AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT
Failure on health bill also hurts prospects for tax overhaul
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans' failure to repeal Barack Obama's health care law deals a serious blow to another big part of President Donald Trump's agenda: tax reform.
Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., say they will soon turn their attention to the first major re-write of the tax code in more than 30 years. But they will have to do it without the momentum of victory on health care.
Just as important, the loss on health care will deprive Republicans of $1 trillion in tax cuts.
The GOP health plan would have repealed nearly $1 trillion in taxes enacted under Obama's Affordable Care Act. The bill coupled the tax cuts with spending cuts for Medicaid, so it wouldn't add to the budget deficit.
Without the spending cuts, it will be much harder for Republicans to cut taxes without adding to the federal government's red ink.
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Many governors welcome demise of GOP health care bill
CHERRY HILL, N.J. (AP) - Governors of both parties had warned Congress for weeks that the Republican health care bill threatened to saddle their states with big costs and potentially leave millions of people without coverage, especially because of the cutbacks planned to Medicaid.
The bill's withdrawal on Friday left in place the status quo under the Affordable Care Act. That was welcomed by several governors in the states that opted to expand Medicaid under former President Barack Obama's law.
The Medicaid expansion has provided coverage for 11 million people in the 31 states that accepted it.
"I am pleased today's vote has been held as this bill would drastically affect the Commonwealth's ability to ensure essential care for thousands of people," Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican in a Democratic-leaning state, said in a statement after the bill was pulled from consideration. "This version does not reflect the needs of states and does not contain many critical aspects of health care reform that our administration has communicated to the federal government."
Jerry Brown, California's Democratic governor, was fiery when he spoke in Washington, D.C., earlier in the week, calling the Republican measure "a dangerous bill." His state estimated annual costs of $6 billion starting in 2020, when the Medicaid changes would have hit.
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Analysis: The outsider dealmaker faltering in White House
WASHINGTON (AP) - Donald Trump campaigned as an outsider - celebrating his lack of political experience by selling himself as a dealmaker willing to buck Republican orthodoxy and his own party's leadership. He alone would reshape Washington.
He's tried governing the same way. His actions are a blitz. He rarely consults old Washington hands. And he hangs the threat of retribution over anyone who challenges him. And now he and his party have been dealt a stinging defeat on a signature campaign promise, a defeat that further weakens a president whose approval rating has hovered under 40 percent and humiliates Republicans who have pledged for seven long years to undo President Barack Obama's health care law.
Trump's haphazard approach on Friday to the health care bill - first demanding a House vote despite an uncertain result, then suddenly suggesting he'd support a future bipartisan solution - underscored Trump's political identity: He is an independent, seemingly uninterested in leading a political party or unifying the federal government. The failed vote - despite Republican control of the White House and both houses of Congress - highlighted severe cracks within the GOP that Trump's presidency won't easily mend.
Trump now wants to turn to tax reform, an ambitious, complicated plan at the center of his agenda, and he does so wounded by the health care collapse as well as the uncertain legal status of his travel ban and an ongoing federal investigation into possible contacts and coordination between his campaign aides and Russian officials.
The loss exposed a limit to Trump's go-it-alone style, one forged over decades in the business world and seemingly proven effective by his improbable win. The novice campaigner used the sheer force of his celebrity and personality to draw loyal supporters and frequently bend the Republican Party to his whims. He defied the party leadership repeatedly, skipped a debate, refused to sign a loyalty pledge and turned the scathing power of his Twitter account on fellow Republicans even after he clinched the nomination and the party pined for unity.
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Vegas Strip reopens after gunman surrender, fatal shooting
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A man riding on a double decker bus on the Las Vegas Strip pulled a gun and started shooting, killing one person and wounding another before barricading himself inside in a standoff that lasted hours before he finally surrendered.
The standoff began about 11 a.m. PDT Saturday on the bus when it was stopped on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Cosmopolitan hotel-casino.
"He was on the bus. He was shooting people on the bus. He was just contained to that location. He never exited the bus," Clark County Assistant Sheriff Tom Roberts said.
Two people were taken to the hospital after the shooting, University Medical Center spokeswoman Danita Cohen said. One died, and the other was in fair condition.
For hours, crisis negotiators, robots and armored vehicles surrounded the bus with authorities uncertain if there were any more victims inside. Meanwhile, officers swept into the casinos to warn tourists to bunker down until further notice, leaving these normally bustling pedestrian areas and a road notorious for taxi-to-taxi traffic completely empty. The Strip was shut down for blocks in both directions.
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Vehicle attacks: Easy success for IS, a challenge for police
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) - In the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State group became infamous for its spectacular variations on explosive vehicles. For attacks in the West, it has suggested a simpler method, encouraging followers to use regular vehicles to kill people on foot.
Experts say attacks in which cars or trucks are driven into popular pedestrian areas present a unique challenge for law enforcement officials as they are nearly impossible to predict and easy to pull off. They require no advanced training, no specialized materials. Almost anyone can own or rent a vehicle.
Some feel that these low-tech, lone wolf operations can have the same psychological impact as larger, more sensational attacks.
