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Kennedy mystique could factor into Massachusetts Senate race

BOSTON (AP) — When Edward M. Kennedy was running for the U.S. Senate for the first time in 1962, his Democratic primary opponent turned to him during a debate and said if his last name was Moore — Kennedy’s middle name — his “candidacy would be a joke.”

Fortunately for Kennedy, he shared a last name with his brother John F. Kennedy — then the U.S. president — and went on to win the Senate seat he held for the next 47 years.

More than half a century later another Kennedy — U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III — is testing the staying power of his family’s political mystique in a state that’s nearly synonymous with the Kennedy clan as he prepares to launch a Democratic primary challenge against incumbent U.S. Sen. Edward Markey.

Kennedy is expected to formally announce his decision Saturday morning in Boston. If successful, he would be the fourth member of the Kennedy family to win a seat in the Senate.

It’s a battle that assesses not only the post-Camelot strength of the Kennedys but also whether the 38-year-old congressman can join the ranks of a changing Democratic party that has rewarded younger politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts for successfully challenging incumbent Democratic members of the U.S. House.

Last year, underscoring how Kennedy’s star has been rising, he was tapped to deliver the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.

While his name is undoubtedly an asset — he’s the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and son of former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy II — many of those watching the budding contest say Kennedy, who has served in Congress since 2013, still needs to make a convincing case to voters.

“Of course people in Massachusetts know the Kennedy name, but it’s largely historical at this point,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist in Massachusetts. Marsh noted that Edward Kennedy died a decade ago.

Marsh credited the younger Kennedy for working hard to win his House seat — shaking hands, traveling throughout the district and listening to voters — and said that work appears to be paying off as he weighed a run for Senate, noting two recent polls that showed Kennedy ahead of the 73-year-old Markey.

Marsh also said the single biggest goal Democrats have in the coming election — defeating Trump and undoing his legacy — may play to Kennedy’s perceived strengths if he can bring a sense of urgency to the race. That message may be a tougher sell from Markey, she said.

“This election cycle is so different. The test isn’t what your name is and where you come from but what you can do to stop Donald Trump,” Marsh said. “For Markey, the good news is that he has a long record over 40 years, and the bad news is that he has a long record over 40 years and he’s still working on some of those issues.”

Others see a tighter contest between the two, despite the Kennedy legacy.

Erin O’Brien, an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, cautions against counting Markey out, pointing to what she said is a generational split among the electorate. Older voters may have an emotional connection to the Kennedy clan that younger voters don’t share.

“Younger Democrats care more about the environment and climate change,” she said. “At least initially they’re rallying around Ed Markey.”

O’Brien said that Kennedy — unlike U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Pressley, who also defeated Democratic incumbents in Massachusetts — has yet to come up with a strong argument about why voters should dump Markey.

“He is trying to capitalize on squad energy when he has no authenticity to be a member of the squad,” she said, referring to a group of four Democratic members of the U.S. House including Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez.

By challenging Markey directly rather than waiting for an open seat, Kennedy also avoids having to run in a crowded primary, which could include other members of the state’s congressional delegation.

Unlike Kennedy, Markey didn’t inherit a famous political name. His father drove a milk truck and he was the first in his family to get a college degree.

He had been trying to shore up his political support before Kennedy’s announcement. Markey has been quick to point to the endorsement of his campaign by fellow Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren, who taught Kennedy at Harvard Law School, endorsed Markey in February. She’s spoken highly of both candidates.

Equally important for Markey as he tries to woo younger and more liberal Democrats may be his endorsement by Ocasio-Cortez, who teamed up with Markey early on to push the “Green New Deal” climate change initiative.

It’s unusual for an incumbent senator to have a serious primary challenge, and most recently, it’s happened far more to Republicans.

Markey already faces two lesser-known candidates: Shannon Liss-Riordan, a workers’ rights lawyer, and Steve Pemberton, a former senior executive at Walgreens.

Given that there are few strong ideological divides between the two candidates, voters may end up choosing sides quickly, said John Cluverius, associate director of the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion.

