AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

1 dead, 8 hurt in Colorado school shooting, 2 in custody

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (AP) — Two students opened fire Tuesday inside a charter school in an affluent suburb of Denver not far from Columbine High School , killing a teenager, wounding eight and spreading terror before they were taken into custody, authorities said.

Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said the pair walked into the STEM School Highlands Ranch and began shooting students in two classrooms. Within minutes, deputies at a nearby sheriff’s department substation entered the school and arrested the two suspects after a struggle.

“As officers were arriving at the school, they could still hear gunshots,” Douglas County Undersheriff Holly Nicholson-Kluth said.

Authorities identified one of the suspects late Tuesday as 18-year-old Devon Erickson. Spurlock said the second suspect is a juvenile and that both attended the school. They were not previously known to authorities, he said.

“I have to believe that the quick response of the officers that got inside that school helped save lives,” Spurlock said.

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Appeals court: Trump can make asylum seekers wait in Mexico

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration can make asylum seekers wait in Mexico for immigration court hearings while the policy is challenged in court, handing the president a major victory, even if it proves only temporary.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — a frequent target of the president’s complaints — reversed a decision by a San Francisco judge that would have prevented asylum seekers from being returned to Mexico during the legal challenge.

The case must still be considered on its merits and could end up at the Supreme Court. But allowing the policy to remain in effect in the meantime lets the administration carry out an unprecedented change to U.S. asylum practices.

The administration has said it plans to rapidly expand the policy across the border, which would have far-reaching consequences for asylum seekers and Mexican border cities that host them while their cases wind through clogged U.S. immigration courts. Cases can take several years to decide.

The policy was challenged by 11 Central Americans and advocacy groups that argued it jeopardized asylum seekers by forcing them to stay in Mexico, where crime and drug violence are prevalent.

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Ex-White House lawyer defies House subpoena for Mueller docs

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former White House lawyer defied a congressional subpoena Tuesday, setting the Trump administration on course for another collision with the Democratic-led House over its pursuit of documents related to the Russia investigation.

Don McGahn’s refusal to provide the documents to the House Judiciary Committee came at the instruction of the White House, which suggested the documents could be subject to executive privilege. Such a claim can shield some presidential material from disclosure.

President Donald Trump has defied requests from House Democrats since the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report last month. Republicans have largely united behind the president, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday declaring “case closed” on Mueller’s Russia probe and potential obstruction by Trump. McConnell said Democrats are “grieving” the result.

Mueller said he could not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but he did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Mueller didn’t charge Trump but wrote that he couldn’t exonerate him, either.

Democrats say the case is anything but closed and are conducting their own review of Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference . The Judiciary panel wants to speak to McGahn and review certain documents, in part because he was a vital witness for Mueller, recounting the president’s outrage over the investigation and his efforts to curtail it.

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White House launches new uphill bid to overhaul immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reviving a deeply contentious issue that has stymied both Congress and the administration, the White House launched a new bid Tuesday to overhaul a legal immigration system that President Donald Trump has long railed against.

Though similar efforts have failed to garner anywhere near the support necessary, Trump hopefully invited a dozen Republican senators to the White House to preview the plan, which was spearheaded by senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

It’s the result of an unusually methodical approach for an administration known for hastily written executive orders and Trump’s declarations by tweet. Kushner’s team has pulled in officials with experience in legislation-writing from outside the White House, including the Department of Homeland Security, to help with the drafting.

Still, the road to passage remains uphill. Democrats are likely to strongly disapprove of parts of the plan without significant concessions.

Kushner outlined two major ideas:

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Newspaper: Trump lost more than $1 billion from 1985 to 1994

WASHINGTON (AP) — The New York Times reported Tuesday that Donald Trump’s businesses lost more than $1 billion from 1985 to 1994, based on tax information the newspaper acquired.

The Times said it has acquired printouts from the future president’s official IRS tax transcripts, including figures from his federal tax form.

The newspaper said Trump reported business losses of $46.1 million in 1985, and a total of $1.17 billion in losses for the 10-year period.

After comparing Trump’s information with that of other “high-income earners,” the Times concluded that Trump “appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer.” Because of his business losses, the newspaper reported, Trump did not pay income taxes for eight of the 10 years.

