moving, in some parts breathtaking weekend behind us,” said Monday that all EU countries could help to accommodate the human tide from the Middle East and Africa.
French President Francois Hollande announced that his country would welcome 24,000 refugees, and that he and Merkel had agreed on a mechanism to spread the migrant load across Europe.
But Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, said he wasn’t prepared to pitch in and questioned how any EU quota system for migrants could work.
Even as calm returned Monday to the main border point between Austria and Hungary after more than 14,000 people used it over the weekend to enter Austria, Hungary’s leader hit back at EU counterparts who blamed his country for the chaos.
Merkel told reporters in Berlin that Germany will ensure that those who need protection receive it, but that those who stand no chance of getting asylum will have to return to their homes swiftly. Germany is preparing to receive by far the largest number of immigrants, but Merkel called for help from EU partners.
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US dentist in lion hunt that prompted outrage says he acted legally, will return to work
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Minnesota dentist whose killing of Cecil the lion sparked a global backlash emerged for an interview in which he disputed some accounts of the hunt, expressed agitation at the animosity directed at those close to him and said he would be back at work within days.
Walter Palmer, who has spent more than a month out of sight after becoming the target of protests and threats, intends to return to his suburban Minneapolis dental practice Tuesday. In an interview Sunday evening conducted jointly by The Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune that advisers said would be the only one granted, Palmer said again that he believes he acted legally and that he was stunned to find out his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe’s treasured animals.
“If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study obviously I wouldn’t have taken it,” Palmer said. “Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion.”
Cecil was a fixture in the vast Hwange National Park and had been fitted with a GPS collar as part of Oxford University lion research. Palmer said he shot the big cat with the black mane using an arrow from his compound bow outside the park’s borders but it didn’t die immediately. He disputed conservationist accounts that the wounded lion wandered for 40 hours and was finished off with a gun, saying it was tracked down the next day and killed with an arrow.
An avid sportsman, Palmer shut off several lines of inquiry about the hunt, including how much he paid for it or others he has undertaken. No videotaping or photographing of the interview was allowed. During the 25-minute interview, Palmer gazed intensely at his questioners, often fiddling with his hands and turning occasionally to an adviser, Joe Friedberg, to field questions about the fallout and his legal situation.
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Guatemala headed for runoff election amid fraud scandal that toppled former president
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - A former television comic was heading for a runoff with either a wealthy businessman or a former first lady in voting for Guatemala’s next president, days after the Central American nation’s leader resigned over a corruption scandal.
With about 79 percent of polling stations reporting early Monday, comedian Jimmy Morales, who has never held elective office, was leading with 26 percent of the vote.
He was followed by businessman and longtime politician Manuel Baldizon, with 18.5 percent, and ex-first lady Sandra Torres, with 17.7 percent.
Assuming no candidate in the field of 14 gets a majority, the top two finishers advance to a runoff to be held Oct. 25.
“The people are showing that they do not want a group like that for the future,” Morales said, referring to Baldizon’s LIDER party.
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Obama to sign executive order on Labor Day extending paid sick leave to federal contractors
WASHINGTON (AP) - Showing solidarity with workers on Labor Day, President Barack Obama will sign an executive order Monday requiring paid sick leave for employees of federal contractors, including 300,000 who currently receive none.
The White House wouldn’t specify the cost to federal contractors to implement the executive order, which Obama was to address at a major union rally and breakfast in Boston. The Labor Department said any costs would be offset by savings that contractors would see as a result of lower attrition rates and increased worker loyalty, but produced nothing to back that up.
Under the executive order, employees working on federal contracts gain the right to a minimum of one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours they work. Stretched out over 12 months, that’s up to seven days per year. The order will allow employees to use the leave to care for sick relatives as well, and will affect contracts starting in 2017 - just as Obama leaves office.
The Obama administration has been working on the executive order for months, and chose Labor Day to announce it as Obama works to enact what policies he can before his presidency ends despite resistance in Congress to laws he’s proposed to improve workplace conditions. That push has reverberated in the 2016 campaign, where Democratic candidates are seeking to draw a distinction with Republicans on who’s most supportive of the middle class.
