AP NEWS

AP Photo/Koji Sasahara

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — After a year of threats and diatribes, U.S. President Donald Trump and third-generation North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have agreed to meet face-to-face for talks about the North’s nuclear program.

It remains to be seen whether a summit, if it takes place, could lead to any meaningful breakthrough after an unusually provocative year. North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear weapon to date and test-launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles theoretically capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

Will there be a breakthrough? Failure? Or merely the start of another long and difficult process meant to remove the North’s nuclear capabilities?

Here’s a look at what may lie ahead and the challenges that remain:

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WHY NOW?

Analysts say Trump’s decision to accept Kim’s invitation for a summit and to do it by May could be linked in part to a desire to claim a significant achievement in his most difficult foreign policy challenge before the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Kim, on the other hand, seems desperate to save a sanctions-battered North Korean economy.

Both leaders have interests in striking a big deal, said Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute. Should it happen, the May summit between Trump and Kim will come shortly after a planned April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

It’s likely that North Korea will also push for summits with China, Russia and Japan later in the year to further break out of its isolation, Cheong said.

Trump will likely try to achieve something dramatic in his meeting with Kim, said Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, including a possible exchange of verbal commitments on the denuclearization of North Korea and a peace treaty between the two countries.

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WHERE TO MEET?

The United States and North Korea will likely be talking quite a bit in coming months and maybe even exchanging high-level delegations to set up the logistics of the summit.

One of the biggest questions is where it will take place.

The United States would prefer Washington, while North Korea will want Trump to come to Pyongyang, its capital.

Unless the countries agree to a third-country location, which would likely be South Korea, experts see it as more likely that Trump will fly to Pyongyang.

While no incumbent U.S. president has ever set foot in North Korea, Trump might be willing to become the first because it would fit the strong-willed, in-your-face type of leadership he tries to project, Hong said.

It’s hard to imagine Kim going to Washington because he is much less diplomatically experienced; the planned meeting with Moon in April will be his first with any state leader since he took power in 2011.

They could also meet in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone between the rival Koreas or, Hong said, the southern South Korean resort island of Jeju.

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WHAT WILL NORTH KOREA WANT?

A big question will be whether Trump can accept a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program rather than its elimination, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University.

Kim will likely want to keep some nukes as a deterrent, but that might be hard for Trump to tolerate when he spent so much time harshly criticizing his predecessor, Barack Obama, for allegedly standing by and watching as North Korea became a nuclear threat.

Still, Kim might express a firmer commitment to denuclearization to Trump, including giving a full report on the North’s current nuclear weapons arsenal and allowing thorough international verification once the denuclearization process takes hold, said Choi Kang, vice president of Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

While some experts speculate that North Korea might ask for a halt of annual military drills between the United States and South Korea or even the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, Choi said it’s meaningful that Kim, at least according to South Korean presidential official Chung Eui-yong, said he understands that the joint military exercises between the allies “must continue.” This signals an important departure from the past when the North thoroughly rejected the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Kim might even free several American citizens currently detained in the North to brighten the atmosphere of his summit with Trump, Choi said.

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HAVE WE SEEN THIS BEFORE?

The whirlwind events of the past months might be compared to 1994, when former U.S. President Bill Clinton concluded a major nuclear agreement between Washington and Pyongyang.

Under the “Agreed Framework,” North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 annual metric tons of fuel oil for the North.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Pyongyang in 2000, and there were talks of a summit between Clinton and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un. But there was no arrangement before George W. Bush’s election. The Agreed Framework broke down after U.S. intelligence agencies said North Korea was pursuing a second way to make bombs, using enriched uranium.

North Korea is clearly a different country than it was two decades ago, holding a legitimate nuclear program as a bargaining chip. But Trump, in just his second year in office and facing a similarly strong-willed leader eager to directly break a diplomatic deadlock, could be in a better position to cut a meaningful deal with North Korea than Clinton was at the end of his presidency.

“Chemistry wise, Trump and Kim might get along; they both strive to be bold and could be eager to strike a deal,” said Choi. “After years of diplomatic stalemate over the North’s nuclear program, we could use an injection of top-down decision making.”

—

Follow Kim Tong-hyung on Twitter at @KimTongHyung.

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A look at what's ahead in a landmark Trump-Kim summit
A look at what's ahead in a landmark Trump-Kim summit
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Eric Risberg

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A self-driving Uber SUV struck and killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in the first death involving a fully autonomous test vehicle – an accident that could have far-reaching consequences for the new technology.

The crash Sunday night in Tempe was the event many in the auto and technology industries were dreading but knew was inevitable.

Uber immediately suspended all road-testing of such autos in the Phoenix area, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. The testing has been going on for months as automakers and technology companies like the ride-hailing service compete to be the first with cars that operate on their own.

The Volvo was in self-driving mode with a human backup driver at the wheel when it hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle outside the lines of a crosswalk, police said. She died at a hospital.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expressed condolences on his Twitter account and said the company is working with local law enforcement on the investigation.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which makes recommendations for preventing crashes, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which can enact regulations, sent investigators.

