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Los Angeles mayor to mediate in talks to settle first teachers' strike in 30 years

Wednesday's announcement of the breakthrough capped the third day of a strike that has disrupted classes for nearly 500,000 students as teachers pressed their demands for higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff. Representatives of the two sides - the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers Los Angeles - have not met since union leaders rejected the LAUSD's latest contract offer last Friday night, setting the stage for district teachers' first strike in 30 years. Union officials said the mayor, who has voiced support for the teachers' cause, had met with the two parties on Wednesday.

Ex-Michigan governor says he will resign university post in Nassar fallout

Nassar, who was a team doctor for USA Gymnastics, was sentenced to up to 300 years in prison in two different trials last winter after more than 350 women testified that he abused them. Engler said in a letter published by the university the chair of MSU's board of trustees advised him that a majority of the panel had asked that he step down, and that he would abide by their request and resign as of Jan. 23. Board chair Dianne Byrum had called a meeting on Thursday to discuss firing Engler, a three-time former governor of Michigan, after he told the Detroit News that some of Nassar's victims were "enjoying" being in the spotlight.

Los Angeles teachers strike 'bigger than a paycheck'

Instead Castillo, when asked what drove her to walk out of her classroom at Harbor City Elementary School to join the city's first teacher strike in 30 years, talked about the colleague whose job was eliminated while she was on maternity leave, and the classes that keep growing in size. "My husband and I are both Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teachers and we're both dedicated to this," said Castillo, who wore a plastic poncho and red cap in a rare California rainstorm, a laminated sign around her neck listing the recent cutbacks at Harbor City Elementary. As some 30,000 teachers spent a third day on picket lines at schools across the nation's second-largest school district on Wednesday, a union leader expressed optimism that stalled negotiations could be restarted with help from Mayor Eric Garcetti.

U.S. watchdog faults handling of government lease for Trump D.C. hotel

Amid intensifying scrutiny of possible conflicts of interest involving Trump's businesses, the inspector general of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) found fault with the agency's review of the lease of the Old Post Office Pavilion. The Romanesque Revival landmark on Pennsylvania Avenue, not far from the White House, was leased by the Trump Organization in 2013 for 60 years and now houses a luxury Trump hotel often frequented by government officials.

'Grifters, weaklings, felons': Christie on the Trump White House

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sees the Trump White House as a rogues' gallery of flawed people sidetracking the work of the U.S. president, according to excerpts of his forthcoming memoir posted on the news site Axios on Wednesday. President Donald Trump employs a "revolving door of deeply flawed individuals — amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons — who were hustled into jobs they were never suited for, sometimes seemingly without so much as a background check via Google or Wikipedia," Christie, who was a senior adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign, says in his memoir, "Let Me Finish," which is due to be released on Jan. 29. Christie had sought the Republican presidential nomination himself in 2016 before becoming a diligent supporter and surrogate for Trump, but his work with the administration has been limited and he recently withdrew his name from consideration for Trump's chief of staff.

U.S. shutdown taking toll on FDA, USDA inspection roles: experts

Workers in public health laboratories are reporting disruptions in the analysis of DNA from food samples involved in foodborne outbreaks, and have raised concerns about a USDA program that tests agricultural commodities for unsafe levels of pesticides, they said. The shutdown is "putting our nation's food supply at risk," Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat, said at a briefing of the House Congressional Food Safety Caucus on Wednesday. Only about a third of the FDA's regular inspections are being carried out, she said.

Tennessee ex-teacher who took off with student sentenced to 20 years

Tad Cummins, 52, was sentenced in federal court in Nashville by U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger, according to emails from a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee. Cummins had faced a sentence of up to life in prison for transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activities and up to 20 years in prison for obstructing investigations, court documents said. Federal prosecutors had requested a sentence of 30 years, according to a court document.

As shutdown lingers, Pelosi pushes Trump to delay State of Union speech

With the partial U.S. government shutdown now in its 26th day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump to reschedule his State of the Union address - a move that could deny him the opportunity to use the pageantry of the speech to attack Democrats in their own chamber over the impasse. With Trump's address set for Jan. 29, Pelosi wrote him a letter citing security concerns because the Secret Service, which is required to provide security for the address, has not received funding during the dispute. The standoff was triggered by Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, which Democrats oppose.

