WASHINGTON — More than a month after North Korea pledged to immediately return some American war dead, the promise is unfulfilled.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who traveled to Pyongyang this month to press the North Koreans further, said Wednesday the return could begin “in the next couple of weeks.” But it could take months or years to positively identify the bones as those of specific American servicemen.
In a joint statement at their Singapore summit, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un committed to recovering the remains of prisoners of war and those missing in action decades after the Korean War – “including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.”
That was more than a month ago, on June 12. Although Trump said eight days later that the repatriation had happened, it had not. It still has not. So, it was not “immediate,” though the Stars and Stripes newspaper reported from South Korea on Tuesday that the North has agreed to transfer as many as 55 sets of remains next week. The Pentagon and the State Department declined to comment on any specifics promised by the North.
“We’re making progress along the border to get the return of remains, a very important issue for those families,” Pompeo said Wednesday at the White House. “I think in the next couple of weeks we’ll have the first remains returned, that’s the commitment, so progress certainly being made there.”
NEW YORK — Is there a backdoor to getting at President Donald Trump’s tax returns?
At least one Democratic activist says yes, and it’s through a New York state investigation into Trump’s charity.
State attorney general candidate Zephyr Teachout held a news conference in front of Trump Tower on Wednesday calling on the governor to grant authority to state prosecutors pursuing a civil case against the Trump Foundation to launch a criminal probe, a shift that she says could lead to the release of the president’s tax returns. Trump has refused to release his returns, bucking decades of precedent.
“Not having Donald Trump’s tax returns is a national security issue,” said Teachout, a law professor at Fordham University. “We don’t know foreign money flows to the president.”
Within hours, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running for a third term in November, said he would grant such authority if asked by the attorney general.
DALLAS — Authorities didn’t search for a Texas man who cut off his ankle monitor in violation of parole terms until a week later when he was linked to a violent rampage that included three shooting deaths over four days, according to state and county officials.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, 46, was among more than 500 parolees with a violent history living in the Houston area and facing an active arrest warrant for violating terms of parole. Rodriguez removed his ankle monitor on July 5, more than a week before authorities believe he fatally shot three Houston-area people.
Department spokesman Jeremy Desel said neither the agency nor parole officers have the authority to arrest someone, so when authorities learned Rodriguez had tampered with his monitor a warrant was issued for other agencies, such as the Harris County sheriff’s office, to arrest him.
But deputies don’t necessarily search for parolees who have violated their terms of release and would only arrest those offenders they come across during the course of a patrol and run a background check, according to Harris County senior deputy Thomas Gilliland.
TALBISEH, Syria — Former rebel commander Omar Melhem has nearly come full circle.
He was a colonel in the Syrian army when the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in 2011. He defected a year later and joined the armed revolt against the Syrian leader.
Then, when Assad’s forces marched into Talbiseh, he was among the rebels who handed over their weapons and agreed to a surrender deal that would allow them to stay in their hometown instead of a life of exile in the country’s north.
As the Syrian government reasserts control over opposition strongholds, such co-existence between the military and former rebel fighters like Melhem is now the new reality.
The 51-year-old former rebel commander now serves as a liaison between residents and other ex-rebels with the Syrian government, helping some rejoin the military and negotiating with top security officials about services in the town.
From Associated Press