North Korea says it will dismantle nuke test site May 23-25

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Saturday that it will dismantle its nuclear test site on May 23-25, in a dramatic event that would set up leader Kim Jong Un’s summit with President Donald Trump next month.

Kim had revealed plans to shut down the country’s northeastern testing ground by the end of May during his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month. Analysts say the closure of the site is mostly symbolic and doesn’t represent a material step toward denuclearization.

In a statement carried by state media, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that all of the tunnels at the site will be destroyed by explosion, and that observation and research facilities and ground-based guard units will also be removed.

The North plans to invite journalists from the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Britain to inspect the process, the statement said.

Following the Moon-Kim summit, Moon’s office said Kim was willing to disclose the process to international experts, but the North’s statement Saturday didn’t include any mention about allowing experts on the site.

The North’s announcement comes days after Washington announced that the historic summit between Kim and Trump will be held June 12 in Singapore.

Seoul, which shuttled between Washington and Pyongyang to set up the Trump-Kim meeting, has said Kim has genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons in return for economic benefits. However, there are lingering doubts about whether Kim would ever agree to fully relinquish the weapons he likely views as his only guarantee of survival.

Kim declared his nuclear forced as complete in December, following the country’s most powerful nuclear test to date in September and also three flight tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the U.S. mainland.

At a ruling party meeting last month, North Korea had already announced that it has suspended all tests of nuclear devices and ICBMs and the plan to close the nuclear testing ground.

Still, the closure of the site could be a useful precedent for Washington and Seoul as they proceed with the nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang, analysts say.

“Now that North Korea has accepted in principle that agreements should be verified, U.S. negotiators should hold them to this standard for any subsequent agreement,” said Adam Mount, a senior defense analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. “It will make it more difficult for Kim Jong Un to deny inspections now that he has placed them on the table.”

North Korea has invited the outside world to witness the dismantling of its nuclear facilities before. In June 2008, international broadcasters were allowed to air the demolishing of a cooling tower at the Nyongbyon reactor site, a year after the North reached an agreement with the U.S. and four other nations to disable its nuclear facilities in return for an aid package worth about $400 million.

https:// apnews.com/4ccd19689a034e6c85ca741565dad49f/North-Korea-says-it-will-dismantle-nuke-test-site-May-23-25

Second Democratic senator publicly backing Trump’s CIA pick

WASHINGTON (AP) — A second Democratic senator has announced his support for President Donald Trump’s CIA nominee.

Joe Donnelly of Indiana says he made his decision after a “tough, frank and extensive discussion” with Gina Haspel, the spy agency’s acting director.

The other Democrat who’s come out for Haspel is West Virginia’s Joe Manchin.

So far two Republicans have announced their opposition: Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Arizona’s John McCain, who’s battling cancer and isn’t expected to be present for the voting.

Supporters are pushing for votes by the Senate intelligence committee and the full Senate before the Senate’s Memorial Day break.

The GOP holds a 51-49 edge, and Vice President Mike Pence can break a possible tie.

READ MORE: https:// apnews.com/7088e202626c49008057b22231ab630a/Second-Democratic-senator-publicly-backing-Trump's-CIA-pick

McCain still up for a fight, even in illness

WASHINGTON (AP) — John McCain is not signing off quietly.

As in so much of the senator’s extraordinary life, the rebellious Republican is facing this challenging chapter — battling brain cancer — in his own rule-breaking way, stirring up old fights and starting new ones. Rarely has the sickbed been so lively.

McCain is promoting a new book, delivering a counterpunch of ideals contrary to President Donald Trump’s running of the White House. McCain’s long-distance rejection of CIA director nominee Gina Haspel’s history with torture goaded former Vice President Dick Cheney into a fresh debate over waterboarding and other now-banned interrogation techniques. On Friday, friends rallied to defend McCain against a White House official’s cruel joke that his positions don’t matter because “he’s dying anyway.”

If this is Washington’s long goodbye to a sometimes favorite son, it’s also a reemergence of old resentments and political fault lines that continue to split the nation.

READ MORE: https:// apnews.com/8352fa2bfb034f30804a3b7ed6fedf15/McCain-still-up-for-a-fight,-even-in-illness

Looks like Soros is giving order's to one of his bought and paid for minion PROPAGANDA outlets:

Bloomberg warns of ‘epidemic of dishonesty’

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are facing an “epidemic of dishonesty” in Washington that’s more dangerous than terrorism or communism.

That’s according to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who warned in a commencement speech on Saturday at Texas’ Rice University that “an endless barrage of lies” and a trend toward “alternate realities” in national politics pose a dire threat to U.S. democracy.

The 76-year-old billionaire, who flirted with an independent presidential run in 2016, did not call out any politicians by name.

