AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT
Fresh questions for Sessions _ and he'll answer in public
WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Jeff Sessions, facing fresh questions about his Russian contacts during the election campaign and his role in the firing of James Comey, will be interrogated in a public hearing by former Senate colleagues on Tuesday.
The appearance before the Senate intelligence committee comes one week after former FBI Director Comey cryptically told lawmakers the bureau had expected Sessions to recuse himself weeks before he did from an investigation into contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russia during the 2016 election.
Sessions, a close campaign adviser to Donald Trump and the first senator to endorse him, stepped aside from the investigation in early March after acknowledging he had spoken twice in the months before the election with the Russian ambassador to the United States. He said under oath at his January confirmation hearing that he had not met with Russians during the campaign.
Since then, lawmakers have raised questions about a possible third meeting at a Washington hotel, though the Justice Department has said that did not happen.
Sessions on Saturday said he would appear before the intelligence committee, which has been doing its own investigation into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. There had been some question as to whether the hearing would be open to the public, but the Justice Department said Monday he requested it be so because he "believes it is important for the American people to hear the truth directly from him." The committee shortly after said the hearing would be open.
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Trump travel ban dealt another blow, faces high court next
SEATTLE (AP) - Another U.S. appeals court stomped on President Donald Trump's revised travel ban Monday, saying the administration violated federal immigration law and failed to provide a valid reason for keeping people from six mostly Muslim nations from coming to the country.
The decision by a unanimous three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals helps keep the travel ban blocked and deals Trump a second big legal defeat on the policy in less than three weeks.
The administration said it would seek further review at the U.S. Supreme Court, as it has already done with a ruling against the travel ban by another appeals court last month. The high court is likely to consider the cases in tandem.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions insisted the new decision would harm national security - an argument the judges rejected.
"The executive branch is entrusted with the responsibility to keep the country safe under Article II of the Constitution," Sessions said in a written statement. "Unfortunately, this injunction prevents the president from fully carrying out his Article II duties and has a chilling effect on security operations overall."
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10 Things to Know for Tuesday
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Tuesday:
1. ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS APPEARS BEFORE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
Sessions will likely face questions about his Russian contacts during the election campaign, and his role in James Comey's firing.
1. TENS OF THOUSANDS PROTEST AGAINST CORRUPTION IN RUSSIA
More than a thousand were arrested Monday, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was sentenced to 30 days in jail hours later.
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Trump cheerleaders turn on special counsel Mueller
WASHINGTON (AP) - High-profile supporters of President Donald Trump are turning on special counsel Robert Mueller, the man charged with investigating Russian interference in the U.S. election and possible collusion with Trump's campaign.
As Mueller builds his legal team, Trump's allies have begun raising questions about the former FBI director's impartiality, suggesting he cannot be trusted to lead the probe. The comments come amid increasing frustration at the White House and among Trump supporters that the investigation will overshadow the president's agenda for months to come - a prospect that has Democrats salivating.
"Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair. Look who he is hiring," tweeted former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an informal Trump adviser.
Just weeks ago, Gingrich had heaped praise on Mueller, hailing him as a "superb choice" for special counsel whose reputation was "impeccable for honesty and integrity."
But after the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey last week, Gingrich said he'd changed his mind.
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Thousands rally across Russia in new challenge to Kremlin
MOSCOW (AP) - Tens of thousands of protesters held anti-corruption rallies across Russia on Monday in a new show of defiance by an opposition that the Kremlin had once dismissed as ineffectual and marginalized.
More than a thousand were arrested - including opposition leader and protest organizer Alexei Navalny, who was seized outside his Moscow residence while heading to the rally in the city center and sentenced to 30 days in jail several hours later.
The Moscow protest was the most prominent in a string of more than 100 rallies in cities and towns stretching through all 11 of Russia's time zones - from the Pacific to the European enclave of Kaliningrad - with many denouncing President Vladimir Putin.
Thousands of angry demonstrators thronged to Tverskaya Street, a main avenue in the capital, chanting "Down with the czar" and singing the Russian national anthem.
The protests coincided with Russia Day, a national holiday that this year brought out historical re-enactors, some of them dressed in medieval costumes. At one point, the Moscow demonstration featured an unlikely scene of about 5,000 protesters rallying next to an enclosure with geese, a medieval catapult and bearded men in homemade tunics and carrying wooden shields.
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North Korea expecting visit from former NBAer Dennis Rodman
BEIJING (AP) - North Korea is expecting another visit by former NBA bad boy Dennis Rodman on Tuesday in what would be his first to the country since President Donald Trump took office.
