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China’s VIP security raises speculation of Kim Jong Un visit
BEIJING — The arrival of a special train in Beijing and unusually heavy security at a guesthouse where prominent North Koreans have stayed in the past have raised speculation that Kim Jong Un is making his first visit to China as the North’s leader.
Kim has summits planned with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in late April and with President Donald Trump by May. While there has been no word of a similar meeting with Chinese leaders, China has been one of North Korea’s most important allies even though relations have recently chilled because of Kim’s development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
A vehicle convoy entered the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Monday evening and a military honor guard and heavy security were seen later. That followed reports from Japanese network NTV and public broadcaster NHK of a special North Korean train arriving in Beijing under unusually heavy security.
A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said she was not aware of the situation and had no further comment. North Korea’s state-run media had no reports of a delegation traveling to China.
South Korea’s presidential office said Tuesday it cannot confirm reports that the train carried Kim nor a separate report that Kim’s sister was onboard.
South Korean analysts were doubtful the visitor is Kim Jong Un. Since succeeding his father as leader in 2011, Kim has touted an image of his country as diplomatic equal to China and it’s unlikely he would sneak into Beijing for his first face-to-face meetings with the Chinese leadership, the experts said. They said it’s more likely Kim sent a special envoy, possibly his sister Kim Yo Jong, to appease a traditional ally ahead of his planned meetings with the presidents of South Korea and the United States. The envoy could potentially seek Chinese commitment for future support should North Korea’s talks with rivals fall through, said Du Hyeogn Cha, a visiting scholar at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
“North Korea doesn’t want to send a message that China has been pushed to the back as it makes diplomatic approaches to the United States and South Korea,” said Cha, saying that the visit could be part of the North’s effort to gain leverage in the talks with South Korea and the United States. “If the talks with South Korea and the United States fall through, North Korea will surely try to demonstrate its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities again. The special envoy could discuss this possibility with Chinese officials, asking China not to press too hard with sanctions if that happens.”
Heavy security was reported at the Friendship Bridge before the train passed from North Korea to China, and there were reports of it passing through several stations on the way from North Korea to Beijing.
NTV reported the green and yellow train appeared very similar to the one that former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s late father, took to Beijing in 2011 and has 21 cars.
A video that aired on NTV also showed a motorcade of black limousines waiting at the train station and rows of Chinese soldiers marching on what appeared to be a train platform. The video did not show anyone getting off the train.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said Monday the U.S. could not confirm reports that Kim was visiting China.
Shah reiterated Trump’s plans to meet with Kim, saying the U.S.-led international pressure campaign against Pyongyang “has paid dividends and has brought the North Koreans to the table.”
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Linda Brown, Who Was At Center Of Brown v. Board Of Education, Dies
Linda Brown, left, attends ceremonies in 1979 observing the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in her father’s class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kan.
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Linda Brown, left, attends ceremonies in 1979 observing the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in her father’s class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kan.
AP
Updated at 10:44 p.m. ET
Linda Brown, who as a schoolgirl was at the center of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that rejected racial segregation in American schools, died in Topeka, Kan., Sunday afternoon.
Her sister, Cheryl Brown Henderson, confirmed the death to The Topeka Capital-Journal. The newspaper says Brown was 75 but some sources have said she was 76.
The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, involved several families, all trying to dismantle decades of federal education laws that condoned segregated schools for black and white students. But it began with Brown’s father Oliver, who tried to enroll her at the Sumner School, an all-white elementary school in Topeka just a few blocks from the Browns’ home.
The school board prohibited the child from enrolling and Brown, an assistant pastor at St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church, was angry that his daughter had to be shuttled miles away to go to school. He partnered with the NAACP and a dozen other plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education.
By 1952 the U.S. Supreme Court had on its docket similar cases from Delaware, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Virginia. They all challenged the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools.
Two years later the court unanimously ruled to strike down the doctrine of “separate but equal.” The justices agreed that it denied 14th Amendment guarantees of equal protection under the law.
“I just couldn’t understand,” Brown told NPR 19 years after the milestone decision.
“We lived in a mixed neighborhood but when school time came I would have to take the school bus and go clear across town and the white children I played with would go to this other school,” she said.
“My parents tried to explain this to me but I was too young at that time to understand.”
In the same interview, Brown’s mother, Leola Brown, said she and her husband tried their best to help their daughter understand why she wasn’t allowed in the school. She broke it down in simple terms: “It was because her face was black. … and she just couldn’t go to school with the white races at that time.”
She said, “Her daddy told her he was going to try his best to do something about it and see that that was done away.”
Recalling the day her father first walked her by the hand to Sumner School, Brown said,”I remember him talking to the principal and I remember our brisk walk back home and how I could just feel the tension within him.”