Four people were killed and dozens wounded Wednesday in London with this tactic - the worst attack on British soil since the transport network bombings on July 7, 2005.
Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, says what makes such attacks so frightening is the relatively low barriers to entry. The method was embraced by al-Qaida before being revitalized by IS.
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Verdict turns page in Penn State child molestation scandal
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Penn State is trying to turn the corner on the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal, but the former FBI director who authored a scathing report on it more than four years ago says more changes are needed, even after the conviction of the university's former president.
A jury's guilty verdict against Graham Spanier on Friday to a misdemeanor count of child endangerment made him the last of the three former high-ranking administrators to be held criminally culpable for how they handled a 2001 complaint about Sandusky sexually abusing a boy in a team shower.
Penn State issued a statement after the verdict, saying the justice system had produced "closure" in the criminal cases that began with Sandusky's arrest in 2011. The school said Spanier's conviction and guilty pleas by two other former top administrators indicated a "profound failure of leadership."
But former FBI director Louis Freeh said Penn State needs "new leadership and vision" and called on Penn State President Eric Barron to resign.
"Pennsylvania taxpayers, the entire (Penn State) community and responsible political leaders should be 'appalled' by Barron and his entire 'leadership' team," said Freeh.
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Reynolds and Fisher honored with humor, music and dance
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Laughter, music and the tapping of dancing shoes reverberated throughout a public memorial to Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, which loved ones say is just how the actresses would have wanted it.
There were few tears throughout the two-hour ceremony Saturday, which honored the mother-daughter duo's impact on film, culture and those who knew them with a mix of photos, videos, and anecdotes that kept the audience laughing and applauding.
Todd Fisher led the ceremony, which he said was intended to bring fans an intimate view of his mother and sister. He called it a show, saying his mother hated to attend memorials.
Hundreds of fans - some wearing "Star Wars" attire - attended the public ceremony that featured numerous family photos and Reynolds' final interview reflecting on her life and philanthropy, and one of Fisher's high school friends sharing some her off-color emails to him.
A troupe from Reynolds' dance studio performed an homage to "Singin' in the Rain," the film that catapulted Reynolds to stardom at age 19. After an opening film that was an ode to Fisher's "Star Wars" role, a working R2D2 unit came on stage, mournfully beeped and parked next to a director's chair with Fisher's name on it. Across the stage, near a piano, sat an empty chair with Reynolds' name on it.
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Poker tables keep decreasing on Nevada casino floors
LAS VEGAS (AP) - When the Monte Carlo casino closes its eight-table poker room in about a month as part of a $450 million overhaul, the Las Vegas Strip will be down nearly a quarter of the tables it had a decade ago.
Casinos constantly adjust their floors to meet customer demand. And unlike the boom years when they competed for card fans after everyman Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker's main event in 2003, poker's appeal in Sin City has been weakening this decade.
Some casinos have made their poker rooms smaller. Others have eliminated them entirely.
"Casinos added more tables in response to popularity, and once it became less popular, they took away the tables," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The peak of the poker room was 2007.
In 2002, before fans of Texas Hold 'Em began to rush to the Strip, casinos had 144 tables and made $30 million from the game. Five years later, casinos had more than tripled their poker revenue to $97 million with 405 tables. Last year, the game netted them only $78 million after the number of tables decreased to 320.
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'SNL' star doesn't back away from Boston racism comment
BOSTON (AP) - "Saturday Night Live" star Michael Che (CHAY) is not backing away from comments he made about Boston, when he called it the "most racist city" he has ever visited.
The Boston Globe (http://bit.ly/2n34WDF) reports that the co-anchor of "Weekend Update" told a Boston University crowd Thursday about how he received angry messages on social media after he made the comment on "SNL" the night before the Super Bowl.
He responded to one woman by urging her to "talk to your closest black friend and ask them to explain it to you." He says the woman responded by answering, "Touche."
Che, who often jokes about President Donald Trump on the NBC show, told the audience he never apologizes for language or controversial statements because he's "just trying to be more presidential."
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Oregon beats Kansas 74-60 to punch Final Four ticket
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Tyler Dorsey poured in 27 points, Dillon Brooks added 17 and plucky Oregon ended Kansas' romp through the NCAA Tournament with a 74-60 victory Saturday night that gave the Ducks their first Final Four trip in nearly 80 years.
Dylan Ennis added 12 points for the Ducks (33-5), who took the lead with 16 minutes left in the first half and never trailed again, giving coach Dana Altman his first trip to the national semifinals.
They'll face the winner of Sunday's game between North Carolina and Kentucky in Glendale, Arizona.
Player of the year front-runner Frank Mason III had 21 points in his final game for the Jayhawks (31-5), who had rolled to the Elite Eight by an average margin of 30 points. But their dream season ended with a thud just 40 minutes from campus on a night where very little went right.
Star freshman Josh Jackson was mired in early foul trouble. Sharpshooting guard Devonte Graham never got on track. And the swagger that the Big 12 champs showed in humiliating Purdue in the Sweet 16 quickly became a distant memory on a night that belonged to the Pac-12 champions.
