AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
Iran women attend FIFA soccer game for first time in decades
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - They had to sit well apart from the men, and the stadium was practically empty, but thousands of Iranian women in merry jester hats and face paint blew horns and cheered Thursday at the first FIFA soccer match they were allowed to freely attend in decades.
In what many considered a victory in a decades-long fight by women in Iran to attend sporting events, they wrapped themselves in the country's vibrant red, green and white colors and watched with excitement as Iran thrashed Cambodia 14-0 in a 2022 World Cup qualifier at Tehran's Azadi, or Freedom, Stadium.
"We are so happy that finally we got the chance to go to the stadium. It's an extraordinary feeling," said Zahra Pashaei, a 29-year-old nurse who has only known soccer games from television. "At least for me, 22 or 23 years of longing and regret lies behind this."
As one woman shouted from a passing minibus before the match: "We are here finally!"
So far, Iran's hard-line Islamic theocracy is not willing to go as far some women would like. Authorities announced they will allow women to attend only international soccer matches.
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Florida men tied to Giuliani arrested on campaign charges
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Florida businessmen tied to President Donald Trump's lawyer and the Ukraine investigation were charged Thursday with federal campaign finance violations. The charges relate to a $325,000 donation to a group supporting Trump's reelection.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Rudy Giuliani, were arrested Wednesday trying to board an international flight with one-way tickets at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, according to Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. No destination was disclosed.
Parnas and Fruman were arrested on a four-count indictment that includes charges of conspiracy, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and falsification of records. The men had key roles in Giuliani's efforts to launch a Ukrainian corruption investigation against Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The indictments mark the first criminal charges related to the Ukraine controversy. While they do not suggest wrongdoing by the president, they are likely to add fuel to the House impeachment inquiry, raising additional questions about whether those close to Trump and Giuliani sought to use their influence to affect U.S. foreign policy decisions.
Trump has dismissed the impeachment inquiry as baseless and politically motivated.
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Turkey presses Syrian assault as thousands flee the fighting
AKCAKALE, Turkey (AP) - Turkey pressed its air and ground assault against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria on Thursday for a second day, pounding the region with airstrikes and an artillery bombardment that raised columns of black smoke in a border town and sent panicked civilians scrambling to get out.
Amid the fierce fighting, residents fled with their belongings loaded into cars, pickup trucks and motorcycle rickshaws, while others escaped on foot. The U.N. refugee agency said tens of thousands were on the move, and aid agencies warned that nearly a half-million people near the border were at risk.
It was a wrenchingly familiar scene for many who had fled the militants of the Islamic State group only a few years ago.
There were casualties on both sides: Turkish officials in two border provinces said mortar fire from Syria killed at least six civilians, including a 9-month-old boy and three girls under 15. On the Syrian side, seven civilians and eight Kurdish fighters have been killed since the operation began, according to activists in Syria.
The Turkish offensive was launched three days after U.S. President Donald Trump opened the way by pulling American troops from their positions near the border alongside their Kurdish allies.
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US to hand over to Iraq IS members evacuated from Syria
BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. will hand over to Iraqi authorities nearly 50 Islamic State members who were transferred from Syria in recent days, two Iraqi intelligence officials said Thursday.
The officials said the IS members were expected to be handed over by Friday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The move comes after Turkey began a military offensive into northern Syria against U.S.-backed Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces who are holding more than 10,000 IS members. Those include some 2,000 foreigners, including about 800 Europeans.
It wasn't immediately clear why the 50 IS fighters would be transferred to Iraq, but the group's self-declared caliphate once sprawled across a large part of both Iraq and Syria. Since the IS was defeated earlier this year, Iraq has held IS captives in secure prisons and tried IS militants in court, including some French foreign nationals.
Before the Turkish assault began, there were already fears that Kurdish-led forces could divert forces from guarding IS prisoners or might not be able to secure them at a time when IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made a point of calling on followers to free captured fighters. There are over two dozen detention facilities in northeastern Syria.
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California utility faces gripes over deliberate blackouts
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Even as the winds gusted dangerously just as forecasters predicted, California's biggest utility faced gripes and second-guessing Thursday for shutting off electricity to millions of people to prevent its equipment from sparking wildfires.
Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized Pacific Gas & Electric, and ordinary customers complained about the inconveniences caused by the unprecedented blackouts that began Wednesday, with many wondering: Has PG&E gone too far in its attempt to ward off another deadly fire season? And could the utility have been more targeted in deciding whose electricity was turned off and when?
PG&E, though, suggested it was already seeing the wisdom of its decision borne out. Gusts topping 75 mph (121 kph) raked the San Francisco Bay Area, and relatively small fires broke out around the state amid a bout of dry, windy weather.
"We have had some preliminary reports of damage to our lines. So we'll have to repair those damages before we can safely energize the line," spokesman Paul Doherty said.