Although he derided Donald Trump as “a con” and a “dangerous demagogue” before his election, in an interview before the speech Bloomberg refused to comment specifically on the Republican president’s troubled history with the truth. Fact checkers have determined that Trump has made hundreds of false and misleading statements since entering the Oval Office.

“This is bigger than any one person. It’s bigger than any one party,” he said in the interview.

READ MORE: https:// apnews.com/e21ff1230098479a9d17737b64ebbc74/Bloomberg-warns-of-'epidemic-of-dishonesty'

Moon shines as he drives diplomacy with North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — To his supporters, South Korean President Moon Jae-in is a master negotiator who’s fixing decades of bad nuclear diplomacy with North Korea. To his critics, he’s falling prey to the same old trap that has claimed previous South Korean presidents — but with an important difference: This time the stakes are much higher.

Whoever’s right, it’s hard to ignore Moon’s role as the architect behind a new global push to settle the nuclear standoff with the North. The outcome of his efforts may hinge on a meeting in Singapore next month between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, who spent months contemplating military strikes against the North before Moon steered him to the table.

Moon, a soft-spoken liberal, hosted Kim in a summit last month that saw them stride hand-in-hand across the border and pledge the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, an ambitious declaration that was light on specifics.

Moon doesn’t have the power to resolve North Korea’s weapons programs on his own. But in hustling between Pyongyang and Washington to set up the Kim-Trump summit and offering to broker other meetings with Pyongyang, Moon is fulfilling his promise to push South Korea into the driver’s seat in diplomacy with the North.

READ MORE: https:// www.apnews.com/ff0587a0999e4b0ca4ce4e245c6869f0/Moon-shines-as-he-drives-diplomacy-with-North-Korea

These Lifelong Democrats Voted for Trump and Aren’t Sorry

A baker, a mechanic, and a former union rep, all from the Rust Belt or Midwest, all Democrats, and all fed up with the status quo, say they voted for Trump and would do it again.

SALENA ZITO AND BRAD TODD

05.11.18 10:41 PM ET

Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio

It is 1:45 in the morning and Bonnie Smith’s alarm has just gone off. That alarm is a reminder that, seven days a week, she is living her lifelong dream of owning a bakery.

https:// www.thedailybeast.com/these-lifelong-democrats-voted-for-trump-and-arent-sorry?ref=wrap

1. ‘STATE-SANCTIONED HATE’3 hours ago

Oklahoma Governor Signs ‘Anti-LGBT’ Adoption Law

Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Mary Fallin, has signed into law a bill allowing adoption and foster care agencies to reject prospective parents on “religious” and “moral” grounds—a move critics say legalizes discrimination against LGBT and non-Christian parents. The law, approved by lawmakers earlier this month, could affect any prospective parents to whom a child-welfare agency has religious objections, including interfaith couples, single parents, and even married couples in which one person has previously been divorced. Agencies will be allowed to turn away individuals in cases that “violate the agency's written religious or moral convictions or policies.” While Fallin insisted the law will not prohibit LGBT couples from adopting, critics have already vowed to take the matter to court. Freedom Oklahoma, a political advocacy group fighting for LGBT rights, called the law “state-sanctioned hate” and told Fallin and the lawmakers who approved the legislation, “We’ll see you in court.”

https: //www.thedailybeast.com/oklahoma-governor-signs-anti-lgbt-adoption-law?ref=home

Russian Bombers Intercepted Off Alaska

Two U.S. fighters jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian bombers off the coast of Alaska late Friday. The Russian TU-95 “Bear” bombers were in international airspace but had entered an Air Defense Identification Zone that extends about 200 miles off the coast, North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman Canadian Army Major Andrew Hennessy said in a statement to CNN. Two Alaska-based NORAD F-22 fighter jets “intercepted and monitored” the Russian aircraft until they left the area, according to the statement. The incident comes less than two weeks after a similar encounter in which two Russian bombers flew as close as 50 miles to Point Hope, Alaska.

https: //www.thedailybeast.com/russian-bombers-intercepted-off-alaska

Report: Pruitt Hid Dinner With Cardinal Accused of Sex Abuse

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency reportedly attempted to hide the fact that embattled administrator Scott Pruitt had dinner with Cardinal George Pell, who has been accused of sexual abuse and is a climate-change denier, in Rome. Kevin Chmielewski, a former top EPA official, told The New York Times that it was a “no-brainer” decision to leave Pell’s name off of the official schedule. An EPA spokesman said the dinner was not “private” or “one-on-one,” and said Pruitt wasn’t aware of the allegations against him. Shortly after the dinner, Pell was charged in Australia.

https:// www.thedailybeast.com/report-pruitt-hid-dinner-with-cardinal-accused-of-sex-abuse