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The U.S. Justice Department will intensify its efforts to bring up lawsuits against municipalities that discriminate against religious establishments, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Wednesday.

The initiative, called the “Place to Worship Initiative,” is centered on bringing cases against towns and cities that use zoning laws to prevent houses of worship — churches and mosques, for example — from building.

“In recent years, the cultural climate has become less hospitable to people of faith and to religious belief,” Sessions said. “Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack.”

The announcement came during an event for the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center — an Orthodox Jewish advocacy group — in Washington, D.C. Sessions also announced the Justice Department would be filing a lawsuit against a New Jersey town for denying the building of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

“Religious Americans have heard themselves called deplorables,” Sessions said. “They’ve heard themselves called bitter clingers.”

Sessions referred to comments made by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during their presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2008, respectively. Clinton made no reference to religion in her 2016 speech.

Heather Weaver, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU, told VOA the initiative was a welcome step from the Justice Department, provided that they enforce it equally based on all faiths.

“Based on past actions and policy, there are concerns that this administration will enforce that law equally among states,” Weaver told VOA, referring to the Trump White House’s signing of several executive orders restricting immigration from a group of Muslim-majority countries.

Sessions also commended the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, in which the court ruled 7-2 that a Colorado baker could refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple, based on religious freedom.

“There is no need for the power of the government to be arrayed against an individual who is honestly attempting to live out — to freely exercise—his sincere religious beliefs,” Sessions said. “There are plenty of other people to bake that cake.”
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Outside the White House Friday, a media frenzy.

And at the center of it all, President Donald Trump.

“Can we do one question at a time? Wait! One question at a time,” the president scolded reporters.

Trump launched a new attack on the Russia probe in the wake of a critical report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Justice.

“I did nothing wrong. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction,” he said. “The IG (inspector general) report yesterday went a long way to show that, and I think that the Mueller investigation has been totally discredited.”

But the report in question only dealt with how the FBI handled the Clinton email controversy.

It was critical of the man Trump fired as FBI director, James Comey, but rejected the notion of a politically-directed effort aimed at Trump.

“This report did not find any evidence of political bias or improper considerations actually impacting the investigation under review,” announced current FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Democrats also took note of the report.

“Anyone who is hoping to use this report to undermine the Mueller probe or prove the existence of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy against President Trump will be sorely disappointed,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said.

During his lengthy encounter with reporters Friday, Trump also defended his recent summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“They are doing so much for us, and now we are well on our way to get denuclearization,” he said. “And the agreement says there will be total denuclearization. Nobody wants to report that. I got along with him great. We have a great chemistry together. That is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Trump also lashed out at opposition Democrats and tried to blame them for recent administration actions to separate family members caught trying to come across the U.S. border.

“The Democrats forced that law upon our nation. I hate it. I hate to see separation of parents and children,” Trump said.

A host of Democrats on Capitol Hill blasted the president’s comments, including Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico.

“There are no substantive defenses, no policy defenses, to their current actions separating families and taking children away from their mothers and fathers at the border. It just is another indication that they cannot govern,” she said.

Trump’s relatively lengthy encounter with the media Friday was unusual for a president who tends to favor appearances on Fox News Channel and who generally takes only a few questions at news conferences.

 
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A federal judge on Friday sent President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort to prison for tampering with witnesses while out on bail.

Manafort was free on $10 million unsecured bail since he was first indicted last October by the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and alleged collusion with the Trump campaign.

He is one of 20 people charged by special counsel Robert Mueller and the first former Trump associate to go to prison in connection with the investigation.

In a tweet Friday afternoon, President Trump said: “Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort, who has represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns. Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob. What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!”

Manafort appeared in court to plead not guilty to new charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with his efforts to influence the testimony of two potential witnesses in his case.

Federal district judge Amy Berman Jackson, citing the new charges, granted a motion filed last week by Mueller, to revoke his bail and send him to prison while he awaits trial in September.

Manafort was escorted out of the court room by deputies as he waved to his wife.

The latest indictment against him, issued by a grand jury last week, accused Manafort, 69, and a business associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, 48, of “repeatedly” contacting two unidentified people in an effort to sway their testimony.   The contacts took place between February and April of this year.

WATCH: Trump on Manafort’s legal woes

According to prosecutors, the two potential witnesses worked with Manafort in enlisting a group of former European officials to lobby both European officials and members of Congress on Ukraine’s behalf.

Defense lawyers, saying Manafort was unaware  the two people were cooperating with the special counsel, painted the contacts as innocuous.  They asked that prosecutors provide a list of people Manafort should not be contacting while on bail.

“A clear no-contact role will solve the problem,” one of Manafort’s lawyers said.  “He can be put in a position where conditions can be met.”

But prosecutors argued that given Manafort’s track record of flouting his bail conditions, no new terms would ensure compliance.

“We’re in a very different situation,” said Andrew Weissmann, one of Mueller’s prosecutors.  “Today, we’re talking about obstruction while on bail.  Mr. Manafort has absolutely violated the terms of his release by committing a crime while on bail.”

Judge Jackson said she had to “wrestle” with whether to revoke Manafort’s bail, but in the end she said she could not keep him free.

 “You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” she said.

 
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The U.S. Justice Department’s watchdog on Thursday criticized former FBI Director James Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but said it found no evidence that Comey had been motivated by “political bias.”

In a long-awaited review of the investigation, the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, did not question Comey’s decision to close the investigation without bringing charges against Clinton, but said the former FBI director made a “serious error of judgment” when he went public with the bureau’s findings in the run-up to the vote. 

“While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice,” the report said. 

“Although we acknowledge that Comey faced a difficult situation with unattractive choices, in proceeding as he did, we concluded that Comey made a serious error of judgment,” the report said.​

​Focused on decisions

The inspector general’s probe focused on decisions made by Comey, at key moments during the campaign, to publicly disclose the FBI’s findings in the Clinton email probe, without coordinating with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

On July 5, 2016, Comey publicly announced that he was not bringing criminal charges against Clinton for her handling of classified information in her emails. 

Then, on Oct. 28, less than two weeks before the election, Comey informed members of Congress that he was reopening the investigation after discovering a new cache of emails, before closing it a second time just two days before the election. 

The inspector general said those announcements deviated from long-standing Justice Department protocols that require the FBI director to coordinate statements with the attorney general and let Justice Department officials report on major investigations.

Later Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau accepted the findings in the report but noted that it in no way “impugns the integrity” of the agency. 

“As I said earlier, fair and independent scrutiny is welcome and appropriate accountability is crucial. We’re going to learn from this report, and we’re going to be better and stronger as a result,” Wray said.

Speaking hours after the release of the report, he said the most important point he took away from it was that it found no evidence of political bias or improper consideration “actually impacting the investigations under review.” He said the FBI would continue to drill “home the importance of objectivity — and of avoiding even the appearance of personal conflicts or political bias in our work.”

Wray said the bureau had taken some steps, such as reassigning people and referring some cases to be reviewed by the FBI’s internal personnel department, although he would not comment on who might have been referred.

“We’ve already referred conduct highlighted in the IG report to OPR, the FBI’s independent Office of Professional Responsibility. We need to hold ourselves accountable for the work we do and the choices we make,” Wray said. “And we’re doing that, fairly but without delay.”

