Pompeo seeks allied unity in dealing with North Korea
TOKYO — America’s top diplomat left Tokyo for Pyongyang on Sunday after pledging that the U.S. will coordinate with allies Japan and South Korea on efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
On the eve of his fourth visit to North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Saturday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to try to unify the countries’ positions as he looks to arrange a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and chart a path toward denuclearization.
Japan has been wary of Trump’s initiative, fearing it could affect its long-standing security relationship with the U.S.
Pompeo said it was important to hear from the Japanese leader “so we have a fully coordinated and unified view.” Pompeo also pledged that during his meeting with Kim on Sunday, he would raise the cases of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
Pompeo later planned stops in South Korea and China to review the negotiations.
Turkish officials say Saudi writer killed
ISTANBUL — Turkish investigators believe a prominent Saudi journalist who contributed to The Washington Post was killed in “a preplanned murder” at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, the Post reported Saturday night, citing two anonymous officials. Saudi authorities had no immediate comment, though they’ve insisted the writer left their diplomatic post.
One Turkish official also told The Associated Press that detectives’ “initial assessment” was that Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the consulate, without elaborating.
Khashoggi, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. for the last year, vanished Tuesday while on a visit to the consulate. His disappearance has threatened to upend already-fraught relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and it raises new questions about the kingdom and the actions of its assertive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Khashoggi wrote critically about in his columns.
“If the reports of Jamal’s murder are true, it is a monstrous and unfathomable act,” the Post’s editorial page editor Fred Hiatt said in a statement. “Jamal was — or, as we hope, is — a committed, courageous journalist. He writes out of a sense of love for his country and deep faith in human dignity and freedom.”
The Post cited one anonymous official who said investigators believe a 15-member team “came from Saudi Arabia.” The official added: “It was a preplanned murder.”
#MeToo movement exiles, not jails, Hollywood figures
LOS ANGELES — The #MeToo movement has sent dozens of once-powerful Hollywood players into exile, but few of them have been placed in handcuffs or jail cells. And it’s increasingly apparent that the lack of criminal charges may remain the norm.
Harvey Weinstein has been charged with sexual assault in New York, and Bill Cosby was sent to prison in Pennsylvania in the year since stories on Weinstein in The New York Times and The New Yorker set off waves of revelations of sexual misconduct in Hollywood. But those two central figures are exceptions.
A task force launched last November by Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey to handle the surge in allegations against entertainment figures has taken up criminal cases involving nearly two dozen entertainment-industry figures. None has been charged.
The lack of prosecutions stems from a clash between the #MeToo ethos, which encourages victims to come forward years or even decades after abuse and harassment that they’ve kept private, and a legal system that demands fast reporting of crimes and hard evidence.
The task force has considered charges against 22 suspects, including Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, director James Toback and former CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, all of whom have denied engaging in any sex that was not consensual.
Chicago verdict raises hope of greater police accountability
CHICAGO — A rare scene in the American justice system unfolded Friday in a Chicago courthouse: A white officer stood before a mostly white jury and was convicted of killing a black teenager.
It was the second such verdict nationally in two months. Jason Van Dyke’s guilty conviction for second-degree murder and multiple counts of aggravated battery for fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times came two months after a Texas officer was convicted in the killing of a 15-year-old unarmed black boy.
The pair of guilty verdicts could signal a shift in momentum after years of delayed arrests, non-indictments and not guilty verdicts. Activists and advocates say that their efforts, along with the ubiquity of cellphone camera evidence, could be changing the power balance between police and black communities.
“We’re starting to see some verdicts that are in line with justice,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, a civil rights group that has supported electing reform-minded district attorneys in cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia. “No verdict is going to bring Laquan back or change the way he was taken from his family, friends or community. But being able to start sending a message to law enforcement that they are not above the law is important.”
It was not an outcome some expected, despite evidence including a video of McDonald’s shooting. It is extremely rare for police officers to be tried and convicted of murder for shootings that occurred while they were on duty. Before the conviction Friday, only six non-federal police officers had been convicted of murder in such cases — and four of those were overturned — since 2005, according to data compiled by criminologist and Bowling Green State University professor Phil Stinson.
From wire sources
Melania Trump puts on happier face during Africa tour
CAIRO — It took Melania Trump’s first big solo international trip for her to show a different side of herself — a playful, less serious one.
And while she generously dished out warm smiles and happy waves, the first lady also used her four-nation tour of Africa to draw some firmer boundaries between her own views and those of her husband the president.
“I don’t always agree with what he says and I tell him that,” the first lady told reporters Saturday against the backdrop of the Great Sphinx before she headed back to Washington. “But I have my own voice and my own opinions and it’s very important for me that I express what I feel.”
The U.S. first lady hopscotched across Africa without President Donald Trump, commanding a spotlight that was hers alone. In doing her own thing, the very private first lady essentially peeled back the curtain ever so slightly as she wiped away the serious face she wears around Washington.
She demonstrated her independence from her husband in ways large and small — like talking up U.S. foreign aid that he’s tried to slash and ignoring the Fox-only edict that the president imposes on TV screens when he’s aboard Air Force One.