U.S. watchdog faults handling of government lease for Trump D.C. hotel

Amid intensifying scrutiny of possible conflicts of interest involving Trump's businesses, the inspector general of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) found fault with the agency's review of the lease of the Old Post Office Pavilion. The Romanesque Revival landmark on Pennsylvania Avenue, not far from the White House, was leased by the Trump Organization in 2013 for 60 years and now houses a luxury Trump hotel often frequented by government officials.

Ex-Michigan governor to resign university post in Nassar fallout: media

Nassar, who was a team doctor for USA Gymnastics, was sentenced to up to 300 years in prison in two different trials last winter after more than 350 women testified about abuse at his hands. The university's board of trustees had been expected to discuss whether to fire Engler, a three-time former governor of Michigan, at a meeting on Thursday, the Detroit News reported. The board's president, Dianne Byrum, called Thursday's meeting after Engler told the Detroit News on Friday that some of Nassar's victims were "enjoying" being in the spotlight.

Schumer: Trump's State of Union speech should be delayed if government shut

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech, set for Jan. 29, should be delayed if the government is still shut. "If it continues to be closed on the 29th, I think it's a good idea to delay it until the government is open," Schumer told reporters. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by David Alexander)

Airbus spends $300 million on new Alabama plant for A220 jet

Airbus SE expanded its industrial presence in the United States on Wednesday, starting construction on a new assembly plant for the Canadian developed A220 jetliner, 18 months after agreeing to buy the plane in the midst of a U.S.-Ottawa trade dispute. The European planemaker said it would invest $300 million and create 400 jobs in the plant, to be built in the port of Mobile alongside an existing assembly line for its best-selling A320 passenger jet, which already employs 700 people. Alabama and the city of Mobile would provide a total of some $26 million in state and municipal incentives to support the development, officials said.

Celebrity's 'Chefs for Feds' kitchen feeds unpaid U.S. government workers

Maurice Wilson joined dozens of fellow federal workers in Washington on Wednesday at the opening of celebrity chef Jose Andres' emergency kitchen, grateful for a free lunch of egg sandwiches, quinoa bowls and tomato soup as the partial government shutdown dragged on. "Within another two weeks, I’m going to have to figure out a way to survive,” said Wilson, 59, who is working without pay at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency of the District of Columbia. The "Chefs for Feds" kitchen, launched by restaurateur Andres' non-profit World Central Kitchen, is the latest example of how food providers across the country are stepping up efforts to feed unpaid federal workers.

Migrants depart from El Salvador as new U.S.-bound caravan forms

The group, organized through social media, is following in the wake of a larger caravan that departed from Honduras this week. On Wednesday morning, between 900 and 1,000 Hondurans gathered at the country's border with Guatemala, waiting to cross en-route to the United States, local police chief Jorge Rodriguez told Reuters. Several hundred Honduran migrants already entered Guatemala on Tuesday, according to activists traveling with them.

Court rejects U.S. cities' appeal over Pentagon gun check flaws

By a 3-0 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it lacked jurisdiction to compel the Department of Defense to fix what New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco called a "broken" system, or to supervise improvements to the Pentagon's "partial and inconsistent reporting." The cities sued seven weeks after former Air Force member Devin Kelley killed 26 people on Nov. 5, 2017 at a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church before killing himself. Kelley, 26, was convicted in a 2012 court martial of assaulting his wife and stepson and should not have been allowed to possess weapons. The cities said the Pentagon had failed to report some 15,000 current or former personnel who could not own guns because of court martial convictions or dishonorable discharges, and that this undermined their ability to fight violent crime.

On Prohibition milestone's anniversary, U.S. top court hears booze case

A case testing the constitutionality of state regulations on the sale of alcohol enacted after the Prohibition era brewed before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, with the justices appearing sympathetic toward a challenge to Tennessee's residency requirements for retailers. The one-hour argument came on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution's 18th Amendment, which imposed a nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages and paved the way for a Prohibition era that ran from 1920 to 1933. A majority of the justices signaled support for challengers who said Tennessee's regulations were unlawfully aimed at protecting established business interests by preventing competition.