“This primary isn’t about substance or even style, really. It’s shaping up to be a ‘Seinfeld’ primary: In most ways, it’s about nothing, but it’s going to deeply divide people strongly attached to one side or the other,” he said.

Google plans to invest 3 billion euros in Europe

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Google’s top boss said Friday the tech giant is planning to invest 3 billion euros to expand its data centers across Europe in the next two years.

Chief executive Sundar Pichai says it will bring the company’s total investments in the continent’s internet infrastructure to 15 billion euros since 2007.

Pichai met with Finnish Prime Minister Antii Rinne on Friday in Helsinki and said the investments will support 13,000 full-time jobs in the European Union every year.

He also noted that Google is investing heavily in renewable energy, an initiative announced ahead of global rallies calling for action to guard against climate change. Employees at Google and other big U.S. tech companies such as Amazon and Microsoft planned to participate in the “global climate strike” Friday.

The Google project will include the construction of more than 1 billion euros in new energy infrastructure in the EU, among them a new offshore wind project in Belgium, five solar energy projects in Denmark, and two wind energy projects in each Sweden and Finland. There are also projects in the U.S. and South America.

Pichai said that once these projects come online, Google’s carbon-free energy portfolio will produce more electricity than places like Washington D.C. or entire countries like Lithuania or Uruguay use each year.

Iraq’s stability on the line as US, Iran tensions soar

BAGHDAD (AP) — As the United States and Israel escalate their push to contain Iranian influence in the Middle East, countries in Tehran’s orbit are feeling the heat.

Pro-Iranian militias across Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are being targeted, both with economic sanctions and precision airstrikes hitting their bases and infrastructure. This is putting the governments that host them in the crosshairs of an escalating confrontation and raising the prospect of open conflict.

Nowhere is that being felt more than in Iraq. It is wedged between Saudi Arabia to the south and Iran to the east and hosts thousands of U.S. troops on its soil. At the same time, powerful Shiite paramilitary forces linked to Iran pose a growing challenge to the authority of the central government.

As the pressure mounts, divisions within Iraq’s pro-Iranian factions have burst into the open, threatening to collapse a fragile government coalition and end a rare reprieve from the violence that has plagued the country for years.

“Regional challenges facing Iraq will make it even more difficult for Adel Abdel-Mahdi to bring the (militias) under control,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, referring to Iraq’s prime minister.

The divisions among Iran’s Shiite allies in Iraq have been spurred by a spate of airstrikes blamed on Israel that have hit weapons depots and bases belonging to the Iran-backed militias, known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF.

There have been at least nine strikes since July both inside Iraq and across the border in Syria, sparking outrage among PMF leaders. They blame Israel and by extension its U.S. ally, which maintains more than 5,000 troops in Iraq.

Israel has not confirmed its involvement in the attacks, and U.S. officials have said Israel was behind at least one strike inside Iraq.

The attacks have fueled calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal by hard-line anti-American groups in the country that have strong ties to Iran.

“The Americans are hostage here ... If war breaks out, they will all be hostages of the resistance factions,” said Abu Alaa al-Walae, secretary general of the Sayyed al-Shuhada Brigades, one of the prominent militia factions with strong ties to Iran. He spoke in a televised interview this week.

Such bellicose talk is deeply embarrassing for Iraq’s prime minister, who has struggled to balance his country’s alliance with both the U.S., which was invited back by the Baghdad government to help fight the Islamic State group, and Iran, which is Iraq’s most important trading partner. As the crisis over Tehran’s unraveling nuclear deal with world powers has escalated over the past months, that position is becoming increasingly untenable.

This week, there was a sense of foreboding following an attack by drones and cruise missiles on key Saudi Arabian oil installations. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed it was in response to the yearslong Saudi-led war there, but U.S. and Saudi officials said it was launched from the north. Iran and Iraq lie to the north of Saudi Arabia, while Yemen is in the south.

Iraq’s government was quick to deny that the attack originated from Iraqi territory, a claim that was later said to have been confirmed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a phone call with Abdel-Mahdi.

