AP source: Mueller conveys interest in questioning Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller's team of investigators has expressed interest in speaking with President Donald Trump as part of a probe into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.

The prospect of an interview with the president has come up in recent discussions between Mueller's team and Trump lawyers, but no details have been worked out, including the scope of questions that the president would agree to answer if an interview were to actually take place, according to the person. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

When or even if an interview would occur was not immediately clear, nor were the terms for the interview or whether Trump's lawyers would seek to narrow the range of questions or topics that prosecutors would cover. Trump's lawyers have previously stated their determination to cooperate with Mueller's requests.

It's not surprising that investigators would ultimately seek to interview the president given his role in several episodes under scrutiny by Mueller. Any interview of Trump would be a likely indication that the investigation was in its final stages — investigators typically look to interview main subjects in their inquiries near the end of a probe.

Mueller for months has led a team of prosecutors and agents investigating whether Russia and Trump's Republican campaign coordinated to sway the 2016 election, and whether Trump has worked to obstruct an FBI investigation into his aides, including by firing the FBI director, James Comey.

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2 Koreas say they seek breakthrough at rare border talks

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Senior officials from the rival Koreas said Tuesday that they would try to achieve a breakthrough in their long-strained ties as they sat for rare talks at the border to discuss how to cooperate in next month's Winter Olympics in the South and other issues.

The Koreas' first talks in two years were arranged after North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un recently made an abrupt push for improved ties with South Korea after a year of elevated tensions with the outside world over his expanding nuclear and missile programs. Critics say Kim may be trying to divide Seoul and Washington in a bid to weaken international pressure and sanctions on the North.

"I think we should be engaged in these talks with an earnest, sincere manner to give a New Year's first gift — precious results (of the talks) to the Korean nation," chief North Korean delegate Ri Son Gwon said at the start of the negotiations, according to media footage from the venue. Ri wore a lapel pin with the images of Kim's father and grandfather, late North Korean rulers Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.

Ri's South Korean counterpart, Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, said he also hopes they would come up with a "good gift" that would satisfy Korean people's wishes for better ties. "There is a saying 'well begun is half done.' I'd like us to have will and patience to resolve (issues) at the negotiation," Cho said.

The talks were being held at the village of Panmunjom, the only place on the tense border where North and South Korean soldiers are feet away from each other. A North Korean soldier late last year defected to the South amid a hail of bullets fired by his comrades. He was hit five times but survived.

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Salvadorans fear their country not prepared for returnees

SANTA TECLA, El Salvador (AP) — Being deported to an El Salvador he hadn't seen in more than three decades was a trauma Hugo Castro recalls clearly.

The 51-year-old said Monday that his country must begin preparing now to receive the nearly 200,000 Salvadorans who may have to return following the Trump administration's decision to lift their temporary protected status next year.

"The main problem for deportees is that they're made invisible. They're rejected, there's no work. They don't help us," said Castro, who was deported from the U.S. in 2015.

The U.S. announcement brought fears that a major source of income for this poor Central American nation will be cut off and that families could be separated. But there was also a hint of optimism that Salvadorans with many years of experience in the U.S. could bring expertise and investment to spur the economy.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Salvadorans who have stayed in the U.S. with temporary protected status — only a fraction of the estimated 2 million Salvadorans living there — would have to leave by Sept. 9, 2019, unless Congress came up with a solution allowing them to stay.

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US ends protections for Salvadoran immigrants, sparking fear

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration's decision to end special protections for about 200,0000 Salvadoran immigrants filled many Salvadoran families with dread Monday, raising the possibility that they will be forced to abandon their roots in the U.S. and return to a violent homeland they have not known for years, even decades.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen gave Salvadorans with temporary protected status until Sept. 9, 2019, to leave the United States or face deportation. El Salvador becomes the fourth country since President Donald Trump took office to lose protection under the program, which provides humanitarian relief for people whose countries are hit with natural disasters or other strife.

The decision, while not surprising, was a severe blow to Salvadorans in New York, Houston, San Francisco and other major cities that have welcomed them since at least the 1980s.

Guillermo Mendoza, who came to the United States in 2000 when he was 19 years old, was anguished about what to do with his wife and two children who are U.S. citizens.

"What do I do? Do I leave the country and leave them here? That is a tough decision," said Mendoza, a safety manager at Shapiro & Duncan, a mechanical contractor company in Rockville, Maryland, near Washington.

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Alabama vs. Georgia in all-SEC CFP championship game

ATLANTA (AP) — No. 4 Alabama faces No. 3 Georgia in an all-Southeastern Conference College Football Playoff national championship game Monday night.

Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban tries to tie former Alabama coach Bear Bryant's record six major poll national championships. Saban has led the Tide to four national championships since 2009, and the last three national championship games.

Georgia, coached by former Saban assistant Kirby Smart, is looking for its first national championship since 1980.

The Bulldogs feature the most prolific running back combination in college football in senior Sony Michel and Nick Chubb. They combined for six touchdowns in the Bulldogs semifinal victory against Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl.

