AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Trump says his White House counsel not a ‘RAT’ like Nixon’s

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that his White House counsel isn’t a “RAT” like the Watergate-era White House attorney who turned on Richard Nixon, and he blasted the ongoing Russia investigation as “McCarthyism.”

Trump, in a series of angry tweets, denounced a New York Times story that his White House counsel, Don McGahn, has been co-operating extensively with the special counsel team investigating Russian election meddling and potential collusion with Trump’s Republican campaign.

“The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type ‘RAT,'” Trump wrote, misspelling the word “counsel,” as he often does. “But I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide……”

The New York Times said it stands by its story.

Dean, a frequent critic of the president, was the White House counsel for Nixon during the Watergate scandal. He ultimately co-operated with prosecutors and helped bring down the Nixon presidency in 1974, though he served a prison term for obstruction of justice.

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Brennan considers legal action to stop clearance revocations

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former CIA Director John Brennan said Sunday that he is considering taking legal action to try to prevent President Donald Trump from stripping other current and former officials’ security clearances.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Brennan said he’s been contacted by a number of lawyers about the possibility of an injunction in the wake of Trump’s move to revoke his clearance and threaten nine others who have been critical of the president or are connected to the Russia probe.

“If my clearances and my reputation as I’m being pulled through the mud now, if that’s the price we’re going to pay to prevent Donald Trump from doing this against other people, to me it’s a small price to pay,” Brennan said. “So I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future. And if it means going to court, I will do that.”

Brennan, who served in President Barack Obama’s administration, said that while he’ll fight on behalf of his former CIA colleagues, it’s also up to Congress to put aside politics and step in. “This is the time that your country is going to rely on you, not to do what is best for your party but what is best for the country,” he said.

Trump yanked Brennan’s security clearance last week, saying he felt he had to do “something” about the “rigged” probe of Russian election interference. And he has said he may do the same for nine others, including a Justice Department official whose wife worked for the firm involved in producing a dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia.

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South Koreans enter North to reunite with kin split by war

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven’t seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War.

The weeklong event at North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort comes as the rival Koreas boost reconciliation efforts amid a diplomatic push to resolve a standoff over North Korea’s drive for a nuclear weapons program that can reliably target the continental United States.

The temporary reunions are highly emotional because most participants are elderly people eager to see their loved ones once more before they die. Most of their families were driven apart during the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still in a technical state of war.

Buses carrying about 90 elderly South Koreans and their family members were moving into the Diamond Mountain resort after crossing into North Korea. Earlier in the morning, the South Koreans, some in wheelchairs and aided by Red Cross workers, had left the buses briefly to enter the South Korean immigration office in the eastern border town of Goseong.

They were to reunite with their long-lost North Korean relatives on Monday afternoon at the start of a three-day reunion. A separate round of reunions from Friday to Sunday will involve more than 300 other South Koreans, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.

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Steve Bannon says GOP must rally behind Trump to survive

WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon has a dire warning for Republicans.

During a Sunday interview with The Associated Press, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump said he believes the GOP would lose 35 to 40 seats in the House if the election were held today, thereby ceding their majority to Democrats he’s convinced will pursue impeachment. He argued there’s still time to turn that around and is launching a group, Citizens of the American Republic, to pitch the election as a vote to protect Trump from that outcome.

“You can’t look at this as a midterm and you can’t run it out of the traditional Republican playbook. If you do that, you’re going to get smoked,” said Bannon, arguing that Republicans must redouble efforts against motivated Democrats.

The effort is a test of Bannon’s sway in the GOP a year after he was fired from his White House post. His relationship with Trump soured after a tell-all book published in January included searing quotes of Bannon portraying Trump as undisciplined and criticizing son Donald Trump Jr. His stock fell further after he stuck by Alabama Republican Roy Moore’s Senate campaign even after decades-old sexual misconduct allegations emerged. A reliably Republican Senate seat turned Democratic.

As he attempts a comeback, Bannon acknowledged the challenges he faces, including an invigorated Democratic base. Less than three months from Election Day, Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to retake the House, and the party is increasingly bullish about its chances after strong turnout in a series of special elections. Bannon said Republicans can gain ground if they focus on turning out Trump supporters.

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Report: MeToo activist Argento settled sex assault complaint

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times reports that Italian actress Asia Argento recently settled a complaint filed against her by a young actor and musician who said she sexually assaulted him when he was 17.

Argento is one of the most prominent activists of the #MeToo movement.

The Times says that Argento, 42, settled the notice of intent to sue by Jimmy Bennett, who is now 22, for $380,000 shortly after she said last October that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein raped her.

Bennett says in the notice that he had sex with Argento in a California hotel in 2013. The age of consent in California is 18.

The Times says it received court documents that have been authenticated by three people familiar with the case.