The public’s image of the vehicles will be defined by stories like the crash in Tempe, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies self-driving vehicles.

Although the Uber vehicle and its human backup could be at fault, it may turn out that there was nothing either could have done to stop the crash, he said.

Either way, the fatality could hurt the technology’s image and lead to a push for more regulations at the state and federal levels, Smith said.

Autonomous vehicles with laser, radar and camera sensors and sophisticated computers have been billed as the way to reduce the more than 40,000 traffic deaths a year in the U.S. alone. Ninety-four percent of crashes are caused by human error, the government says.

Autonomous vehicles don’t drive drunk, don’t get sleepy and aren’t easily distracted. But they do have faults.

“We should be concerned about automated driving,” Smith said. “We should be terrified about human driving.”

In 2016, the latest year available, more than 6,000 U.S. pedestrians were killed by vehicles.

The federal government has voluntary guidelines for companies that want to test autonomous vehicles, leaving much of the regulation up to states.

Many states, including Michigan and Arizona, have taken a largely hands-off approach, hoping to gain jobs from the new technology, while California and others have taken a harder line.

California is among states that require manufacturers to report any incidents during the testing phase. As of early March, the state’s motor vehicle agency had received 59 such reports.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey used light regulations to entice Uber to the state after the company had a shaky rollout of test cars in San Francisco. Arizona has no reporting requirements.

Hundreds of vehicles with automated driving systems have been on Arizona’s roads.

Ducey’s office expressed sympathy for Herzberg’s family and said safety is the top priority.

The crash in Arizona isn’t the first involving an Uber autonomous test vehicle. In March 2017, an Uber SUV flipped onto its side, also in Tempe. No serious injuries were reported, and the driver of the other car was cited for a violation.

Herzberg’s death is the first involving an autonomous test vehicle but not the first in a car with some self-driving features. The driver of a Tesla Model S was killed in 2016 when his car, operating on its Autopilot system, crashed into a tractor-trailer in Florida.

The NTSB said that driver inattention was to blame but that design limitations with the system played a major role in the crash.

The U.S. Transportation Department is considering further voluntary guidelines that it says would help foster innovation. Proposals also are pending in Congress, including one that would stop states from regulating autonomous vehicles, Smith said.

Peter Kurdock, director of regulatory affairs for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in Washington, said the group sent a letter Monday to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao saying it is concerned about a lack of action and oversight by the department as autonomous vehicles are developed. That letter was planned before the crash.

Kurdock said the deadly accident should serve as a “startling reminder” to members of Congress that they need to “think through all the issues to put together the best bill they can to hopefully prevent more of these tragedies from occurring.”

—

Krisher reported from Detroit. Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M., and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to this story.

—

This story has been corrected to show that federal investigators found Tesla’s Autopilot system was a factor in the deadly Florida crash.

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Pedestrian killed by self-driving Uber vehicle in Arizona
Pedestrian killed by self-driving Uber vehicle in Arizona
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

WASHINGTON (AP) — Summoned by student survivors of the Florida school shooting, tens of thousands of people poured into the nation’s capital and cities across America on Saturday to march for gun control and ignite political activism among the young.

Organizers of the March for Our Lives rally in Washington hoped their protest would match in numbers and spirit last year’s women’s march, one of the biggest protests in the capital since the Vietnam era and one that far exceeded predictions of 300,000 demonstrators.

Bearing signs reading “We Are the Change,” ”No More Silence” and “Keep NRA Money Out of Politics,” protesters lined Pennsylvania Avenue from the stage near the Capitol, stretching back toward the White House. The route also takes in the Trump International Hotel.

President Donald Trump was in Florida for the weekend. A motorcade took him to his West Palm Beach golf club in the morning.

Large rallies also took shape in such cities as Boston, Houston, Minneapolis and Parkland, Florida, the site of the Feb. 14 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead.

The police presence was heavy as more than 20,000 people filled a park near the Florida school, chanting slogans such as “Enough is enough” and carrying signs that read “Why do your guns matter more than our lives?” and “Our ballots will stop bullets.”

Gun violence was fresh for some in the Washington crowd: Ayanne Johnson of Great Mills High School in Maryland held a sign declaring, “I March for Jaelynn,” honoring Jaelynn Willey, who died Thursday two days after being shot by a classmate at the school. A boy was injured in the attack, and the shooter died.

Rallying outside the New Hampshire Statehouse in Concord, 17-year-old Leeza Richter said: “Our government will do more to stop us from walking out than it will to stop a gunman from walking in.”

Since the bloodshed in Florida, students have tapped into a current of gun control sentiment that has been building for years – yet still faces a powerful counterpoint from the National Rifle Association and its supporters.

Organizers hope the passions of the crowds and the under-18 roster of speakers will translate into a tipping point starting with the midterm congressional elections this fall.

The protesters, many of them high school students, claim that the youth leadership of this initiative is what will set it apart from previous attempts to enact stronger gun-control legislation.

In Atlanta, Lindsey Alexander, a freshman at Decatur High School in Decatur, Georgia, attended her first protest, inspired by hearing Parkland students debate the NRA on television.

