Four in running for FBI

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday interviewed four potential candidates to lead the FBI, including former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating and Andrew McCabe, currently the bureau’s acting director.

Mr Trump (pictured) also met Richard McFeely, a former top FBI official. AttorneyGeneral Jeff Sessions participated in the interviews.

The meetings came more than a week after Mr Trump fired James Comey from his post as FBI director.

Mr Trump said on Monday the search for Mr Comey’s successor was “moving rapidly”. He also has said he could name a candidate by the end of the before he departs on Friday on his first overseas trip as president.

The Senate must confirm whoever he nominates.

Asked as he left the White House whether he would say “yes” if Mr Trump offered him the job, Mr Keating said: “I’m a public servant.” He added, “Let’s just say we had a good conversation.”

Mr Lieberman gave a thumbs up to reporters camped out on the White House driveway and said “it was a good meeting”.

Mr McFeely departed without comment. US President Donald Trump would have “maybe 10 minutes” to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike against North Korea should it ever fire a missile that’s capable of reaching the US mainland, experts say.

Speaking about what would happen in the event of a nuclear strike from the North, scientist David Wright, of the UCS Global Security Program, and rocket analyst Markus Schiller, of ST Analytics in Germany, described how the drama would unfold.

“The timelines are short,” Dr Wright explained, accordweek, to The New York Post.

“Even for long-range missiles, there are a lot of steps that go into detecting the launch and figuring out what it is, leaving the president with maybe 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike.”

While experts insist that North Korea is still not capable of launching a missile that could reach the US, the communist nation on Monday claimed it could.

Its state-run KCNA news service alleged that it had the ability to send a “large-size heavy nuclear warhead” across the Pacific following its test of a Hwasong-12 missile (pictured) over the weekend.

But Kim Dong-yub, professor at South Korea’s Kyungnam University, told local media that they’d be lucky to reach Alaska or Hawaii, at best.