AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT
O'Rourke says he's 'reluctantly' dropping presidential bid
WASHINGTON (AP) - Beto O'Rourke, the former Texas congressman, announced Friday that he was ending his Democratic presidential campaign, which failed to recapture the enthusiasm, interest and fundraising prowess of his 2018 Senate race.
Addressing supporters in Iowa, O'Rourke said he made the decision "reluctantly" and vowed to stay active in the fight to defeat President Donald Trump. "I will be part of this and so will you," he said.
O'Rourke was urged to run for president by many Democrats, including supporters of former President Barack Obama, who were energized by his narrow Senate loss last year in Texas, a reliably Republican state. He raised a record $80 million from donors across the country, visited every county in Texas and used social media and livestreaming video to engage directly with voters. He ultimately lost to incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by 3 percentage points.
But O'Rourke, 47, struggled to replicate that model in the presidential primary, and both his polling and his fundraising dwindled significantly in recent months.
"We have to clearly see, at this point, that we did not have the means to pursue this campaign successfully and that my service will not be as a candidate, nor as a nominee of this party for the presidency," O'Rourke said.
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AP-NORC poll: More support than oppose impeachment probe
WASHINGTON (AP) - More Americans approve of the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump than disapprove of it, though only about a third say the inquiry should be a top priority for Congress, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That solid, if measured, support serves as a warning sign for Trump's White House and reelection campaign, which have insisted that pursuing impeachment will end up being a vulnerability for Democrats heading into 2020.
But the findings present some red flags for Democrats, too: More people say House members are motivated mainly by politics rather than by duty as they investigate the Republican president's dealings with Ukraine and whether he abused his office or compromised national security when he tried to pressure the country to dig up dirt on a political rival.
And assessments of the president's performance generally have remained remarkably stable even as the investigation has unfolded at a rapid clip.
Overall, 47% said they support the impeachment inquiry, while 38% disapprove.
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Warren vows no middle class tax hike for $20T health plan
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Warren on Friday proposed $20 trillion in federal spending over the next decade to provide health care to every American without raising taxes on the middle class, a politically risky effort that pits the goal of universal coverage against skepticism of government-run health care.
The details of Warren's "Medicare for All" plan aim to quell criticism that the Massachusetts Democrat and presidential candidate has been vague about how she would pay for her sweeping proposal. Her refusal to say until now whether she would impose new taxes on the middle class, as fellow progressive White House hopeful Bernie Sanders has said he would, had become untenable and made her a target in recent presidential debates.
However, her detailed proposal was quickly attacked by her moderate rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden, whose campaign said it amounts to "mathematical gymnastics." Some independent experts also questioned whether her numbers were realistic.
In a 20-page online post, Warren said a cornerstone of her plan would require employers to transfer to the government almost all the $8.8 trillion she estimates they would otherwise spend on private insurance for employees.
"We can generate almost half of what we need to cover Medicare for All just by asking employers to pay slightly less than what they are projected to pay today, and through existing taxes," she wrote.
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California firefighters struggle with big wildfire
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Firefighters struggled Friday to contain a big Southern California wildfire amid shifting winds, forcing authorities to expand evacuations as forecasters extended fire weather warnings into the weekend.
The blaze dubbed the Maria Fire erupted late Thursday northwest of Los Angeles during what had been expected to be the tail end of a siege of Santa Ana winds that fanned destructively across the region, but a tug-of-war developed between those offshore gusts and the return of some onshore flow from the ocean.
"It has been an uphill battle ever since," Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen told a midday news conference. "We are finding that the winds are starting to change and that presents its own challenges all by itself."
Wind shifts expose new areas of fuel to the fire, bringing "a pretty significant firefight," he said.
The fire burned down the sides of a mountain bordered by agricultural land, the small city of Santa Paula and other communities as it grew to about 14 square miles (36 square kilometers). Airplanes tried to flank it with long drops of retardant while helicopters dropped loads of water.
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Strike-ending deal will shape Chicago schools for years
CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago teachers and more than 300,000 students affected by an 11-day strike returned to classrooms Friday amid a tentative agreement that ended the walkout and is expected to shape education in the nation's third-largest city for the next five years.
The outcome came at a cost, though. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said "nobody wins," noting the hardships that students and their families endured during the walkout.
The outlined agreement shows both sides secured key victories and fell short on other priorities.
Experts said those details also will inform teachers unions and school districts as a national wave of activism by educators is expected to continue.
The union's 25,000 members still must vote on the tentative agreement accepted by their 700 elected delegates late Wednesday night. Union officials haven't discussed a timeline for that process yet.