“If nothing changes, we’re going to continue to have school shootings,” she said. “I understand the Second Amendment is important. We’ve always had this right. But when the Founding Fathers put that right in place, they didn’t mean it to become what it is today.”

Polls indicate that public opinion nationwide may be shifting on an issue that has simmered for generations, and through dozens of mass shootings.

A new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 69 percent of Americans think gun laws in the U.S. should be tightened. That’s up from 61 percent who said the same in October 2016 and 55 percent when the AP first asked the question in October 2013. Overall, 90 percent of Democrats, 50 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of gun owners now favor stricter gun control laws.

But even with claims of historic social momentum on the issue of gun control, the AP poll also found that nearly half of Americans do not expect elected officials to take action.

Among the questions facing march organizers and participants will be how to translate this one-day event into legislative change.

One way they hope to do that is by registering young voters and channeling energy into the midterm elections.

—

Associated Press writers Terry Spencer in Parkland, Florida; Jacob Jordan in Atlanta; and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

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Tens of thousands gather nationwide to march for gun control
Tens of thousands gather nationwide to march for gun control
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Source: AP HEADLINES

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TOKYO (AP) — After six years of seclusion, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seems to want to get out and see the world.

Kim’s surprise summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week was the first time he’d traveled outside of his country since he assumed power in 2011, according to his own state media. But Beijing is just the start of his ambitious coming out party.

Next is a meeting just south of the Demilitarized Zone with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, then the trickiest meeting of all, with President Donald Trump in an as-yet undisclosed location. He is also rumored to be considering a sit-down with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, while one of his staunchest critics, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, says he wants some face time, too.

Why the sudden penchant for travel?

Here’s a look at where Kim’s been, where he might be headed and what kind of “souvenirs” he’ll be hoping to gather along the way.

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CHINA

In hindsight, this was the obvious choice for Kim’s international debut.

China is far and away the North’s most important economic partner, and it has tightened its sanctions in recent months to increase the pressure on Kim to ease up with his nuclear weapons program. Kim has appeared less willing to toe Beijing’s line, however, and relations between the two countries have suffered.

By suddenly showing up in China on Monday he completely changed that narrative.

It’s not known yet what Kim and Xi discussed.

Two things are clear. By hosting Kim before anyone else, Xi very effectively reasserted China’s primary role in defusing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which has long been a key national security concern for Beijing. For Kim, meeting with Xi first means he will go into his summits with Moon and Trump better informed and less isolated.

More importantly for Kim, the visit could be a step toward persuading China to ease its sanctions, or at least how strictly they are enforced.

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SOUTH KOREA

The announcement that Kim and Moon would meet face to face was the first shocker of the year.

Kim floated the idea by sending his invitation-bearing sister to the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Olympics last month. The meeting is planned for late April in a truce village inside the DMZ.

Symbolically, it’s a huge step forward. Moon and his liberal government have been taking the initiative to reach out to the North after a year of escalating missile launches and angry rhetorical barrages. Kim extended an olive branch of his own in January, vowing to make improved relations one of his top priorities for the year.

Until Kim showed up in Beijing, it appeared Moon would be his first summit partner.

While that somewhat blurs the focus on North-South detente, the emotional storyline of Korean nationalism and the hope of reunification is still bound to play well with Kim’s domestic audience. North Korea is working on several development projects that appear aimed at boosting South Korean tourism to its east coast.

Optimistic, yes. But it’s worked for Pyongyang before.

Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, played that card nicely in the previous inter-Korea summits, held in 2000 and 2007.

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HAMBURGERS WITH TRUMP?

This one still has a lot of question marks.

Basic things, like when and where – and some might add, if – it will take place have yet to be disclosed.

Instead of announcing it themselves, the White House let a visiting delegation from South Korea inform the media that Trump had agreed to Kim’s offer to meet “by May.” Almost nothing official has been announced since.

Lots of potential sites have popped up in the rumor mill, from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to Mongolia (which has good relations with Pyongyang) to an ancient castle in Sweden.

In return for the chance to stand shoulder to shoulder as an equal with the leader of the Free World, Kim may release three Americans imprisoned by the North as a gesture of goodwill.

But a big question remains over one very important word: “denuclearization.”

Kim has been using it a lot recently, and some officials in Washington have interpreted that to mean he might be willing to negotiate away his costly and hard-won nuclear arsenal. But another interpretation is that he means a process that would involve all 30,000-plus U.S. troops permanently withdrawing from the South and a slew of security guarantees culminating in a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.

That’s what the North has been demanding for decades.

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RUSSIA

A meeting between Kim and Putin would seem to be a no-brainer.

Putin has been relatively friendly with Kim’s regime and has actively tried to bolster ties, despite the international sanctions.

The two countries recently signed an agreement on cooperation in scientific research and might be discussing a new border bridge. Russian media, meanwhile, are speculating that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho is planning to travel to Moscow next month.

Better relations with Moscow could benefit Kim tremendously.

The fall of the Soviet Union was a major blow to the North – and a contributing factor behind a famine in the 1990s that is believed to have killed at least hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. Ties have never been the same since.

