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

Deadly California wildfire continues to grow

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — Calming winds Friday gave firefighters a chance to gain ground against a huge wildfire in coastal mountains northwest of Los Angeles but the blaze continued to surge west, endangering thousands of homes, as forecasts called for a renewal of gusty winds.

The so-called Thomas Fire, the fourth-largest in California history, was 35 per cent contained Friday night after sweeping across 400 square miles (about 1,036 sq. kilometres) of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties since it erupted Dec. 4.

Between Thursday night and Friday morning, the blaze claimed another 3,000 acres as it fed on brush and timber killed by California’s long drought or a week of hot, dry weather.

Santa Barbara has had only a tiny amount of rain since Oct. 1, the start of the new water year, and is more than 3 inches (7.6 centimetres) below normal to date.

Firefighters continued to carve firebreaks above the communities of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Summerland and Montecito and state fire officials said evacuations would be called as needed as flames advanced.

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Huge tax bill heads for passage as GOP senators fall in line

WASHINGTON (AP) — After weeks of quarrels, qualms and then eleventh-hour horse-trading, Republicans revealed the details of their huge national tax rewrite late Friday — along with announcements of support that all but guarantee approval to give President Donald Trump the Christmas legislative triumph he’s been aching for.

The legislation would slash tax rates for big business and lower levies on the richest Americans in a massive $1.5 trillion bill that the GOP plans to muscle through Congress next week before its year-end break. Benefits for most other taxpayers would be smaller.

“This is happening. Tax reform under Republican control of Washington is happening,” House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told rank-and-file members in a conference call. “Most critics out there didn’t think it could happen. … And now we’re on the doorstep of something truly historic.”

According to the 1,097-page bill released late Friday, today’s 35 per cent rate on corporations would fall to 21 per cent, the crown jewel of the measure for many Republicans. Trump and GOP leaders had set 20 per cent as their goal, but added a point to free money for other tax cuts that won over wavering lawmakers in final talks.

The legislation represents the first major legislative achievement for the GOP after nearly a full year in control of Congress and the White House. It’s the widest-ranging reshaping of the tax code in three decades and is expected to add to the nation’s $20 trillion debt. The tax cuts are projected to add $1.46 trillion over a decade.

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Moore tells supporters ‘battle is not over’ in Senate race

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama Republican Roy Moore on Friday told supporters that the “battle is not over” in Alabama’s Senate race even though President Donald Trump and others have called on him to concede.

Moore sent a fundraising email to supporters asking for contributions to his “election integrity fund’ so he could investigate reports of voter fraud.

“I also wanted to let you know that this battle is NOT OVER!” he wrote.

Democrat Doug Jones on Tuesday defeated Moore by about 20,000 votes, or 1.5 per cent, according to unofficial returns. But Moore, who has been accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s, has not yet conceded the heated Alabama race to fill the seat that previously belonged to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Moore told supporters that the race was “close” and some military and provisional ballots had yet to be counted. Those are expected to be counted next week.

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Female candidate quits Kansas race over 2005 harassment suit

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A female congressional candidate dropped out of the Kansas race Friday over a 12-year-old lawsuit accusing her of sexually harassing a male subordinate, an unusual case of a woman facing the sort of misconduct allegations that have forced numerous men out of their jobs in recent weeks.

Andrea Ramsey announced in a Facebook post that she was ending her campaign, calling allegations that she harassed her former employee and then retaliated against him “a lie.” The employee, Gary Funkhouser, filed the lawsuit against OneLab Inc., the Kansas City-area company where Ramsey worked as a vice-president. The two parties agreed to dismiss the lawsuit after settlement talks.

Ramsey was seeking the Democratic nomination in the 3rd District in the Kansas City area, hoping to win the right to challenge four-term incumbent Republican Kevin Yoder next year. The district contains a mix of affluent, GOP-leaning suburbs and poorer, heavily Democratic city neighbourhoods. Democrat Hillary Clinton carried it in last year’s presidential election.

The Kansas City Star first reported about the lawsuit and said Ramsey dropped out after it asked her about the case.

Ramsey said “real change” has come in handling harassment complaints and timely and thorough investigations are “a very good thing.” But, in her own case, she said, “These false allegations are disgraceful and demean the moment this country is in.”

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Border arrests surge, erasing much of Trump’s early gains

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The U.S. government on Friday announced a seventh straight monthly increase in people being arrested or denied entry along the Mexican border, erasing much of the early gains of President Donald Trump’s push to tighten the border.

Denials of entry for people at official crossings and border arrests reached 39,006 in November, up 12 per cent from 34,855 in October and more than double the 15,766 who were stopped or arrested in April. But November’s figure was still down 38 per cent from 63,361 for November of 2016, shortly before Trump took office.

Border arrests don’t capture how many people got away from agents but are widely used to understand trends in how many attempt to enter the country illegally.

Trump touted the dramatic decline in arrests during the early months of his presidency as evidence that his administration was making the border more secure. Reasons for the drop and recent rise are unclear but Trump’s pledge to build a wall with Mexico may have initially discouraged people from trying and now be having less impact.

