4 lawyers quit case after DOJ decision on Stone prison time

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four lawyers who prosecuted Roger Stone quit the case Tuesday after the Justice Department said it would take the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it would seek for President Donald Trump's longtime ally and confidant.

The decision by the Justice Department came just hours after Trump complained that the recommended sentence for Stone was “very horrible and unfair." The Justice Department said the sentencing recommendation was made Monday night — before Trump's tweet — and prosecutors had not spoken to the White House about it.

The four attorneys, including two who were early members of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia team, had made up the Justice Department's trial team and had signed onto a Monday court filing that recommended up to nine years in prison for Stone.

The department's decision to back off the sentencing recommendation raised questions about political interference and whether Trump's views hold unusual sway over the Justice Department, which is meant to operate independently of the White House in criminal investigations and prosecutions.

Attorney General William Barr has been a steady ally of Trump's, clearing the president of obstruction of justice even when special counsel Robert Mueller had pointedly declined to do so and declaring that the FBI's Russia investigation — which resulted in charges against Stone — had been based on a “bogus narrative."

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Dems look for New Hampshire results to clarify muddled race

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Fiery progressive Bernie Sanders fought for Democratic front-runner status Tuesday, while the party hoped the New Hampshire primary would at least bring some clarity to a presidential nomination fight that has so far been marred by dysfunction and doubt.

As Sanders predicted victory, former Midwestern Mayor Pete Buttigieg hoped to seize the backing of his party's establishment with a strong finish and Joe Biden wanted to avert political disaster after fleeing the state hours before polls closed.

By night's end, New Hampshire could begin culling the Democrats' unwieldy 2020 class, which still features nearly a dozen candidates battling for the chance to take on President Donald Trump fall. Tuesday's contest comes just eight days after Iowa caucuses injected chaos into the race and failed to report a clear winner.

New Hampshire Democrats headed into Tuesday’s primary with a focus on matters of fairness.

Just over 1 in 10 said they were “very confident” that their party’s process for choosing a presidential nominee was fair, according to a wide-ranging AP VoteCast survey. At the same time, nearly 8 in 10 also viewed the economy as unfair, although there was little consensus on which candidate would do the best job of stewarding the world’s largest economy.

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AP VoteCast: After Iowa, many NH Dems worry about fairness

WASHINGTON (AP) — New Hampshire Democrats headed into Tuesday’s primary with a focus on matters of fairness, with just over 1 in 10 saying they were “very confident” that their party’s process for choosing a presidential nominee is fair.

The trouble in counting ballots after last week’s Iowa caucuses, an issue that has yet to be fully resolved, appears to have rattled the faith of some voters amid uncertainty about who is the Democratic front-runner.

Close to half of New Hampshire Democrats were “somewhat confident” that the selection process was fair, while about 4 in 10 were not confident about the fairness of the primaries and caucuses, according to preliminary results from AP VoteCast.

AP VoteCast is a wide-ranging survey of more than 3,000 Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.

A muddled field of candidates came out of the nation’s first nomination contest in Iowa, with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg running neck and neck in state delegate equivalents.

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Global experts study promising drugs, vaccines for new virus

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization convened outside experts Tuesday to try to speed the development of tests, treatments and vaccines against the new coronavirus, as doctors on the front lines experiment on patients with various drugs in hopes of saving lives in the meantime.

The 400 scientists participating in the two-day meeting — many remotely — will try to determine which approaches seem promising enough to advance to the next step: studies in people to prove if they really work.

“We prioritize what is really urgent, what we absolutely need to know to fight the outbreak, to develop drugs, vaccines," said Marie-Paule Kieny, co-chair of the meeting and a viral-disease specialist at the French research institution INSERM. That will allow science to “focus on what is the most pressing issue and not to disperse too much the efforts.”

Also on the agenda: Is it possible to build a standing supply of drugs similar to the vaccine stockpiles that exist for diseases such as yellow fever and Ebola?

“If any of these drugs does show an effect, there will be massive demand," Dr. Graham Cooke, a professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, said earlier this week.

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Actor Jussie Smollett faces 6 new charges in Chicago

CHICAGO (AP) — A grand jury returned a six-count indictment accusing actor Jussie Smollett of lying to Chicago police when he reported a racist and homophobic attack last year, a special prosecutor announced Tuesday.

Smollett faces six counts of disorderly conduct, special prosecutor Dan Webb said in a statement.

Smollett, who is black and gay, was originally charged with disorderly conduct last February for allegedly staging the attack and lying about it to investigators. The charges were dropped the following month with little explanation, angering police officials and then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Tina Glandian, Smollett's attorney, did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.

Smollett told police he was walking home early on Jan. 29, 2019, when two masked men approached him, made racist and homophobic insults, beat him and looped a noose around his neck before fleeing. He said his assailants, at least one of whom he said was white, told him he was in “MAGA country” — a reference to President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

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Feds: Ex-convict extorted college students for nearly $1M

NEW YORK (AP) — An ex-convict accused of bilking several college students out of nearly $1 million and forcing some into prostitution or unpaid labor was arrested Tuesday on extortion and sex trafficking charges.