But along with potential economic benefits, closer relations with Russia are important as a balance against Chinese influence and buffer against Washington and its allies. Putin is certainly wary of encouraging a nuclear-armed neighbor, cozying up with Kim would be a way of thumbing his nose at the West.

And he does seem to like doing that.

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JAPAN

Tokyo is playing catch-up.

Mired in a domestic corruption scandal and prone to follow Washington’s lead, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has just recently suggested he, too, wants to get in some quality time with Kim.

Japan has big problems with Pyongyang that go well beyond the nuclear issue.

Kim Jong Il admitted in a summit in 2002 with then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that its agents had abducted Japanese citizens in the 1970 and ’80s. Several were returned, but Tokyo has since demanded more information and the dispute has become a bitter stalemate.

Abe, a North Korea hawk, is worried Japan’s demands on the “abduction issue” will fall to wayside if he is left out in the cold while Kim meets other leaders.

The cost could be excessively high, however.

In return for normalized relations, Pyongyang will likely demand Japan pay more for the damage caused by its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

Some experts have speculated the bill could run into the billions of dollars.

—

Talmadge is the AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @EricTalmadge

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Kim Jong Un's China visit may be start of his world travels
Kim Jong Un's China visit may be start of his world travels
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages.

The use of what are known as cellphone-site simulators by foreign powers has long been a concern, but American intelligence and law enforcement agencies – which use such eavesdropping equipment themselves – have been silent on the issue until now.

In a March 26 letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that last year it identified suspected unauthorized cell-site simulators in the nation’s capital. The agency said it had not determined the type of devices in use or who might have been operating them. Nor did it say how many it detected or where.

The agency’s response, obtained by The Associated Press from Wyden’s office, suggests little has been done about such equipment, known popularly as Stingrays after a brand common among U.S. police departments. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the nation’s airwaves, formed a task force on the subject four years ago, but it never produced a report and no longer meets regularly.

The devices work by tricking mobile devices into locking onto them instead of legitimate cell towers, revealing the exact location of a particular cellphone. More sophisticated versions can eavesdrop on calls by forcing phones to step down to older, unencrypted 2G wireless technology. Some attempt to plant malware.

They can cost anywhere from $1,000 to about $200,000. They are commonly the size of a briefcase; some are as small as a cellphone. They can be placed in a car next to a government building. The most powerful can be deployed in low-flying aircraft.

Thousands of members of the military, the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and the rest of the national-security apparatus live and work in the Washington area. The surveillance-savvy among them encrypt their phone and data communications and employ electronic countermeasures. But unsuspecting citizens could fall prey.

Wyden, a Democrat, wrote DHS in November requesting information about unauthorized use of the cell-site simulators.

The reply from DHS official Christopher Krebs noted that DHS had observed “anomalous activity” consistent with Stingrays in the Washington area. A DHS official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the letter has not been publicly released added that the devices were detected in a 90-day trial that began in January 2017 with equipment from a Las Vegas-based DHS contractor, ESD America .

Krebs, the top official in the National Protection and Programs Directorate, noted in the letter that DHS lacks the equipment and funding to detect Stingrays even though their use by foreign governments “may threaten U.S. national and economic security.” The department did report its findings to “federal partners” Krebs did not name. That presumably includes the FBI.

The CEO of ESD America, Les Goldsmith, said his company has a relationship with DHS but would not comment further.

Legislators have been raising alarms about the use of Stingrays in the capital since at least 2014, when Goldsmith and other security-company researchers conducted public sweeps that located suspected unauthorized devices near the White House, the Supreme Court, the Commerce Department and the Pentagon, among other locations.

The executive branch, however, has shied away from even discussing the subject.

Aaron Turner, president of the mobile security consultancy Integricell, was among the experts who conducted the 2014 sweeps, in part to try to drum up business. Little has changed since, he said.

Like other major world capitals, he said, Washington is awash in unauthorized interception devices. Foreign embassies have free rein because they are on sovereign soil.

Every embassy “worth their salt” has a cell tower simulator installed, Turner said. They use them “to track interesting people that come toward their embassies.” The Russians’ equipment is so powerful it can track targets a mile away, he said.

Shutting down rogue Stingrays is an expensive proposition that would require wireless network upgrades the industry has been loath to pay for, security experts say. It could also lead to conflict with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.

In addition to federal agencies, police departments use them in at least 25 states and the District of Columbia, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

After the 2014 news reports about Stingrays in Washington, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla, wrote the FCC in alarm. In a reply, then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency had created a task force to combat illicit and unauthorized us e of the devices. In that letter, the FCC did not say it had identified such use itself but cited media reports of the security sweeps.

That task force appears to have accomplished little. A former adviser to Wheeler, Gigi Sohn, said there was no political will to tackle the issue against opposition from the intelligence community and local police forces that were using the devices “willy-nilly.”

“To the extent that there is a major problem here, it’s largely due to the FCC not doing its job,” said Laura Moy of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University. The agency, she said, should be requiring wireless carriers to protect their networks from such security threats and “ensuring that anyone transmitting over licensed spectrum actually has a license to do it.”