The episode, however, demonstrated the Iraqi government’s tentative hold over the militias and raised questions about what they might do if the U.S. starts bombing Iran, for instance. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the architect of its regional entrenchment, met this week with Iraqi Shiite politicians and PMF leaders in Baghdad, apparently to discuss scenarios.

A directive issued by Iraq’s prime minister in July integrating and placing Iranian-backed militias under the command of the state’s security apparatus forces by July 31 has so far not been implemented.

Instead, PMF billboards reading “Death to America” have popped up between lanes of traffic in central Baghdad, following allegations of Israeli involvement in the series of airstrikes. One poster bears a picture of what looks like the ghost of the Statue of Liberty wearing a black hood. “America is the reason for insecurity and instability in the region,” it reads.

Meanwhile, divisions within the PMF’s leadership have surfaced in public, which is likely to exacerbate tensions. The head of the PMF, Faleh al-Fayyadh, has twice clashed with his deputy, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in the past month, including when he walked back a statement by al-Muhandis in which he held the U.S. responsible for the spate of attacks on PMF bases.

The PMF is headed by al-Fayyadh but practically run by al-Muhandis, a military commander who has been designated a terrorist by Washington. Both men are firmly in Iran’s camp. Soleimani met with both men this week, a senior politician told The Associated Press.

Earlier this month, a document attributed to al-Muhandis was circulated in which he ordered the formation of a PMF air force directorate and the appointment of Salah Mahdi Hantous, who’s been on a U.S. sanctions list since 2012, as its chief. In a statement published on its website, the PMF later denied the report.

The document nonetheless angered Shiite politicians including the powerful cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who tweeted that a PMF air force would spell the end of the Iraqi government and turn Iraq into a “rogue state.” Days later, he flew to Iran and held a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whose 2014 religious decree calling for volunteer fighters against the Islamic State gave rise to the PMF, views these militias’ growing political and economic influence with suspicion and has pushed for Abdel-Mahdi’s directive to be implemented.

In surprisingly blunt comments, al-Sistani’s representative in Beirut, Hamid al-Khafaf, said progress in Iraq hinges on bringing all arms under state control.

Political analyst Hisham al-Hashemi said the current power struggle among Iraq’s Shiite militias is between PMF factions that support the state, and those whose loyalty rests more with Iran.

He questioned the government’s ability to impose its authority on PMF factions.

Referring to the removal earlier this year of blast walls that snaked through the city to protect from suicide car bombs, he said: “The Iraqi government, which removed the concrete blocks from around Baghdad, is unable to remove the signs of ‘death to Israel and America.’”

___

Karam reported from Beirut.

US military to present Trump with several options on Iran

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will present a broad range of military options to President Donald Trump on Friday as he considers how to respond to what administration officials say was an unprecedented Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry.

In a White House meeting, the Republican president will be presented with a list of potential airstrike targets inside Iran, among other possible responses, and he will be warned that military action against the Islamic Republic could escalate into war, according to U.S. officials familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The national security meeting will likely be the first opportunity for a decision on how the U.S. should respond to the attack on a key Middle East ally. Any decision may depend on what kind of evidence the U.S. and Saudi investigators are able to provide proving that the cruise missile and drone strike was launched by Iran, as a number of officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have asserted.

Iran has denied involvement and warned the U.S. that any attack will spark an “all-out war” with immediate retaliation from Tehran.

Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence have condemned the attack on Saudi oil facilities as “an act of war.” Pence said Trump will “review the facts, and he’ll make a decision about next steps. But the American people can be confident that the United States of America is going to defend our interest in the region, and we’re going to stand with our allies.”

The U.S. response could involve military, political and economic actions, and the military options could range from no action at all to airstrikes or less visible moves such as cyberattacks. One likely move would be for the U.S. to provide additional military support to help Saudi Arabia defend itself from attacks from the north, since most of its defenses have focused on threats from Houthis in Yemen to the south.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized to a small number of journalists traveling with him Monday that the question of whether the U.S. responds is a “political judgment” and not for the military.

“It is my job to provide military options to the president should he decide to respond with military force,” Dunford said.

Trump will want “a full range of options,” he said. “In the Middle East, of course, we have military forces there and we do a lot of planning and we have a lot of options.”

