The nation in brief

Capitol Police officers stand guard at the U.S. Botanic Garden after an incident near there Wednesday in which shots were fired.
Capitol Police officers stand guard at the U.S. Botanic Garden after an incident near there Wednesday in which shots were fired.

Deadline extended for border-wall bids

WASHINGTON — The federal government Wednesday extended its deadline for companies to bid on the first contracts for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the six-day extension to Tuesday will allow companies time to consider answers to dozens of questions that potential bidders submitted ahead of Wednesday’s initial deadline. Earlier this month, the agency published requests for proposals for a wall that would be 30 feet high and easy on the eye for those looking at it from the north.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Tuesday that Trump administration officials informed her staff that next year’s budget will request $2.6 billion to build less than 75 miles of the wall. An internal report prepared for Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly estimated that a wall along the entire border could cost as much as $21 billion.

On Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters that geographic and physical challenges will make it difficult to build the “big, beautiful wall” that Trump promised during his presidential campaign.

Anti-abortion activists face 15 felonies

LOS ANGELES — California prosecutors charged two anti-abortion activists with 15 felonies after the two made undercover videos of themselves trying to buy fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood. They invaded the privacy of medical providers by filming without consent, prosecutors said.

The charges leveled Tuesday against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress come eight months after similar charges were dropped in Texas.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a longtime congressional Democrat who took over the investigation in January, said in a statement that the state “will not tolerate the criminal recording of conversations.”

Prosecutors say Daleiden of Davis, Calif., and Merritt of San Jose, filmed 14 people without permission between October 2013 and July 2015 in Los Angeles, San Francisco and El Dorado counties. One felony count was filed for each person. The 15th was for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy.

Daleiden said in an email to The Associated Press that the “bogus” charges are coming from “Planned Parenthood’s political cronies.”

Van, pickup collision kills 13 people

UVALDE, Texas — A small shuttle bus carrying Texas church members home from a retreat collided head-on with a pickup, killing 13 people and injuring two others Wednesday on a two-lane highway in southwestern Texas, officials said.

All of the victims who died were senior citizens who attended First Baptist Church of New Braunfels, Texas. On the bus were 14 senior citizens; the driver was the only person in the pickup. The vehicles collided about 12:30 p.m. on U.S. 83 about 75 miles west of San Antonio, according to Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Conrad Hein and a church statement.

Hein said the pickup driver was injured and hospitalized. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash about 120 miles from the church, where the members were headed.

In a statement posted on the church website, church officials said the van occupants were returning from a three-day retreat at the Alto Frio Baptist Encampment in Leakey, about 9 miles north of the crash site.

The statement said church officials hadn’t learned how many fatalities and injuries resulted from the crash. However, they were “ministering to family members to help them deal with this tragedy.”

Driver accused of Capitol police assault

WASHINGTON — A 20-year-old woman described as “erratic and aggressive” drove a vehicle into a U.S. Capitol Police cruiser and was taken into custody Wednesday morning, a disruption that closed streets near the Capitol for nearly three hours.

Shots were fired during the arrest attempt, but the incident appeared to be criminal in nature with “no nexus to terrorism,” said Capitol Police spokesman Eva Malecki. No one was injured, and the U.S. Capitol remained open.

Police identified the driver as Taleah Everett, who has no fixed address. She was charged with seven counts of assault on a police officer, among other offenses.

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