Trump cancels planned Davos trip as shutdown drags on

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled a planned visit later this month to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, signaling he was prepared for the political showdown over the partial federal government shutdown to stretch into late January. Trump and congressional Democrats are in a battle over funding for the government and Trump's long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. "Because of the Democrats intransigence on Border Security and the great importance of Safety for our Nation, I am respectfully cancelling my very important trip to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum," Trump wrote on Twitter.

Head of striking Los Angeles teachers' union aims to resume talks 'soon'

The head of the Los Angeles teachers union said he hoped to resume talks "very soon" as a strike that has interrupted classes for some 492,000 students in the second-largest U.S. public school system ticked into a third day on Wednesday. More than 30,000 educators have walked off the job demanding higher pay, smaller classes and more staff, requests that the county's independent school district has described as unaffordable. The two sides have not held formal talks since the strike began on Monday.

U.S. shutdown turns Washington into ghost town during quiet travel season

Phones have stopped ringing at tour companies. In the nation's capital, where more than 20 million tourists typically visit each year, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history has threatened businesses that depend on the patronage of government workers and the attraction of federal monuments and museums to bring in tourists. "It definitely feels like the phone should be ringing more," said Adam Plescia, owner of Custom Tours of DC.

Disgraced U.S. ex-cardinal could be defrocked soon: Vatican sources

Disgraced former U.S. cardinal Theodore McCarrick is almost certain to be defrocked in the next few weeks over allegations against him, including sexual abuse of minors, two Vatican sources said. Last July, McCarrick became the first Catholic prelate in nearly 100 years to lose the title of cardinal. The allegations against him date back to decades ago when he was still rising to the top of the U.S. Church hierarchy.

Atlanta airport says ready for Super Bowl crush despite shutdown

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), already the world's busiest, expects to see an additional 125,000 passengers ahead of the Feb. 3 game and is bringing in reinforcements to meet the additional numbers, said Elise Durham, the airport's director of communications. More than 1,800 volunteers will help passengers navigate the airport while additional customer engagement agents will be on hand to assist people entering and exiting the city, she added. Durham said the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the federal agency responsible for airport security screening, had committed additional resources for the Super Bowl, before the government shutdown.

Los Angeles teachers strike for second day as mayor seeks to restart talks

Some 30,000 Los Angeles teachers on strike for higher pay, smaller classes and more staff walked picket lines in the rain for a second day on Tuesday as Mayor Eric Garcetti embraced their cause while trying to nudge the two sides back to the bargaining table. The walkout, with teachers garbed mostly in red braving two days of rainy weather to stage mass rallies downtown, has shattered 30 years of labor peace by Los Angeles teachers but has not completely idled schools.

Hundreds in new U.S.-bound migrant caravan cross into Guatemala

Several hundred Honduran migrants in a new U.S.-bound caravan crossed into Guatemala on Tuesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump seized on news of the advancing group to try to build support for a wall along his country's border with Mexico. About 360 Hondurans presented documents to pass legally through the Agua Caliente border crossing separating the two Central American nations. An additional 350 Hondurans crossed into Guatemalan territory, but were being detained by migration officials checking their documents, according to pro-migrant activists traveling with them.

Family behind Purdue Pharma pushed opioid marketing, Massachusetts says

Members of the wealthy Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma LP pushed it to boost sales of OxyContin and other opioids even as questions emerged about the extent its painkillers were being abused, Massachusetts' attorney general alleged on Tuesday. Attorney General Maura Healey filed an amended lawsuit against Purdue and current and former officers and directors of the drugmaker that drew on years of internal records to reveal new details about the family's involvement in the company. The lawsuit, originally filed in June in Suffolk County Superior Court, was the first by a state to try to hold members of the Sackler family, who own privately-held Purdue, personally responsible for contributing to the U.S. opioid epidemic.

Family behind Purdue Pharma pushed opioid marketing, Massachusetts says

Members of the wealthy Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma LP pushed it to boost sales of OxyContin and other opioids even as questions emerged about the extent its painkillers were being abused, Massachusetts' attorney general alleged on Tuesday. Attorney General Maura Healey filed an amended lawsuit against Purdue and current and former officers and directors of the drugmaker that drew on years of internal records to reveal new details about the family's involvement in the company. The lawsuit, originally filed in June in Suffolk County Superior Court, was the first by a state to try to hold members of the Sackler family, who own privately-held Purdue, personally responsible for contributing to the U.S. opioid epidemic.

