Two days after U.S. Sen. John McCain’s death following a 13-month battle with brain cancer, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Kelli Ward has compared “political correctness” to cancer.

Ward posted the remark on Twitter early Monday amid intense criticism of another one of her social media posts from Saturday.

In that post, Ward insinuated that the announcement from the McCain family that he was ending medical treatment was timed to hurt her candidacy. In the final stretch of the primary race, Ward was on a “Road to Victory” bus tour and was hoping to make positive headlines of her own.

Ward wrote, “I think they wanted to have a particular narrative that is negative to me.” She immediately drew widespread condemnation for the post, with people accusing her of being self-obsessed and disrespectful. She took down the post. 

On Monday, the day before the primary election, she appeared to double down on Twitter.

“Political correctness is like a cancer!” she wrote. 

She lashed out at her critics, writing, “Now they call us ‘degenerate’ & ‘trash people.’ Are there no depths to which these people won’t sink?” 

Ward posted a sampling of some of the responses she received, including one from GOP strategist Rick Wilson, who condemned her and her supporters. 

“Once again, a national reminder that Kelli Ward is a trash person supported by trash people,” Wilson wrote. 

Ward’s campaign spokesman, Zachery Henry, said Ward’s post about political correctness had nothing to do with the fallout from her comment about McCain’s health. He said it was a reaction to efforts to silence conservatives more broadly.

“Dr. Ward feels strongly that political correctness is used as a tool by the Establishment and the media to silence conservatives. Silencing opposing voices eventually kills those voices and their messages. 

“So yes, political correctness is like a cancer.”

Henry added, “She wasn’t talking about McCain at all. She’s railed against the ruling class … since at least 2015.”

In the final stretch of the primary race, McCain’s death has eclipsed coverage of all political campaigns. Ward is in a three-way race for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Jeff Flake. She is vying against former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Fountain Hills, and Rep. Martha McSally, a two-term congresswoman.

Polling suggests McSally, the GOP establishment favorite, is ahead.

In 2016, Ward unsuccessfully challenged McCain from the right for the GOP nomination for that senate seat. McCain easily defeated Ward.

McCain will be honored in services and tributes this week. He will lie in state in both the Arizona state Capitol and the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. before being buried in the cemetery at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Follow the reporter on Twitter @yvonnewingett and on Facebook. Contact her at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com.

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The king spoke – and a $2 trillion dream went up in smoke.

For the past two years, Saudi Arabia has prepared to place up to five percent of its national oil company on the stock market. Officials talked up the Saudi Aramco initial public offering (IPO) with international exchanges, global banks and US President Donald Trump.

The planned listing was to be the cornerstone of the kingdom’s promised economic overhaul and, at a targeted $100bn – the biggest IPO ever. It was the brainchild of 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, the heir apparent of the world’s largest oil exporter.

But after months of setbacks, the international and domestic legs of the IPO were pulled.

The reason: MBS’s father King Salman stepped in to shelve it, three sources with ties to government insiders told Reuters news agency.

The decision came after the king met with family members, bankers, and senior oil executives, including a former Aramco CEO, said one of the sources, who requested anonymity. Those consultations took place during Ramadan, which ended in the middle of June.

The king’s interlocutors told him the IPO, far from helping the kingdom, would undermine it. Their main concern was an IPO would bring full public disclosure of Aramco’s financial details, the sources said.

In late June, the king sent a message to his diwan, or administrative office, demanding the IPO be called off, the three sources said. The king’s decision is final, a second source said.

“Whenever he says ‘no’, there is no budging,” the source said.

‘Keeping MBS in check’

After Reuters reported last week the deal had been shelved, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said the government was committed to conducting the IPO at an unspecified date in the future.

A senior Saudi official referred Reuters to that statement and repeated that the government, Aramco’s shareholder, was working towards an IPO when conditions were right.

“We are surprised that despite this statement – that the government continues actively to plan for the IPO – Reuters persists in asking questions alleging that plans are halted.