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Halloween terror: 4 killed at Northern California party
ORINDA, Calif. (AP) - Four people were killed and at least four injured at a Halloween party shooting at a Northern California home rented by a woman who falsely claimed she wanted the Airbnb so her asthmatic family members could escape wildfire smoke, officials and a person with knowledge of the transaction said Friday.
Gunshots were reported at about 10:45 p.m. Thursday at the large home, surrounded by trees and up a steep hill in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Orinda, where more than 100 people had gathered, police said. The home had been rented on Airbnb by a woman who told the owner her dozen family members needed a place with fresh air, the person with knowledge of the transaction told The Associated Press.
A one-night rental on Halloween was suspicious enough that before agreeing to rent the home, the owner reminded the renter that no parties were allowed, said the person, who was not authorized to publicly disclose the information and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
The renter, whose name and hometown have not been disclosed, told the homeowner that her family members had asthma and needed a place with fresh air. A giant wildfire burning in Sonoma County about 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of Orinda earlier in the week forced tens of thousands to evacuate and fouled the air over a wide area.
Orinda Police Chief David Cook said at a news conference there is no ongoing threat to the public.
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Trump may face fight over planned move from NYC to Florida
NEW YORK (AP) - Donald Trump a Florida man? Not so fast.
Despite a stinging "good riddance" tweet from New York's governor, the president's home state may not let him go to Florida without a fight.
Trump's plan to shift his permanent residence to Palm Beach will likely be heavily scrutinized by New York state officials, who are notorious for auditing wealthy residents seeking to flee to lower-tax states to make sure such moves are real and not just on paper. Those cases can go on for years.
"New York says just because you fill out a piece of paper, that doesn't make you a Floridian," said Mark Klein, a tax lawyer who has handled hundreds of tax-residency audits. "People have this misunderstanding that if you go to Florida and fill out an affidavit, you register to vote and you get a driver's license, that is all it takes."
Even though it appears Trump has a strong case - he's only spent a few nights at his Trump Tower penthouse overlooking Fifth Avenue since he became president - tax experts say it's not a matter of if he will be audited but when.
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Trade body: China can hit US with sanctions worth $3.6 bln
GENEVA (AP) - The World Trade Organization said Friday that China can impose tariffs on up to $3.6 billion worth of U.S. goods over the American government's failure to abide by anti-dumping rules with regard to Chinese products.
The move hands China its first such payout at the WTO at a time when it is engaged in a big dispute with the United States. The two sides have recently imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of goods, but did not do so through the WTO, which helps solve trade disputes.
Friday's announcement from a WTO arbitrator centers on a case with origins long before the current trade standoff: a Chinese complaint filed nearly six years ago seeking over $7 billion in retaliation.
The decision means China can impose higher tariffs against the United States than China is currently allowed under WTO rules, and will be given leeway as to the U.S. products and sectors it would like to target.
Parts of a WTO ruling in May 2017 went in favor of China in its case against some 40 U.S. anti-dumping rulings, involving trade limits on Chinese products that the United States says are or were sold below market value.
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One big step: Google buys Fitbit for $2.1 billion
Google, the company that helped make it fun to just sit around surfing the web, is jumping into the fitness-tracker business with both feet, buying Fitbit for about $2.1 billion.
The deal could put Google in direct competition with Apple and Samsung in the highly competitive market for smartwatches and other wearable electronics. But it also raises questions about privacy and Google's dominance in the tech industry.
The company's announcement Friday came with a promise that it won't sell ads using the intimate health data that Fitbit devices collect.
Fitbit is a pioneer in wearable fitness technology, making a range of devices that have become pop-culture accessories, from basic trackers that count how many steps you take each day to smartwatches that display messages and notifications from phones.
They can track activities such as running, cycling and swimming and record heart rates and sleep patterns. Fitbit typically asks for date of birth, gender, height and weight to help with such things as estimating calories burned. Some people use Fitbit's app to record what they eat and how much water they drink. Women can track their periods.
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Reports: US launches review of China-owned video app TikTok
Multiple published reports say that the U.S. government has launched a national-security review of the China-owned video app TikTok, popular with millions of U.S. teens and young adults.
The reports Friday from Reuters,The New York Times and others said that the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews acquisitions by foreign firms, has opened an inquiry into TikTok owner ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of a predecessor app, Musical.ly.
Several senators have recently noted concerns about censorship and data collection on TikTok.
The Treasury Department, which houses CFIUS, said it does not comment on specific cases because the agency by law cannot disclose to the public information filed to it.
TikTok said it cannot comment on ongoing regulatory processes. But it said it "has made clear that we have no higher priority than earning the trust of users and regulators in the U.S. Part of that effort includes working with Congress and we are committed to doing so."