He also said there was a new policy regarding contacts with reporters and news leaks. He said bureau staff would receive “intensive training” and it would be made “painfully” clear what the department’s new rules were.

Comey came under harsh criticism for his actions during the election. 

While Republicans blasted his initial decision to publicly exonerate Clinton, Democrats blamed him for costing them the election by reopening the investigation so close to the vote. 

Trump, who had praised the relaunch of the probe on the eve of the election, last year cited Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation when he abruptly fired him as FBI director. The president later said that he had the “Russia thing” in mind when he fired Comey. 

​Comey responds

Comey has long defended his actions during the election, writing in a recently released book that he did “something I could never imagine” in order to protect the bureau’s independence after concluding that Lynch “appeared politically compromised.”

In a tweet after the report’s release, Comey wrote that the “conclusions are reasonable, even though I disagree with some.”

“People of good faith can see an unprecedented situation,” he wrote.

The inspector general expanded his investigation last year after discovering a series of anti-Trump and pro-Clinton text messages exchanged during the campaign by two senior FBI officials on the investigative team. The report said investigators for the inspector general found text and instant messages exchanged by five FBI employees assigned to the Clinton email investigation team. 

The report said that while the messages “cast a cloud” over the FBI’s handling of “the investigation and the investigation’s credibility,” investigators found no evidence that their political bias “directly affected” the email probe. 

The report singled out two FBI officials — Peter Strzok, a senior counterintelligence agent, and Lisa Page, a lawyer — for exchanging text messages that “potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.”

Strzok and Page were romantically involved at the time. In one exchange uncovered during the investigation, Strzok wrote to Page, “No. No, he won’t. We’ll stop it,” in response to Page’s question “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”

The inspector general wrote that Strzok’s response “is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.”

Both Strzok and Page briefly worked for special counsel Robert Mueller, investigating Russian interference in the election. Mueller removed Strzok from his team after the disclosure of his text messages. Page later left the special counsel’s office. 

Trump and his Republican allies have seized on the text exchanges to allege that the FBI was systematically biased against the president.

Other reactions

The report elicited mixed reactions.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the report reaffirmed Trump’s “suspicions about Director Comey,” adding that the text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page showed “the political bias the president has been talking about.” 

Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House oversight and government reform committee, said he was “alarmed, angered and deeply disappointed” by the findings.

The report confirms that the FBI decisions during the election “deviated from traditional investigative procedures in favor of a much more permissive and voluntary approach,” Gowdy said in a statement. 

But Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the inspector general “found no evidence” that Comey and other FBI and Justice Department officials “acted on the basis of political bias or other improper considerations. Instead, their decisions were made on the basis of the facts and the law.”

Moreover, Schiff said in a statement, “Nothing in the IG’s report calls into question the legitimacy or conduct of the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation, or the importance of allowing the Special Counsel to complete his work without political interference.”

Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations at the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog, said the FBI’s actions during the investigation “damaged the credibility of the Justice Department and the FBI in an investigation that desperately needed to be beyond reproach.”

“Justice Department and FBI leadership need to take a deep look inward and sort out how they should collaborate in high-profile, politically sensitive investigations,” he said. 
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The U.S. Supreme Court eased the rules Thursday for what Americans can wear when they go to vote, striking down restrictions in one state that banned voters from wearing clothes with the name of a candidate or political party when they enter the polling place.

In a victory for free speech, the high court in a 7-2 ruling overturned a law in the Midwestern state of Minnesota that barred clothing representing recognizable political views. The state had said the law was aimed at keeping order at polling places and preventing voter intimidation among partisans.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said that while the state’s intentions were “generally worthy of our respect, Minnesota has not supported its good intentions with a law capable of reasoned application.”

Nine other states have laws similar to Minnesota’s. The Supreme Court returned the case to a lower court for consideration of what restrictions might be reasonable.

The Minnesota case stemmed from a 2010 incident in which a voter showed up at a polling place wearing a T-shirt supporting the conservative Tea Party movement with the words “Don’t Tread on Me,” as well as a button stating, “Please I.D. Me.”

The man was allowed to vote, but sued to overturn the law.
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When Colombia-born Catalina Cruz stepped toward the podium in Jackson Heights, Queens, officially launching her campaign for New York State Legislature, a few dozen supporters stood nearby with fluorescent blue, green and red signs — #VoteCatalina, #ElectADreamer.

Like other first-generation American candidates for local, state and nationwide office, Cruz had overcome a series of obstacles to get to that morning in June. Many can relate in her diverse community — including her opponent, a daughter of Dominican immigrants.

“We have many people who understand the struggle of the immigrant, who understand that we do not come here to steal opportunities or take advantage of the system, but to work, to fight,” Cruz told VOA.

“My mom had to take any job — handing out leaflets, making empanadas (meat pies), selling food, babysitting,” she said of her childhood era, a near 13-year-span during which she and her family lived under the radar, undocumented.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

Years later, after Cruz completed college, married her high school beau (a U.S. citizen), gained citizenship, and attended law school, she set out to defy the odds again by entering American politics — an arena that has never reflected the diversity of the general population, particularly outside progressive urban centers.

But 2018 may be a tipping point; immigrants are running “everywhere,” says Sayu Bhojwani, founder and president of New American Leaders (NAL), a national non-partisan organization which prepares first and second-generation Americans for political office.

“You’re seeing people run [for office] wherever they are, without the burden of, ‘Oh, well, I’m not in a district that necessarily quote-unquote looks like me,’” Bhojwani said in an interview with VOA.

Barriers

On the one hand, Bhojwani predicts immigrant candidates will face “subtle and not-so-subtle references to (their) backgrounds and affiliations,” like Abdul El-Sayed, who is hoping to become the country’s first Muslim governor in Michigan, and has faced the kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric that is pervasive nationwide.

Yet, despite increasing partisan polarization, Bhojwani says immigrant candidates are beginning to “claim their space” across a range of offices and not just in progressive bubbles like Queens.

Ahead of the 2018 elections in November, NAL has tracked at least 100 foreign-born candidates running for U.S. Congress, where a smaller share of immigrants currently holds seats than during either of the country’s 19th and early 20th century waves of European immigration.

And immigrant candidates have been quietly making headway in both local and state elections, where fewer than two percent of 500,000 seats were held in 2015 by either Asian-Americans or Latinos — the two most populous groups of first and second-generation Americans — according to a report by NAL.

Positions like school board and local city council member “are often stepping stones” to higher office for women, candidates of color and immigrant candidates, says Paru Shah, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, whose research examines the characteristics of first and second-generation Americans running for political office.

Would-be candidates all face the difficulties of financing a campaign and finding the time to run. But additionally, immigrant candidates often have their own psychological barriers, according to Shaw.

“Historically it’s a little bit of a chicken and egg situation, where people don’t see themselves in those positions,” Shah told VOA by phone, a situation of “that’s not for me.”

Changing the equation

According to a report by Shah and UCLA PhD candidate Tyler Reny, published in Social Science Quarterly (SSQ), race or foreignness was the most frequently cited barrier among immigrant leader respondents.

“I will have to overcome those who challenge how American I am because I was not born here,” read one recorded statement from the SSQ report.

“I imagine that my ability to lead and my loyalty to the nation would be questioned by the electorate,” read another.