“Aramco’s shareholder is the government of Saudi Arabia. His majesty, King Salman, has delegated management of the IPO to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and a committee which includes the Ministers for Energy, Finance and Economy.

“Therefore, decisions around the nature and timing of the IPO, will be decided by the committee for the government’s approval,” the official said.

In a country ruled for decades by the Al Saud dynasty, it is not surprising that the king ultimately decides. But the shelving of the Aramco IPO is a major blow to the prince’s Vision 2030 reform programme, which aims to fundamentally transform Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent, state-driven economy.

It suggests the king is keeping the new unilateral power of the young prince – accrued soon after his father’s accession to the throne in January 2015 – in check.

It also raises doubts about Riyadh’s management of the IPO process and commitment to making the economy more transparent, some investors say.

Taking the reins

While King Salman has the final say on policy, he has given great authority to his son.

After assuming powers as defence minister and chief of the royal court in January 2015, MBS launched a war in Yemen, adopted a more assertive stance toward arch-rival Iran, and implemented a diplomatic and trade blockade of Qatar.

Taking the reins of a powerful new economic council, he set out to tighten state spending, grow the private sector, and win foreign investment.

The king also allowed him to push through high-profile social reforms including ending a ban on women driving and opening cinemas in the deeply conservative Muslim country.

MBS entered the line of succession in April 2015, replacing an uncle as deputy crown prince.

Two years later, he was elevated to crown prince in a palace coup that removed his cousin Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the interior minister.

The king has intervened at times.

Most notably, when MBS gave the impression last year that Riyadh endorsed the Trump administration’s still nebulous Middle East peace plan, including US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the king made a public correction.

At the Arab League summit in April, he reaffirmed Riyadh’s commitment to the Arab and Muslim identity of Jerusalem following an uproar in the Islamic world.

“The king is obsessed with the idea of how history will judge him. Will he be the king who sold Aramco, who sold Palestine?” the second source said.

Grinding to a halt

It is not clear exactly which of the IPO arguments prompted King Salman to make the decisive call on Aramco.

But industry experts and sources previously told Reuters that preparations had been slowing for months for at least two reasons: scepticism about MBS’s public declaration in 2016 that the sale would give the whole company a value of $2 trillion valuation, and concern about the legal risks and tough disclosure requirements associated with a foreign listing.

By April, Aramco stopped paying some of the banks working on the deal their retainer fee, three banking sources told Reuters. This is usually a fixed fee to ensure advisors do not lose out completely if the deal falters. An Aramco official declined to comment.

Then, while the king was deliberating, in mid-June, the banks, including JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, were invited to pitch for something different.

They were instead asked to present proposals for Aramco’s acquisition of a stake in petrochemicals giant SABIC from the sovereign wealth fund PIF, a banking source said.

That was an initial sign that plans for the listing were stalling and that Riyadh was looking to raise funds elsewhere, the banking sources said.

The senior Saudi official said Aramco’s interest in acquiring a stake in SABIC was in line with its objective of being the world’s leading energy and integrated chemicals business, and did not alter the government’s intent to list Aramco.

“Transferring SABIC’s ownership from the PIF to Saudi Aramco will enable PIF to boost strategies and governance and enhance PIF’s investment portfolio,” the official said.

“Such a strategic acquisition would necessarily have an impact on the timeline, but not the intent, of an IPO [of Aramco].”

Spokeswomen for JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley declined to comment on whether their banks have any role in the SABIC deal.

Blow to MBS’s agenda

Saudi Arabia can still generate cash from alternative sources and move ahead with other reforms. But MBS had promised the listing would help create a culture of openness in the secretive kingdom.

As well as raising concerns about that commitment to transparency, the shelved IPO contributes to a sense of unpredictability after scores of top royals, ministers and businessmen were rounded up in an anti-corruption campaign last November.

The sources said even though the king’s decision was a blow to the prince’s agenda, he is still the favourite son and heir with a major influence on policy.

Rather, they say, it suggests the king wants to show he will be the deciding voice for the foreseeable future.

