Rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry dies at 90

NEW YORK (AP) — Chuck Berry, rock ‘n’ roll’s founding guitar hero and storyteller who defined the music’s joy and rebellion in such classics as “Johnny B. Goode,” ”Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” died Saturday at his home west of St. Louis. He was 90.

Emergency responders summoned to Berry’s residence by his caretaker about 12:40 p.m. found him unresponsive, police in Missouri’s St. Charles County said in a statement. Attempts to revive Berry failed, and he was pronounced dead shortly before 1:30 p.m., police said.

Berry’s core repertoire was some three dozen songs, his influence incalculable, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to virtually any group from garage band to arena act that called itself rock ‘n roll.

“Just let me hear some of that rock ‘n’ roll music any old way you use it I am playing I’m talking about you. God bless Chuck Berry Chuck,” Beatles drummer Ringo Starr tweeted, quoting some lyrics from a Berry hit.

While Elvis Presley gave rock its libidinous, hip-shaking image, Berry was the auteur, setting the template for a new sound and way of life.

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Reaction to the death of rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry

Reaction to the death of rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry at age 90:

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“I am so sad to hear of Chuck Berry’s passing. I want to thank him for all the inspirational music he gave to us. He lit up our teenage years, and blew life into our dreams of being musicians and performers. His lyrics shone above others and threw a strange light on the American dream. Chuck, you were amazing, and your music is engraved inside us forever.” — Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, in a series of posts via Twitter

“One of my big lights has gone out!” — Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, in a statement

“Thou Shall Have No Other Rock Gods Before Him #ChuckBerry rip @ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame” — Drummer-producer Questlove, via Twitter

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Paris Orly Airport attacker wanted to kill, die for Allah

ORLY, France (AP) — Yelling that he wanted to kill and die for Allah, a suspected Islamic extremist attacked a French soldier Saturday morning at Paris’ Orly Airport and wrested away her assault rifle, a French prosecutor said. Two colleagues on her patrol shot and killed the man before he could fire the military-grade weapon in the busy airport terminal.

The attack forced the airport’s terminals to shut down and evacuate, sent passengers and workers fleeing in panic and trapped hundreds of others aboard flights that had just landed. It was the violent climax of what authorities described as a 90-minute spree of destructive criminality across the French capital by the suspect, identified as Ziyed Ben Belgacem.

The attack further rattled France, which remains under a state of emergency after attacks over the past two years that have killed 235 people.

Orly, Paris’ second-biggest airport behind Charles de Gaulle, has both domestic and international flights and the 8:30 a.m. (0730 GMT; 4:30 a.m. EDT) assault brought its operations to a screeching halt.

Stopped first by police in Paris’ northern suburbs early Saturday morning for driving too fast and without lights in a small Renault, the 39-year-old Frenchman opened fire with a revolver loaded with bird shot, injuring an officer in the face, authorities said.

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Trump says US ‘must be paid more’ to defend Germany

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that Germany owes “vast sums of money” to NATO and the U.S. “must be paid more” for providing defense, reiterating his stance that European allies need to meet their end of the bargain if they are to continue benefiting from the military alliance.

Trump’s tweet from his Florida resort, where he is spending the weekend, came the day after his first meeting with Germany’s leader.

“Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” the president wrote. “Nevertheless, Germany owes … vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”

Trump and Merkel tried to sidestep their differences in their meeting at the White House on Friday, but it was punctuated by some awkward moments.

During a photo op in the Oval Office, the two did not shake hands before reporters. Later, during a joint news conference, Trump pushed back against the notion in Europe that his “America First” agenda means he’s an isolationist, calling such a suggestion “another example of, as you say, fake news.” And he referred to the United States as “a very powerful company,” before quickly correcting that to “country.”

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Republicans at odds over how to overhaul Medicaid

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House GOP health care bill has competition from other Republicans, a group of governors who’ve made their own proposal about how to overhaul Medicaid for low-income people. They’re hoping GOP senators will find their ideas more persuasive.

It’s a gradual approach, with additional options for states. It’s likely to involve more federal spending than the House bill, but also keep more people covered. In the end, though, the governors are still talking about fundamental change.

Four GOP governors are pushing the plan, saying they represent most of the 33 Republican state chief executives. There’s no inkling of any involvement by Democratic governors, and it’s hard to conceive of such major changes without them.

Medicaid is a federal-state program that covers more than 70 million low-income people, about 1 in 5 Americans. Beneficiaries range from elderly nursing home residents to newborns. Former President Barack Obama expanded the program in his health care law, to mainly help low-income adults with no children living at home. About half the 31 states that accepted the expansion have Republican governors.