According to Pew Research Center, the share of Asian-American and Hispanic Americans who think of themselves as “typical Americans” approximately doubles from the first-generation (Americans born outside the U.S. or U.S. territories) to 61 percent among the second (US-born with at least one immigrant parent).

For support, Asian-American and Latino candidates for state legislature often rely more heavily on labor unions and community-based groups than their white counterparts, according to NAL data. In return, the groups benefit from better representation.

“There is a lot that you can do to create an environment that is supportive and welcoming,” Bhojwani said. “People are stepping up and saying, ‘Look, I can represent my community and ensure that our schools feel safe and that our cities are welcoming.”

“We are not going to forget how we have lived up this point,” said candidate Catalina Cruz. “Many people might think, ‘Oh, she managed to get her papers and forgot.’ No, this is something you carry with you in your heart and in your blood.”

Laura Sepúlveda, of VOA’s Spanish Service, contributed to this report.
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Leaders of the Republican-led House of Representatives are promising to hold votes on two immigration measures next week, putting the heated issue back on center stage during a tough election year. The move ends a plan by moderate Republicans to force a vote, with the fate of thousands of young undocumented immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, at stake. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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House Republicans are looking to President Donald Trump to help them pass an immigration bill that does not have the support of right-wing lawmakers. 

A day after Speaker Paul Ryan announced that the House would vote next week on two competing immigration measures, the details are still being worked out on a Republican-approved bill that would grant young undocumented immigrants a way to citizenship.

WATCH: DACA May Finally Get a Vote in the House

The bill would grant “Dreamers,” people who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children, a respite from the threat of deportation and a chance to gain U.S. citizenship. As a compromise to conservatives, the bill would also finance Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico, curb family migration and end the visa lottery program.

“We’ve been working hand in glove with the administration on this to make sure that we’re bringing a bill that represents the president’s ‘four pillars’ so that we can come together,” Ryan told reporters Wednesday. “It’s a product of good compromise.”

At a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, Ryan said Trump “seemed very supportive” of the compromise,” lawmakers told reporters. 

But despite Ryan’s assurance of the president’s support, some conservatives might be looking for a more vocal endorsement from Trump. 

Moderate Republicans and Democrats had threatened use a discharge petition to force a vote on four immigration bills. 

A discharge petition is a procedural move that forces a bill out of committee and to the House floor for a vote. In order to succeed, it needs 218 signatures. But the coalition fell short by two Republican signatures. 

The Republican leadership had feared that a discharge petition could have led to a coalition of Democrats and a few Republicans passing bills helping Dreamers without strong enough enforcement provisions. 

House Republicans have been struggling over immigration legislation since Trump last year ended the Obama administration-era program that protected the Dreamers.
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Lawyers for a Salvadoran woman at the center of a controversial ruling on asylum by Attorney General Jeff Sessions say they are looking to challenge the decision that could prevent tens of thousands of immigrants from being granted asylum.

In a sweeping opinion that has touched off an outcry among immigration rights advocates, Sessions on Monday reversed a 2016 grant of asylum to the woman who had been abused by her husband, ruling that victims of domestic violence are not generally eligible for asylum under U.S. immigration law.

While the decision applies to all seeking asylum on grounds of domestic and gang violence, applicants from Mexico and the Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, could be hit especially hard, advocates say. The four countries accounted for 35 percent of asylum claims filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in March. 

Though Sessions directed his ruling at immigration judges, its effect could be felt beyond the court system, said Blaine Bookey, a co-legal director at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, which is representing the Salvadoran woman. 

“The attorney general’s decision applies to all adjudicators, including the appellate body, the immigration courts, as well as the Asylum Office, even down to the border officers who are doing the initial threshold screenings of individuals,” Bookey said. 

A recent uptick in the rejection rate of asylum cases could accelerate, she said. “This decision only provides further support to officers who would not want to recognize certain claims.”

But she said the attorney general’s decision in the case is not necessarily the final word. 

Appeal for A.B.

The Salvadoran woman, known by her initials A.B., can still pursue one of three forms of fear-based relief in the U.S., including asylum, withholding from deportation and seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture, she said. 

The center is also examining other options to challenge Sessions’ ruling, including through the litigation of other individual asylum claims that may be negatively impacted by the decision, Bookey said.

“It is possible Ms. A.B.’s case cannot be directly appealed to (the Court of Appeals for) the Fourth Circuit now and could be challenged through other cases impacted by the (Attorney General’s) decision,” she said.

Omar Jadwat, director of the immigration rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ACLU “stands ready” to support Bookey’s group and others taking issue with the attorney general’s decision.

Jadwat said the organizations are considering “various routes” to a legal challenge.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Key issue

The Salvadoran woman first applied for asylum in 2014, claiming that she had been beaten and raped by her husband for nearly 15 years.

An immigration judge rejected her claim, prompting her lawyers to take it to the Board of Immigration Appeals. 

The board ruled in her favor in 2016, citing a precedent set in an earlier case recognizing domestic violence as a basis for asylum. 

In his decision, Sessions said the immigration board had been wrong to recognize victims of domestic violence as members of a “particular social group,” a requirement for asylum. 

“The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim,” Sessions wrote. 

“When, as here, the alleged persecutor is someone unaffiliated with the government, the applicant must show that flight from her country is necessary because her home government is unwilling or unable to protect her,” Sessions wrote.

In reversing the A.B. decision, the attorney general said that he was restoring “sound principles of asylum and long-standing principles of immigration law.” 

No national fix

The case back was sent back to the same North Carolina immigration judge who had originally rejected A.B.’s initial asylum claim.

The judge, V. Stuart Couch, is widely expected to dismiss her case again, which could lead her lawyers to appeal to the immigration board and possibly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va.

Lindsay Harris, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia and vice chair of the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association’s National Asylum and Refugee Liaison Committee, said she expects the appeals court to reverse the decision, given its “friendly” attitude toward similar cases. 

However, a favorable ruling by the court would apply only in its jurisdiction and leave the precedent set by Sessions in force in other parts of the country, she said. 

“We’ll need to overturn it one by one throughout the country in other jurisdictions,” Harris said.
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American lawmakers differed sharply in their reaction to the U.S.-North Korean summit in Singapore. But as VOA Senate Correspondent Michael Bowman reports, most Republicans were decidedly more upbeat than their Democratic colleagues.
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A U.S. Supreme Court ruling has cleared the way for states to take a tougher approach to maintaining their voter rolls, but will they?

Ohio plans to resume its process for removing inactive voters after it was affirmed in Monday’s 5-4 ruling. It takes a particularly aggressive approach that appears to be an outlier among states.

Few appear eager to follow.

“Our law has been on the books. It hasn’t changed, and it isn’t changing,” said Oklahoma Election Board spokesman Bryan Dean.

At issue is when a state begins the process to notify and ultimately remove people from the rolls after a period of non-voting. In most states with similar laws, like Oklahoma, that process begins after voters miss two or more federal elections.

In Ohio, it starts if voters sit out a two-year period that includes just one federal election. They are removed from the rolls if they fail to vote over the following four years or do not return an address-confirmation card.

Opponents of the laws say their intent is to purge people from the rolls, particularly minorities and the poor who tend to vote Democratic. Supporters say voters are given plenty of chances to keep their active status and that the rules adhere to federal law requiring states to maintain accurate voter rolls.

