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

Pompeo, Democrats trade intimidation charges in Trump probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — Setting a defiant tone, the Trump administration resisted Congress’ access to impeachment witnesses Tuesday, even as House Democrats warned such efforts themselves could amount to an impeachable offence.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to delay five current and former officials from providing documents and testimony in the impeachment inquiry that could lead to charges against President Donald Trump. But Democrats were able to set closed-door depositions for Thursday for former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and next week for ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

The escalating exchange of accusations and warnings signalled yet another stiffening in the confrontation between the executive and legislative branches amid the Democrats’ launching of the impeachment inquiry late last week. That followed a national security whistleblower’s disclosure of Trump’s July phone call seeking help from the new Ukrainian president in investigating Democratic political rival Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter.

In a Tuesday evening tweet, Trump cast the impeachment inquiry as a coup “intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!” In fact, a coup is usually defined as a sudden, violent and illegal seizure of government power. The impeachment process is laid out in the U.S. Constitution.

Pompeo said the Democrats were trying to “intimidate” and “bully” the career officials into appearing and claimed it would be “not feasible” as demanded. House investigators countered that it would be illegal for the secretary to try to protect Trump by preventing the officials from talking to Congress.

___

North Korea fires missile days before resuming US talks

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, in a display of its expanding military capabilities hours after saying it would resume nuclear diplomacy with the United States this weekend.

South Korean officials said the missile was fired from North Korea’s eastern waters, suggesting it may have been submarine-launched. But South Korean defence officials won’t officially disclose whether the missile was fired from a submarine, a barge or any other possible platform.

North Korea having the ability to launch missiles from submarines would be alarming because such weapons are harder to detect in advance.

According to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the missile flew about 450 kilometres (280 miles) at the maximum attitude of 910 kilometres (565 miles) before landing between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said South Korean and U.S. authorities were analyzing more details of the launch.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga earlier said the North fired two ballistic missiles from the country’s east coast, and one of them appeared to have landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. There were no reports of damage to Japanese vessels or aircraft, he said. The North had not fired a weapon that reached inside Japan’s EEZ since November 2017 at the height of an unusually provocative run in nuclear and missile tests.

___

Ex-Dallas officer who killed neighbour found guilty of murder

DALLAS (AP) — A white former Dallas police officer who shot her black unarmed neighbour to death after, she said, mistaking his apartment for her own was convicted of murder Tuesday in a verdict that prompted tears of relief from his family and chants of “black lives matter” from a crowd outside the courtroom.

The same jury that found Amber Guyger guilty in the September 2018 death of her upstairs neighbour, Botham Jean, will consider her fate after hearing additional testimony that started Tuesday afternoon. Her sentence could range from five years to life in prison under Texas law.

The jury took a matter of hours to convict Guyger, 31, after six days of testimony.

Cheers erupted in the courthouse as the verdict was announced, and someone yelled “Thank you, Jesus!” In the hallway outside the courtroom, a crowd celebrated and chanted “black lives matter.” When the prosecutors walked into the hall, they broke into cheers.

After the verdict was read, Guyger sat alone, weeping, at the defence table.

___

Hong Kong police slammed as ‘trigger-happy’ after teen shot

HONG KONG (AP) — Heads bowed and dressed in black, schoolmates of a teenage demonstrator shot in the chest by a Hong Kong riot officer condemned police tactics and demanded accountability Wednesday.

The shooting Tuesday during widespread anti-government demonstrations on China’s National Day marked a fearsome escalation in Hong Kong’s protest violence. The 18-year-old, who is hospitalized in critical condition, is the first known victim of police gunfire since the protests began in June.

The officer fired as the protester struck him with a metal rod. His use of lethal weaponry is sure to inflame widespread public anger about police tactics during the crisis, widely condemned as heavy handed.

“The Hong Kong police have gone trigger-happy and nuts,” pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said Wednesday.

Having repeatedly viewed video of the shooting, Mo said: “The sensible police response should have been using a police baton or pepper spray, et cetera, to fight back. It wasn’t exactly an extreme situation and the use of live bullet simply cannot be justified.”

___

Sanders raises $25.3M in 3rd quarter, but Trump swamps all

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders raked in $25.3 million over the past three months, putting him on top of the Democratic presidential fundraising field for now. But in a sign of what he and his rivals are up against, President Donald Trump and his allies raised $125 million.

Other leading Democrats, including former Vice-President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have yet to reveal their fundraising figures for the third quarter.

But the staggering sum on the Republican side, which was split between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, highlights the cash gulf between Democrats and the GOP. It could revive anxieties among Democrats that a protracted primary featuring nearly 20 candidates could be counterproductive while Trump builds a massive cash advantage that can be used against the ultimate nominee.

“This is a (ton) of money,” Bakari Sellers, a top surrogate for California Sen. Kamala Harris, tweeted in reference to Trump’s fundraising. Although activists who contribute small amounts online have been widely celebrated, he said that won’t stand up to the Trump operation. “Small dollar donations alone ain’t going to save our democracy.”

Sanders posted the largest quarterly sum for a Democratic White House hopeful this year. The haul ensures the Vermont senator will be an enduring presence in the primary even as Warren and Biden have surpassed him in some polls. Much of the money he raised came from his army of small-dollar online contributors.