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said in an interview Thursday that if Trump “chooses an option that involves a significant military strike on Iran that, given the current climate between the U.S. and Iran, there is a possibility that it could escalate into a medium to large-scale war, I believe the president should come to Congress.”

Slotkin, a former top Middle East policy adviser for the Pentagon, said she hopes Trump considers a broad range of options, including the most basic choice, which would be to place more forces and defensive military equipment in and around Saudi Arabia to help increase security.

A forensic team from U.S. Central Command is pouring over evidence from cruise missile and drone debris, but the Pentagon said the assessment is not finished. Officials are trying to determine if they can get navigational information from the debris that could provide hard evidence that the strikes came from Iran.

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Thursday that the U.S. has a high level of confidence that officials will be able to accurately determine exactly who launched the attacks last weekend.

U.S. officials were unwilling to predict what kind of response Trump will choose. In June, after Iran shot down an American surveillance drone, Trump initially endorsed a retaliatory military strike then abruptly called it off because he said it would have killed dozens of Iranians. The decision underscores the president’s long-held reluctance to embroil the country in another war in the Middle East.

Instead, Trump opted to have U.S. military cyber forces carry out a strike against military computer systems used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to control rocket and missile launchers, according to U.S. officials.

The Pentagon said the U.S. military is working with Saudi Arabia to find ways to provide more protection for the northern part of the country.

Air Force Col. Pat Ryder, spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters Wednesday that U.S. Central Command is talking with the Saudis about ways to mitigate future attacks. He would not speculate on what types of support could be provided.

Other U.S. officials have said adding Patriot missile batteries and enhanced radar systems could be options, but no decisions have been made.

climate change cartoons 2019

California looks for ways to preserve environmental clout

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — In eliminating California’s authority to set its own emission standards for cars and trucks, the Trump administration would take away leverage the state needs to convince the world’s largest automakers to make more environmentally friendly vehicles.

But one California lawmaker is already working on a way to preserve at least some of the state’s environmental muscle: rebates for electric cars.

California residents who buy or lease a zero-emission vehicle can get up to $7,000 from the state. A bill by Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting would mean people could only get that money if they buy a car from a company that has agreed to follow California’s emission standards.

The proposal comes as the Trump administration on Wednesday announced it was revoking California’s authority to set its own auto emission standards — authority it has had for decades under a waiver from the federal Clean Air Act.

California has 35 million registered vehicles, giving it outsized influence with the auto industry. That heft was on display in July, when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom announced four automakers — Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen — agreed to follow California’s standards, bypassing the Trump administration, which had been working on new rules.

California officials have been negotiating with other automakers to follow suit, but those talks stalled Wednesday when Trump announced, via Twitter, that he was revoking California’s authority to set its own emission standards.

But Ting’s proposal, first reported by CalMatters, shows California has other ways it could entice automakers to follow its environmental lead. David Vogel, a professor emeritus of business ethics at the Haas School of Business of the University of California-Berkeley, noted California could accomplish its goals through various tax changes, which the federal government could not stop.

“Even if the Trump administration would win on this, California could use taxes to accomplish much of the same goals,” Vogel said. “The federal government would have less of an ability to challenge, because states can pretty much tax who they want.”

The California Legislature adjourned for the year last week. But before they left, they amended Assembly Bill 40 to include the new language so they could debate it when they return to work in January.

State officials could use the tactic to aid negotiations with Toyota and General Motors, two manufacturers that make electric cars but have so far not agreed to California’s emission standards. It’s unclear how effective the law would be as California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project has a waiting list.

A Toyota spokesman declined to comment.

Ting, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment. But he is scheduled to speak with reporters about the issue on Thursday.

Asked about the proposal on Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would make an announcement by Friday, but he did not elaborate.

In a tweet, Trump said his action to revoke California’s authority to set its own emission standards would result in less expensive, safer cars. He also predicted Americans would purchase more new cars, which would result in cleaner air as older models are taken off the roads.

“Many more cars will be produced under the new and uniform standard, meaning significantly more JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! Automakers should seize this opportunity because without this alternative to California, you will be out of business,” Trump tweeted.

