AP News in Brief at 6:04 am EDT

Trump leaves open possibility of bailing on meeting with Kim

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said that although he’s looking ahead optimistically to a historic summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un he could still pull out if he feels it’s “not going to be fruitful.”

Trump said that CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Kim “got along really well” in their recent secret meeting, and he declared, “We’ve never been in a position like this” to address worldwide concerns over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

But speaking alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday, after the allies met at Trump’s Florida resort, he made clear that he’d still be ready to pull the plug on what is being billed as an extraordinary meeting between the leaders of longtime adversaries.

“If I think that if it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful we’re not going to go. If the meeting when I’m there is not fruitful I will respectfully leave the meeting,” Trump told a news conference. He also said that a U.S.-led “maximum pressure” campaign of tough economic sanctions on North Korea would continue until the isolated nation “denuclearizes.”

Abe echoed the sentiment.

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FAA orders fan blade inspections after jet engine explosion

PHILADELPHIA — U.S. airline regulators have ordered inspections on engine fan blades like the one that snapped off a Southwest Airlines plane, leading to the death of a woman who was partially blown out a window.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement late Wednesday comes nearly a year after the engine’s manufacturer recommended the additional inspections, and a month after European regulators ordered their airlines to do the work.

Pressure for the FAA to act grew after an engine on a Southwest plane blew apart on Tuesday, showering the aircraft with debris and shattering a window. A woman sitting next to the window was partially blown out and died of her injuries. The plane, which was headed from New York to Dallas, made an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

Investigators said a blade that broke off mid-flight and triggered the fatal accident was showing signs of metal fatigue — microscopic cracks that can splinter open under the kind of stress placed on jetliners and their engines.

The National Transportation Safety Board also blamed metal fatigue for an engine failure on a Southwest plane in Florida in 2016.

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Bureaucrat set to replace Raul Castro as Cuba’s president

HAVANA — A 57-year-old bureaucrat will take Raul Castro’s place as the president of Cuba on Thursday as a government led by a single family for six decades tries to ensure the long-term survival of one of the world’s last communist states.

Members of the National Assembly voted Wednesday on Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez’s nomination as the sole candidate for president. The result won’t be officially announced until Thursday morning but it’s already clear because the assembly approves all executive branch proposals by margins of 95 percent or higher.

The 86-year-old Castro will remain head of the Communist Party, which is designated by the constitution as “the superior guiding force of society and the state.” As a result, he will still be the most powerful person in Cuba for the time being.

His departure from the presidency is nonetheless a symbolically charged moment for a country that has been under the absolute rule of one family since the revolution — first by revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and, for the last decade, his younger brother.

Facing biological reality but still active and apparently healthy, Raul Castro is stepping down as president in an effort to guarantee that new leaders can maintain the government’s grip on power in the face of economic stagnation, an aging population and increasing disenchantment among younger generations.

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Trade issues expose the limits of Trump-Abe ‘bromance’

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe courted the new American president with a golden driver not long after Donald Trump won the White House. He’s met with the billionaire businessman more than any other world leader, and he’s Trump’s second-most frequent caller.

Yet the “bromance” between Trump and Abe has its limits.

Trump appeared to be successful Tuesday in reassuring Abe that he would take Japan’s concerns to heart during his upcoming meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. But Wednesday brought public disagreements, as Trump spurned his guest’s top economic and trade priorities. Principal among them: allowing Japan an exemption from new U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and persuading Trump to re-join the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

During a roughly 40-minute joint press conference Wednesday evening, Abe tried to put on a good face, emphasizing their close relationship and their areas of accord on North Korea policy. He effusively thanked Trump for pledging to raise the issue of Japanese abductees held by North Korea in his meeting with Kim.

But when pressed on the economic disagreements, Abe repeatedly consulted notes as he tried to sidestep questions on the contentious issues, instead returning to Trump’s favored call for developing a “reciprocal” trade relationship with the U.S. It marked a stark departure from Abe’s pre-summit hopes of coaxing the U.S. back into the TPP. And Japan remains the only major U.S. ally not to be exempted from the tariffs announced last month.

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Calif. governor says deal reached on National Guard mission

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California reached an agreement with the federal government that the state’s National Guard troops will deploy to the border to focus on fighting transnational gangs as well as drug and gun smugglers, Gov. Jerry Brown said. The announcement comes after a week of uncertainty in which President Donald Trump bashed the governor’s insistence that troops avoid immigration-related work.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen wrote on Twitter that final details were still being worked out “but we are looking forward to the support.”

Brown said Wednesday he secured federal funding for terms similar to those outlined in last week’s proposed contract: The Guard cannot handle custody duties for anyone accused of immigration violations, build border barriers or have anything to do with immigration enforcement.

Federal officials refused to sign the proposal because they said it was outside established protocol for the Guard.

Brown’s office said Wednesday that the previous contract was unnecessary after he secured federal funding for his goals. Brown spokesman Evan Westrup said the exact cost hasn’t been determined.