Because of the dangerous weather in the forecast, PG&E cut power Wednesday to an estimated 2 million people in an area that spanned the San Francisco Bay Area, the wine country north of San Francisco, the agricultural Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills. By Thursday, the number of people in the dark was down to about 1.5 million.
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Defiant protesters in Ecuador parade captive police officers
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Anti-government protesters paraded captive police officers on a stage Thursday, defying Ecuadorian authorities who are seeking dialogue with opponents, particularly indigenous groups, after more than a week of deadly unrest.
The brazen act occurred in the capital of Quito at a cultural center where indigenous protesters are based as they press demands, including an end to fuel price hikes.
The government's removal of fuel subsidies last week plunged Ecuador into upheaval, triggering protests, looting, vandalism, clashes with security forces, the blocking of highways and the suspension of parts of its vital oil industry.
An indigenous leader and four other people have died in the violence, according to the public defender's office. The president's office said two people died.
At the cultural center, one captive officer was forced to drape a national flag around his shoulders and don a hat of a style worn by some indigenous people. The lone female officer in the group was seen wiping away tears.
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2 Nobel literature prize winners expose Europe's fault lines
STOCKHOLM (AP) - Nobel Prizes for literature were awarded Thursday to two writers enmeshed in Europe's social and political fault lines: a liberal Pole who has irked her country's conservative government and an Austrian accused by many liberals of being an apologist for Serbian war crimes.
The rare double announcement - with the 2018 prize going to Poland's Olga Tokarczuk and the 2019 award to Austria's Peter Handke - came after no literature prize was awarded last year due to sex abuse allegations that rocked the Swedish Academy, which awards the literature prize.
Yet if prize organizers hoped to get through this year's awards without controversy, they will likely be disappointed.
The Swedish Academy called Handke "one of the most influential writers in Europe" and praised his work for exploring "the periphery and the specificity of human experience."
But the 76-year-old author has long faced criticism for his vigorous defense of the Serbs during the 1990s wars that devastated the Balkans as Yugoslavia disintegrated. He spoke at the 2006 funeral of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who at the time was facing war crimes charges, calling him "a rather tragic man."
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Apple has a lot to lose if it crosses China's party bosses
HONG KONG (AP) - Under pressure from China, Apple has removed a smartphone app that enabled Hong Kong protesters to track police. It has cut off access in mainland China to a news app that extensively covered the anti-government demonstrations. And it has made it harder to find an emoji representing the Taiwanese national flag.
The tech company's latest acts of capitulation to China's ruling Communist Party have alienated some Hong Kong consumers and angered democracy activists around the world. But the truth is, few U.S. companies have as much of their business tethered to China as Apple.
"That's the price you pay if you want to be in the market," said Matt Schrader, a China analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund. "You have to abide by demands to censor information: anything that paints the party or its history, or its top leaders, in an unflattering light, or disagrees with their preferred portrayal of China as a country."
Apple relies on Chinese factories to assemble iPhones, which generate most of the company's profits. Apple has also cultivated a loyal following in the country. China has emerged as the company's third-largest market behind the U.S. and Europe, accounting for 20% of its sales during its past fiscal year.
President Donald Trump's trade war with China has already complicated things for Apple, raising fears that Beijing will impose measures to hurt Apple in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese products and sanctions against Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications equipment giant.
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UK, Irish leaders see 'pathway' to elusive Brexit deal
LONDON (AP) - The leaders of Britain and Ireland said Thursday they had spotted a "pathway" to an elusive Brexit deal, keeping hopes of a breakthrough alive just three weeks before the U.K.'s deadline to leave the European Union.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Irish leader Leo Varadkar provided a status update on the issue after a private lunch meeting in northwest England that lasted for several hours.
"Both continue to believe that a deal is in everybody's interest," they said in a joint statement. "They agreed that they could see a pathway to a possible deal."
Britain is due to leave the 28-nation bloc on Oct. 31, and attempts to find a deal have foundered over plans for the border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.'s Northern Ireland.
The currently all-but-invisible border underpins both the regional economy and Northern Ireland's peace process.
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Cuba Gooding Jr. faces new charge in NYC sex misconduct case
NEW YORK (AP) - Cuba Gooding Jr. learned on Thursday that he's facing a new undisclosed charge in his sexual misconduct case, a development that came as jury selection was set to begin for his trial.
At a court hearing in Manhattan, Assistant District Attorney Jenna Long revealed the charge is contained in a sealed indictment against the Oscar-winning "Jerry Maguire" star. She told a judge that the indictment covers previous allegations as well as a "previously uncharged incident."
Gooding, 51, now must be arraigned on the new indictment next week before a trial can begin. He and his lawyers left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
The actor has been accused of placing his hand on a 29-year-old woman's breast and squeezing it without her consent at Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge near Times Square on June 9. The woman told police she believed Gooding was intoxicated.
Gooding was arrested four days later after turning himself in to police. He pleaded not guilty to forcible touching and sexual abuse charges and was released on his own recognizance.