Los Angeles teachers' strike extends to second day with no talks on horizon

Some 30,000 striking teachers demanding higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff from the nation's second-largest school district walked picket lines for a second day on Tuesday, with no new talks on the horizon between stalemated union and district officials. The strike, shattering 30 years of labor peace by Los Angeles teachers, has not completely idled instruction in the sprawling district encompassing some 1,200 schools. The district has enlisted administrators and substitute teachers to keep classes open on a limited basis through the strike, though LAUSD reported only about a third of its 492,000 students showed up on the first day of the walkout.

Factbox: Impact on U.S. government widens on 25th day of shutdown

The longest U.S. government shutdown in history reached its 25th day on Tuesday, with most of the 800,000 employees who have been furloughed or are working without pay having missed their first paychecks last week. The White House and congressional Democrats remain divided over Republican President Donald Trump's demand for money for a border wall. The shutdown, which began on Dec. 22, is the 19th since the mid-1970s, although most have been brief.

Los Angeles parents support striking teachers despite chaos at home

Elizabeth Rietz says it hasn't been easy taking care of her daughter at home during the first two days of a strike by Los Angeles teachers, while she and her husband try to start their own clothing line. Like many parents Rietz, whose daughter is a 4th grader at Ivanhoe Elementary School in the middle-class Silver Lake neighborhood, has taken on the extra burden in solidarity with 30,000 teachers demanding higher pay, smaller class sizes, more staff and less testing. Los Angeles Unified School District officials have kept its 900 schools open during the two-day strike using administrators and substitute teachers, mindful that working-class parents cannot afford child care.

Shutdown bites economy, U.S. Coast Guard as Washington talks stall

The shutdown dragged into its 25th day on Tuesday with neither Trump nor Democratic congressional leaders showing signs of bending on the topic that triggered it - funding for the wall Trump promised to build along the border with Mexico. Trump is insisting Congress shell out $5.7 billion for wall funding as about 800,000 federal workers go unpaid during the partial shutdown. Trump invited a bipartisan group of members of Congress for lunch to discuss the standoff but the White House said Democrats turned down the invitation.

U.S.-bound Honduran migrant caravan grows as Trump argues for wall

A new U.S.-bound caravan of Honduran migrants grew to nearly 1,000 people as it neared the Guatemalan border on Tuesday, a Honduran official said, while U.S. President Donald Trump seized on news of the group to try to drum up support for a border wall. Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister Nelly Jerez told reporters that there were between 800 and 1,000 people traveling together and headed toward the Agua Caliente border crossing into Guatemala. Central American migrant caravans heading toward the United States have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with Trump using the groups to seek backing for his plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. Justice Dept broadens restrictions on internet gambling

The U.S. Justice Department will effectively prohibit online gambling and lottery businesses, experts said on Tuesday, after it decided to broaden its interpretation of rules governing interstate sports gambling to other forms of betting. The department's Office of Legal Counsel said in a November 2018 opinion, not released until late Monday, that a 1961 law called the Wire Act does in fact apply to interstate online poker and casino games, not just sports bets. The Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Tuesday it would delay implementation of the new restrictions for 90 days to allow businesses to adjust their operations.

Government shutdown breaks record, with no end in sight

A partial U.S. government shutdown over President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border entered its 22nd day on Saturday, making it the longest shuttering of federal agencies in U.S. history, with no end in sight. Trump, holed up in the White House with Congress adjourned for the weekend, warned of a much lengthier impasse and blamed the Democrats. "They’re the ones that are holding it up," he said during a telephone interview with Fox News on Saturday night.

President Trump can't stop U.S. coal plants from retiring

In total, more than 23,400 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired generation were shut in 2017-2018 versus 14,900 MW in 2009-2012, according to data from Reuters and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Trump has tried to roll back rules on climate change and the environment adopted during the Obama administration to fulfill pledges to voters in states like West Virginia and Wyoming. One megawatt can power about 1,000 U.S. homes.