FCC spokesman Neil Grace, however, said the agency’s only role is “certifying” such devices to ensure they don’t interfere with other wireless communications, much the way it does with phones and Wi-Fi routers.

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APNewsBreak: US suspects listening devices in Washington
APNewsBreak: US suspects listening devices in Washington
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was so incensed by the FBI’s raid of his personal attorney’s office and hotel room that he’s privately pondered firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and publicly mused about ousting special counsel Robert Mueller.

The raid, in which agents seized attorney Michael Cohen’s records on topics including a $130,000 payment to a porn actress who alleges she had sex with Trump, left the president more angry than advisers had seen him in weeks, according to five people familiar with the president’s views but not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Trump tweeted Tuesday that “Attorney-client privilege is dead!” Nervous White House aides expressed new fears about the president’s unpredictability in the face of the Cohen raid, which he viewed as an assault on a longtime defender and a sign that Mueller’s probe into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign was “going too far.”

Trump also announced Tuesday he was cancelling plans to attend the Summit of the Americas over the weekend as well as an overnight visit to Colombia.

The president had been telling confidants for weeks that he was not eager to make the three-day trip, which had already been shortened from original plans, according to two people who have discussed it with him in recent weeks but were not authorized to disclose the private conversations. His decision not to travel was publicly tied to the need to monitor the situation in Syria, but privately Trump said he didn’t want to be away from the White House amid developments in the China trade dispute and in the Mueller investigation.

Trump also expressed confidence in the loyalty displayed by Cohen, his longtime personal and professional fixer, who ascended to one of the most powerful roles at the Trump Organization not filled by a family member. Cohen has steadfastly denied wrongdoing in his $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and has publicly defended Trump, but he has confided in associates that he is fearful of being a fall guy, according to a person familiar with his thinking but not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions.

Cohen has said he took out a personal line of credit on his home to pay Daniels days before the 2016 election and without Trump’s knowledge. The raid of his office was overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and based in part on a referral from Mueller.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made clear that White House officials have explored Trump’s authority to fire Mueller.

“He certainly believes that he has the power to do so,” she said at Tuesday’s press briefing.

Under Justice Department regulations, only Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation, can fire Mueller.

On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of four senators moved to protect Mueller’s job.

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey planned to introduce legislation Wednesday that would give any special counsel a 10-day window in which he or she could seek expedited judicial review of a firing, according to two people familiar with the legislation. They were not authorized to discuss the bill ahead of its release and requested anonymity.

Trump spent Monday evening calling associates to vent and gauge their reaction to the news. He bitterly complained that the raids were meant to ruin Cohen’s life and expressed frustration that it was another front from which to attack his presidency, according to a person familiar with the conversations but not permitted to discuss them publicly.

Trump also revived his broadsides on Rosenstein as well as Rosenstein’s boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he belittled to confidants for recusing himself from the investigation and, in turn, delivering him to Mueller.

The White House insisted Trump was focused on the response to Syria following the country’s apparent use of chemical weapons on civilians over the weekend, killing more than 40 people. A military strike would mark Trump’s second retaliatory strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government at a time when Trump is seeking to reduce the U.S. footprint in Syria.

The discussions come as Trump’s newest national security adviser, John Bolton, stepped into the job this week. He encouraged Trump to skip the trip to South America to manage the Syria strategy.

Bolton, a seasoned bureaucratic operator, has been expected to put his stamp on the National Security Council staff. NSC spokesman Michael Anton resigned over the weekend, with two people familiar with the situation saying Anton resigned after learning he would be fired. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, exited Tuesday. Bossert had overseen the administration’s response to the 2017 hurricane season and was credited by his colleagues for leading the administration’s efforts to bolster cybersecurity resiliency across government and private industry.

Asked if Bolton forced Bossert out, Sanders said: “I’m not going to get into specific details about the ongoings of personnel, but I can tell you that he resigned. The president feels he’s done a great job and wishes him the best.”

The mood at the NSC this week was described as grim, with aides fearful over Bolton’s plans. More senior-level departures are expected in the coming weeks, said two people familiar with the dynamic but not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Trump’s administration has set records for turnover in his 15 months in office at all levels, with Bossert marking at least the 13th official who held the rank of assistant to the president at the start of the administration to depart.

There is growing concern in Trump’s orbit that the turmoil will only continue following the release next week of former FBI director James Comey’s book, which promises to reveal new details about his conversations with the president and the Russia probe. An administration official said the White House would largely defer to outside surrogates to push back on Comey, but there was concern as to how the director’s interviews could rile up the president.

—

Lemire reported from New York City. Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

—

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

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Trump seethes over FBI raid, ponders firing those he blames
Trump seethes over FBI raid, ponders firing those he blames
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Source: AP HEADLINES

TOKYO (AP) — More than six years after assuming power, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has yet to complete one of the defining rituals of a world leader – hosting another head of state, or being welcomed by one on an official visit abroad.

It looks like that’s about to change.