Democrats and voting rights groups have expressed concern that other states will be emboldened by the ruling and adopt more aggressive tactics to kick voters off the rolls. In addition to Oklahoma, Georgia, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have laws similar to Ohio’s.

But even Republican-led states where officials are concerned about voter fraud may be wary when it comes to following the Ohio model.

One hurdle is likely to come from local governments, where election administrators would have to deal with disgruntled voters and manage an increase in the number of people placed on inactive voter lists, said Myrna Perez, who has studied voter list practices in her role as deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program.

“Using one election as an indicator is going to lead to a whole lot of false positives,” she said. “There are plenty of states that clean their voter rolls successfully without being as aggressive as Ohio.”

West Virginia is more lenient in targeting inactive voters than Ohio. Among other things, it requires counties in the year following a presidential election to mail an address confirmation to people who have not voted in any election during the previous four years.

Julie Archer of the watchdog West Virginia Citizen Action Group said the process appears to be working as it should.

“There is not a need to do something more aggressive,” she said.

‘Massive statewide purge’

The controversy over Ohio’s approach arose from apparently conflicting mandates in the National Voter Registration Act, which became law in 1993. It requires states to maintain accurate voter registration lists but also says they should protect against inadvertently removing properly registered voters.

Since 1994, Ohio has used voters’ inactivity after two years — encompassing one federal election cycle — to trigger a process that could lead to removal from the voter rolls. That process has been used under both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, but groups representing voters did not sue until 2016, under current Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted.

The legal action followed what the lawsuit called “a massive statewide purge” of voters in the summer of 2015.

In Pennsylvania, the process isn’t triggered unless people have failed to vote for five years, or two general election cycles. The state has no plans to change that, Department of State spokeswoman Wanda Murren said.

The existing system hasn’t been drawing complaints, said Ray Murphy, a spokesman for Keystone Votes, a liberal coalition that advocates for changes to Pennsylvania election law. But he said the group will watch the Legislature closely for any signs that lawmakers will want to follow Ohio’s more stringent method.

Ballot access is a frequent battleground for Democrats and Republicans, but it’s not always a neatly partisan issue.

In Oregon, for example, Republican Secretary of State Dennis Richardson last year expanded the period for removing people from the rolls from five years of non-voting to 10 years.

“A registered voter should not lose their voting rights solely because they haven’t participated recently,” he said in a written statement following Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.
…

House Republicans labored to strike an immigration accord Tuesday, the day restive moderates have said they’d move to force future votes on the divisive issue if no compromise is reached. Aides said any deal would likely include provisions changing how immigrant children are separated from their families at the border.

Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, planned to meet with centrist and conservative GOP leaders in hopes of defusing an election-year civil war that leaders worry will alienate right-leaning voters. For weeks, the two factions have hunted ways to provide a route to citizenship for immigrants brought illegally as children to the U.S. and bolster border security, but have failed to find middle ground.

Moderates led by Representatives Carlos Curbelo of Florida and California’s Jeff Denham have said that without an agreement, they would on Tuesday get the 218 signatures — a House majority — needed on a petition that would trigger votes later this month on four immigration bills. They are three names short, but have said they have enough supporters to succeed.

House GOP leaders have tried to derail that rarely used process, asserting those votes would probably produce a liberal-leaning bill backed by Democrats and just a smattering of Republicans. They’ve been trying to craft a right-leaning measure, but the party has long failed to find compromise between centrists with Hispanic and moderate-minded constituents and conservatives whose voters back President Donald Trump’s hardline views.

Any deal is likely to include much if not all of the $25 billion Trump wants to build his proposed wall with Mexico and other security steps. But there have been disagreements over details, such as conservative plans to make it easier to deport some immigrants here legally.

Trump’s recent clampdown on people entering the U.S. illegally has resulted in hundreds of children being separated from their families and a public relations black eye for the administration.

No law requires those children to be taken from their parents. A two-decade-old court settlement requires those who are separated to be released quickly to relatives or qualified programs. Republicans are seeking language to make it easier to keep the families together longer, said several Republicans.

Besides trying to cut a deal on a bill, Ryan and other GOP leaders have been trying to persuade moderate Republicans to not sign the petition. Two Republican aides said that as part of that, party leaders have promised votes later this year on a bill dealing with migrant agriculture workers and requirements that employers use a government online system to verify workers’ citizenship.

The Republicans spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private talks.

Under House procedures, if the moderates’ petition reaches 218 signatures on Tuesday, the immigration votes could occur as soon as June 25. Otherwise, the votes would have to wait until July.

Trump last year terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, though federal court orders have kept the program functioning for now. Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have benefited from DACA or could qualify for it, and moderates want legislation that would give these so-called Dreamers a way to become legal residents and ultimately citizenship.

Conservatives have derided that step as amnesty for lawbreakers and have resisted providing a special pathway to protect them.

In recent days, talks have focused on proposals that give the Dreamers a way to gain legal status, perhaps making them eligible for visas now distributed under existing programs. Trump has proposed limiting the relatives that immigrants can bring to the U.S. and ending a lottery that provides visas to people from countries with low immigration rates, which could free up some visas.
…

The U.S. government agency that oversees immigration applications is launching an office that will focus on identifying Americans who are suspected of cheating to get their citizenship and seek to strip them of it.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director L. Francis Cissna told The Associated Press in an interview that his agency is hiring several dozen lawyers and immigration officers to review cases of immigrants who were ordered deported and are suspected of using fake identities to later get green cards and citizenship through naturalization.

Cissna said the cases would be referred to the Department of Justice, whose attorneys could then seek to remove the immigrants’ citizenship in civil court proceedings. In some cases, government attorneys could bring criminal charges related to fraud.

Coordinated effort

Until now, the agency has pursued cases as they arose but not through a coordinated effort, Cissna said. He said he hopes the agency’s new office in Los Angeles will be running by next year but added that investigating and referring cases for prosecution will likely take longer.

“We finally have a process in place to get to the bottom of all these bad cases and start denaturalizing people who should not have been naturalized in the first place,” Cissna said. “What we’re looking at, when you boil it all down, is potentially a few thousand cases.”

He declined to say how much the effort would cost but said it would be covered by the agency’s existing budget, which is funded by immigration application fees.

The push comes as the Trump administration has been cracking down on illegal immigration and taking steps to reduce legal immigration to the U.S.

Immigrants who become U.S. citizens can vote, serve on juries and obtain security clearance. Denaturalization, the process of removing that citizenship, is very rare.

Citizenship revoked

The U.S. government began looking at potentially fraudulent naturalization cases a decade ago when a border officer detected about 200 people had used different identities to get green cards and citizenship after they were previously issued deportation orders.

In September 2016, an internal watchdog reported that 315,000 old fingerprint records for immigrants who had been deported or had criminal convictions had not been uploaded to a Department of Homeland Security database that is used to check immigrants’ identities. The same report found more than 800 immigrants had been ordered deported under one identity but became U.S. citizens under another.

Since then, the government has been uploading these older fingerprint records dating back to the 1990s and investigators have been evaluating cases for denaturalization.

Earlier this year, a judge revoked the citizenship of an Indian-born New Jersey man named Baljinder Singh after federal authorities accused him of using an alias to avoid deportation.

Authorities said Singh used a different name when he arrived in the United States in 1991. He was ordered deported the next year and a month later applied for asylum using the name Baljinder Singh before marrying an American, getting a green card and naturalizing.

