North Koreans to meet Trump; 'good progress' toward summit
NEW YORK (AP) A top aide to Kim Jong Un will make a rare visit to Washington Friday to hand a letter from the North Korean leader to President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after reporting "good progress" in talks between the two sides to revive an on-again, off-again nuclear summit.
"I am confident we are moving in the right direction," Pompeo told reporters at a news conference in New York after meeting Thursday with former North Korean military intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol. "Our two countries face a pivotal moment in our relationship, and it would be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity go to waste."
He would not say that the summit is a definite go for Singapore on June 12 and could not say if that decision would be made after Trump reads Kim Jong Un's letter. However, his comments were the most positive from any U.S. official since Trump abruptly canceled the meeting last week after belligerent statements from the North.
The two countries, eying the first summit between the U.S. and the North after six decades of hostility, have also been holding negotiations in Singapore and the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.
Early Thursday, Trump told reporters "we are doing very well" with North Korea. He added there may even need to be a second or third summit meeting to reach a deal on North Korean denuclearization but still hedged, saying "maybe we'll have none."
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Trump tariffs on US allies draw retaliation threats
WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration delivered a gut punch to America's closest allies Thursday, imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum from Europe, Mexico and Canada in a move that drew immediate vows of retaliation.
Stock prices slumped amid fears of a trade war, with the Dow Jones industrial average falling nearly 252 points, or 1 percent, to 24,415.84.
The import duties threaten to drive up prices for American consumers and companies and are likely to heighten uncertainty for businesses and investors around the globe.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the tariffs 25 percent on imported steel, 10 percent on aluminum would take effect Friday.
President Donald Trump had originally imposed the tariffs in March, saying a reliance on imported metals threatened national security. But he exempted Canada, Mexico and the European Union to buy time for negotiations a reprieve set to expire at midnight Thursday.
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Trump pardons favor the celeb-connected, conservative causes
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump on Thursday pardoned a conservative commentator he claims "was treated very unfairly by our government!" and announced he's thinking about clemency for Martha Stewart and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, among "lots" of other people.
"What they did to him was horrible," Trump told reporters, speaking of his decision to clear the name of Dinesh D'Souza, who had pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud.
It was the latest example of Trump trying to right a perceived wrong with his presidential pardon power, and a move that makes ever clearer that, in the Trump administration, the odds of a pardon have heavily favored those with a celebrity backer, those who have become a cause celebre among conservatives and those with a reality TV connection.
Trump has been particularly drawn to cases where he believes there was a political motivation to the prosecutions a situation that may remind him of his own predicament at the center of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling, which he insists is nothing but a "witch hunt."
On Thursday, Trump said he was seriously considering commuting the sentence of Blagojevich, the Democratic former governor serving a 14-year prison sentence on numerous counts of corruption, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by Barack Obama. The president also said he was considering a pardon for Stewart, the celebrity lifestyle guru who served a stint in federal prison after being convicted of charges related to a stock sale.
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Italy gets western Europe's 1st populist govt on second try
MILAN (AP) Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League succeeded Thursday in forming western Europe's first populist government, which will be headed by a political novice whose first try was rejected four days earlier as too risky for the Italian economy.
What changed was the willingness of 5-Star leader Luigi Di Maio and League leader Matteo Salvini to shuffle the proposed roster of government ministers amid a financial market scare. They moved an 81-year-old euroskeptic economist vetoed by Italy's president from overseeing the economy ministry to a European affairs Cabinet post.
After the fits, starts and financial turbulence of recent days, the realization of a 5-Star-League coalition government put its populist posture on full display in Salvini's first public remarks. He returned from Rome to address a crowd of supporters in his northern home region of Lombardy.
"I want to make Italy a protagonist in Europe again. With good manners and without creating confusion. But I am fed up of governments with the hat in their hand," Salvini said to cheers. "We are second to no one."
Just a short time earlier, President Sergio Mattarella's office announced that the new premier, University of Florence law professor Giuseppe Conte, and his ministers would be sworn in Friday afternoon.
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Comic Samantha Bee apologizes to Ivanka Trump for slur
NEW YORK (AP) Comedian Samantha Bee apologized to Ivanka Trump and viewers on Thursday for using an obscenity to describe the president's daughter, an incident that quickly thrust her into the middle of the nation's political divide.
Her network, TBS, also said it was "our mistake, too," in allowing the language on Bee's show, "Full Frontal," on Wednesday. Her show is taped and not aired live.
Bee called Ivanka Trump a "feckless c---" toward the end of a segment about President Trump's immigration policies. She used the slur in urging Ivanka Trump to speak to her father about policies that separate children from their parents.
"Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to f---ing stop it," she said.
