Nation & World Glance
‘Rocket Man’ to ‘Terrific’: Trump lauds Kim in UN return
UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump raised hopes at the United Nations on Monday that a second meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un could occur “quite soon,” striking a conciliatory tone one year after he used his debut at the U.N. to deride the autocrat as “Little Rocket Man” and threaten to “totally destroy North Korea.”
Trump praised Kim as “very open” and “terrific,” despite the glacial pace of progress toward denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.
U.S. officials defended Trump’s strategy of engagement with the erstwhile pariah state as the president embarked on a week of meetings with world leaders. The softer tone toward North Korea — once threatened with “fire and fury” — has been replaced by rosy optimism, with Trump reserving tough rhetoric for another potential nuclear aspirant and strategic foe: Iran.
“It was a different world,” Trump said Monday of his one-time moniker for the North Korean leader. “That was a dangerous time. This is one year later, a much different time.”
Trump began his second visit to the U.N. with a brief meeting on the global drug trade before sitting down with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Trump: No statehood for Puerto Rico with critics in office
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday declared himself an “absolute no” on statehood for Puerto Rico as long as critics such as San Juan’s mayor remain in office, the latest broadside in his feud with members of the U.S. territory’s leadership.
Trump lobbed fresh broadsides at San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, a critic of his administration’s response to hurricanes on the island last year, during a radio interview with Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera that aired Monday.
“With the mayor of San Juan as bad as she is and as incompetent as she is, Puerto Rico shouldn’t be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what they’re doing,” Trump said in an interview with Rivera’s show on Cleveland’s WTAM radio.
Trump said that when “you have good leadership,” statehood for Puerto Rico could be “something they talk about. With people like that involved in Puerto Rico, I would be an absolute no.”
Gov. Ricardo Rossello, an advocate of statehood for the island, said Trump’s remarks had trivialized the statehood process because of political differences.
Florence: Evacuations continue as N.C. rivers rise
BLADENBORO, N.C. — Florence is by no means done swamping the Carolinas, where rivers remain high above flood stage and thousands of people were told to plan to leave their homes Monday.
About 6,000 to 8,000 people in Georgetown County, South Carolina, were alerted to be prepared to evacuate potential flood zones ahead of a “record event” of up to 10 feet of flooding, which is expected to begin Tuesday near parts of the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers, county spokeswoman Jackie Broach-Akers said.
Residents along the Waccamaw were bracing for water expected to peak Wednesday at 22 feet near Conway. That’s twice the normal flood stage, and far higher than the previous record of 17.9 feet, according to charts published by the National Weather Service on Monday.