After summit, Trump announces halt to US-SKorea 'war games'

SINGAPORE (AP) — President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un concluded an extraordinary nuclear summit Tuesday with the U.S. president pledging unspecified "security guarantees" to the North and Kim recommitting to the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Meeting with staged ceremony on a Singapore island, Trump and Kim came together for a summit that seemed unthinkable months ago, clasping hands in front of a row of alternating U.S. and North Korean flags, holding a one-on-one meeting, additional talks with advisers and a working lunch.

Both leaders expressed optimism throughout roughly five hours of talks, with Trump thanking Kim afterward "for taking the first bold step toward a bright new future for his people."

Trump added during a free-flowing news conference that Kim has before him "an opportunity like no other" to bring his country back into the community of nations if he agrees to give up his nuclear program.

Trump announced that he will be freezing U.S. military "war games" with its ally South Korea while negotiations between the two countries continue. Trump cast the decision as a cost-saving measure, but North Korea has long objected to the drills as a security threat.

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Trump and Kim shake hands in scene complex as their rivalry

SINGAPORE (AP) — Donald Trump approached from the right, striding down the long portico at the colonial-era Singapore resort. Kim Jong Un, dressed in his familiar Mao suit, emerged from the left. They met in the middle, on a red carpet, dozens of cameras recording their every move as the world watched.

And counted.

Thirteen seconds. That's how long the American and North Korean leaders shook hands at the start of their summit Tuesday. The length of the contact, their facial expressions and body language, the stunning backdrop of interlocked national flags — all of it was instantly analyzed, criticized and marveled at in tweets and commentary in South Korea, the United States and beyond.

Kim may have best summed up the surreal quality of what was happening when he said that many of those watching will think it's a scene from a "science fiction movie."

South Koreans applauded in a train station as they watched; the South Korean president grinned broadly; one official compared the summit, favorably, to the birth of his daughter. On the flipside, critics said the welcome Trump was giving Kim in Singapore would legitimize one of the world's worst human rights offenders.

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For world, Trump-Kim summit raises cautious hope for peace

TOKYO (AP) — Cheers in South Korea and a one-page "extra" edition of a Japanese newspaper greeted Tuesday's unprecedented summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. China's foreign minister said the meeting "is creating a new history."

Trump became the first sitting American president to meet a North Korean leader when the two shook hands and sat down to talk at a resort hotel in Singapore.

Around Asia and the world, many have welcomed a flurry of diplomacy between the two adversaries in recent months, after a year of mounting tension and threats. Hopes for peace on the long-divided Korean Peninsula, however, remain tempered by the many failed attempts in the past.

"The United States and North Korea have been in a state of antagonism for more than half a century," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. "Today, that the two countries' highest leaders can sit together and have equal talks, has important and positive meaning, and is creating a new history."

The leaders of South Korea, Japan and Malaysia were among those wishing for a successful summit.

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Trump a factor in SC races as 5 states hold primaries

Though on the other side of the globe, President Donald Trump figures to be a factor in Republican elections in South Carolina, one of five states holding primaries.

Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, an early Trump supporter in 2016 when he was lieutenant governor, has the president's backing but faces challenges from four other candidates. McMaster endorsed the New York businessman in the state's early presidential primary, which gave Trump a much-needed victory in the race for the nomination.

Elections are also scheduled Tuesday in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and Virginia. They raise to 21 the number of states having held their 2018 primary elections so far.

SOUTH CAROLINA, THE GOP TRUMP SPECTRUM

Trump reiterated his support for McMaster on Twitter over the weekend, saying he "is doing a fantastic job as your Governor, and has my full endorsement, a special guy. Vote on Tuesday!"

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Effects of Supreme Court voter roll decision appear limited

ATLANTA (AP) — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling has cleared the way for states to take a tougher approach to maintaining their voter rolls, but will they?

Ohio plans to resume its process for removing inactive voters after it was affirmed in Monday's 5-4 ruling. It takes a particularly aggressive approach that appears to be an outlier among states.

Few appear eager to follow.

"Our law has been on the books. It hasn't changed, and it isn't changing," said Oklahoma Election Board spokesman Bryan Dean.

At issue is when a state begins the process to notify and ultimately remove people from the rolls after a period of non-voting. In most states with similar laws, that process begins after voters miss two or more federal elections.