“I’m not sure that I would see it as an undermining of the rule of the crown prince. It’s much more likely ensuring that he doesn’t go off the deep end,” said James Dorsey, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

In a farewell to the American public, the late U.S. Sen. John McCain warned that “tribal” politics weaken America’s greatness and standing in the world.

He also expressed optimism in the American people’s ability to work together for the common good.

Rick Davis, McCain’s former campaign manager, read the senator’s letter during a news conference with reporters Monday morning. It was the first time McCain’s final words have been publicly read.

SENATOR’S BIOGRAPHY:  John McCain’s American Story

In the letter, McCain praised America’s role in liberating “more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history.”

He said the country’s standing and ideals are weakened “when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries … We weaken it when we hide behind walls rather than tear them down.”

However, McCain ended his letter on an optimistic note, saying Americans will get through the challenges facing the country by working together.

“We have always had so much more in common than in disagreement,” McCain wrote.

Read John McCain’s full farewell letter:

My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for 60 years, and especially my fellow Arizonans, 

Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life of service in uniform and service in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.

I’ve often observed that I’m the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I’ve loved my life, all of it. I’ve had experiences, adventures, friendships enough for 10 satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anybody else’s.

I owe this satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America’s causes — liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people — brings happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.

‘Fellow Americans’ — that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and great power in the process.

We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they’ve always been.

We are 325 million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country, we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.

Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.

I feel it powerfully still.

Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.

Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you and God bless America.

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As a senator from Arizona, John McCain successfully fought for hard-to-get nonstop flights between Washington, D.C., and Phoenix, among other cities.

But when Phoenix-based America West Airlines began new service from Washington’s close-in Reagan National Airport to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in late 2000, McCain wasn’t on the packed flights.

He took the long(er) way home for years, booking flights that required a connection in another city.

Flights at Reagan Airport are restricted to a distance of 1,250 miles, though Congress has sporadically “exempted” certain flights from that “perimeter rule.” McCain led an effort to repeal the rule in 1999. It failed but ultimately helped lead to exemptions that included up to three daily nonstop flights on the 1,979-mile route between Washington and Phoenix. 

McCain’s refusal to take the new nonstop was his way of stubbornly sticking to a vow he made in response to criticism that he only wanted the flights so he could shorten his commute. 

“To John, that was such an abhorrent thing to be accused of, he just took it off the table and said, “OK, I won’t fly it,” American Airlines CEO Doug Parker recalled. “I don’t think any other member (of Congress) would make that statement.”

Parker was an executive with America West from 1995 through its 2005 merger with US Airways, when he became CEO of the combined carrier. He lived in Arizona until US Airways merged with American in 2013 and he became CEO of American.

ARCHIVES: US Airways’ final flight closes curtain on another major airline (story continues below)

 

He is also a McCain family friend, counting McCain’s son, Andy, among his close friends. The two went to graduate school at Vanderbilt University. Another McCain son, Doug, is a pilot for American.

McCain’s refusal to take the nonstop flight tripped him up occasionally. Parker recalled that McCain missed a Phoenix event where he was scheduled to introduce President George W. Bush, who beat him to become the Republican nominee in 2000.

It wasn’t sour grapes. His connecting flight had been canceled.

“John was stuck,” Parker said.

His replacement: Sen. Jon Kyl, who had taken the nonstop flight to Phoenix.

“He wouldn’t take the nonstop even to get to an event on time,” Parker said.

McCain eventually relented, though no one recalls exactly when. Parker said it was only in recent years. He said McCain told him he took the nonstop flight to make it home for the graduation of one of his children and was surprised no one noticed and criticized him.

“He finally said, ‘OK, no one seems to care. I think the statute of limitations has run out.”’

TODAY IN THE SKY: The fleet and hubs of American Airlines, by the numbers (story continues below)

 

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake said McCain avoided the flight for “years and years” after Flake arrived in Washington in 2001.

When he finally started taking the flight, Flake recalled, McCain said, “I’ve done my penance, I guess.”