“There are certain Republicans that said we can’t afford to do this,” said Labor Secretary Thomas Perez. He lamented how paid leave is seen as a partisan issue in the U.S. despite broad support in Europe. “The Republican Party is out of step with similar conservative governments around the world,” he said.
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Voters in Ohio show an even keel after a turbulent summer for 2016 presidential campaign
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The unexpected rises of billionaire Donald Trump and socialist Bernie Sanders. Signs of weakness for Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. Curiosity about the future of Vice President Joe Biden.
It’s been a summer of political chaos.
Yet in Ohio, the nation’s most reliable general election bellwether, voters are taking a more measured view of a race they ultimately may decide.
“It’s all just chatter,” said Judith Anderson, 40, a Democrat from Cincinnati. “We’re a ways out.”
Anderson was one of the more than 50 voters interviewed by The Associated Press the week before Labor Day in Ohio, which along with Florida will be one of the most coveted states in the 2016 election.
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Kentucky clerk appeals order jailing her for not issuing marriage licenses to gay couples
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - A Kentucky county clerk has appealed a judge’s decision to put her in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Attorneys for Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis officially appealed the ruling to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sunday. The three page motion does not include arguments as to why Davis should be released but amends Davis’ earlier appeal of the judge’s order.
Davis objects to same-sex marriage for religious reasons and stopped issuing all marriage licenses in June after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her. U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Davis to issue the licenses and the Supreme Court upheld his ruling.
But Davis still refused to do it, saying she could not betray her conscience.
Thursday, Bunning ruled Davis was in contempt of court for disobeying his order and sent her to jail. Her deputy clerks then issued marriage licenses to gay couples Friday with Davis behind bars.
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Louisiana health dept: 3 salmonella cases may be part of outbreak that killed California woman
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Three cases of salmonella in Louisiana may be part of the outbreak that sickened 285 people in 27 states, killing a 99-year-old California woman, according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
The Louisiana cases were in the Baton Rouge area, the northeast and the northwest, according to a news release Saturday.
The outbreak also included one or two cases in Mississippi, 60 in Arizona and 51 in California as of Thursday, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website.
Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce of San Diego made a voluntary recall Friday of “Limited Edition” brand cucumbers, which are produced in Mexico.
Louisiana’s health department received notification Friday night and began calling national companies with Louisiana outlets that might have sold or used the cucumbers, spokeswoman Ashley Lewis wrote. The agency said Red Lobster restaurants in Louisiana disposed of the cucumbers Friday.
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’Black Mass,’ movie about Whitey Bulger, anticipated in gangster’s South Boston neighborhood
BOSTON (AP) - On the streets of South Boston, where the name Whitey Bulger once evoked fear, the locals have become accustomed to books and movies that try to capture the life of the notorious gangster.
With the release of a new biopic, “Black Mass,” set for Sept. 18, anticipation is building in South Boston, where James “Whitey” Bulger rose from a childhood in public housing to the leader of a multimillion dollar criminal enterprise of drugs, extortion and money-laundering that was responsible for numerous murders.
“I want to go see it,” said Karen Gleason, 65, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood often called Southie, where Bulger’s Irish-American Winter Hill Gang held power.
“I think the original South Boston people will go see it, but I don’t know about anyone else. There’s a lot of diversity here now,” Gleason said, referring to changing demographics that have turned the once working-class neighborhood into an up-and-coming hip area for young professionals.
“Black Mass,” starring Johnny Depp as Bulger, is the latest of more than a dozen books and movies to tell his story, including the 2006 film “The Departed,” in which Jack Nicholson’s character was loosely based on Bulger.
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Williams sisters win to set up US Open QF with Serena’s Slam bid at stake; Djokovic moves on
NEW YORK (AP) - No reason for any extra practice after this performance by Serena Williams.
Plus, it’s not as if she needs to study too hard to figure out how to deal with her next opponent.
Playing the best she during this U.S. Open as she chases a calendar-year Grand Slam, Williams set up a quarterfinal against older sister Venus by making only six unforced errors in a 6-3, 6-3 victory over 19th-seeded Madison Keys on Sunday.
Looking ahead, No. 1 Serena described No. 23 Venus this way: “It’s like playing a mirror.”
Serena took only 68 minutes to dismiss Keys, a 20-year-old American with formidable serves and forehands who simply was outplayed.
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