U.S. automakers contend that without year-over-year increases in fuel efficiency that align with global market realities their vehicles could be less competitive, potentially resulting in job losses. However, most of the industry favors increases in standards that are less than the Obama-era requirements, saying their consumers are gravitating to SUVs and trucks rather than buying more efficient cars.

Top California officials and environmental groups pledged legal action on Wednesday to stop the rollback, potentially tying up the issue for years in federal courts. The U.S. transportation sector is the nation’s biggest single source of greenhouse gasses.

Trump’s claim that his proposal would result in a cleaner environment is contrary to his own administration’s estimate that by freezing economy standards, U.S. fuel consumption would increase by about 500,000 barrels per day, a 2% to 3% increase. Environmental groups predict even more fuel consumed, resulting in higher pollution.

The administration argues that lower-cost vehicles would allow more people to buy new ones that are safer, cutting roadway deaths by 12,700 lives through the 2029 model year. But The Associated Press reported last year that internal EPA emails show senior career officials privately questioned the administration’s calculations, saying the proposed freeze would actually modestly increase highway fatalities, by about 17 deaths annually.

Israelis contend with prospect of third poll days after vote

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israelis were contending with the prospect of a third election on Thursday, two days after an unprecedented repeat election left the country’s two main political parties deadlocked, with neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rivals holding a clear path to a coalition government.

While weeks of negotiations to form a coalition government lay ahead, conditions set by the parties could hobble the task within the allotted time, prompting a never-before held third election.

With nearly all votes counted Thursday, the centrist Blue and White party stood at 33 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud stood at 31 seats.

“Everyone will need to get off their high horse to prevent elections for the third time,” Likud lawmaker David Bitan told Israeli Army Radio. “Blue and White’s desire for a unity government under their terms will not work.”

Neither party can form a government without the support of the election’s apparent kingmaker, Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beitenu party. His insistence on a secular government would force out Netanyahu’s traditional allies, the country’s two ultra-Orthodox parties and another nationalist-religious party.

Benny Gantz’s Blue and White has pledged not to sit in the same government as Netanyahu, as the long-serving Israeli leader is expected to face indictment in a slew of corruption scandals. The fiercely loyal Likud is unlikely to oust Netanyahu.

After meeting with his traditional allies Wednesday, Netanyahu on Thursday called on Gantz to join him in a unity government.

“Throughout the campaign I called for a right-wing government, but unfortunately the election results show that’s not possible,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “Therefore there is no choice but to form a broad unity government.”

“We cannot and there is no reason to go to third elections,” he added.

Both parties were meeting with allies in the vote’s aftermath and the focus will soon shift to President Reuven Rivlin, who will consult with all parties in the coming days and select the candidate who he believes has the best chance of putting together a stable coalition.

The candidate has 42 days to do so and, if he fails, the president can give another candidate 28 days to form a coalition. If that fails, the president can assign another parliament member the task of building a government, or he can call new elections, something that has never happened. Rivlin has promised he will do everything in his power to prevent a third election.

The deadlock follows the second Israeli elections this year, which were called because Netanyahu failed to cobble together a coalition following the April vote. Israelis endured a caustic campaign that saw a combative Netanyahu fighting for his political survival amid the recommendation by Israel’s attorney general to indict him on charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud pending a hearing in early October.

Netanyahu had sought an outright majority with his allies in hopes of passing legislation to give him immunity from the expected indictment, which would otherwise increase the pressure on Netanyahu to step aside.

The vote was largely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who this summer surpassed Israel’s founding prime minister to become the country’s longest-serving leader. During the campaign Netanyahu cast himself as a seasoned statesman who was the only candidate able to steer Israel through a sea of challenges.

His challenger, Blue and White’s Benny Gantz, a former army chief, tried to paint Netanyahu as divisive and scandal-plagued, offering himself as a calming influence and honest alternative.

Despite the scorched earth campaign that saw Netanyahu thrash institutions like the media, the police and the electoral committee — and which was tinged with anti-Arab rhetoric — the longtime leader failed to secure the resounding victory he needed to guarantee his political survival and perhaps save himself from a formal indictment.