Alabama has to No. 1 rushing defense in the country and smothered Clemson in the Sugar Bowl semifinal to get here.

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Tillerson tells AP Cuba still risky; FBI doubts sonic attack

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States would be "putting people intentionally in harm's way" if it sent diplomats back to Cuba, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says in an Associated Press interview, even as a new FBI report casts doubt on the initial theory that Americans there have been hit by "sonic attacks."

Following months of investigation and four FBI trips to Havana, an interim report from the bureau's Operational Technology Division says the probe has uncovered no evidence that sound waves could have damaged the Americans' health, the AP has learned. The report, dated Jan. 4, doesn't address other theories and says the FBI will keep investigating until it can show there's been no intentional harm.

Tillerson said he's not convinced that what he calls the "deliberate attacks" are over. He defended his September decision to order most U.S. personnel and their relatives to leave Cuba and said he won't reverse course until Cuba's government assures they'll be safe.

"I'd be intentionally putting them back in harm's way. Why in the world would I do that when I have no means whatsoever to protect them?" Tillerson told the AP on Jan. 5. "I will push back on anybody who wants to force me to do that."

"I still believe that the Cuban government, someone within the Cuban government can bring this to an end," Tillerson added. Washington has never claimed Cuba perpetrated the attacks but has insisted the island's communist-run government must know who did. Cuba adamantly denies both involvement and knowledge of any attacks.

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Trump takes victory lap on taxes with rural Americans

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Connecting with rural Americans, President Donald Trump on Monday hailed his tax overhaul as a victory for family farmers and pitched his vision to expand access to broadband internet, a cornerstone of economic development in the nation's heartland.

"Those towers are going to go up and you're going to have great, great broadband," Trump told the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

"Farm country is God's country," he declared.

Trump became the first president in a quarter-century to address the federation's convention, using the trip to Nashville as a backdrop for a White House report that included proposals to stimulate a segment of the national economy that has lagged behind others. His Southern swing also included a stop in Atlanta for the national college football championship game.

Joined by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and a group of Tennessee lawmakers, Trump said most of the benefits of the tax legislation are "going to working families, small businesses, and who — the family farmer."

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Trump gets a national anthem moment at football title game

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump got his own national anthem moment Monday when he took the field before Alabama and Georgia faced off in the College Football Playoff National Championship.

Months after wading into the culture war over protests during the anthem, the president was greeted by tens of thousands in Atlanta with cheers and a smattering of boos. After ROTC members escorted him onto the field, the president stood with his hand over his heart and an American flag pin on his lapel. He sang a few words as Georgia's Zac Brown Band and a gospel choir performed the anthem.

Trump has criticized professional football players who kneel during the anthem to protest racial injustice, as well as the NFL itself for allowing it.

"We want our flag respected," Trump said earlier Monday during a speech in Nashville, Tennessee, "and we want our national anthem respected also."

Most of the college players remained in their locker rooms during the anthem.

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Oprah speech has Democrats buzzing about possible 2020 run

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Oprah Winfrey's impassioned call for "a brighter morning even in our darkest nights" at the Golden Globes has Democratic Party activists buzzing about the media superstar and the 2020 presidential race — even if it's only a fantasy.

Even so, for Democrats in early voting states, and perhaps for a public that largely disapproves of President Donald Trump's job performance, the notion of a popular media figure as a presidential candidate is not as strange as it once seemed, given the New York real estate mogul and reality TV star now in the White House.

"Look, it's ridiculous — and I get that," said Brad Anderson, Barack Obama's 2012 Iowa campaign director. While he supports the idea of Winfrey running, it would also punctuate how Trump's candidacy has altered political norms. "At the same time, politics is ridiculous right now."

Winfrey's speech as she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award on Sunday touched on her humble upbringing and childhood wonder in civil rights heroes.

But it was her exhortation of the legions of women who have called out sexual harassers — and her dream of a day "when nobody has to say 'me too' again" — that got some political operatives, in early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, thinking Winfrey might be just what the Democrats need.

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Autos overshadow the small gadgets at CES tech show in Vegas

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The smartphones and other small machines that used to dominate the annual CES gadget show have been overshadowed in recent years by bigger mobile devices: namely, automobiles.

Auto companies typically save more practical announcements about new cars, trucks and SUVs for the upcoming Detroit auto show. But major automakers like Toyota, Kia, Hyundai and Ford have a noticeable presence at this week's tech showcase in Las Vegas. CES is a chance for carmakers and suppliers of automotive parts and software to display their wilder and far-out ideas.

Among the highlights Monday:

— Toyota says it's developing self-driving mini-buses that can serve as bite-sized stores. These vehicles will drive themselves to places where potential buyers can try on clothes or shoes or pick through flea market items. The project is still in the conceptual stage, with testing expected in the 2020s.

— Automotive supplier Bosch wants to help guide drivers to vacant parking spots in as many as 20 U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Miami and Boston. The company says it will be working with automakers on the initiative but didn't say which ones. As cars drive by, they will automatically recognize and measure gaps between parked cars and transmit that data to a digital map.