Authorities said Singh did not mention his earlier deportation order when he applied for citizenship.

Entered a new chapter

For many years, most U.S. efforts to strip immigrants of their citizenship focused largely on suspected war criminals who lied on their immigration paperwork, most notably former Nazis.

Toward the end of the Obama administration, officials began reviewing cases stemming from the fingerprints probe but prioritized those of naturalized citizens who had obtained security clearances, for example, to work at the Transportation Security Administration, said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute’s office at New York University law school.

The Trump administration has made these investigations a bigger priority, he said. He said he expects cases will focus on deliberate fraud but some naturalized Americans may feel uneasy with the change.

“It is clearly true that we have entered a new chapter when a much larger number of people could feel vulnerable that their naturalization could be reopened,” Chishti said.

Since 1990, the Department of Justice has filed 305 civil denaturalization cases, according to statistics obtained by an immigration attorney in Kansas who has defended immigrants in these cases.

The attorney, Matthew Hoppock, agrees that deportees who lied to get citizenship should face consequences but worries other immigrants who might have made mistakes on their paperwork could be targeted and might not have the money to fight back in court.

Cissna said there are valid reasons why immigrants might be listed under multiple names, noting many Latin American immigrants have more than one surname. He said the U.S. government is not interested in that kind of minor discrepancy but wants to target people who deliberately changed their identities to dupe officials into granting immigration benefits.

“The people who are going to be targeted by this, they know full well who they are because they were ordered removed under a different identity and they intentionally lied about it when they applied for citizenship later on,” Cissna said. “It may be some time before we get to their case, but we’ll get to them.”
…

Financial disclosure forms released late Monday show that White House special adviser — and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — Jared Kushner’s wealth and debt both appear to have risen over the year, an indication of the complex state of his finances and the potential conflicts that confront some of his investments.

Disclosures issued by the White House for Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, showed that Kushner held assets totaling at least $181 million. His previous 2017 disclosure had showed assets in at least the $140 million range. Kushner and Ivanka Trump, jointly held at least $240 million in assets last year.

The financial disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics routinely show both assets and debts compiled in broad ranges between low and high estimates, making it difficult to precisely chart the rise and fall of the financial portfolios of federal government officials.

The White House released the disclosures for Kushner and Ivanka Trump on a heavy news day, while the world’s media lavished attention on President Trump’s preparations to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for talks over nuclear weapons. The White House had released the president’s own financial report last month.

A spokesman for the couple said Monday that the couple’s disclosure portrayed both assets and debts that have not changed much over the past year — and stressed that Kushner and Ivanka Trump have both complied with all federal ethics rules.

“Since joining the administration, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have complied with the rules and restrictions as set out by the Office of Government Ethics,” said Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for the couple’s ethics lawyer, Abbe Lowell. “As to the current filing which OGE also reviews, their net worth remains largely the same, with changes reflecting more the way the form requires disclosure than any substantial difference in assets or liabilities.”

One of Kushner’s biggest holdings, a real estate tech startup called Cadre that he co-founded with his brother, Joshua, rose sharply in value. The latest disclosure shows it was worth at least $25 million at the end of last year, up from a minimum value of $5 million in his previous disclosure.

The bulk of Ivanka Trump’s assets — more than $50 million worth — was contained in a trust that holds her business and corporations. That trust generated over $5 million in revenue last year.

She reported a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., worth between $5 million and $25 million. The hotel has been a focus of lawsuits against the president and ethics watchdogs who say Trump is violating the Constitution by profiting from his office as diplomats spend big money there.

The disclosure also showed that Kushner has assumed growing debt over the past year, both expanding his use of revolving lines of credit and taking on additional debt of between $5 million and $25 million as part of his family company’s purchase last year of a New Jersey apartment complex.

A series of interim financial reports last year showed that Kushner had increased lines of credit with Bank of America, New York Community Bank and Signature Bank, each from at least $1 million to $5 million. Such moves do not mean that Kushner has yet accumulated that debt, but has the ability to do so.

The new disclosure shows that Kushner did take on a new debt last year with Bank of America worth between $5 million and $25 million — but jointly with other investors in Quail Ridge LLC, a company used for his family firm’s purchase of Quail Ridge, a 1,032-unit apartment community in Plainsboro, N.J., near Princeton. The disclosures also showed that Ivanka Trump owns an interest in that purchase through a family trust.

The disclosure showed that Kushner reported making at least $5 million in income from the development since Kushner Companies bought the complex in September. The family business has made a splash with high-profile deals for buildings in New York City in the past decade, but lately has been returning to its roots by buying garden apartments in the suburbs.

Under an ethics agreement he signed when he joined the administration in early 2017, Kushner withdrew from his position as CEO of Kushner Companies. But even as a passive investor, he retains many lucrative investments — which ethics critics have warned could raise conflicts of interest.
…

United States Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Monday called for global governments to “work together” on law enforcement, at a time when an escalating trade rift is pitting the United States against Canada and a number of Washington’s other close trade partners.

Rosenstein said during a speech in Montreal the United States is “enhancing its commitment to international law enforcement coordination,” through personal relationships, policy changes and additional resources, citing examples of recent collaboration between Canadian and U.S. law enforcement. 

“Working together is not always easy. There may be legal and practical barriers to cooperation,” he said during the International Economic Forum of the Americas, Conference of Montreal. “But strong leadership is not about avoiding problems. It is about embracing challenges and overcoming obstacles.”

Rosenstein’s speech comes after U.S. President Donald Trump fired off a volley of tweets venting anger on NATO allies, the European Union and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the wake of a divisive G-7 meeting over the weekend.
…

President Donald Trump said that his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, suffered a heart attack and was being treated Monday at a military hospital.

Kudlow’s condition wasn’t immediately released by Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

“Our Great Larry Kudlow, who has been working so hard on trade and the economy, has just suffered a heart attack,”Trump wrote from Singapore.

Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, had joined Trump last week in Canada for what became a contentious meeting of the Group of Seven world leaders. The meeting was shadowed by the Trump administration’s escalation of rhetoric on trade and tariffs and splintered shortly after the president left Quebec and tweeted he was pulling back his approval of a joint statement by the group.

Kudlow appeared Sunday on CNN to back up Trump’s complaint that he had been blindsided by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s criticism of his tariff threats at a summit-ending news conference.

Trump’s choice of Kudlow to be his top economic aide elevated the influence of a longtime fixture on the business news network CNBC. He previously served in the Reagan administration and emerged as a leading evangelist for tax cuts and smaller government.

The famously pinstripe-suited Kudlow succeeded Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive who left the post in a dispute over Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

With Trump’s tax cuts already being implemented, Kudlow has been advising a president who pushed to tax foreign imports — a policy Kudlow personally opposes. Kudlow said he is “in accord” with Trump’s agenda and his team at the White House would help implement the policies set by the president.

After working in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, Kudlow moved to Wall Street and, though he never completed a master’s program in economics and policy at Princeton University, served as chief economist at Bear Stearns. He left that position in the early 1990s to treat an addiction to alcohol and drugs.