___

Missouri executes killer despite concern about painful death

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for killing a man in 1996 in a string of violence that included several other crimes, despite concerns that the prisoner’s rare medical condition would cause a gruesome lethal injection.

Russell Bucklew was put to death at the state prison in Bonne Terre. It was Missouri’s first execution since January 2017.

Bucklew had twice previously been within hours of execution, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court grant last-minute reprieves over concerns that he might suffer during the execution process. He had a condition called cavernous hemangioma and had blood-filled tumors in his head, neck and throat. He breathed with help from a tracheostomy tube.

His attorneys said in a clemency request to Gov. Mike Parson that a throat tumour could burst, causing Bucklew to choke and die painfully and in violation of the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

Bucklew looked around and twitched his feet beneath the sheet as he lay on the gurney just before the lethal injection. He suddenly took a deep breath and all movement stopped. He showed no outward signs of distress.

___

Federal judge upholds affirmative action at Harvard

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday cleared Harvard University of discriminating against Asian American applicants in a ruling that was seen as a major victory for supporters of affirmative action in college admissions across the U.S.

In a closely watched lawsuit that had raised fears about the future of affirmative action, a group called Students for Fair Admissions accused the Ivy League college of deliberately — and illegally — holding down the number of Asian Americans accepted in order to preserve a certain racial balance on campus.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, however, ruled that Harvard’s admissions process is “not perfect” but passes constitutional muster. She said there is “no evidence of any racial animus whatsoever” and no evidence that any admission decision was “negatively affected by Asian American identity.”

“Race conscious admissions will always penalize to some extent the groups that are not being advantaged by the process,” Burroughs wrote, “but this is justified by the compelling interest in diversity and all the benefits that flow from a diverse college population.”

Her ruling, which came after a three-week trial a year ago, brings temporary relief to other universities that consider race as a way to ensure campus diversity. But it also sets the stage for a prolonged battle that some experts predict will go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

___

Johnson & Johnson settles with 2 Ohio counties over opioids

Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday announced it had reached an agreement worth more than $20 million with two Ohio counties, becoming the latest company to settle a lawsuit to get out of the first federal trial over the nation’s opioids crisis.

The deal with Cuyahoga and Summit counties comes a little more than a month after an Oklahoma judge ordered the New Brunswick, New Jersey-based health care conglomerate to pay $572 million over its marketing of opioids in that state.

It was announced less than three weeks before the scheduled start of the first federal trial over the opioid crisis. Four other opioid makers also have reached settlements in recent months and will not be defendants in the trial, scheduled for federal court in Cleveland. Like most of the others, Johnson & Johnson still faces some 2,000 other lawsuits related to the nation’s opioids epidemic.

The Ohio agreement calls for the company and its Janssen Pharmaceutical subsidiary to pay $10 million without admitting liability. The deal also includes provisions for the company to reimburse the counties up to $5 million for legal expenses and contribute another $5.4 million to non-profit organizations that deal with the opioid crisis in northeastern Ohio.

“The settlement allows the company to avoid the resource demands and uncertainty of a trial as it continues to seek meaningful progress in addressing the nation’s opioid crisis,” Johnson & Johnson said in a statement. “The company recognizes the opioid crisis is a complex public health challenge and is working collaboratively to help communities and people in need.”

___

Restoring forests for the sake of climate, habitats

MADRE DE DIOS, Peru (AP) — Destruction of the forests can be swift. Regrowth is much, much slower.

But around the world, people are putting shovels to ground to help it happen.

In a corner of the Peruvian Amazon, where illegal gold mining has scarred forests and poisoned ground, scientists work to change wasteland back to wilderness. More than 3,000 miles to the north, on former coal mining land across Appalachia, workers rip out old trees that never put down deep roots and make the soil more suitable to regrow native tree species.

In Brazil, a nursery owner grows different kinds of seedlings to help reconnect forests along the country’s Atlantic coast, benefiting endangered species like the golden lion tamarin.

They labour amid spectacular recent losses — the Amazon jungle and the Congo basin ablaze, smoke from Indonesian rainforests wafting over Malaysia and Singapore, fires set mostly to make way for cattle pastures and farm fields. Between 2014 and 2018, a new report says, an area the size of the United Kingdom was stripped of forest each year.

___

Soto lifts Nats to 4-3 comeback wild-card win over Brewers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington’s Juan Soto delivered a bases-loaded single against Josh Hader that scored three runs with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, and the Nationals rallied to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 in the NL wild-card game Tuesday night.

After Hader loaded the bases by hitting one batter, walking another and allowing a bloop single, Soto took a 96 mph fastball to right, and the ball skipped under outfielder Trent Grisham’s glove for an error. That allowed the go-ahead run to cross the plate and Soto to get to second, then turn for third.

Eventually, Soto, a 20-year-old outfielder, was caught in a rundown to end the inning, but that didn’t matter: He had turned a 3-1 deficit into a lead, and so he clapped his hands, then pounded his chest and high-fived third base coach Bob Henley, shouting “Let’s go!”

“The inning was an ugly inning,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “Crazy things happen.”

Grisham’s take?

The Associated Press