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Some male sexual assault victims feel left behind by #MeToo

For some male victims of sexual assault and abuse, #MeToo can feel more like #WhatAboutMe?

They admire the women speaking out about traumatic experiences as assault and harassment victims, while wondering whether men with similar scars will ever receive a comparable level of public empathy and understanding.

“Because the movement happened to get its start with women only, in a way it furthers my loneliness as a past victim,” said Chris Brown, a University of Minnesota music professor. He was among several men who in December accused renowned conductor James Levine of abusing them as teens several decades ago, leading to Levine’s recent firing by the Metropolitan Opera Company.

“Men are historically considered the bad guys,” suggested Brown, referring to public attitudes. “If some men abuse women, then we all are abusers ourselves ... so therefore when it comes to our being abused, we deserve it.”

Brown’s sense of distance from the #MeToo movement is shared by other abused men — some of whom have been using a #MenToo hashtag on Twitter.

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Democrats see Wisconsin as proving ground for party revival

PARDEEVILLE, Wis. — Margo Miller thanked her hosts, covered herself in a blue poncho and headed back into the driving sleet Saturday morning, with more doors to knock in this rural subdivision but with another new volunteer’s name on her clipboard.

Miller and about 50 other Democratic activists who braved the spring storm returned with 160 petition signatures for a special state Assembly campaign, a local sleeper election that Democrats hope will be anything but.

Since Republican Donald Trump’s surprise win in Wisconsin helped hand him the White House, Democrats like Miller have been channeling their anger and soul-searching into races close to home, racking up unexpected victories that are sounding alarms for Republicans across the country.

The epicenter of the Republican resurgence of eight years ago, Wisconsin is now the proving ground for the Democratic revival. The work of activists like Miller could play a key role in the fight for control of the House and Senate in midterm elections in November. But the goal is bigger. One door-knock at a time, Democrats are seeking to rebuild their hold on the Upper Midwest and, with it, their hopes of winning the White House in 2020.

“That’s why I’m here,” Miller told Jane Breuer, a 71-year-old retired legal secretary, after knocking on her door in a rural subdivision outside tiny Pardeeville amid the rolling dairy farm country north of Madison. “You’re starting to see that blue wave, and I think we’re making progress.”

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Former President George HW Bush buoyed by tributes to wife

HOUSTON — In his first public comments since his wife’s death, former President George H.W. Bush said Wednesday that he used to tease his spouse of 73 years that he had a complex about how much people liked her.

That fact, he said, is buoyed by stories about Barbara Bush’s warmth and wit following her death. Tributes have rolled in from around the world, from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to a U.S. Navy commander, who recalled Mrs. Bush handing out cookies to sailors on a battleship.

“I always knew Barbara was the most beloved woman in the world, and in fact I used to tease her that I had a complex about that fact,” the nation’s 41st president said in a statement released Wednesday.

His wife died Tuesday as their Houston home, where he held her hand, all day, before she died at age 92. They had been married longer than any other presidential couple.

The former president referred to his wife as “The Enforcer,” a term of endearment bestowed by her family as she ran their household while he pursued careers in the Texas oil business and later politics and public service. He said the outpouring of support and friendship toward his wife following her death “is lifting us all up.”

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North Korea has a new budget and it’s full of fiscal hijinks

TOKYO — Imagine a national budget that reflects steady growth, gives a healthy boost to science and technology while reserving big slices of the overall pie to defense and social spending. It’s generous with infrastructure improvements, and is certain of unquestioning, unanimous approval in parliament.

Congratulations. You are now thinking like a North Korean economist.

North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly passed a budget with all of those features last week in an annual ritual reflecting the country’s conflicting desires to keep up appearances, especially for potential foreign investors, while obscuring even the most basic statistics needed to gauge its economic health.

The mysterious manner in which North Korea reports its budgets — and generally hides other economic indicators — is particularly frustrating as experts are now carefully scrutinizing whatever information they can get in an effort to understand the motives of leader Kim Jong Un as he prepares to hold his first summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in next week and U.S. President Donald Trump in late May or early June.

“North Korea really is unique in this regard,” said Benjamin Silberstein, an associate scholar with the Foreign Policy Research Institute and co-editor of the North Korean Economy Watch website. “Going back to the 1960s, even Soviet bloc diplomats recorded their frustrations at how not even basic legal documents were made public.”

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King’s lair: LeBron scores 46, Cav even series with Pacers

CLEVELAND — The situation was dire, requiring playoff dominance. LeBron James delivered.

No surprise there.

Taking matters into his own hands, James scored 46 points and added 12 rebounds as the Cleveland Cavaliers bounced back from a poor performance in the series opener by holding off the Indiana Pacers 100-97 on Wednesday night to even their Eastern Conference playoff matchup at one game apiece.

Dazzling from the start, James scored the game’s first 16 points and had 29 at halftime, ruling the floor as he has done in so many previous postseasons.

“Coach Lue called up the first play for me and it went down,” James said. “So we went back to it. I was able to hit another one. And it just felt like I was in a really good rhythm, so I just tried to see how long I could stay in that zone and try to make a mark on the game early on.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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