When they got home, she said, her parents discussed what had gone on “and I knew that there was something terribly wrong about this,” Brown said.
By the time the Supreme Court handed down its decision Brown was in junior high school and it was her mother who gave her the good news. “She was very happy,” her mother said.
Brown never got the chance to attend Sumner. The family had moved out of the neighborhood during the lengthy case. But her mother said her younger daughters attended integrated schools, and one of them went on to become a teacher within the Topeka school district.
Even after the Supreme Court decision segregation in public schools continued for years. When finally nine black students enrolled at an all-white high school in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957, they had to be escorted onto the campus by federal guards.
The Topeka Capital-Journals reported:
“In 1979, Linda Brown, now with her own children in Topeka schools, became a plaintiff in a resurrected version of Brown, which still had the same title. Topeka Capital-Journal archives indicate the plaintiffs sued the school district for not following through with desegregation.
“Federal Judge Richard Rogers sided with the school district in a 1987 decision, but an appeals court reversed his ruling in 1989 and the Supreme Court chose not to review that decision. Rogers then approved a desegregation plan for Topeka Unified School District 501 in 1993.”
Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer noted Brown’s passing in a tweet Monday. “Linda Brown’s life reminds us that sometimes the most unlikely people can have an incredible impact and that by serving our community we can truly change the world.”
Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in a statement remarked, “Linda Brown is one of that special band of heroic young people who, along with her family, courageously fought to end the ultimate symbol of white supremacy – racial segregation in public schools. She stands as an example of how ordinary schoolchildren took center stage in transforming this country.”
Eventually Brown became an educational consultant and public speaker.
When asked about her role in the historic case she told NPR it was her father who deserved the credit but added, “I am very proud that this happened to me and my family and I think it has helped minorities everywhere.”
As a mother of two children who had attended racially diverse schools, she said, “By them going to an integrated school, they are advancing much more rapidly than I was at the age that they are now. … And I think that children are relating to one another much better these days because of integration.”
White House Probes Loans to Kushner’s Business
WASHINGTON—White House attorneys are examining whether two loans totaling more than $500 million to Jared Kushner’s family business may have violated any criminal laws or federal ethics regulations, according to a letter from a federal ethics agency made public Monday.
The Office of Government Ethics told a Democratic lawmaker in the letter that the White House is probing whether a $184 million loan from the real-estate arm of Apollo Global Management LLC and a $325 million loan from Citigroup Inc. may have run afoul of the…
Russia fire: Children missing in deadly Kemerovo mall blaze
At least 37 people are confirmed to have died in a fire that tore through a shopping centre in the Siberian coal-mining city of Kemerovo.
At least 64 people are missing, including 41 children, and parts of the building are in danger of collapse.
The blaze started on an upper floor of the Winter Cherry complex while many of the victims were in cinema halls.
Video posted on social media showed people jumping from windows to escape the flames on Sunday.
As many as 660 emergency personnel have been deployed in the rescue effort.
The cause of the blaze is not yet known but authorities have launched an investigation.
Kemerovo, a key coal-producing area, lies about 3,600km (2,200 miles) east of Moscow.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has offered his condolences to the families and friends of the victims, as did Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs.
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Where did the fire start?
As well as cinema screens, the complex, opened in 2013, includes restaurants, a sauna, a bowling alley and a petting zoo.
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The fire is believed to have started at around 17:00 (10:00 GMT) in a part of the building that contains the entertainment complex, local media report.
“According to preliminary information, the roof collapsed in two cinemas,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.
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Smoke billowed from the building
Yevgeny Dedyukhin, deputy head of the Kemerovo region emergency department, said the area of the fire was about 1,500 sq m.
“The shopping centre is a very complex construction,” he said. “There are a lot of combustible materials.”
What do we know of the victims?
The 37 bodies found are difficult to identify, said Mr Dedyukhin, but nine of them are of children.
Andrei Mamchenkov, deputy head of Russia’s National Crisis Management Centre, said a search was under way for 41 children.
Emergency services had been unable to reach one of the cinema halls on the third floor because of smoke and the danger of the building collapsing, an unnamed source told Russian news agency Interfax.
Another source told the agency there was practically no chance of finding survivors.
Rick Santorum: Students should learn CPR, not seek ‘phony gun laws’
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said Sunday that students who have rallied for gun control should instead learn CPR or find their own way to prevent a school shooting.
“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that,” the Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The 2012 and 2016 presidential candidate said students could work to stop bullying in their communities or respond themselves to a shooter instead of asking lawmakers to approve legislation to protect them.
Santorum’s comments prompted outrage on social media a day after hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their supporters rallied across the U.S. to push for tougher laws to fight gun violence.