Kudlow soon settled comfortably into the world of political and economic commentary, working at the conservative magazine National Review and becoming a host of CNBC shows beginning in 2001. He was a CNBC contributor before returning to the White House this year.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shook hands Tuesday morning, minutes before retreating inside a Singapore hotel to begin discussions about the possible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

To the sound of dozens of cameras, the two leaders met in front of a background of U.S. and North Korean flags in an unprecedented event — the first meeting of a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

Trump’s motorcade arrived first at the Capella Hotel on Singapore’s resort island of Sentosa. Kim’s motorcade arrived a few minutes later.

The two men sat side-by-side before beginning their solo talks with Trump predicting a “great discussion.”

“We’re going to be tremendously successful and it’s my honor, and we will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt,” Trump said.

Kim said through an interpreter that it was “not easy to get here” and that “old prejudices and practices worked as obstacles on our way forward, but we overcame all of them and we are here today.”

The White House announced Monday that Trump would leave Singapore Tuesday night after meeting with Kim, adding that talks between U.S. and North Korean officials “are ongoing and have moved more quickly than expected.”

A White House statement said Trump would hold a one-on-one meeting with Kim Tuesday morning, with only translators present, followed by a working lunch and an expanded bilateral meeting that will include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton.

The U.S. president will then address the media before flying out late Tuesday Singapore time. Previous reports had suggested Trump would leave  Wednesday.

On the eve of the first encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a leader of North Korea, American officials are maintaining that any resulting agreement must lead to an end of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile threats.

There will not be a repeat of “flimsy agreements” made between previous U.S. administrations and North Korea, Secretary Pompeo told reporters in Singapore on Monday.

“The ultimate objective we seek from diplomacy with North Korea has not changed — the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korea Peninsula is only outcome that the United States will accept,” Pompeo said.

Sanctions will remain until North Korea completely and verifiably eliminates its weapons of mass destruction programs, Pompeo added.

“If diplomacy does not move in the right direction, those measures will increase,” he said.

Pompeo said he was “very optimistic” the meeting Tuesday between Trump and Kim would “have a successful outcome.”

He declined, however, to reveal any details of the preliminary discussions held Monday between U.S. and North Korean officials.

Pompeo did say the United States is “prepared to take what will be security assurances that are different, unique that America has been willing to provide previously. That’s necessary and appropriate.”

But when pressed by reporters, the secretary of state would not say whether that could include reduction of the number of or removal of U.S. troops in South Korea.

It is also unclear whether U.S. officials will raise human rights issues in meetings with the North Koreans. Ahead of his trip, President Trump said “every issue will be raised.” But he did not address human rights issues when he met with Kim’s top aide, Kim Yong-cho. Critics say ignoring the issue risks squandering leverage and abandoning the North’s victims.

Trump attended a working lunch Monday hosted by Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, at the Istana, which is the official residence of the city state’s president.

“We have a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow, and I think things can work out very nicely,” Trump told Lee. “We appreciate your hospitality and professionalism and your friendship.”

Trump was presented with a birthday cake by his Singaporean host.  The U.S. president turns 72 on June 14.

Trump also spoke by telephone Monday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, according to officials in Seoul who predicted that if Tuesday’s Singapore summit is a success it would be a “gift” to the entire world.

“President Moon and President Trump agreed Trump and Kim will be able to make a great achievement if the two leaders come together to find a common denominator through frank discussions,” Blue House spokesman Kim Eu-kyeom told reporters.

The spokesman said Trump told Moon he would send Pompeo to Seoul immediately after the summit to explain its outcome.

About 5,000 journalists are in Singapore for the occasion, but only a handful of American and North Korean reporters and photographers were permitted at the venue when the two leaders greeted each other.

Bill Gallo contributed to this report .
…

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said he does not believe a reduction of U.S. troop numbers on the Korean Peninsula will be up for discussion when President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un meet Tuesday in Singapore.

“The U.S. and South Korea are not engaged … in any reduction of U.S. forces talks,” Mattis told reporters, adding that U.S. troop levels in South Korea “is not something that other countries would have, I would just say, initial domain over a discussion with us.”

Pushed about whether U.S. troop numbers would be on the agenda in Singapore, Mattis replied, “I don’t believe it is.”

Mattis added that discussions about U.S. troop numbers on the peninsula would be “premature” ahead of the outcome of negotiations between the two leaders Tuesday.

Trump will meet Tuesday morning with Kim, with only translators present. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton will also be involved in bilateral meetings.

Mattis is not attending the summit but has one of his assistant secretaries “embedded” there as a military policy adviser.

“My job is to find space, to find solutions to support the diplomats,” Mattis said. “We’re going to have to see what comes out.”
…

The White House is assailing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying he “stabbed us in the back” and undermined U.S. President Donald Trump after Trump left the G-7 economic summit early for Singapore.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News, “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door … that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.”

Navarro added, “To my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of the Canadian leader in modern Canadian history. All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win.”

Trump left the Group of Seven summit in Quebec early Saturday to head to Singapore for his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

After Trump left, Trudeau called new U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel “insulting.”

“We leave and then he pulls this sophomoric political stunt for domestic consideration,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNN. “You just don’t behave that way. It’s a betrayal.”

Kudlow said Trump negotiated the communique in “good faith,” and had called at the summit for “no tariffs, free trade.”

But Kudlow said Trump “gets up in a plane and then … Trudeau stabs him.” He said Trump “is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around.”

U.S. wouldn’t sign communique

While airborne, Trump ordered U.S. officials to refuse to sign the traditional end-of-summit communique.

“Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers, and companies, I have instructed our U.S. reps not to endorse the communique as we look at tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. market!” Trump said on Twitter.

“PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!” he added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told ARD television that Trump’s withdrawal from the communique through a tweet is “sobering and a bit depressing.”

French President Emmanuel Macron attacked Trump’s stance, saying, “International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks.” He called Trump’s refusal to sign the communique a display of “incoherence and inconsistency.”  

Trudeau did not respond to the U.S. attacks, instead declaring the summit a success.

“The historic and important agreement we all reached” at the summit “will help make our economies stronger and people more prosperous, protect our democracies, safeguard our environment, and protect women and girls’ rights around the world. That’s what matters,” Trudeau said.

But foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said, “Canada does not believe that ad hominem attacks are a particularly appropriate or useful way to conduct our relations with other countries.”

Canada refuses to budge

Trudeau closed the annual G-7 summit Saturday in Canada by refusing to budge on positions that place him at odds with Trump, particularly the new steel and aluminum tariffs that have drawn the ire of Canada and the European Union.

He said in closing remarks that Canada will proceed with retaliatory measures on U.S. goods as early as July 1.

“I highlighted directly to the president that Canadians did not take it lightly that the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs,” Trudeau said following the summit. “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will also not be pushed around.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May echoed Trudeau, pledging to retaliate for tariffs on EU goods.

“The loss of trade through tariffs undermines competition, reduces productivity, removes the incentive to innovate and ultimately makes everyone poorer,” May said. “And in response, the EU will impose countermeasures.”

U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain, a vocal Trump critic, offered support for the other six world leaders at the Canadian summit.

“To our allies,” McCain tweeted, “bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t.”

Trudeau and May also bucked Trump on another high-profile issue: Russia. Trump suggested Russia rejoin the group after being pushed out in 2014 when it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Trudeau said he is “not remotely interested” in having Russia rejoin the group.

May added, “We have agreed to stand ready to take further restrictive measures against Russia if necessary.”
…

South Koreans are optimistic that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will improve the prospects for a lasting peace in the region when the two men meet Tuesday in Singapore, even if no definitive denuclearization deal is reached.

