Pompeo en route to N. Korea to finalize Trump-Kim summit
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was heading to North Korea on Wednesday to finalize details of a planned historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump announced the mission in Washington on Tuesday just minutes before Pompeo arrived in Japan to refuel before flying on to Pyongyang, and as the president declared he was withdrawing from a landmark nuclear deal with another bitter U.S. adversary, Iran.
U.S. officials say Pompeo will also press North Korea for the release of three detained American citizens, whose imminent release Trump has been hinting at. His trip comes just days after North Korea expressed displeasure with Washington for comments suggesting that massive U.S. pressure had pushed Kim to the negotiating table.
Syrian media report Israeli attack near capital Damascus
BEIRUT — Syrian state-run media said Israel struck a military outpost near the capital Damascus on Tuesday, saying its air defenses intercepted and destroyed two of the incoming missiles. The reported attack came shortly after President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, calling Tehran a main exporter of terrorism in the region.
The official news agency SANA said the attack occurred in the countryside in Kisweh, just south of Damascus, an area known to have numerous Syrian army military bases. It did not elaborate. Syrian TV reported earlier large explosions in the area.
An official with the Iran-led regional alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad said the strike targeted a Syrian army position but killed a Syrian man and his wife passing by in their car. He said there were jets in the sky but it was likely the position was targeted by surface-to-surface missiles from the Golan Heights.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which almost never confirms or denies airstrikes in Syria. Such strikes have become more frequent recently, amid soaring tensions between regional archenemies Israel and Iran.
DeWine wins Republicans’ Ohio governor primary
WASHINGTON — Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has won the Republican primary for governor, sending one of the state’s best-known politicians into the fall contest to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. John Kasich.
DeWine’s victory Tuesday leaves him damaged from a bitter and nasty primary in which Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor likened him to Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and questioned his loyalty to President Donald Trump.
The 71-year-old DeWine is a moderate Republican who served two terms in the U.S. Senate. But Taylor forced him to tack to the right to win the GOP nomination.
DeWine was endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party and was bolstered by his partnership with Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted, who dropped his own governor bid to become DeWine’s running mate.
By wire sources