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AP PHOTOS: A day of stunning images at US-North Korea summit

SINGAPORE (AP) — It was day of high symbolism: smiles, handshakes and side-by-side flags for the leaders of two countries that have remained at odds since the 1950-53 Korean War. For longtime watchers of the divided Korean Peninsula, the images of an American president and a North Korean leader standing, strolling and chatting together were stunning, even if expected. Whether President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can navigate their way to a peace treaty is a major unanswered question. For one day, though, they offered a glimmer of hope in a conflict-riven world.

Associated Press photographers captured the landmark summit in Singapore.

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Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow suffers heart attack

NEW YORK (AP) — Larry Kudlow, the prominent economic commentator who joined the Trump administration this year as the president's top economic adviser, has suffered a "very mild" heart attack, the White House said Monday night.

Kudlow was being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters in Singapore. She said Kudlow was in good condition and "doing well."

Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, had joined President Donald Trump last week in Canada for the meeting of the Group of Seven world leaders. Minutes before Trump met with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Singapore, the president tweeted, "Our Great Larry Kudlow, who has been working so hard on trade and the economy, has just suffered a heart attack."

Kudlow appeared Sunday on CNN to back up Trump's complaint that he had been blindsided by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's criticism of his tariff threats at a news conference that followed the G-7 meeting in Canada. The meeting, which had been shadowed by the Trump administration's escalation of rhetoric on trade and tariffs, splintered shortly after the president left Quebec and tweeted he was pulling back his approval of a joint G-7 statement.

Trump's choice of Kudlow to be his top economic aide elevated the influence of a longtime fixture on the business news network CNBC. He previously served in the Reagan administration and emerged as a leading evangelist for tax cuts and smaller government.

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Report describes Dubai real estate as money-laundering haven

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — War profiteers, terror financiers and drug traffickers sanctioned by the U.S. in recent years have used Dubai's real-estate market as a haven for their assets, a new report released Tuesday alleges.

The report by the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies, relying on leaked property data from the city-state, offers evidence to support the long-whispered rumors about Dubai's real-estate boom. It identifies some $100 million in suspicious purchases of apartments and villas across the city of skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates, where foreign ownership fuels construction that now outpaces local demand.

The government-run Dubai Media Office said it could not comment on the report.

For its part, the center known by the acronym C4ADS said Dubai has a "high-end luxury real estate market and lax regulatory environment prizing secrecy and anonymity above all else." That comes as the U.S. already warns that Dubai's economic free zones and trade in gold and diamonds poses a risk.

"The permissive nature of this environment has global security implications far beyond the sands of the UAE," the center said in its report. "In an interconnected global economy with low barriers impeding the movement of funds, a single point of weakness in the regulatory system can empower and enable a range of global illicit actors."

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'I'm so happy': Dennis Rodman weeps as Trump and Kim meet

SINGAPORE (AP) — Former NBA star Dennis Rodman openly wept on television in a live interview from Singapore on Tuesday as President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un met for the first time. He told The Associated Press that he hopes to soon visit the White House.

The eccentric former reality television star is one of the few Westerners to have spent time with Kim during multiple visits to Pyongyang. The two struck up an unlikely friendship over their shared love of basketball. Rodman also goes back years with Trump and appeared on his "Celebrity Apprentice" show.

In an emotional and sometimes hard-to-follow interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo, Rodman, wearing sunglasses and a "Make America Great Again" hat, said he had received a call from the White House ahead of Trump's historic meeting with Kim — the first between a sitting president and North Korean leader.

Rodman later told the AP in a phone interview that the call had come from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. "She sent her best wishes and said that Donald Trump is really proud of you. He's happy you're having some type of part of this whole situation," Rodman recalled her saying. "He's very happy to carry out the things I've been saying."

Sanders did not immediately respond to questions about the call.

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Amazon flexes muscles, Seattle backs down on business tax

SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon balked and Seattle is backing down.

City leaders said they plan to repeal a tax on large companies such as Amazon and Starbucks as they face mounting pressure from businesses, an about-face just a month after unanimously approving the measure to help pay for efforts to combat a growing homelessness crisis.

The quick surrender showed the power of Amazon to help rally opposition and aggressively push back on taxes at all levels of government, even in its affluent home city where the income gap is ever widening and lower-income workers are being priced out of housing. It has resulted in one of the highest homelessness rates in the U.S.

Amazon and other businesses had sharply criticized the tax, and the online retailer even temporarily halted construction planning on a new high-rise building near its Seattle headquarters in protest.

Mayor Jenny Durkan and seven of nine City Council members said Monday they worked with a range of groups to pass a measure last month that would strike a balance between protecting jobs and supporting affordable housing.