South Korea’s presidential office announced Tuesday evening that the two countries had agreed to hold a summit next month at a truce village inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides their countries. And they plan to do so on the South’s side of the village, which would be a first.

Kim’s meeting this week with a top South Korean delegation to hash out his proposal for a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in points both to some savvy political maneuvering and possibly a broader attempt by Kim to step more firmly out from the shadows of his predecessors as North Korea’s undisputed supreme leader.

Kim already seems to be perfecting the optics of what he hopes will be ahead.

While the South Korean delegation was in Pyongyang, Kim seemed to cherish a role he rarely gets to take – that of a magnanimous head of state welcoming important foreign guests. North Korea’s state-run media made a point of portraying him as a confident statesman, holding court over a lavish dinner, beaming with satisfaction during group photos and congratulating South Korea for successfully staging the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

That’s quite a dramatic departure from the predominant images of 2017 – Kim surrounded by his generals celebrating their latest missile launch.

The North-South summit itself isn’t without precedent. Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, met his South Korean counterparts in 2000 and 2007. Both of those summits were held in Pyongyang, however.

To show just how important such a meeting is to him, Kim sent his younger sister to make the pitch directly to Moon last month, when she attended the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Her visit marked the first time a member of the Kim family had ever crossed the border.

Make no mistake – Kim is sticking to his nuclear weapons and arsenal of missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. While he may hold off on any new missile or nuclear tests for the time being, as Seoul has indicated, he has said repeatedly that he has no intention of giving them up or of using them as a bargaining chip to improve ties with Seoul, Washington or anybody else.

After a year of dangerously high tensions between his regime and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, Kim is clearly hoping to woo Seoul away from Washington’s hard line of “maximum pressure.” He is also looking to improved ties with the South as a potential means of keeping the North’s economy afloat.

But his recent moves seem to go a step beyond that.

Even without any lasting political breakthroughs, a summit would mark a major personal milestone for Kim, who while being the epicenter of great international anxiety is still known to the world almost exclusively through images and statements that are carefully filtered through North Korea’s state-run propaganda machine.

With the five-year official mourning period for his father now over, and his personal powerbase seemingly strong, holding a summit would offer Kim a chance to solidify his bona fides as a national leader and bolster his stature in comparison with the legacies of his grandfather, “eternal president” Kim Il Sung, and father, Kim Jong Il.

How far beyond a summit with South Korea Kim is willing or able to go remains to be seen. Moon is pushing for the North to reopen talks with the U.S. and his agreement to hold a summit with Kim indicates more developments on that front are in the offing. Seoul has said its next move is to brief American officials.

Trips abroad can be a risky proposition if a leader isn’t entirely certain stability can be maintained while he is away.

Even so, both of Kim’s predecessors traveled outside North Korea’s borders during their tenures – Kim Il Sung famously visited the Soviet Union and most of eastern Europe by train in 1984. Kim Jong Un himself has been abroad, having attended school as a boy in Switzerland, and rumors have come up from time to time that he would visit either Beijing or Moscow.

If nothing else, Kim does have an aircraft that’s ready for the task.

Kim’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, flew to the South for the Olympics on an aircraft believed to be Kim Jong Un’s personal jet, which was decked out to resemble the kind of plane other national leaders use for state trips. That seemed designed to suggest Kim, like any other political leader, could be ready to hop on a flight if the opportunity arose.

Not that he will likely need to do so anytime soon. No one is talking yet of a trip by Kim to Seoul.

Relations with Beijing have soured under his watch and while ties with Moscow are relatively better, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attention seems to be focused elsewhere. And despite Trump’s casual remarks otherwise, a journey to Washington would definitely seem like a longshot.

But then again, a year ago, so did the chances of a summit with South Korea’s leader.

—

Eric Talmadge has been the AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief since 2013. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter: @erictalmadge.

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Analysis: Summit would be rite of passage for Kim Jong Un
Analysis: Summit would be rite of passage for Kim Jong Un
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rattled by two weeks of muddled messages, departures and spitting matches between the president and his own top officials, Donald Trump is facing a shrinking circle of trusted advisers and a staff that’s grim about any prospect of a reset.

Even by the standards of Trump’s often chaotic administration, the announcement of Hope Hicks’ imminent exodus spread new levels of anxiety across the West Wing and cracked open disputes that had been building since the White House’s botched handling of domestic violence allegations against a senior aide late last month.

One of Trump’s most loyal and longest-serving aides, Hicks often served as human buffer between the unpredictable president and the business of government. One official on Thursday compared the instability caused by her departure to that of a chief of staff leaving the administration – though that prospect, too, remained a possibility given the questions that have arisen about John Kelly’s competence.

Hicks’ departure comes as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation appears to be circling the Oval Office, with prosecutors questioning Trump associates about both his business dealings before he became president and his actions in office, according to people with knowledge of the interviews. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has also been weakened after being stripped of his high-level security clearance amid revelations about potential conflicts of interest.