Rodman has received the red-carpet treatment on each of his past visits but has been roundly criticized for doing so during a time of high tensions between the U.S. and North Korea over its weapons programs.
In 2014, he arranged a basketball game with other former NBA players and North Koreans and regaled leader Kim Jong Un with a rendition of "Happy Birthday." On the same trip, he suggested an American missionary was at fault for his own imprisonment in North Korea, remarks for which he later apologized.
A foreign ministry official who spoke to the AP in Pyongyang confirmed Rodman was expected to arrive Tuesday but could not provide details. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the ministry had not issued a formal statement. CNN reported Rodman was in Beijing, his expected departure point for a flight to the North Korean capital.
Any visit by a high-profile American is a political minefield and Rodman has been criticized for failing to use his influence on leaders who are otherwise isolated diplomatically from the rest of the world.
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Cosby jury sent home after deliberating 4 hours
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - The jury at Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial deliberated without reaching a verdict Monday over whether he drugged and molested a woman more than a decade ago in a case that already has helped demolish the 79-year-old comedian's good-guy image.
A conviction could send Cosby to prison for the rest of his life, completing the stunning late-life downfall of one of the most beloved stars in show business.
Jurors got the case around 5:30 p.m. and met for about four hours before knocking off late Monday night, with deliberations set to resume in the morning.
The fast-moving case went to the jury of seven men and five women on Day 6 of the trial after closing arguments gave differing portrayals of what happened between Cosby and Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia estate.
Defense attorney Brian McMonagle told the jury that Cosby and Constand were lovers who had enjoyed secret "romantic interludes," insisting the 2004 encounter was consensual. McMonagle said that while the comedian had been unfaithful to his wife, he didn't commit a crime.
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Anger management but no jail in Gianforte body-slam saga
HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Congressman-elect Greg Gianforte avoided jail time after pleading guilty Monday to an election-eve assault on a reporter that turned the race for Montana's lone U.S. House seat into a full-fledged political spectacle.
The Republican tech entrepreneur instead will serve 40 hours of community service and attend 20 hours of anger management classes for throwing Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs to the ground at Gianforte's campaign headquarters in Bozeman on May 24.
For all the national attention the audiotaped assault brought to the race in its waning hours, the judge, prosecutors and the new congressman's attorneys maintained Monday he was treated like any other first-time misdemeanor offender.
There was one notable exception, however: Gallatin County Justice of the Peace Rick West said he would allow prosecutors and the defense several weeks to argue over his order that the rookie politician be fingerprinted, photographed and booked like other defendants.
West ordered Gianforte to pay $385 in fines and court costs in addition to his 180-day suspended jail sentence, meaning he will be under court supervision until late November and will be able to petition to have the conviction removed from his record.
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Interior head suggests reducing Bears Ears National Monument
WASHINGTON (AP) - Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Monday recommended that the new Bears Ears National Monument in Utah be reduced in size and said Congress should step in to designate how selected areas of the 1.3 million-acre site are managed.
Zinke made the recommendation as part of an interim report to President Donald Trump on the scenic swath of southern Utah with red rock plateaus, cliffs and canyons on land considered sacred to tribes.
Trump signed an executive order in April directing Zinke to review the designation of dozens of national monuments on federal lands, calling the protection efforts "a massive federal land grab" by previous administrations.
Trump and other Republicans have singled out former President Barack Obama's designation of Bears Ears, calling it an unnecessary layer of federal control that hurts local economies by closing the area to new energy development. They also say it isn't the best way to protect the land.
Zinke toured Bears Ears last month on foot, horseback and helicopter and met with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and other state leaders. Herbert and other Utah Republicans oppose Obama's December designation of the Bears Ears monument.
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Warriors' Green will be on the court for this Finals Game 5
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A year ago for Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Golden State general manager Bob Myers sat alongside suspended forward Draymond Green next-door to Oracle Arena in a suite at the Oakland Athletics game.
Myers told Green: Let's not do this again.
On Monday night, the Warriors will try again to close out their second championship in three years with the fiery Green on the court to start Game 5 this time. They are up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series - again. LeBron James and Cleveland, looking down and out only days ago in an 0-3 hole, now have some momentum after winning Game 4 and they will try to stave off elimination once more.
"We won three games in a row in the Finals and 15 in a row overall in the playoffs, you just think it's going to happen," Green said Sunday. "And then all of a sudden you get slapped in the face. It's like, 'Whoa.' You remember what can be, what can happen."
Golden State would rather forget that monumental collapse last year, when Green's absence for Game 5 because of flagrant foul point accumulation helped swing the series. He took a swipe at James' groin in Game 4 after the Cavaliers superstar stepped over him.
