Thursday morning news: June 28, 2018

Immigration vote » Another immigration bill has fallen flat in the House.  

AUDIO: On this vote, the ayes are 121. The nays are 301. The bill is not passed.

The legislation was a compromise between G-O-P conservatives and moderates. It was aimed at preventing family separations at the border when immigrants illegally enter the country while also strengthening border enforcement.

But House leaders weren’t able to win over enough conservatives. And Democrats were united against it.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise says he doesn’t see a path to come together with Democrats on immigration.

SCALISE: What the Democrats want is amnesty and open borders, and that’s really what it’s come down to. And they don’t want to build the wall.

But election year politics has lawmakers on both sides of the aisle digging in their heels. Nearly half of all Republicans voted no on the House bill Wednesday.  

The result was not a surprise to GOP leaders who have been quietly working on a bill focused narrowly on preventing family separations.

Russia/US agreement on Trump/Putin meeting » Russian state media reports that the Kremlin and the White House have agreed on a time and place for a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump. This will be the first time the two leaders will have met at length since President Trump took office. And Trump said Wednesday when they do meet, he expects to cover a lot of ground.

TRUMP: I think we’ll be talking about Syria. I think we’ll be talking about Ukraine. I think we’ll be talking about many other subjects, and we’ll see what happens. 

National Security Adviser John Bolton spoke with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for a meeting between the two presidents. Bolton told reporters …

BOLTON: Even in earlier days when our countries had differences our leaders and their advisers met, and I think that was good for both countries, good for stability in the world, and President Trump feels very strongly on that subject.

The White House is expected to announce details of the Trump-Putin summit today.

Officer charged in shooting of black teen » Prosecutors in Pittsburgh have charged a white police officer with criminal homicide in the shooting death of an unarmed African-American teenager.

Officer Michael Rosfeld is charged with shooting 17-year-old Antwon Rose Jr. in the back as he fled from a traffic stop. On Wednesday, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala outlined the charges against Rosfeld.

ZAPPALA: One kind of criminal homicide: The evidence supports third-degree murder, there’s no doubt about that in my mind. Manslaughter, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter. But we think we should have the right to argue murder in the first degree.

Rose did not have a gun, but Rosfeld initially told investigators he thought he saw something that resembled one when the teen turned back toward him as he ran. In a second interview with investigators, Rosfeld said he did not see a gun. The 30-year-old officer had only been on the job for a few weeks before the June 19th encounter with Rose and took his oath of office just hours before the shooting.

Alex Fields indicted » The Justice Department has filed federal hate crimes charges against Alex Fields. He’s the man accused of plowing a car into a crowd of people who were protesting a white nationalist rally last summer in Charlottesville, Virginia. The attack left one person dead and several injured.

U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said the indictment returned Wednesday charges Fields with 30 separate civil rights violations. And he said Field’s social media entries allegedly show a troubling pattern.

CULLEN: Among other things, his white supremacist, his support for the social and racial policies of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, including the the Holocaust, and his support for violence against African-Americans. 

Fields also faces several state counts, including murder. The rally was organized to protest the removal of a statue of confederate soldier Robert E. Lee from a park.

Afrin car bomb » Two car bomb explosions in Syria have killed at least six people and wounded 20 others. WORLD Radio’s Paul Butler has more.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: The bombs went off in Afrin, Syria, in an area manned by Turkish troops and Syrian opposition fighters.

Turkey’s state-run news agency reported the first explosion happened on a busy street in Afrin, the second bomb detonated a short time later on a different street.

A group called the Afrin Falcons, which is affiliated with the Kurdish Workers Party, has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.  

The Turkish military and its allied Syrian forces took control of Afrin back in March, driving out the Kurdish militia. Turkey regards the Syrian Kurdish militia as a terror group with connections to Kurdish rebels fighting in Turkey.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Paul Butler.

I’m Kent Covington. Up next: Mary will break down the latest Supreme Court ruling. This is The World and Everything in It.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., joined by House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., left, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, talks following a closed-door conference with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 20, 2018.

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