The demonstrations Saturday were led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed last month.
Santorum said that if the rallies are about more than politics, then the country needs to have a broader discussion that doesn’t revolve around “phony gun laws” that don’t work.
“They took action to ask someone to pass a law,” he said of the demonstrators. “They didn’t take action to say, ‘How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem?
Source: Trump indicates to associates he is preparing to oust VA Secretary Shulkin
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Everything you need to know for Sunday’s Elite Eight games
It’s the blue bloods and a new blood in Sunday’s Elite Eight games, in a nice little mix that makes the NCAA tournament so compelling. Basketball-rich Villanova, Duke and Kansas are here with a combined 34 Final Four appearances and 10 national titles. But so is upstart Texas Tech, making school history with its first-ever Elite Eight game.
No. 3 Texas Tech vs. No. 1 Villanova
2:20 p.m., CBS, East Region
Villanova is playing like the best team in the nation, with a do-it-all offense and shutdown defense fueling its run to the Elite Eight. What makes the Wildcats so good is not only that balance, but their dynamic starting five. Every single player is a threat to take over a game. Add in Donte DiVincenzo and Villanova has a top six that’s awfully tough to beat. Texas Tech will provide another tough defensive test for Villanova. The Red Raiders have gotten this far on the strength of their stellar defense. Nobody has scored more than 66 points on them in three NCAA tournament games.
If Texas Tech wins it will be because: Its aforementioned defense comes through again. In three tournament games, teams are shooting 41 percent and averaging 63.7 points per game — right around the average that ranked the Red Raiders in the top 15 in the nation in scoring defense. Their 3-point defense is going to have to be particularly on point, considering how well Villanova has been shooting from long range. And Keenan Evans needs to be lights out.
If Texas Tech loses it will be because: The Red Raiders can’t keep up with Villanova on the scoreboard. Villanova found a way to break through against West Virginia’s defense in the Sweet 16, going on a 22-6 run midway through the second half to blow the game open. Chances are, Villanova will make a big run against Texas Tech at some point in the game. The question is whether Texas Tech has enough to score at the same clip.
No. 2 Duke vs. No. 1 Kansas
5:05 p.m., CBS, Midwest Region
Given the way Kansas and Duke have played in the tournament, it feels as if this should be a Final Four matchup. The story lines leading up to it are enough to fill an entire notebook: It’s Coach K vs. Bill Self among the nation’s best coaches, Devonte’ Graham vs. Marvin Bagley III among the nation’s best players, the more veteran Jayhawks vs. the freshmen-laden Blue Devils. You couldn’t ask for a better matchup to set the stage for San Antonio.
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If Duke wins it will be because: Its future NBA stars set the tone. It is safe to say the Blue Devils have been on a roller coaster ride this season because they are so young, struggling through growing pains early while switching up their defense to a zone to better suit their talent level. But now they are rolling, playing with confidence and determination. Bagley is just the sixth freshmen to score at least 20 points in each of his first three NCAA tournament games, and he’s been a force inside with 11 dunks. Wendell Carter Jr., Gary Trent Jr. and Trevon Duval can’t be overlooked, either.
If Duke loses it will be because: Its defense falters against a varied Kansas offense. Kansas is the best offensive team Duke has faced to this point in the tournament, and that’s going to provide a challenge for the Blue Devils, most especially at the guard position. But center Udoka Azubuike has had a huge inside presence as well, and the matchup between him, Bagley and Carter will be one to watch.
If Kansas wins it will be because: Graham and Malik Newman take over the game. There’s a reason Graham is a player of the year front-runner. Not only does he score, he is excellent at distributing the ball to teammates, and he’s not careless with the basketball. Plus, he’s a veteran player, and that experience can be a huge advantage in a game as big as this. Newman has been terrific in March, leading the Jayhawks in scoring in both the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments.
If Kansas loses it will be because: The Jayhawks have been somewhat spotty on defense, allowing a 25-point scorer in consecutive games, and nearly blowing a 20-point lead against Clemson in the Sweet 16. Kansas can’t afford to have lapses like that against a team as talented as Duke. Because if it does, the Jayhawks will be in serious trouble.
Iowa family found dead in Mexico died after inhaling toxic gases, authorities say
DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) —
An Iowa family of four that went missing while on vacation in a popular Mexican tourist area died from asphyxiation caused by inhalation of toxic gases, authorities said Saturday.
CBS News reports that the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s office said that forensic doctors determined the Sharp family was dead for approximately 36-48 hours before they were found. The type of gas or where it came from was not specified. The Attorney’s General office said that firefighters carried out an inspection of the “gas installation of the room.”
There was no sign of violence where the family was found.