Administration officials said last week that they were concerned about an increase in families and unaccompanied children showing up at the U.S. border with Mexico. Customs and Border Protection asked for changes to a 2008 law that gave new protections to children entering the country who are not from Canada or Mexico and prevents them from quickly being sent home.

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With obesity on rise, Paris reflects on mirrored ‘fatphobia’

PARIS (AP) — France gave the world butter croissants and foie gras, yet it has often been a place where being overweight was seen as almost sinful.

Now, after taking a hard look at the contradictions in the mirror, its capital has launched a campaign to counter sizeism, an often disregarded kind of discrimination in the image-conscious city known for luxury fashion brands and tiny waists.

Paris anti-discrimination chief Helene Bidard began the initiative after falling victim to weight-related insults and noticing how bias against French people who are overweight went unnoticed, never mind unpunished.

“We see fat people as ugly and even stupid, lacking hygiene and in bad health,” Bidard said.

As part of its annual week devoted to raising awareness about discrimination, Paris on Friday unveiled its “Fatphobia, stop! Taking action together” campaign with a plus-size fashion show and panels featuring bloggers from the “body positive” movement. Fifty thousand leaflets with legal advice and helpline numbers are set to be distributed at sports centres, night clubs, swimming pools and bistros.

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Trump assails FBI leadership, touts loyalty to police

QUANTICO, Va. (AP) — Taking aim at the credibility of the FBI, President Donald Trump unleashed a blistering attack on the bureau’s leadership even as he praised state and local police officers as a bulwark against rising violence and crime.

Trump denounced the bureau for its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, calling it “really disgraceful” and continuing his questioning of his country’s intelligence and law enforcement institutions as no president before.

“It’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI,” the president said. “We’re going to rebuild the FBI, it’ll be bigger and better than ever, but it is very sad when you look at those documents, and how they’ve done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it.”

The president’s broadside appeared to reflect his anger over revelations that senior FBI officials exchanged anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages while working on last year’s Clinton probe and during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump associates colluded with Russian officials in the 2016 election.

Trump laced into the bureau as he was departing for its training academy in Virginia, where he lavished praise on graduates of a weeks-long FBI National Academy program for law enforcement leaders from around the country.

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Americans pessimistic about Trump, country: AP-NORC Poll

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump frequently casts his first year in office as a string of successes and campaign promises fulfilled. But less than a quarter of Americans think Trump has made good on the pledges he made to voters while running for president, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Among Republicans, just half say Trump has kept his promises, which included vows to overhaul his predecessor’s health care law, withdraw the United States from a nuclear accord with Iran and invest millions in new projects to fix the nation’s aging infrastructure. None of those steps have been taken.

“Everything has stalled out,” said Mark Krowski, 37, an independent from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who leans Republican but didn’t vote for Trump last year.

As 2017 comes to a close, the majority of Americans painted a broadly pessimistic view of Trump’s presidency, the nation’s politics and the overall direction of the country. Just three in 10 Americans said the United States is heading in the right direction, and 52 per cent said the country is worse off since Trump became president — worrisome signs both for the White House and Republicans heading into a midterm election year where control of Congress will be at stake.

Along with the 23 per cent who think Trump has kept his promises, another 30 per cent think he has tried and failed and 45 per cent think he hasn’t kept them at all.

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Strong earthquake rattles Indonesia’s Java island; 2 dead

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A strong earthquake shook Indonesia’s densely populated Java island on Friday night, killing two people and severely damaging dozens of homes near the epicenter.

The magnitude 6.5 quake struck at 11:47 p.m. and was felt across the island, including about 200 kilometres (124 miles) away in the capital Jakarta, where office towers and apartment buildings swayed. Powerful tremors lasted as much as 30 seconds in places.

Panicking people ran out of buildings in many areas and roads were clogged with motorbikes, cars and trucks as people fled coastal areas in fear of a tsunami.

Ahmad Solihin, a food vendor in a coastal area of the Sukabumi region, said his village was jolted by a 20-second tremor that cracked walls in his home. He fled on his motorbike with his wife and two children after neighbours shouted that water was coming, he said.

“People suddenly started running so I joined them,” said Solihin. More than 1,000 villagers in his area evacuated to higher ground and didn’t return until Saturday morning after authorities convinced them it was safe, he said.

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SpaceX 1st: Recycled rocket soars with recycled capsule

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX racked up another first on Friday, launching a recycled rocket with a recycled capsule on a grocery run for NASA.

The unmanned Falcon rocket blasted off with a just-in-time-for-Christmas delivery for the International Space Station, taking flight again after a six-month turnaround. On board was a Dragon supply ship, also a second-time flier.

It was NASA’s first use of a reused Falcon rocket and only the second of a previously flown Dragon.

Within 10 minutes of liftoff, the first-stage booster was back at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, standing upright on the giant X at SpaceX’s landing zone. That’s where it landed back in June following its first launch. Double sonic booms thundered across the area. At SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheers erupted outside the company’s glassed-in Mission Control, where chief executive Elon Musk joined his employees.

The Dragon reaches the space station Sunday. The capsule last visited the 250-mile-high outpost in 2015.