Trump says unless North Korea summit ‘fruitful,’ he’ll pull out
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that although he’s looking ahead optimistically to a historic summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un he could still pull out if he feels it’s “not going to be fruitful.”
Trump said that CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Kim “got along really well” in their recent secret meeting, and he declared, “We’ve never been in a position like this” to address worldwide concerns over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
But speaking alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, after the allies met at Trump’s Florida resort, he made clear that he’d still be ready to pull the plug on what is being billed as an extraordinary meeting between the leaders of longtime adversaries.
“If I think that if it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful we’re not going to go. If the meeting when I’m there is not fruitful I will respectfully leave the meeting,” Trump told a news conference. He also said that a U.S.-led “maximum pressure” campaign of tough economic sanctions on North Korea would continue until the isolated nation “denuclearizes.”
‘That’s how she’s wired’: Pilot lauded for handling crisis
BOERNE, Texas — The Southwest Airlines pilot being lauded as a hero in a harrowing emergency landing after a passenger was partially blown out of the jet’s damaged fuselage is also being hailed for her pioneering role in a career where she has been one of the few women at the controls.
Tammie Jo Shults, one of the first female fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy, was the captain and piloting the Dallas-bound Flight 1380 when it made an emergency landing Tuesday in Philadelphia, according to her husband, Dean Shults.
One of the engines on the Boeing 737 exploded while the plane was traveling 500 mph (800 kph) at 30,000 feet (9144 m) with 149 people on board. Shrapnel hit the plane and passengers said they had to rescue a woman who was being blown out of a damaged window. The woman later died of blunt force trauma to her head, neck and torso.
Shults calmly relayed details about the crisis to air traffic controllers, and passengers commended her handling of the situation.
Former President George HW Bush buoyed by tributes to wife
HOUSTON — In his first public comments since his wife’s death, former President George H.W. Bush said Wednesday that he used to tease his spouse of 73 years that he had a complex about how much people liked her.
That fact, he said, is buoyed by stories about Barbara Bush’s warmth and wit following her death. Tributes have rolled in from around the world, from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to a U.S. Navy commander, who recalled Mrs. Bush handing out cookies to sailors on a battleship.
“I always knew Barbara was the most beloved woman in the world, and in fact I used to tease her that I had a complex about that fact,” the nation’s 41st president said in a statement released Wednesday.
His wife died Tuesday as their Houston home, where he held her hand, all day, before she died at age 92. They had been married longer than any other presidential couple.
Brown says agreement reached on California guard deployment
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown said Wednesday that he would join President Donald Trump’s border mission by contributing up to 400 National Guard troops, announcing a deal after a week of uncertainty about how to accomplish a deployment that focuses largely on illegal immigration and honor the governor’s insistence that troops avoid immigration-related work.
Brown said the Guard’s duties include fighting transnational criminal gangs and drug and gun smugglers in an order that reiterates his initial positions that the Guard cannot handle custody duties for anyone accused of immigration violations, build border barriers or have anything to do with immigration enforcement.
From wire sources
The terms are similar to those outlined in a contract Brown proposed last week, which the Trump administration decided not to sign because it was not usual protocol. Brown’s office said the signatures were unnecessary after he secured federal funding for his goals.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brown said some troops may be deployed this month and are expected to stay until at least Sept. 30. They will be assigned to all parts of the state, not just the border.
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Ex-Playboy model settles lawsuit over alleged Trump affair
LOS ANGELES — A former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with President Donald Trump settled her lawsuit Wednesday with a supermarket tabloid over an agreement that prohibited her from discussing the relationship publicly.
Karen McDougal’s settlement with the company that owns the National Enquirer “restores to me the rights to my life story and frees me from this contract that I was misled into signing nearly two years ago,” she said in a statement Wednesday.
In August 2016, the tabloid’s parent company, American Media Inc., paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story about the alleged relationship, but the story never ran.
Last month, McDougal filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles asking to invalidate the contract, which she said she was misled into signing. The suit alleged that the company didn’t publish the story because AMI’s owner, David Pecker, is “close personal friends” with Trump. It also charged that Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, had inappropriately intervened and was secretly involved in discussions with AMI executives about the agreement.
Federal agents raided Cohen’s office and residence last week seeking any information on payments made in 2016 to McDougal and porn actress Stormy Daniels, according to people familiar with the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly. Daniels has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. The search warrants also sought bank records, records on Cohen’s dealings in the taxi industry and his communications with the Trump campaign, the people said.