Trump’s gyrations on NAFTA cause head-scratching

Trump’s gyrations on NAFTA cause head-scratching

WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump campaigned on an “America First” trade policy of bracing clarity: Renegotiate or abandon NAFTA and crack down on China’s trade practices.

Yet so far, his trade policy has produced mostly confusion and division, even among fellow Republicans. At stake may be the president’s credibility over whether and how he will deliver on his campaign vow to undo decades of American trade policy and restore millions of manufacturing jobs lost to foreign competition.

The latest puzzler broke out over the prospect that the Trump administration would simply abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement rather than start to renegotiate it. The White House leaked that possibility to reporters, rattling investors and drawing protests from business groups and Republican lawmakers.

Storms leave damage as they move across South

Storms moving through the Deep South on Thursday left damage in southeastern Alabama and west central Georgia after flooding caused a death in North Carolina earlier in the week.

Trees were on top of houses and a mobile home was off its foundation along U.S. 29, Jeanna Barnes of the Pike County Emergency Management Agency in Alabama said Thursday.

A man was trapped in his home by a fallen tree, Barnes said. To the north, in Montgomery County, fallen trees blocked roads and caused minor structural damage.

In North Carolina, flooding continued Thursday in more than a dozen counties in the eastern part of the state after storms dumped as much as 8 inches of rain in some places earlier this week.

Employers can pay women less based on past salaries

SAN FRANCISCO

Employers can legally pay women less than men for the same work based on differences in the workers’ previous salaries, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower-court ruling that said pay differences based exclusively on prior salaries were discriminatory under the federal Equal Pay Act.

That’s because women’s earlier salaries are likely to be lower than men’s because of gender bias, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Seng said in a 2015 decision.

The 9th Circuit panel cited a 1982 ruling by the court saying employers could use previous salary information as long as they applied it reasonably and had a business policy that justified it.

SeaWorld San Diego gets a furry sea-lion surprise

SAN DIEGO

SeaWorld San Diego is caring for a sea lion that was unexpectedly born to a sick mother.

The park says the pup was discovered Wednesday when a team went to check the health of her mother, who was rescued from a beach in the city of Ocean-side on Tuesday.

The pup made a live appearance online hours after her birth.

The black-furred newborn is being nursed with a special milk formula through a feeding tube because the mother is too sick to care for her.

The park says the mother may have eaten shellfish or fish poisoned by domoic acid, a naturally occurring toxin from algae. The park hopes the mother will feel better in a day or so.

Associated Press