The biggest unknown is how the mercurial Trump will respond to Hicks’ departure and Kushner’s more limited access, according to some of the 16 White House officials, congressional aides and outside advisers interviewed by The Associated Press, most of whom insisted on anonymity in order to disclose private conversations and meetings. Besides Kushner and his wife, presidential daughter Ivanka Trump, most remaining White House staffers were not part of Trump’s close-knit 2016 campaign. One person who speaks to Trump regularly said the president has become increasingly wistful about the camaraderie of that campaign.

Rarely has a modern president confronted so many crises and controversies across so many fronts at the same time. After 13 months in office, there’s little expectation among many White House aides and outside allies that Trump can quickly find his footing or attract new, top-flight talent to the West Wing. And some Republican lawmakers, who are eying a difficult political landscape in November’s midterm elections, have begun to let private frustrations ooze out in public.

“There is no standard operating practice with this administration,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. “Every day is a new adventure for us.”

Thune’s comments described the White House’s peculiar rollout Thursday of controversial new aluminum and steel tariffs. White House aides spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning scrambling to steer the president away from an announcement on an unfinished policy, with even Kelly in the dark about Trump’s plans. Aides believed they had succeeded in getting Trump to back down and hoped to keep television cameras away from an event with industry executives so the president couldn’t make a surprise announcement. But Trump summoned reporters into the Cabinet Room anyway and declared that the U.S. would levy penalties of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports.

Some of Trump’s populist supporters cheered the move. The stock market, which Trump looks to for validation for his economic policies, plunged.

Some officials are bracing for more departures. On Thursday, NBC News reported that the White House was preparing to replace national security adviser H.R. McMaster as early as next month. A White House spokesman did not deny the report.

“We frequently face rumor and innuendo about senior administration officials,” spokesman Raj Shah said. “There are no personnel announcements at this time.”

For those remaining on the job, the turbulence has been relentless. Just two weeks ago, Kelly, the general brought in to bring order, was himself on the ropes for his handling of the domestic violence allegations against a close aide, Rob Porter. Trump was said to be deeply irritated by the negative press coverage of Kelly’s leadership during the controversy and considering firing him. But first, the president planned to give his chief of staff a chance to defend himself before reporters in the briefing room and gauge the reaction, according to two people with knowledge of the episode. The briefing, however, was canceled after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Kelly’s standing has stabilized somewhat as media attention to the Porter issue has waned.

One Kelly backer said the chief of staff’s standing remains tenuous, in part because of his clashes with Kushner over policy, personnel and White House structure. The tensions were exacerbated by Kelly’s decision to downgrade Kushner’s security clearance because the senior adviser had not been permanently approved for the highest level of access.

Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who also serves as a senior White House adviser, have been frustrated by Kelly’s attempt to restrict their access to the president, and they perceive his new crackdown on clearances as a direct shot at them, according to White House aides and outside advisers. Kelly, in turn, has grown frustrated with what he views as the couple’s freelancing. He blames them for changing Trump’s mind at the last minute and questions what exactly they do all day, according to one White House official and an outside ally.

The ethics questions dogging Kushner relate to both his personal financial interests and his dealings in office with foreign officials. Intelligence officials expressed concern that Kushner’s business dealings were a topic of discussion in conversations he was having with foreign officials about foreign policy issues of interest to the U.S. government, a former intelligence official said. Separately, The New York Times reported that two companies made loans worth more than half a billion dollars to Kushner’s family real estate firm after executives met with Kushner at the White House.

Allies of Kushner and Ivanka Trump insist they have no plans to leave the White House in the near future. As for Kelly, he appeared to hint at his tough spot during an event Thursday at the Department of Homeland Security, where he served as secretary before departing for the White House.

“The last thing I wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being the secretary of homeland security,” he said at the agency’s 15th anniversary celebration in Washington. “But I did something wrong and God punished me, I guess.”

—

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.

—

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC, Jonathan Lemire at http://twitter.com/jonlemire and Zeke Miller at http://twitter.com/zekejmiller

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Trump adrift: Tumult in West Wing amid exits, investigation
Trump adrift: Tumult in West Wing amid exits, investigation
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

WASHINGTON (AP) — No, the United States is not at risk of shutting down this week, as President Donald Trump suggested Thursday.

Neither is the entire government, for that matter.

Trump said on his way into Pentagon meetings: “If the country shuts down, which could very well be, the budget should be handled a lot differently than it’s been handled over the last long period of time – many years.”

Republicans and Democrats are racing to reach a short-term budget agreement and head off a partial government shutdown that could start at midnight Friday night. If they fail, the consequences, though noticeable, would be far short of a country in paralysis. Even core government functions would keep going.

In a nutshell: Hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be idled, some national parks could close, and certain other services, deemed non-essential, would stop. The air traffic control system, food inspection, Medicare, veterans’ health care and many other essential government programs would run as before. The Social Security Administration would continue to pay benefits and take applications. The Postal Service would run as usual, and the 1.3 million uniformed military personnel would still be on duty. National security operations would continue.

Whether they work through a partial shutdown or not, federal workers can’t get paid during a lapse in funding. In the past, however, they have been repaid retroactively even if they were ordered to stay home.