Bee, a former correspondent on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart whose own show has been one of TBS' big successes since it started in 2016, said that her language was "inappropriate and inexcusable.
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Wild card triumph: Little-known speller wins national bee
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) Karthik Nemmani didn't win his regional spelling bee. He didn't even win his county spelling bee. But he was still good enough to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Throwing everything he had into his one shot at glory, 14-year-old Karthik outlasted better-known spellers and became the champion after a dramatically abrupt end to the competition, when 12-year-old Naysa Modi misspelled the word "Bewusstseinslage" in the first championship round.
Karthik had to spell two words correctly to seal the title, which he did with ease, and the lanky, soft-spoken Texan stepped back and smiled as he was showered with confetti. His winning word was "koinonia," which means Christian fellowship or communion.
Karthik is from McKinney, Texas, and Naysa lives in Frisco, Texas both suburbs of Dallas and Naysa topped Karthik at their county bee.
"She's a really, really good speller. She deserved the trophy as much as I did," Karthik said. "I got lucky."
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St. Paul archdiocese to pay $210M to clergy abuse victims
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced a $210 million settlement Thursday with 450 victims of clergy sexual abuse as part of its plan for bankruptcy reorganization, making this the second-largest payout in the scandal that rocked the nation's Roman Catholic Church.
Victims' attorney Jeff Anderson said the money, a total of $210,290,724, will go into a pot to pay survivors, with the amount for each survivor to be determined.
Anderson said a formal reorganization plan will now be submitted to a bankruptcy judge for approval, and then it will be sent to the victims for a vote. Anderson expected they will readily approve it.
"We changed the playing field," said Jim Keenan, who was sexually abused as a child in the 1980s by a Twin Cities-area priest. "They have to listen to victims now, and that is huge."
Marie Mielke, who was sexually abused from 1997 to 2000 by a St. Paul seminarian who later became a priest, urged fellow survivors to have the courage to stand up.
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Former dean convicted of shooting student over marijuana
BOSTON (AP) A former high school dean known as an anti-violence advocate was convicted Thursday of shooting and nearly killing a student he had recruited to sell marijuana for him.
Shaun Harrison, 58, was found guilty of all charges, including armed assault with intent to murder, by a Suffolk Superior Court jury in its second day of deliberations.
"Shaun Harrison was really a fraud, he was living a lie, and it was clearly exposed in this case," District Attorney Dan Conley said. "Not only was he not a man of God or a role model for young people, he manipulated them in a way that was terribly offensive."
Harrison, who had worked as a dean at Boston English High School for five years, recruited 17-year-old Luis Rodriguez to sell marijuana for him at the school and shot him on March 3, 2015, because he believed the student was not generating enough sales and withholding money.
Rodriguez, now 20, testified that he came from a dysfunctional family and trusted Harrison, who students nicknamed "Rev."
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Trump revises Comey firing, Giuliani blasts 'lynching mob'
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump declared Thursday that he didn't fire FBI Director James Comey over the Russia investigation, despite previously citing that as the reason. His lawyer, meanwhile, blasted federal investigators as "a lynching mob" the Trump team will "knock the heck out of" in the end.
The president has said at least twice that Comey's firing in May 2017 was related to the FBI's investigation into whether Trump's campaign associates coordinated with Russia in an effort to sway the 2016 election. And his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News earlier this month that Trump fired Comey because the FBI director wouldn't publicly state that he "wasn't a target" of the Russia investigation.
Trump's attempt to revise his public statements on Comey's firing came as Giuliani drew criticism for comparing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation to a "lynching mob." And the Justice Department released a report revealing that the special counsel's Russia probe has cost at least $16 million so far.
Trump tweeted Thursday: "Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey because of Russia! The Corrupt Mainstream Media loves to keep pushing that narrative, but they know it is not true!"
Comey's firing led to the appointment of Mueller as the Justice Department's special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election as well as possible ties between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. The firing is now under investigation by Mueller for possible obstruction of justice.
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Warriors withstand James' 51 points to win NBA Finals Game 1
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) Stephen Curry scored 29 points and the Golden State Warriors capitalized on a Cavaliers blunder that sent the game into overtime, withstanding a brilliant 51-point performance by LeBron James to beat Cleveland 124-114 in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night.
The game nearly over, James jawed with both Curry and Klay Thompson, then Tristan Thompson and Draymond Green tangled moments later and made contact. After replay review, Tristan Thompson received a Flagrant 2 foul and ejection with 2.6 seconds left.
James was in utter disbelief as regulation ended in stunning fashion: George Hill made the first of two free throws with 4.7 seconds left after being fouled by Klay Thompson, then J.R. Smith secured the rebound and dribbled back toward halfcourt, apparently thinking the Cavs had a lead.
Instead, OT.
Game 2 is Sunday night back at Oracle Arena.