The chief executive officer of the oldest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S. is rebuking the group’s elected president for endorsing President Donald Trump’s immigration plan that seeks to build a border wall.   League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) CEO Brent Wilkes said late Wednesday a letter to Trump from group president Roger Rocha was a “clear contradiction” of its immigration reform stance.   Rocha wrote Trump this week saying the storied civil rights group would support his plan for a wall in exchange for protecting young immigrants brought to the country illegally.   He rescinded the letter after backlash from members in New Mexico, Texas, and California.   Wilkes says Rocha sent the letter with the group’s logo without its board’s consent. Some members are calling for Rocha to resign.   …

U.S. Olympic Committee officials were told in 2015 that an investigation by USA Gymnastics uncovered possible criminal sexual abuse by team doctor Larry Nassar but they failed to intervene, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. USA Gymnastics then-president Steve Penny called Scott Blackmun, the chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee, in July 2015 with a request for guidance on how to handle allegations Nassar had sexually abused gymnasts, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. Nassar plead guilty to sexual assault in a Michigan court and received a sentence of up to 175 years in prison on January 24. On the call, Penny told Blackmun he planned to alert law enforcement after a gymnast described what appeared to be a sexual assault by Nassar, the newspaper reported. Blackmun told Penny to “do what he had to do,” but provided no further guidance to USA Gymnastics in …

Federal officials are blaming a lack of leadership, money and communication in Puerto Rico for setting back hurricane recovery efforts in the U.S. territory. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Deputy Regional Administrator Ahsha Tribble said Thursday that the island’s bureaucracy and the power company’s inability to pay for supplies have slowed efforts to restore electricity. Nearly half a million power customers remain in the dark more than four months after Hurricane Maria. Energy experts also said that a lack of maintenance, heavily loaded lines and shoddy work done by Puerto Rico’s power company contributed to the power grid’s extensive failure after the hurricane. Officials spoke before a federal control board that oversees the island’s finances and is considering a plan to privatize Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, which is $9 billion in debt.   …

The U.S. government’s third-highest ranking diplomat announced his resignation Thursday after nearly 35-years of service, the latest in a steady stream of senior career officers to leave the State Department since Donald Trump entered the White House just over one year ago. “My decision is personal, and driven by a desire to attend to my family, take stock of my life, and set a new direction for my remaining years,” Thomas Shannon said in a statement. Secretary of State Tillerson told the Associated Press he asked Shannon not to resign and admitted Shannon’s departure would be a loss. “Thirty-five years of experience is not something you replace overnight,” he said. Tillerson praised Shannon for his “encyclopedic” knowledge of U.S. diplomacy and added, “There will always be a place for Tom Shannon at the State Department.” Despite Tillerson’s words of praise, Shannon’s departure is likely to trigger renewed criticism from detractors …

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Thursday that a cut in U.S. funding for a U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees will put the stability and security of the region at risk. The United States, by far the largest contributor to UNRWA, announced on January 16 that Washington would withhold $65 million of $125 million it had planned for the agency this year. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from U.N. member states. U.S. President Donald Trump has questioned the value of such funding, and the State Department said the agency needed to make unspecified reforms. “It is no secret that this trend poses a threat to the refugee issue … as well as the negative consequences that will not only affect the receiving countries of refugees, but also the stability and security of the region,” Aboul Gheit said at an Arab League meeting. More than …

Cuba is protesting the creation of a U.S. task force on increasing internet access on the island – a measure that’s part of President Donald Trump’s hardening of U.S. policy on Cuba.   The new policy Trump outlined in June requires the creation of a task force “to examine the technological challenges and opportunities for expanding internet access in Cuba,” including federal funding for independent media and “internet freedom.” The task force will hold its first meeting in Washington on February 7. The U.S. has not released a list of task force members or any other details of its work. Cuba said late Wednesday that it delivered diplomatic notes of protest to the top U.S. diplomat in Havana and to the State Department in Washington.   The notes “rejected the goal of manipulating the internet to bring about illegal programs with subversive political ends,” the Cuban Foreign Ministry said.   …

Former first lady Michelle Obama says there was “a lovely frame” in the Tiffany-blue box Melania Trump delivered on inauguration day.   But the formal exchange on the day President Donald Trump took the oath of office was a little awkward, Mrs. Obama told Ellen DeGeneres in remarks broadcast Thursday. Mrs. Obama recalled that after Mrs. Trump gave her the gift on the White House front steps, “No one would come and take the box” so that it would not appear in photos.   Finally, Mrs. Obama said, her husband, the outgoing President Barack Obama, took the gift inside and photos were taken.   Mrs. Obama also gave DeGeneres gag birthday gifts, including a “Chia Obama” — a figure of her the former president’s face that grows a plant in place of hair.   …

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday called for the removal of Republican Devin Nunes as chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, citing actions  that undermine a federal probe into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. Schumer sent House Speaker Paul Ryan a letter “demanding the Speaker immediately remove Chairman Devin Nunes from the House Intelligence Committee and raising serious questions as to why House Republicans … have not taken credible action to fully address Russia’s meddling in U.S. elections and prevent future Russian cyber-attacks,” Schumer’s office said in a statement. Top House Democratic Nancy Pelosi also on Thursday called for the removal of Nunes. The House intelligence committee has voted to release a secret memo written by the panel’s Republicans that alleges anti-Trump bias at the FBI and Justice Department. Ryan has supported its release.       …

Republican members of Congress with medical experience put their skills to work after a train carrying dozens of them crashed into a garbage truck in rural Virginia, killing one person in the truck and injuring others. The lawmakers were on their way to a strategy retreat in the countryside when the collision occurred around 11:20 a.m. Wednesday in Crozet, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Washington. No serious injuries were reported aboard the chartered Amtrak train, which set out from the nation’s capital with lawmakers, family members and staff for the luxury Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. At least two other people in the truck were reported seriously hurt. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky said about 100 Republican lawmakers were on the train when the crash made him jump out of his seat. “I looked out the side of the window and then I could see …

Authorities say a Cuban man who had been held at an immigration detention center in Georgia has died.   A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement news release says 33-year-old Yulio Castro Garrido died Tuesday at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.   ICE says medical staff at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, diagnosed him with pneumonia and he was taken to a hospital in Cuthbert on Jan. 7. ICE says Castro initially resisted treatment, causing his condition to worsen. He was transferred to a hospital in Albany on Jan. 9 and put on a ventilator.   After being transferred to Jacksonville Jan. 17, ICE says Castro slipped into a coma Jan. 22 and never regained consciousness.   He was ordered deported on Jan. 4 and had waived his right to appeal.     …

The Environmental Protection Agency is putting a two-year hold on an Obama-era clean-water rule to give the Trump administration more time to come up with a replacement. The EPA decision, announced Wednesday, came a week after the Supreme Court said the rule, which had been blocked since 2015, could be implemented. The rule changes the legal definitions of wetlands and small waterways under the Clean Water Act, expanding the areas that are protected. Supporters said the objective of the changes was to protect sources of drinking water for millions of Americans from industrial pollution. But EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the rules were confusing, especially for farmers and ranchers. Environmentalists said putting the rule on hold for two years was giving industry a permit to pollute. A U.S. appeals court blocked the 2015 rule from taking effect, and a Trump executive order called for it to be reviewed.  But the Supreme …