“What we want is peace. I wish that the summit works out well so that peace comes to the Korean Peninsula,” said Cho Ik-Sung, a doctor who lives in Seoul.

Public support

Prior to the Singapore meeting between Trump and Kim, there have been rallies in Seoul by groups urging the two leaders to end the U.S.-North Korea nuclear standoff with a peace treaty.

Conservative groups have also held demonstrations, urging the U.S. not to compromise with the repressive Kim government that has broken previous denuclearization promises.

But public opinion polls indicate strong support for progressive South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s diplomatic efforts to persuade the North Korean leader to agree to denuclearization talks. Moon’s approval rating was at 75 percent in a recent Gallup poll.

Kim’s popularity in South Korea also increased significantly after the inter-Korean summit in April, where he was seen by many as nonthreatening and open to compromise.

“Regarding Chairman Kim Jong Un, I used to have a negative impression of him, but after seeing him on TV at the last summit, my impression of him improved a lot,” Seoul resident Choi Yun-mi said.

Kim’s approval rating increased 10 points, to 31 percent overall, in the Gallup poll.

In advance of the summit, the U.S. president’s favorability rating in South Korea rose 8 points, to 32 percent.

Trump had in the past raised anxiety among South Koreans with threats to use military force if needed to eliminate the North Korean nuclear threat, suggestions that he may withdraw U.S. troops in Korea unless Seoul increases defense contributions, and criticisms over unfair trade practices.

Summit anxiety

Many in Seoul still worry that the U.S. and North Korea will not be able to resolve their differences, as Washington wants complete denuclearization before any sanctions relief, and Pyongyang wants concessions tied to each phase of the process.

After temporarily pulling out of the summit earlier, Trump has said he still is prepared to walk away if Kim is not committed to ending his nuclear program.

“I am concerned that the United States might cancel the U.S.-North Korea summit again,” said Shim Nu-ri, a teacher who lives in Seoul.

But, overall, people in Seoul expect the Singapore summit to produce a positive result that will lower the potential for military conflict, and move the peace process forward.

Trump has said he believes Kim is committed to denuclearization and that Kim “wants to do something great for his people.” But the president also tempered summit expectations by saying the Singapore meeting will likely be the beginning of a longer process. 

At the April inter-Korean summit, Moon and Kim agreed to improve relations by holding military talks to reduce border tensions, and hold reunions for families separated by the long-standing division of Korea. 

There are also signs that South Korea, China and Russia are preparing to increase economic ties with North Korea, should a nuclear deal be reached. Such a move would ease the tough international sanctions in place that ban 90 percent of trade with North Korea.

Officials from South Korea visited a shuttered joint economic project in Kaesong, North Korea, on Friday, possibly in preparation to reopen the site that was closed in 2016 following a North Korean nuclear test. 

And in the Chinese-North Korean border city of Dandong, property prices are rapidly rising in anticipation that official trade will resume.

Lee Yoon-jee in Seoul contributed to this report.
…

The U.S.’s chief Mideast envoy and a key Palestinian official engaged in a sharp exchange of words Sunday over Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects and the role the United States is playing in trying to settle the decadeslong dispute.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat set off the verbal warfare with a recent opinion article in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in which he accused the U.S. of acting as “spokespeople” for Israel and assailed the U.S. for moving its embassy in Israel last month from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, and the Palestinians hope to do the same if a Palestinian state is eventually created.

Erekat said the violence that left dozens of Palestinians dead in fighting along the Gaza-Israel border on the day the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem was opened “aptly demonstrates the complete U.S. and Israel denial of the Palestinian history of dispossession.”

Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief envoy to the Mideast, responded Sunday with his own opinion article in Haaretz, saying, “For far too long, the United States has turned a deaf ear to such words, but ignoring hateful and false words has not brought peace and it will never bring peace.”

Greenblatt added, “While some protesters were peaceful, many were quite violent. In fact, by Hamas’ own admission, more than 80 percent of those killed were Hamas operatives.”

The U.S. envoy said Trump’s order to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem “was not, as Dr. Erekat baselessly claimed, part of a U.S. attempt to force an Israel-written agreement on the Palestinians.”

Greenblatt told Erekat, “We have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement.”

He added, “The notion that Israel is going away — or that Jerusalem is not its capital — is a mirage. The notion that the United States is not the critical interlocutor for the peace process is a mirage.”

Later Sunday, Erekat responded with another article, claiming that Greenblatt “in dozens of meetings” had “refused to discuss substance: no borders, no settlements and no two-state solution. Today, his role is nothing less than peddling Israeli policies to a skeptical international community, and then becomes upset when he’s reminded of this.”

U.S. officials say they plan to release their proposal for a Mideast peace plan in mid- to late June.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump warned Saturday that his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 is a “one-time shot” for the reclusive leader.

Before leaving the international Group of Seven summit in Quebec, Trump told reporters that he expects to know right away if Kim is serious about giving up the country’s nuclear weapons. “Within the first minute I’ll know,” he said. “It’s what I do.”

He has described his planned meeting with Kim as a “mission of peace” and expressed optimism about North Korea’s future. “We think North Korea will be a tremendous place in a very short period of time,” Trump said.

On Friday, Trump defended his readiness for the summit, telling reporters, “I’ve been preparing for this all my life.”

WATCH: President Trump on N. Korea Summit

Before departing Washington for the G-7 talks, the president said he was taking along “15 boxes of work” he will be reviewing for his meeting with Kim.

The president himself sparked discussion about his preparations Thursday, when he told reporters that although he believes he is well prepared for the talks, “I don’t think I need to prepare very much. It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done.”

The Trump administration is seeking the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In exchange, Pyongyang is believed to be seeking relief from international sanctions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted Thursday that Congress might be given a say in any deal Trump may reach with the North Korean leader.

Pompeo was responding to a reporter’s question about whether a future president could undo an agreement — the way Trump pulled the United States out of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

If talks do not go well, Trump has made clear he is prepared to walk away and to impose even more sanctions against Pyongyang, potentially increasing tensions between the two nations and the region.
…

Sipping California zinfandel, eating deviled eggs and fretting about President Donald Trump, the guests attending a political fundraiser at a Silicon Valley executive’s home were the usual assortment of tech entrepreneurs and investors.

But the congressional candidate they had come to meet that March evening in the hills north of San Francisco was anything but typical.

Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat and former defense official, is running for Congress in Michigan’s 8th District, a pocket of Detroit suburbs, college campuses and farmland more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away. She is a gun owner, a supporter of constitutionally enshrined gun rights and a critic of single payer health care, hardly the kind of far-left candidate voters in the San Francisco Bay Area generally embrace.

But Slotkin, 41, and the party guests shared a goal: wresting control of the House of Representatives from Republicans in November’s congressional elections.

Swing districts

With no Bay Area Democrats facing serious challenges from Republicans, the party host, Brian Monahan, and a group of fellow technology and marketing executives have decided to look farther afield for candidates in swing districts that need financial support.

To focus their efforts, Monahan, technology investor Chris Albinson, executive recruiter Jon Love and a handful of others have formed a loose-knit organization they call Purple Project.

So far, the group has raised at least $210,000 for Democratic candidates in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The sum is a pittance compared to the money being spent on key races by fundraising Political Action Committees (PACs), which represent corporations and political interest groups and contribute millions of dollars each election cycle.