The Sharp family was reported missing by relatives in their hometown of Creston early Friday, about a week after the family left for vacation.
Creston police said they contacted the U.S. Department of State, and the bodies were found during a welfare check at the condo in Akumal near Tulum.
Union County authorities said the family members were identified as 41-year-old Kevin Sharp; his wife, 38-year-old Amy Sharp; and their children, 12-year-old Sterling and 7-year-old Adrianna.
The State Department’s website, which was updated last month, advises Americans in Mexico to “exercise increased caution due to crime.”
Homicides in the region where the resort is located, Quintana Roo, have increased compared with the same period in 2016, according to Mexican government statistics, and most of the deaths appeared to be targeted, criminal organization assassinations.
The turf battles between the criminal groups have resulted in violent crime in areas frequented by U.S. citizens, the website said.
Trump issues order supporting ban on many transgender troops, defers to Pentagon on new restrictions
President Trump issued an order late Friday that supports a ban on many transgender troops, deferring to a new Pentagon plan that essentially cancels a policy adopted by the Obama administration.
The decision revokes a full ban that Trump issued last summer but disqualifies U.S. troops who have had gender reassignment surgery, as recommended by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
“By its very nature, military service requires sacrifice,” Mattis wrote in a memo to the president that was released Friday. “The men and women who serve voluntarily accept limitations on their personal liberties — freedom of speech, political activity, freedom of movement — in order to provide the military lethality and readiness necessary to ensure American citizens enjoy their personal freedoms to the fullest extent.”
Current transgender service members who have not undergone reassignment surgery should be allowed to stay, as long as they have been medically stable for 36 consecutive months in their biological sex before joining the military and are able to deploy across the world, Mattis recommended.
Mattis recommended that anyone diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the condition of wanting to transition gender, since the Obama administration ended the Pentagon’s longtime ban on transgender service in 2016 may continue to serve. The decision amounts to a “grandfathering” of those affected by the new policy.
The new plan will be challenged in court, just as the full ban that Trump issued last summer was, in at least four separate cases that are still ongoing. Federal judges allowed transgender service members to continue serving under the old ban and permitted transgender recruits to join the military as well.
The Justice Department filed a copy of Mattis’s recommendations in at least one of those legal battles Friday.
“In service to the ideological goals of the Trump-Pence base, the Pentagon has distorted the science on transgender health to prop up irrational and legally untenable discrimination that will erode military readiness,” said Aaron Belkin, who has studied transgender issues for the Palm Center, a think tank that had worked with the Obama administration in repealing the previous ban. “There is no evidence to support a policy that bars from military service patriotic Americans who are medically fit and able to deploy. Our troops and our nation deserve better.”
In his memo to the president, Mattis specifically challenged the thinking of the Obama administration when it repealed the ban in 2016. Mattis said that he found a Rand Corp. study — commissioned by the Pentagon under Obama that became a backbone of the repeal process — to be flawed.
“It referred to limited and heavily caveated data to support its conclusions, glossed over the impacts of health care costs, readiness and unit cohesion, and erroneously relied on the selective experiences of foreign militaries with different operational requirements than our own,” Mattis wrote. “In short, this policy issue has proven more complex than the prior administration or RAND assumed.”
The new direction comes after months of the Pentagon’s grappling with how to change its policy after Trump unexpectedly tweeted July 26 that he was banning all transgender people from serving in the military. The president, without any plan in place, cited the “tremendous medical costs and disruption” that he believed transgender military service would cause, and said that he had consulted with “my Generals and military experts.”
A day later, Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released a memo effectively stopping the military from making any changes until a new policy was adopted, and Mattis backed the move.
In August, Trump issued a presidential memorandum providing more detail. He accused the Obama administration of allowing transgender military service without identifying a “sufficient basis” that doing so would not “hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources,” and he directed Mattis to have the Pentagon adopt a new ban similar to the military’s former policy by Friday.
The Obama administration began allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military in June 2016, following a review that dragged out months longer than expected amid internal conflict in the Pentagon over how the change would be made. Until then, the Pentagon considered gender dysphoria a disqualifying mental illness.
In removing the ban, then-Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter stopped the military from involuntarily separating anyone in the service, and gave the service branches a year to iron out how they would begin processing transgender recruits. A year later, Mattis delayed allowing transgender recruits for an additional six months as the deadline neared, saying the issue needed more study.
Trump’s tweets came a few weeks later.
Federal judges required the military to allow transgender recruits beginning Jan. 1, and the Pentagon signaled in December that it would not stand in the way of the courts’ rulings. Instead, it issued new policy guidance to recruits to explain how to enlist transgender men and women, and stated in a policy paper that the guidance “shall remain in effect until expressly revoked.”