The House Ways and Means Committee has asked the IRS to provide Trump’s personal and business returns for 2013 through 2018. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday refused to do so, saying the panel’s request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.”

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US pregnancy deaths are up, especially among minorities

Pregnancy-related deaths are rising in the United States and the main risk factor is being black, according to new reports that highlight racial disparities in care during and after childbirth.

Black women, along with Native Americans and Alaska natives, are three times more likely to die before, during or after having a baby, and more than half of these deaths are preventable, Tuesday’s report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concludes.

Although these deaths are rare — about 700 a year — they have been rising for decades.

“An American mom today is 50% more likely to die in childbirth than her own mother was,” said Dr. Neel Shah, a Harvard Medical School obstetrician.

Separately, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released new guidelines saying being black is the greatest risk factor for these deaths. The guidelines say women should have a comprehensive heart-risk evaluation 12 weeks after delivery, but up to 40% of women don’t return for that visit and payment issues may be one reason.

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Chinese researchers try brain implants to treat drug addicts

SHANGHAI (AP) — Patient Number One is a thin man, with a scabby face and bouncy knees. His head, shaved in preparation for surgery, is wrapped in a clean, white cloth.

Years of drug use cost him his wife, his money and his self-respect, before landing him in this drab yellow room at a Shanghai hospital, facing the surgeon who in 72 hours will drill two small holes in his skull and feed electrodes deep into his brain.

The hope is that technology will extinguish his addiction, quite literally, with the flip of a switch.

The treatment — deep brain stimulation — has long been used for movement disorders like Parkinson’s. Now, the first clinical trial of DBS for methamphetamine addiction is being conducted at Shanghai’s Ruijin Hospital, along with parallel trials for opioid addicts. And this troubled man is the very first patient.

The surgery involves implanting a device that acts as a kind of pacemaker for the brain, electrically stimulating targeted areas. While Western attempts to push forward with human trials of DBS for addiction have foundered, China is emerging as a hub for this research.

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Georgia governor signs restrictive ‘heartbeat’ abortion ban

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday signed into law one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws, a measure that bans the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.

Kemp, a Republican, said he approved the bill “to ensure that all Georgians have the opportunity to live, grow, learn and prosper in our great state.”

The signing caps weeks of tension and protests at the state Capitol and begins what could be a lengthy and costly legal battle over the law’s constitutionality. But a legal showdown is exactly what supporters want.

“We will not back down,” Kemp said. “We will always continue to fight for life.”

Anti-abortion activists and lawmakers across the country have been energized by the new conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court that includes President Donald Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. They are pushing abortion bans in an attack on the high court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide until a fetus is developed enough to live outside a woman’s uterus.

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US official: Intel indicates Iran moved missiles by boat

WASHINGTON (AP) — The decision to send an aircraft carrier and a group of Air Force bombers to the Middle East was based in part on intelligence indications that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles by boat in waters off its shores, an American official said Tuesday.

The movement, first reported by CNN, was among a range of recent indications that Iran might be considering or preparing to attack U.S. forces in the region, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence.

The official said it was not clear whether the boats with missiles represented a new military capability that could be used against U.S. forces or were only being moved to shore locations.

When the White House announced Sunday that the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a bomber task force were being deployed to the Middle East, John Bolton, the national security adviser to President Donald Trump, cited “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” but did not explain what they were.

Bolton said the movement of additional military firepower to the Middle East was meant to send a “clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on the United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

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Can US, China salvage their talks and end trade war?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Heightened trade tensions between the United States and China are spooking financial markets and putting a chill on prospects for the global economy.

Chinese officials are heading to Washington to try to salvage negotiations aimed at breaking an impasse between the world’s two biggest economies over Beijing’s aggressive push to challenge American technological dominance. The 11th round of talks is set for Thursday and Friday in Washington.

But their arrival is unlikely to stop the United States from going ahead with plans to raise import taxes on $200 billion in Chinese goods at 12:01 a.m. Friday, Eastern time, in a dramatic escalation of a yearlong trade war.

The dispute is upsetting investors. The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 500 points Tuesday afternoon after slipping modestly on Monday.

Here’s a look at what’s happening:

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