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Catholics consider withholding donations amid scandals

For decades, Michael Drweiga has opened his wallet whenever the donation basket comes around at church, but the latest revelations of priests sexually abusing children brought him to the conclusion that he can no longer justify giving.

Brice Sokolowski helps small Catholic nonprofits and churches raise money, but he too supports the recent calls to withhold donations.

And Georgene Sorensen has felt enough anger and “just total sadness” over the past few weeks that she’s reconsidering her weekly offering at her parish.

Across the U.S., Catholics once faithful with their financial support to their churches are searching for ways to respond to the constant sex-abuse scandals that have tarnished the institution in which they believe, with back-to-back scandals in the past two months.

The most recent came Tuesday when a grand jury report revealed that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children in six dioceses since the 1940s — crimes that church leaders are accused of covering up. The report came two months after Pope Francis ordered disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick removed from public ministry amid allegations the 88-year-old retired archbishop sexually abused a teenage altar boy and engaged in sexual misconduct with adult seminarians decades ago. Last month, Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation as cardinal and ordered him to a “life of prayer and penance.”

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Giuliani on hazards of Trump interview: ‘Truth isn’t truth’

WASHINGTON (AP) — “Truth isn’t truth,” says President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, explaining why he’s wary about pushing the president into an interview that he says could be a perjury trap.

Giuliani’s statement is reminiscent of a comment from another Trump aide last year about “alternative facts.”

Giuliani used the line “truth isn’t truth” Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd. He was trying to make the case that having Trump sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team wouldn’t accomplish much because of the he-said-she-said nature of witnesses’ recollections.

The ex-New York mayor cited as an example former FBI Director James Comey, who has said that Trump pushed him at a private meeting to ease up in the federal investigation of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump has disputed that.

“I am not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury,” Giuliani said. “And when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well, that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth.”

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Science Says: Hotter weather turbocharges US West wildfires

As temperatures rise in the U.S. West, so do the flames.

The years with the most acres burned by wildfires have some of the hottest temperatures, an Associated Press analysis of fire and weather data found. As human-caused climate change has warmed the world over the past 35 years, the land consumed by flames has more than doubled.

Experts say the way global warming worsens wildfires comes down to the basic dynamics of fire. Fires need ignition, oxygen and fuel. And what’s really changed is fuel — the trees, brush and other plants that go up in flames.

“Hotter, drier weather means our fuels are drier, so it’s easier for fires to start and spread and burn more intensely,” said University of Alberta fire scientist Mike Flannigan.

It’s simple, he said: “The warmer it is, the more fire we see.”

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Women win primaries in record numbers, look to November

ATLANTA (AP) — Women are not just running for office in record numbers this year — they are winning.

More women than ever before have won major party primaries for governor, U.S. Senate and House this year — setting a U.S. record and paving the way for November battles that could significantly increase the number of women in elected office and change the public debate on issues such as health care, immigration, abortion rights, education and gun control. Some of these candidates could also play a pivotal role in whether Democrats are able to take control of the U.S. House.

Most of these female hopefuls are Democrats, some of whom are first-time candidates who say their motivation to run sprang from President Donald Trump’s election and Republican control of Congress. But other developments factor in, too. The #MeToo movement. Women’s marches. Trump’s nomination of conservative appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“Part of the reason I thought this race was possible, even despite great odds, was because of all the women who are so engaged in my community in a new way,” said Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor who looks to capture a GOP congressional seat in New Jersey.

Sherrill is one of some 200 women who have won their primaries for U.S. House, with 94 of these candidates surviving crowded fields with three or more candidates, according to an analysis of election results. Previously, the most women who had advanced were 167 in 2016, according to records kept by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

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Quakes cut power, topple homes on Indonesia island; 3 dead

SEMBALUN, Indonesia (AP) — Multiple strong earthquakes cut power across the Indonesian island of Lombok, toppled buildings and killed at least three people as the tourist hotspot was trying to recover from a temblor earlier this month that killed hundreds of people.

A shallow magnitude 6.9 quake that hit about 10 p.m. was one of several powerful earthquakes Sunday in the northeast of the island that also caused landslides. The nighttime quake was followed by strong aftershocks.

Two people died when their homes collapsed on Lombok and neighbouring Sumbawa island, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho tweeted Monday morning. Another person died earlier Sunday during a magnitude 6.3 quake.

The swarm of quakes caused panic in Sembalun subdistrict on Lombok in the shadow of Mount Rinjani, but many people were already staying in tents following the deadly jolt in early August and its hundreds of aftershocks. On Sumbawa, a neighbourhood was engulfed by a fire that started in a collapsed house.

“People panicked and scattered,” Nugroho said. “Some people are hysterical because they feel earthquake aftershocks that are harder than before. They heard a roar that probably came from landslides in the hills and Mount Rinjani.”