“Nobody said a thing about it. Nobody cared by that time,” Flake said.

Flake’s favorite McCain on a plane story involves the Washington-Phoenix flight.

A few years ago, Flake was heading home on American’s nonstop flight from Reagan National to Sky Harbor.  A passenger sitting next to him in row 20-something was excited when she sat down. Flake figured maybe she recognized him.

Turns out she had passed McCain, who was sitting in his favorite window seat a few rows ahead of Flake, in coach class, and was thrilled.

“She said, ‘John McCain is on the flight. John McCain is on the flight,”’ Flake recalled.

The woman had no clue who Flake was and asked him, “Have you ever flown with him before?”

“I said, “Yeah, once or twice.”

It was the weekend of the annual Phoenix Open golf tournament, and Flake’s seat-mate wondered if he was a golfer playing in the tournament.

A passenger seated in front of the pair finally piped up and said, “Hey lady, he’s the other senator from Arizona!”

American still operates the route, offering three daily non-stop flights.

 

 

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British number one Kyle Edmund exited the US Open in the first round after a surprise loss to Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi.

Lorenzi, the world number 94, beat the 16th seed 4-6 6-4 7-5 6-1 amid high humidity at Flushing Meadows.

After taking the opening set, Edmund, 23, was pegged back in the second before he cramped up in the third, affecting his movement on court.

The match, which lasted three hours 12 minutes, was played in temperatures of 30C and with humidity above 60%.

Edmund struggled as his fitness problems took hold in the third set, and he was repeatedly forced stretch out his groin.

A series of double faults from 36-year-old Lorenzi kept a wincing Edmund in the set, but the longer it went on, the more the momentum swung towards the unseeded Italian.

Edmund, shaking his head, did not even attempt to play a shot as Lorenzi closed out the set with a backhand, before the Briton called on the trainer for treatment.

Lorenzi sent down eight of his 20 aces in the final set as Edmund became more restricted, closing out the victory in the face of little resistance from the other side of the net.

US President Donald Trump has announced a new trade “understanding” with Mexico that could overhaul the existing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), putting pressure on Canada to agree to new terms on auto trade and other issues in order to remain part of the three-country pact. 

Addressing reporters in the White House Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump praised the preliminary agreement as an “incredible deal” for both countries.

But the president hinted that all might not be smooth sailing from here, suggesting he could cut Ottawa out of the deal reached with Mexico and adding that he wanted to change the agreement’s name.

“They used to call it NAFTA. We’re going to call it the United States-Mexico trade agreement. We’ll get rid of the name NAFTA,” Trump said, adding that he would call Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to begin negotiations with the treaty’s third party “very soon”.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto spoke to Trudeau on Monday and urged Ottawa to rapidly rejoin the talks with the goal of getting a final NAFTA rewrite this week.

Without Canada, the US’ number two trading partner, it’s unclear whether any new US trade agreement with Mexico would be possible.

Under Monday’s preliminary agreement, Mexico agreed to ensure that 75 percent of automotive content be produced within Mexico and the US, up from the current 62.5 percent, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative. The preliminary deal also says that 40 to 45 percent of the auto content must be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour.

December 1 deadline

Negotiators have been shuttling back and forth between the three countries for months to try to iron out the bilateral stumbling blocks, including rules for the auto market, before the end of August.

Talks ground to a halt in May, in part due to the July 1 presidential elections in Mexico.

The trilateral treaty has been a key target in Trump’s aggressive trade strategy and he has repeatedly threatened to scrap it altogether, branding it a “disaster”.

But after a year of intense negotiations to salvage NAFTA, US and Mexican negotiators are eager to seal a new deal before Pena Nieto hands power to President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on December 1.

For that to happen, US Congress must be notified 90 days in advance, which means the administration must send the notice by the end of the week.

A Canadian foreign ministry spokesperson said earlier on Monday that Ottawa was encouraged by “progress” between the US and Mexico, but cautioned that any new version of NAFTA would need to be beneficial for Canada before being signed off on by officials.