But in moderate districts with close races like Slotkin’s, such grassroots efforts can make a difference.

​‘Simply unacceptable’

Purple Project is one of a number of informal groups in solidly blue states such as California, Vermont and Massachusetts that have mobilized this year to back candidates in distant swing districts. So far, it has endorsed six candidates and plans to endorse 14 more by the end of July.

Love, a longtime executive recruiter for technology companies, spearheads candidate vetting. Many in the group have made the maximum allowable individual donation of $2,700 to each candidate.

For its participants, Purple Project is a way to channel months of political frustrations since Trump took office.

“Things are simply unacceptable and sitting on the sidelines just stewing on it isn’t helping anyone,” Monahan said. “You feel like out here in California your vote is worthless.”

That’s because House representatives from the San Francisco Bay Area are unwaveringly Democratic.

Bruising battle, outside money

To retake the House, Democrats would need to take 23 seats held by Republicans, as well as keep all the districts they now hold. That means races like Slotkin’s, in a competitive district with a mix of Republican and Democratic counties stretching from north of Detroit to the state capitol, Lansing, are pivotal.

She faces a bruising battle, however, trying to unseat two-term Congressman Mike Bishop, who won with 56 percent of the vote in 2016.

Out-of-state money has been the financial lifeblood of Slotkin’s campaign, putting her far ahead of her competitor for the Democratic nomination and nearly neck-and-neck with Bishop.

Slotkin had raised $1.5 million as of March 31, with just $304,000 coming from Michigan donors, approaching Bishop’s $317,000 in home-state contributions, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Slotkin raised more than $120,000 from individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

FEC filings generally do not include donations of $200 or less.

“Our campaign finance laws are so broken that in order to compete you have to raise a significant amount of money,” she told Reuters during a tour of her 400-acre farm in Holly, Michigan, when asked about Purple Project’s donations to her campaign. “If that means raising from outside the state I’d rather have that than the influence of a corporate PAC.”

At a house party in April in the small Michigan city of Brighton, about a dozen neighbors from a tidy middle-class neighborhood gathered to meet Slotkin and cheer her on, but not all were hopeful.

“I don’t give her much of a chance, but it’s good to have her there and maybe she’ll take a bite out of Bishop’s vote,” said Blake Lancaster, 74.

​Personal politics

Purple Project is a political organization with a deeply personal origin. Albinson, co-founder of San Francisco technology investment firm Founders Circle, said he was unnerved to learn his father-in-law in Michigan, Jerry Smith, voted for Trump. After 18 years as a registered Republican, Albinson, also a Michigan native, became an independent voter following Trump’s nomination.

He set about finding moderate congressional candidates he and his friends in Silicon Valley could support, but who would also appeal to Smith.

After Albinson met Slotkin, he subjected her to a litmus test: she had to visit his father-in-law.

Smith, 72, describes himself as a “common-sense Republican” worried about his health care costs. A retired small business owner who lives on a 40-acre farm just outside the 8th District, Smith said he and his wife, Barb, fret about spending down their savings “just for the regular monthly bills.”

Slotkin won over Smith, who said he was impressed by her resume and decency, and her views on improving President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the Affordable Care Act, to keep health care costs down. From there, Purple Project has grown, with members scattered across the country.

To win the group’s backing, candidates must be able to appeal to Trump supporters and must have past service in the military, government or nonprofit sector. They also have to reject corporate PAC money and support affordable health care and infrastructure improvement, among other criteria.

The group offers more than money. Monahan, who was head of marketing at Walmart.com and an advertising executive at image-sharing and shopping website Pinterest, helps campaigns with digital marketing, for instance.

Last spring, Slotkin left Washington and a 15-year government career in defense and intelligence work to move back to the family farm in Holly. But some of her neighbors in this working-class town are not particularly interested in a newcomer Democrat.

Holly town supervisor George Kullis said he plans to vote for Bishop because the congressman helped him get federal funding for new signs for the national cemetery in town.

“Bishop has been good; he’s been ‘Johnny on the spot,’” Kullis said. “Besides, who is this Elissa Slotkin? I’ve never heard of her.”
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Environmentalists on Friday accused the Trump administration of political interference and retaliation in the ouster of Yellowstone National Park’s chief after his disputes with U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke over the park’s celebrated bison.

Dan Wenk, who has led one of the nation’s premier parks since 2011, on Friday described as “punitive” the decision by Zinke that he should retire early or be reassigned to a post in Washington, D.C.

Wenk said in an interview he was not given specific reasons for the ultimatum, which came after he had announced his intention to retire in 2019. He said he had had disagreements with Zinke about the number of bison at the park but had believed those to be resolved.

Environmentalists were quick to accuse Zinke of selling out parks, public lands and wildlife in the West to oil and gas developers, sportsmen and ranchers, among others.

“His decision to force out the superintendent of the world’s first national park should be seen for what it is: political interference and retaliation for a Park Service leader standing up for parks and wildlife rather than special interests,” the Sierra Club’s Bonnie Rice said in a statement on Friday.

The fracas over Wenk’s ouster is the latest controversy surrounding an Interior secretary who has been reviled by conservationists but hailed by industry and conservatives in Western states, where local governments have chafed against restrictions imposed on federally protected areas.

Review of Monuments

Zinke, a former Montana congressman, sparked controversy last year after reviewing more than two dozen national parks and protected areas, indicating some could be scaled back to allow for more hunting and fishing, as economic development.

The review has cheered energy, mining, ranching and timber advocates but has drawn widespread criticism and threats of lawsuits from conservation groups and the outdoor recreation industry.

The National Parks Conservation Association said diverse sides should be represented when it comes to places like Yellowstone.

“Dan Wenk stood up for wildlife and united voices around solutions and we need to ensure that same approach will continue,” Bart Melton, a regional director for the group, said on Friday.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift did not respond to a request for comment about criticism leveled at the secretary and declined to directly respond to Wenk’s belief his removal from the park was a form of punishment.

Wenk said Yellowstone bison should be managed like wildlife rather than livestock and the herd’s size should not be solely determined by ranchers who live outside the park in Montana. He added there was no basis to assertions that a segment of Yellowstone’s rangelands had been adversely affected by grazing bison rather than natural processes.

A ranchers association said it was “steadfast” about keeping the bison population at 3,000. The bison population is now around 4,000.

“We feel that number is realistic and sustainable and not only meets the needs of the park in reducing migration of bison outside its boundaries but also reduces the threat of the possible transfer of disease to domestic cattle,” said Jay Bodner, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.

Bring Science to Issue

If Zinke was concerned about overgrazing in the park, Wenk said he sought to answer it by suggesting science should be brought to the issue.

“It’s okay to have differences of opinion and I thought we were working through those,” he said.

Environmental groups and tribes have been critical of the park’s years-long practice of sending bison to slaughter for wandering from Yellowstone into neighboring Montana in search of food in the winter as a method of controlling the population of the nation’s last herd of wild, purebred bison.

The policy is a concession to ranchers who worry bison exposed to brucellosis, a disease that can cause cows to miscarry, might infect cattle that graze outside the park, though such a case has never been documented in the wild.

Millions of American and international visitors crowd the park each year to view wildlife like bison and natural wonders like the Old Faithful geyser.
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