COLU @ CONCEPTS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders are steering the Senate toward a crucial vote on their bill eviscerating much of President Barack Obama’s health care law, buoyed by the near theatrical return to the Capitol of the ailing Sen. John McCain. No stranger to heroic episodes, the Navy pilot who persevered through five years of captivity during the Vietnam War announced through his office that he would be back in Washington for the critical roll call on beginning debate on the legislation. The 80-year-old has been at home in Arizona since he revealed last week that he’s undergoing treatment for brain cancer, but a one-sentence statement said he “looks forward” to returning for work on health care and other legislation. President Donald Trump is urging Republican senators to “do the right thing” on an Obamacare overhaul effort. In a televised address Monday, Trump sought to push his party on the eve of a key vote. (July 24) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., s...

SAN DIEGO (AP) — When Thomas Homan, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was awakened Sunday morning with news that migrants were found dead inside a sweltering tractor-trailer outside a San Antonio Walmart, his mind flashed back to 2003, when he stood at the back of a truck about 120 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of San Antonio that carried 19 dead migrants. “It is sad that 14 years later people are still being smuggled in tractor-trailers,” he said. “There still isn’t water, there still isn’t ventilation. These criminal organizations, they’re all about making money.” The striking similarities of the Texas tragedies demonstrate how smugglers have found a durable business model carrying large groups — often in big rigs — through an elaborate network of foot guides, safe house operators and drivers. A criminal complaint about Sunday’s discovery that 10 were dead and dozens injured in the truck opens a window on their degree of sophistication and...

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board is scheduled to meet and detail a probe into a 2015 crash between a commuter train and an SUV that killed six people in the New York suburbs, a day after a U.S. official told The Associated Press that investigators determined the crash was extra deadly because of an unusual rail design. The NTSB is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Washington, where a final report of the February 2015 crash is expected to be presented. The Metro-North Railroad train crashed into an SUV on the tracks at a crossing in Valhalla, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of New York City. The impact sparked an explosion, and flames blasted into the passenger area, burning out the first car of the train. The driver of the SUV and five people aboard the train were killed. More than a dozen others were injured. NTSB investigators found that about 340 feet (100 meters) of electrified rail was pulled up from the ground, penetrated the SUV’s fuel tank and...

CHICAGO (AP) — The tailored, slate-gray suit, the scarlet and gray power tie, the blacked-out chronograph on his wrist — if you didn’t know Urban Meyer was the football coach at Ohio State, your first guess would be a Fortune 500 CEO. That’s hardly a coincidence. After five seasons in Columbus, Meyer has the Buckeyes running as smoothly as any business enterprise in the land. He’s won a third national championship there (to go along with two from Florida), a conference title and two division titles, and Ohio State is favored to return to the top of the Big Ten heap and compete for another college football crown. All that despite getting smoked 31-0 by Clemson in the playoffs last season, then watching five players depart in the first round (and a dozen total) in the NFL draft. “It’s in the back of everyone’s mind, and whether I’ll use that during training camp or not is to be determined,” Meyer said about that season-ending loss during Monday’s session at the Big Ten media...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner will return to Capitol Hill Tuesday for a second day of private meetings with congressional investigators, this time for a closed-door conversation with lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee. Kushner on Monday answered questions from staff on the Senate’s intelligence panel, acknowledging four meetings with Russians during and after Trump’s victorious White House bid and insisting he had “nothing to hide.” He emerged smiling to publicly declare, “All of my actions were proper.” A quiet insider who generally avoids the spotlight, Kushner is the first top Trump lieutenant to be quizzed by the congressional investigators probing Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Hours before the Senate meeting, Kushner released an 11-page statement that was billed as his remarks to both the Senate and House committees. In it, he acknowledged his Russian contacts during the campaign and the...

Sharon Steen dons her tennis shoes and, with two fellow seniors, walks streets that in her youth were a vibrant center of Portland, Oregon’s African-American community. Wasn’t this the corner where an NAACP march began in 1963? Look, the record store is now a fancy high-rise. It’s more than a stroll down memory lane. Steen enrolled in a small but unique study to see if jogging memories where they were made can help older African-Americans stay mentally sharp and slow early memory loss. “What we find when we walk, all of us, is that there are a lot of things we haven’t had to remember, and that we can’t remember. And then as we walk and talk, the memories pop up and it’s reassuring that they’re still there,” Steen said. It’s part of a new and growing effort to unravel troubling disparities: Why do black seniors appear twice as likely as whites — and Hispanics 1½ times — to develop Alzheimer’s and other dementias? A crucial first step is motivating more underrepresented popu...

