White House: U.S. ‘continues to actively prepare’ for summit
WASHINGTON — Rapid-fire diplomacy played out on two continents Tuesday in advance of an “expected” summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the strengthening resolve coming after a series of high-risk, high-reward gambits by the two leaders.
Officials won’t say that the June 12 Singapore summit is back on, but preparations on both sides of the Pacific are proceeding as if it is. Two weeks of hard-nosed negotiating, including a communications blackout by the North and a public cancellation by the U.S., appeared to be paying off as the two sides engaged in their most substantive talks to date about the meeting.
Trump tweeted Tuesday that he had a “great team” working on the summit, confirming that top North Korean official Kim Yong Chol was headed to New York for talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In addition, teams of U.S. officials have arrived at the Korean demilitarized zone and in Singapore to prepare for the meeting.
“Solid response to my letter, thank you!” tweeted Trump. He announced he had decided to “terminate” the summit last week in an open letter to Kim that stressed American military might, but also left the door cracked for future communication. White House officials characterized the letter as a negotiating tactic, designed to bring the North back to the table after a provocative statement and a decision to skip planning talks and ignore preparatory phone calls.
But aides almost immediately suggested the meeting could still get back on track. And after a suitably conciliatory statement from North Korea, Trump said the same.
Missouri governor resigns amid investigations
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, a sometimes brash political outsider whose unconventional resume as a Rhodes scholar and Navy SEAL officer made him a rising star in the Republican Party, resigned Tuesday amid a widening investigation that arose from an affair with his former hairdresser.
The 44-year-old governor spent nearly six months fighting to stay in office after the affair became public in January in a television news report that aired immediately following his State of the State address. The probes into his conduct by prosecutors and lawmakers began with allegations stemming from the affair and expanded to include questions about whether he violated campaign-finance laws.
Greitens said his resignation would take effect Friday.
Alberto remnants leave flooding, downed trees in wake
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The soggy remnants of Alberto moved toward the nation’s interior Tuesday, leaving scattered flooding and downed trees in the wake of the year’s first named tropical storm.
More than 25,000 power outages were reported in Alabama, many caused by trees rooted in soggy soil falling across utility lines.
But while forecasters said the subtropical depression could dump as much as 6 inches of rain inland, few major problems were reported so far.
“We’ve had a lot of rain, but we got lucky. It was a constant rain but not a heavy rain,” said Regina Myers, emergency management director in Walker County northwest of Birmingham.
Subtropical storm Alberto rolled ashore Monday afternoon in the Florida Panhandle and then weakened overnight to a depression. Beachcombers had returned to the white sands of the Northern Gulf by Tuesday morning, but forecasters still warned of dangerous currents.
Body found of man who disappeared in Maryland flooding
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — Searchers on Tuesday scouring a river alongside an historic Maryland town ripped apart by flash flooding found the body of a man last seen being swept away by the raging waters as it gutted shops and pushed parked cars into swollen tributaries.
Volunteers and crews with trained dogs had been methodically hunting for 39-year-old Eddison Hermond. He disappeared late Sunday afternoon, following torrential rains that prompted destructive flash flooding in historic Ellicott City.
On Tuesday afternoon, Hermond’s body was located in the Patapsco River. He was the only person reported missing in Ellicott City — established in 1772 as a mill town — where many now can’t get the roar of rushing waters out of their heads.
“To have died helping somebody else is incredible. And I can’t even imagine the loss his family is suffering,” said Nicholas Johnson, owner of a store near the spot where Hermond vanished. He disappeared while trying to help a woman who was escaping the flooded zone with her cat.
Hermond, of Severn, Maryland, was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a sergeant in the Maryland Army National Guard. He was described by those who knew him as an affable, generous man.
By wire sources