Campaign promises

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said Trump was “delivering” on promises made during his successful presidential campaign to renegotiate major trade deals affecting US workers.

“Essentially what this [deal] seems to do is update the 24-year-old agreement with respect, particularly, to the manufacturing sector, particularly when it comes to cars, an area that was decimated in many respects because of NAFTA,” Halkett said.

“A lot of [US-based] jobs went to Mexico, where the labour supply was cheaper,” she added.

NAFTA, which came into effect at the beginning of January 1994, lifted tariffs on virtually all goods traded among the US, Canada, and Mexico.

Trilateral trade between the three countries has exceeded $1tn annually in recent years, according to a 2017 report by the US’ Congressional Research Service, with Canada and Mexico ranking in the top three largest buyers from, or suppliers to, the US in 2016.

Job losses

But critics of the deal suggest it has led to significant job losses within the US market, with companies shifting operations to Mexico due to lower production costs.

According to the US-based Economic Policy Institute, about 700,000 jobs have been lost nationwide due to growing trade deficits with Mexico caused by NAFTA.

Al Jazeera’s John Holman, reporting from Mexico City, said outgoing President Nieto “probably had to make sacrifices” to protect a trade agreement with the US, with a possible consequence being the flight of car manufacturing companies from the country.

“Workers in Mexico might be the ones that come out of this well, because wages in certain sectors may have to go up as a result of the [new] trade deal,” Holman said.

“Wages are currently very low in Mexico and that is one of the reasons that car makers are attracted to the country, the low cost of labour, but it [the new deal] might also affect whether they want to stay in Mexico or go to Asia and the US,” he added.

Advisers of incoming President Lopez Obrador hailed the new deal, saying it represented progress on energy and wages for Mexico’s workers. 

Lopez Obrador is a leftist free-trade sceptic, and his landslide victory in Mexico’s July 1 elections had raised doubts about the future of the ongoing renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

However, his transition team has been taking part in the talks and gave their blessing to the two-way deal. 

A 10-year-old boy in North Carolina was punished last week for referring to his female teacher as “ma’am.” The incident left his parents both concerned and confused, they told WTVD-TV.

Teretha Wilson noticed her son, Tamarion, seemed upset after leaving the bus Aug. 21 from his school in the town of Tarboro, she told the station. “I asked him what happened. He said he got in trouble for saying ‘yes ma’am’,” Wilson told WTVD’s Michael Perchick.

Tarboro, a town of about nearly 10,900, according to Census population estimates in July 2017, is about 62 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Tamarion showed her a piece of paper  with the word “ma’am” written dozens of times by hand, four times on every line, Wilson said. The boy said his teacher made him write it because he continued to call her “ma’am” after she asked him not to, the mother told WTVD.

Wilson and Tamarion’s father, McArthur Bryant, told WTVD that they raised their children to refer to adults as “ma’am” and “sir” out of respect, and that Tamarion was hospitalized last month for a seizure-related incident involving memory loss, perhaps contributing to a misunderstanding at school.

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The teacher at North East Carolina Preparatory School wasn’t aware of Tamarion’s condition, the parents told the station, but Wilson still expressed disappointment: “It wasn’t right. It wasn’t professional. As a teacher, it wasn’t appropriate.”

A parent was asked to sign the paper as part of the punishment, his parents told the TV station.

Wilson met the next day with the school’s principal and the teacher, WTVD reported, returning the signed punishment sheet along with a definition, handwritten by Tamarion, of the word “ma’am”: “a term of respect of polite address used for a woman.”

Wilson requested that Tamarion be moved to a different class, which the principal approved, the station said.

School director William J. Etheridge declined to identify the teacher involved in the matter to USA TODAY “on the advice of our attorney,” but did acknowledge the incident in a statement:  “It has been handled appropriately by the K-7 principal.”

The K-7 principal is Vernita Williams, according to the school’s staff directory.

An image of the handwritten sheet was shared to Twitter on Thursday. See WTVD’s full report for more.

Follow Josh Hafner on Twitter: @joshhafner

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