NEW YORK (AP) — Children whose sexual characteristics don’t neatly align with the norm have for decades faced surgery to rearrange their anatomy to resemble that of more typical boys and girls — long before they were old enough to have a say in the decision. But now the practice is under assault, as never before. The American Medical Association is considering a proposal discouraging it. Three former U.S. surgeons general say it’s unjustified. And on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch and InterACT a group advocating for intersex youth — are releasing a detailed report assailing the practice and urging Congress to ban it. “The results are often catastrophic,” says the report, asserting that the surgeries “can inflict irreversible physical and psychological harm.” “The pressure to fit in and live a ‘normal’ life is real,” said Kyle Knight, a Human Rights Watch researcher who wrote the report. “But there is no evidence that surgery delivers on the promise of making ...

SAO JOAQUIM DE BICAS, BRAZIL (AP) — At the Word of Faith Fellowship churches in the Brazilian cities of Sao Joaquim de Bicas and Franco da Rocha, the signs of broken families are everywhere: parents separated from their children, siblings who no longer speak, grandparents who wonder if they will ever know their grandchildren. Over the course of two decades, the U.S.-based mother church took command of both congregations in Brazil, applying a strict interpretation of the Bible and enforcing it through rigorous controls and physical punishment, The Associated Press has found. Many of the more than three dozen former members interviewed by the AP in Brazil said they live in perpetual fear of retribution. Some have sought psychological help. Others ask themselves how they put up with the abuse for so long. Former member Juliana Oliveira remembers when life was normal in the Sao Joaquim de Bicas church, but that was years ago, before the Americans came from Spindale, North Caroli...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has spoken with advisers about firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as he continues to rage against Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from all matters related to the Russia investigation. The president’s anger again bubbled into public view Monday as he referred to Sessions in a tweet as “beleaguered.” Privately, Trump has speculated aloud to allies in recent days about the potential consequences of firing Sessions, according to three people who have recently spoken to the president. They demanded anonymity to discuss private conversations. Trump often talks about making staff changes without following through, so those who have spoken with the president cautioned that a change may not be imminent or happen at all. What is clear is that Trump remains furious that the attorney general recused himself from the investigations. “So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked H...

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels and activists are warning that an al-Qaida-linked jihadi group is on the verge of snuffing out what remains of the country’s uprising in northwestern Syria, after the extremists seized control of the opposition-held regional capital, Idlib, last weekend. With the jihadis cementing their authority over the city and its province, also called Idlib, Syrian President Bashar Assad has been supplied with a useful pretext for a long-expected assault against the rebellious province: that the uprising against him is largely driven by Islamists and terrorists. “There is the real possibility that because of the Nusra Front’s domination, the regime will enter the area with international approval,” said Lt. Col. Fares Bayoush, a longtime opponent of Assad, who has been leading a rebel faction in north Syria. The Nusra Front is one of the many names for the al-Qaida-affiliate that now heads the mighty Hay’at Tahrir al Sham militant group — Arabic for Levant Lib...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel began Tuesday to dismantle metal detectors it installed a week earlier at a contested Jerusalem shrine, hoping to defuse a crisis with the Muslim world, including security ally Jordan, the Muslim custodian of the holy site. The removal of the devices followed the resolution of a 24-hour diplomatic standoff with Jordan over a deadly shooting at the Israeli Embassy in the kingdom, suggesting a broader deal had been struck. Israeli Embassy staff, including the security guard who had killed two Jordanians after being attacked by one with a screwdriver, returned to Israel from their base in Jordan overnight. Israel has begun dismantling metal detectors from the gates of a contested Jerusalem shrine. The removal is meant to defuse escalating Israeli-Muslim tensions. Israel installed the detectors after an Arab attack killed two Israeli police guards. (July 25) Jordan initially said the guard could not leave without an investigation, while Israel sai...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Adan Lara Vega said he was told the $5,500 he was being charged to be smuggled into the United States would include an air-conditioned truck ride. Instead, the 27-year-old Mexican laborer climbed with his friends into a pitch-black, metal tractor-trailer compartment that lacked ventilation — a deadly oven that would claim 10 lives. “After an hour I heard ... people crying and asking for water. I, too, was sweating and people were despairing,” Lara Vega told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Monday from his bed in a San Antonio hospital. “That’s when I lost consciousness.” A man who survived a journey across the Mexican border in the back of a tractor-trailer, where 10 were found dead in Texas, says there was no water or fresh air. He described the trailer being “full.” (July 24) By the time he regained it Sunday, he was in the hospital, where his ID bracelet identified him by the last name Lalravega. Mexican consulate and U.S. official...