EDITOR’S NOTE – A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump says USA itself at risk of closing.
AP FACT CHECK: Trump says USA itself at risk of closing.
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Source: AP HEADLINES

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump came face-to-face Friday with hospitalized victims of the horrific school shooting in Florida and offered thanks to the doctors and nurses who helped the wounded, declaring “the job they’ve done is incredible.”

Asked if he’d talked with victims, Trump added: “I did indeed, and it’s very sad something like that could happen.”

After paying their respects to medical professionals at Broward Health North Hospital, Trump and his wife, Melania, visited with law enforcement officials in Fort Lauderdale, where he told officers that he hoped they were “getting the credit” they deserved for their response to the shooting that left 17 dead and 14 injured.

“I was at the hospital with a lot of parents and they are really thankful for the job you’ve done,” Trump said at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, where he was joined by Gov. Rick Scott, Sen. Marco Rubio and other Florida officials. He added that the young victims were in “really great shape” considering what they have been through.

Trump relished bantering and praising the law enforcement officials, he marveled at the speed with which first responders rushed the wounded to the hospital and he extended hearty thanks to first responders. But the president who has never been a natural at consolation didn’t publicly address the grief and sorrow gripping a shocked community and nation, beyond his mention of how sad it was to meet with victims.

Late Friday, he tweeted about the school shooting: “Our entire Nation, w/one heavy heart, continues to pray for the victims & their families in Parkland, FL. To teachers, law enforcement, first responders & medical professionals who responded so bravely in the face of danger: We THANK YOU for your courage!” He included pictures of an injured young girl and her family that he and the first lady visited.

During his visit, there was not any mention of the debate over gun regulation set off by the shooting. The president ignored a shouted question about whether guns should be more tightly regulated.

Trump said he originally planned to visit the Parkland area on Sunday or Monday, but decided he didn’t want to wait.

But as Trump arrived in Florida, some of the parents, survivors and others affected by the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School said they were more interested in firm action to prevent future assaults than a presidential visit.

“I don’t want Trump to come but we want more gun safety,” said 18-year-old Kevin Trejos, a senior at the school. “It’s a dream. It hasn’t hit me yet. When I see empty desks, I’ll feel it. I’m numb now.”

Trump’s approach stood in sharp contrast to his predecessor’s reaction to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, five years ago. After the Sandy Hook slayings, President Barack Obama quickly attended an emotional evening vigil in Newtown, where he read aloud the names of each victim and promised to use “whatever power” he had to prevent future shootings. In the wake of a mass shooting at a South Carolina church, Obama led thousands in singing “Amazing Grace.”

Trump’s visit followed a similar script to his trip to Las Vegas in the fall after the worst mass slaying in modern history. On that trip, he also made a visit to a hospital, meeting with victims behind closed doors and then more publicly celebrated first responders.

In this case, it was Rubio who spoke directly to the raw emotions of the moment, telling Trump, “This is a community and a state that’s in deep pain and they want action to make sure this never happens again.”

Mrs. Trump, for her part, thanked law enforcement officials “for taking care of our children” and added: “They were put through a lot in what they were experiencing two days ago and we need to take care of them.”

More than 1,000 people had attended a candlelight vigil Thursday night near the school, and at one point some began chanting, “No more guns! No more guns!”

Lori Alhadeff’s 14-year-old daughter Alyssa was killed during the shooting. She invoked the president’s 11-year-old son, Barron, as she angrily called for help.

“President Trump, Barron goes to school. Let’s protect Barron. And let’s also protect all these other kids,” she said Friday on CNN, her voice raising to a shout. “You need to help us, now. We need security now for all these children. We need action, action, action!”

Trump, who frequently boasts about his support for the National Rifle Association, made no mention of gun violence or any new measure to restrict access to firearms during his remarks Friday or a day earlier. He did promise to tackle school safety and “the difficult issue of mental health.”

He also tweeted Friday that he was “working with Congress on many fronts,” though he offered no details.

Before he was a candidate, Trump at one point favored some tighter gun regulations. But he embraced gun rights as a candidate, and the NRA spent $30 million in support of his campaign.

The president made the trip to meet with first responders soon after Air Force One arrived in West Palm Beach for the president to spend the weekend at his Palm Beach estate, which is about 40 miles from Parkland.

In a departure from the Trumps’ original schedule, Mrs. Trump arrived at Air Force One separately from her husband for the flight to Florida and boarded the plane while reporters were kept away. A spokeswoman said the change was due to scheduling.

As he departed, Trump ignored shouted questions from journalists about a report in The New Yorker magazine that he had an affair in 2006 with a Playboy model.

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Thomas reported from Washington. AP writers Jon Lemire in New York, Zeke Miller, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Maria Danilova in Washington and Josh Replogle in Parkland, Fla., contributed to this report.

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Follow Lucey on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@catherine-lucey and Thomas at http://twitter.com/@KThomasDC

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Link to Trump tweet on hospital visit: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/964724390637244417

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Trump meets Florida shooting victims, first responders
Trump meets Florida shooting victims, first responders
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Source: AP HEADLINES