The House Republican bill would start by repealing Obama’s Medicaid expansion. More significantly, it would limit overall federal spending on Medicaid going forward. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the proposal would result in a cut of $880 billion from projected Medicaid spending from 2017 to 2026. By that year, 14 million fewer people would have Medicaid coverage, and program spending would be about 25 percent lower than what’s currently projected.

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Young Americans: Most see Trump as illegitimate president

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jermaine Anderson keeps going back to the same memory of Donald Trump, then a candidate for president of the United States, referring to some Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers.

“You can’t be saying that (if) you’re the president,” says Anderson, a 21-year-old student from Coconut Creek, Florida.

That Trump is undeniably the nation’s 45th president doesn’t sit easily with young Americans like Anderson who are the nation’s increasingly diverse electorate of the future, according to a new poll. A majority of young adults — 57 percent — see Trump’s presidency as illegitimate, including about three-quarters of blacks and large majorities of Latinos and Asians, the GenForward poll found.

GenForward is a poll of adults age 18 to 30 conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

A slim majority of young whites in the poll, 53 percent, consider Trump a legitimate president, but even among that group 55 percent disapprove of the job he’s doing, according to the survey.

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Trump wants to build 30-foot-high wall at Mexican border

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration wants to build a 30-foot-high border wall that looks good from the north side and is difficult to climb or cut through, according to a pair of contract notices posted to a government website further detailing President Donald Trump’s promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” at the Mexican border.

The notices were made public late Friday by Customs and Border Protection, the Homeland Security Department agency that will oversee the project and eventually patrol and maintain the wall. The proposals are due to the government by March 29.

One of the CBP contract requests calls for a solid concrete wall, while the other asks for proposals for a see-through structure. Both require the wall to sunk at least six feet into the ground and include 25- and 50-foot automated gates for pedestrians and vehicles. The proposed wall must also be built in a such a way that it would take at least an hour to cut through it with a “sledgehammer, car jack, pick axe, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools.”

The government will award a contract based on 30-foot-wide sample walls that are to be built in San Diego.

This is the latest step in the Trump administration plan to build a border wall. Last month CBP put out a call for “concept papers” to design and build prototypes by March 10.

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Disarmingly warm Gorsuch loves ‘cold neutrality’ of law

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s poker night in a row house on Cranham Street, Oxford, England, and Neil Gorsuch, studying for yet another degree, is feeling down. His housemates decide that what Gorsuch needs is a girlfriend.

Accounts differ on whether it was a dare, goading or a gentle prod, but Gorsuch phones a woman he’d clicked with during a school dinner more than a year earlier — and she doesn’t remember him.

Awkward.

That 1994 phone call may be one of the few times that Gorsuch, a federal judge nominated for the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump, didn’t immediately stand out from the crowd. Louise Burletson agreed to go out with him anyway, and ultimately married the man Trump now describes as “perfect in almost every way” for the high court.

Gorsuch, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin Monday, is roundly described by colleagues and friends as a silver-haired combination of wicked smarts, down-to-earth modesty, disarming warmth and careful deliberation.

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Somalia blames Saudi-led coalition for deadly strike on boat

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia’s government on Saturday blamed the Saudi-led coalition for Friday’s attack on a boat that killed at least 42 Somali refugees off the coast of war-torn Yemen, calling the assault by a military vessel and a helicopter gunship “horrific.”

Somalia urged the United States-supported coalition to investigate. The boat was packed with dozens of refugees, some of them women and children.

“What happened there was a horrific and terrible problem inflicted on innocent Somali people. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen is responsible for it,” Somalia’s foreign minister, Abdisalam Omer, said on state-run radio. He said Yemen’s government also must give an explanation for the attack and that those responsible must be brought to justice.

Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire in a separate statement called the attack “atrocious” and “appalling.”

Yemen’s Shiite rebels also have blamed the Saudi-led coalition. There has been no coalition comment.

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8 spots in Sweet 16 are on line Saturday in NCAA round of 32

The NCAA Tournament is moving into the round of 32, with eight of the 16 spots in regional semifinals to be filled Saturday.

The tournament has mostly lacked drama so far. Higher seeded teams are 26-6 so far.

Heavyweight matchups are coming.

Afternoon games pit No. 4 West Virginia against No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 1 Villanova against No. 8 Wisconsin and No. 1 Gonzaga against No. 8 Northwestern. The five evening games have No. 3 Florida State against No. 11 Xavier, No. 4 Butler against No. 12 Middle Tennessee, No. 2 Arizona against No. 7 St. Mary’s, No. 4 Florida against No. 5 Virginia, and No. 4 Purdue against No. 5 Iowa State.