WASHINGTON — The Trump administration sought to fend off accusations the president is too soft on Russia on Wednesday, putting off a proposed second summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and declaring the U.S. will never recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
As members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee peppered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with questions about last week’s summit in Finland, the White House said President Donald Trump had opted against trying to meet with Putin this fall. Putin already had sent signals that the White House meeting wasn’t going to happen.
National security adviser John Bolton cited special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election as the reason for the delay, although many members of Congress had objected to the meeting and said Putin would not be welcome on Capitol Hill.
“The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year,” Bolton said in a statement, using Trump’s favored but highly controversial term for the Mueller probe.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and European leaders pulled back from the brink of a trade war over autos Wednesday and agreed to open talks to resolve a dispute over steel and to tear down trade barriers between the United States and the European Union.
In a hastily called Rose Garden appearance with Trump, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the U.S. and the EU agreed to hold off on new tariffs, suggesting that the United States will suspend plans to start taxing European auto imports — a move that would have marked a major escalation in trade tensions between the allies.
The tone between Trump and Juncker was friendly, a marked turnabout from the harsh rhetoric the EU and U.S. have exchanged in recent weeks.
Trump also said the EU had agreed to buy “a lot of soybeans” and increase its imports of liquefied natural gas from the U.S.
“It’s encouraging that they’re talking about freer trade rather than trade barriers and an escalating tariff war,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council and a former U.S. trade official. But he said reaching a detailed trade agreement with the EU would probably prove very difficult.
SAN ANTONIO — The immigrant parents arrived at Catholic Charities in white vans with their children, their paperwork and almost nothing else.
They needed food, clothing, a place to stay and a way to travel to family in the United States. Many were still shell-shocked from weeks in government detention. One father carried an infant who didn’t recognize him after two months apart. A mother held the hand of her 5-year-old daughter, who refused for a time to talk on the phone because she blamed her for their separation.
Scenes such as this are unfolding throughout Texas and Arizona as the Trump administration works to meet a Thursday deadline to reunite immigrant parents and children. The government is releasing hundreds of families to faith-based groups and leaving the groups to care for them.
The Associated Press observed newly reunited families spending their first day together Monday at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Antonio. The families included children as young as babies and old as teenagers, as well as asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America and people who were shuttled around the country to various immigrant detention facilities.
MATI, Greece — Rescuers intensified a grim house-to-house search Wednesday for more casualties from a deadly forest fire outside Athens, as the country’s military said it was using footage from U.S. combat drones and surveillance aircraft to try to determine whether arsonists were behind the blaze and stop future attacks.
Joint patrols of the Fire Service, army personnel, and volunteer rescuers discovered more bodies in the gutted homes near the port of Rafina east of Athens, raising the death toll to 81.
Nikos Giannopoulos stood with his wife and two children outside the destroyed home of his 88-year-old mother, waiting for news as rescuers searched each room.
They found her charred body in the bathroom.
Giannopoulos had searched the home earlier but failed to spot his mother’s body in the blackened interior.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — As smoke from a nearby wildfire pours into Yosemite Valley, Tom Lambert has had to tell tourists who booked his vacation home months in advance that they would have to defer their dream stays so firefighters could take protective measures against the growing blaze.
The decision to shut the scenic heart of Yosemite National Park at the height of tourist season is heartbreaking for travelers, many of whom mapped out their trips months in advance to hike and climb amid the spectacular views of cascading waterfalls and sheer rock faces.
Most people left the valley Tuesday, when officials reluctantly announced the closure, park spokesman Scott Gediman said. The remaining campers packed up their gear Wednesday, joining the exodus that has been mostly orderly.
From Associated Press