Lawrence “Larry” Ray was previously known for his role in helping to send former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was a close confidant of Rudy Giuliani, to prison.

Federal prosecutors said Ray, 60, used “physical, sexual and psychological abuse” to extort money from five different students at Sarah Lawrence College, a private liberal arts college outside New York City. He convinced them they were indebted to him, authorities said, subjecting them to “grueling interrogations” that spanned hours and deprived them of food and sleep.

Ray was taken into custody Tuesday and expected to appear hours later in Manhattan federal court. He had previously denied the allegations, saying they were the result of a conspiracy against him. It was not clear whether he had a defense attorney who could comment on the charges.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman told reporters the investigation was prompted by an article that appeared last year in New York magazine.

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Official: Sudan to hand over al-Bashir for genocide trial

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan's transitional authorities have agreed to hand over ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court to face trial on charges of war crimes and genocide, a top Sudanese official said Tuesday, in a deal with rebels to surrender all those wanted in connection with the Darfur conflict.

For a decade after his indictment, al-Bashir confounded the court based in The Hague, Netherlands. He not only was out of reach during his 30 years in power in Khartoum, but he also traveled abroad frequently to visit friendly leaders without fear of arrest. He even attended the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where he kicked a soccer ball playfully during an airport welcome ceremony and watched matches from luxury seating.

The military overthrew al-Bashir in April 2019 amid massive public protests of his rule, and he has been jailed in Khartoum since then. Military leaders initially ruled out surrendering him to The Hague, saying he would be tried at home.

But the joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that has ruled Sudan since last summer has agreed with rebel groups in Darfur to hand over those wanted by the ICC to face justice in The Hague, according to Mohammed Hassan al-Taishi, a member of the council and a government negotiator.

He didn't mention al-Bashir by name, but said, “We agreed that everyone who had arrest warrants issued against them will appear before the ICC. I'm saying it very clearly."

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AP Explains: What T-Mobile takeover of Sprint means for you

NEW YORK (AP) — T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion takeover of Sprint could mean higher or lower phone bills, depending on whom you ask.

A federal judge in New York ultimately took T-Mobile's track record of aggressive competition into account in ruling Tuesday that the deal would be good for consumers. In doing so, he rejected a challenge by a group of states worried about reduced competition. Though the deal still needs a few more approvals, T-Mobile expects to close it as early as April 1.

Here’s what a combined T-Mobile-Sprint company could mean for you and your phone bill:

FOR MOST T-MOBILE AND SPRINT CUSTOMERS

Sprint customers will get a T-Mobile bill, but that transition may take a few years. If you are a T-Mobile customer, you might not see many changes. However, because the goal of the takeover is to roll out a next-generation, 5G cellular network, subscribers of both are ultimately expected to get faster service.

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Samsung's new foldable phone: Cheaper, but still a novelty

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Samsung on Tuesday unveiled a new foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip, its second attempt to sell consumers on phones with bendable screens and clamshell designs.

The new phone can unfold from a small square upward into a traditional smartphone form, and will go on sale Feb. 14 starting at $1,380. The company announced the phone at a product event in San Francisco.

Samsung’s first foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, finally went on sale last September after delays and reports of screens breaking. The Fold, which carries a price tag of nearly $2,000, folds at a vertical crease rather than horizontally as a flip-phone design would. Motorola has also taken the flip-phone approach with its new $1,500 Razr phone.

The foldable phones represent manufacturers' attempt to energize a market where sales have slowed. Many consumers are holding onto old phones longer, in part because new phone features offer increasingly marginal benefits. But these foldable models come with higher price tags and are likely to appeal for now mostly to tech enthusiasts and others at the forefront of technology.

“While there’s a lot of excitement around this new category, it is still early days and they will evolve significantly.” said Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight. “While these innovative new designs are nice to have, they’re not must-have, sought-after features among users.”

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New faces aplenty as spring training begins

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — The crack of the bat at spring training camps replaced the sound of trash can lids banging in homemade YouTube videos as baseball emerged from its winter of cheating scandals and salary dumps to bask in the Florida and Arizona sun.

The Pittsburgh Pirates and San Diego Padres held their first official workouts, and pitchers and catchers for 16 other teams reported to their Grapefruit and Cactus League complexes on Tuesday. The rest of the major leagues will filter in this week.

Red Sox players checked in without knowing who their manager will be, almost a month after Alex Cora was fired for his part in the Houston Astros 2017 sign-stealing scheme. Bench coach Ron Roenicke, a former Brewers skipper, will serve as interim manager while the team waits for Major League Baseball to wrap up its investigation into Boston's attempts to steal signs after Cora arrived in '18.

The Red Sox were also without a former MVP and Cy Young Award winner after the long-haggled trade of Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers was finalized on Monday.

“Great teammates. Great players,” Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. said after arriving at Fenway South on Tuesday. “Time to move forward.”