Trump and Abe tee off amid US-Japan trade tensions

MOBARA, Japan (AP) — Golf never seems to be far behind whenever President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe get together.

So on Sunday, during a four-day state visit to Japan, the president jumped aboard the Marine One helicopter in Tokyo and flew south to the Mobara Country Club for a steamy morning round with the Japanese leader.

Abe is Trump's closest friend among world leaders and it's the fifth time they played golf together since Trump took office. Abe's strategy is to keep his country out of Trump's crosshairs amid U.S.-Japan trade tensions and the continued threat North Korea poses to both nations.

Later in the day, Abe will introduce Trump to Japan's ancient sport of sumo wrestling. The president will sit ringside at a championship match in Tokyo featuring the oversized athletes. He'll also present the winner with his own "President's Cup" trophy.

The leaders will also venture into Tokyo for a dinner double date with their wives.

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Hate makes a comeback in the Pacific Northwest

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Nearly two decades after the Aryan Nations' Idaho compound was demolished, far-right extremists are maintaining a presence in the Pacific Northwest.

White nationalism has been on the rise across the U.S., but it has particular resonance along the Idaho-Washington border, where the Aryans espoused hate and violence for years.

The neo-Nazi group was based near Hayden Lake, Idaho, starting in the 1970s, and eventually was bankrupted in a lawsuit brought by local activists and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its compound was seized, and supporters dispersed.

But a series of incidents in recent weeks show far-right sentiments never really left the conservative region. In the county that is home to Hayden Lake, for instance, Republicans last month passed a measure expressing support for U.S. entry of a prominent Austrian far-right activist who was investigated for ties to the suspected New Zealand mosque gunman.

In 2018, at least nine hate groups operated in the region of Spokane and northern Idaho, including Identity Evropa, Proud Boys, ACT for America and America's Promise Ministries, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The centre does not track how many members belong to each group.

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Venezuela negotiators return to Norway for crisis talks

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Representatives of the Venezuelan government and opposition have returned to Norway for talks aimed at resolving the political crisis in the South American country, the Norwegian government said Saturday.

Norway said it will mediate discussions next week in Oslo, in an indication that the negotiation track is gaining momentum after months of escalating tension between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó, the U.S.-backed opposition leader.

Top Maduro aide Jorge Rodríguez and Héctor Rodríguez, the governor of Miranda state, both of whom were in Oslo earlier this month for an earlier round of exploratory talks, will once again lead the government delegation. They will be joined this time by Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, said Maduro, who thanked Norway for promoting "peace and stability" in Venezuela through the mediation effort.

Larry Devoe, the government's top human rights official, is also a delegate member, said a Venezuelan official who was not authorized to discuss the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The opposition delegation is being led by Stalin González, a senior member of the opposition-controlled congress, former Caracas area Mayor Gerardo Blyde and former Transport Minister Fernando Martínez Mottola, according to an opposition statement. They will be joined by Vicente Diaz, a supporter of past negotiations with the government who previously served on the nation's electoral council.

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump and a tale of 2 sheets of paper

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump held up and read from a sheet of paper in the Rose Garden this past week as he argued he's been hounded by investigators in the Russia probe for no reason. "Nearly 500 search warrants," says the page, from an ABC News graphic. "More than 2,500 subpoenas." And: "19 special counsel lawyers & 40 FBI agents worked the case."

If that sounds like overkill by the Robert Mueller inquiry, it's only half the story.

Trump did not show or quote from a second page that goes with the graphic, laying out the results of the investigation. Among them: "37 total indicted ... 26 Russians indicted ... 4 people sent to prison ... 7 guilty pleas." In Trump's telling, it's all a hoax.

Selective accounting like that has been a constant in Trump's rhetoric.

A look at some of his recent statements, on the Russia investigation, the border, the economy and more:

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Stan Lee's former manager arrested on elder abuse charges

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former business manager of Stan Lee was arrested Saturday on elder abuse charges involving the late comic book legend.

Keya Morgan was taken into custody in Arizona on an outstanding arrest warrant after being charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors earlier this month.

Morgan faces felony charges including theft, embezzlement, forgery or fraud against an elder adult, and false imprisonment of an elder adult. A misdemeanour count also alleges elder abuse.

Authorities say Morgan sought to capitalize on the Marvel Comic mastermind's wealth and exert influence over Lee even though he had no authority to act on his behalf.

Police say Morgan pocketed more than $262,000 from autograph signing sessions Lee did in May 2018. Authorities say Morgan at one point also took Lee from his Hollywood Hills home to a Beverly Hills condominium "where Morgan had more control over Lee."

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High-stakes European Parliament vote shifts to 4 nations

PRAGUE (AP) — The European Parliament elections shifted to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Malta and Latvia on Saturday as voters in those European Union nations took part in a landmark ballot in which resurgent nationalists are challenging traditional parties over the future of Europe.

The stakes for the EU are especially high in this year's vote, which is taking place in all of its 28 nations from Thursday to Sunday. Voters are electing 751 lawmakers, with each nation apportioned a number of seats based on its population, for a legislature that increasingly affects the everyday lives of ordinary Europeans.

Anti-immigrant and far-right groups are hoping to gain ground in the European Parliament and use it to claw back power from the EU for their national governments. Moderate parties, on the other hand, want to cement closer ties among countries in the EU, which was created in the wake of World War II to prevent renewed conflict.

"We stand at a crossroads — that is, whether the EU is going to be stronger and more integrated or, quite the contrary, a process of its weakening is to begin," Zuzana Caputova, Slovakia's president-elect, told reporters after voting in the town of Pezinok.

A Slovak far-right party that openly admires the country's wartime Nazi puppet state could win seats in the European Parliament for the first time. Its members use Nazi salutes, blame the Roma minority for crime, consider NATO a terror group and want the country to leave the western military alliance and the EU.

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New evidence links Colombia army chief to civilian slayings

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — New evidence has emerged linking the embattled head of Colombia's army to the alleged coverup of civilian killings more than a decade ago.

The documents, provided to The Associated Press by a person familiar with an ongoing investigation into the extrajudicial killings, come as Gen. Nicacio Martínez Espinel faces mounting pressure to resign over orders he gave troops this year to step up attacks in what some fear could pave the way for a return of serious human rights violations.

Colombia's military has been blamed for as many as 5,000 extrajudicial killings at the height of the country's armed conflict in the mid-2000s as troops under pressure by top commanders inflated body counts, in some cases dressing up civilians as guerrillas in exchange for extra pay and other perks.

What became known as the "false positives" scandal has cast a dark shadow over the U.S.-backed military's record of battleground victories. Fifteen years later not a single top commander has been held accountable for the slayings.

Human Rights Watch in February harshly criticized President Ivan Duque's appointment of Martínez Espinel, noting that he was second-in-command of the 10th Brigade in northeast Colombia during years for which prosecutors have opened investigations into 23 illegal killings . The rights group revealed that then Col. Martínez Espinel certified payments to an informant who led to "excellent results" in a purported combat operation in which an indigenous civilian and 13-year-old girl were killed. A court later convicted two soldiers of abducting them from their home, murdering them and putting weapons on their bodies so they appeared to be rebels.

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Nepal's record-setting Everest guide returns hero

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Family, friends and supporters welcomed a veteran Sherpa guide upon his return to Nepal's capital on Saturday, days after his 24th climb of Mount Everest extended his record.

After flying back from Everest to Kathmandu, Kami Rita was greeted by the waiting crowd at the airport. His wife hugged him and the crowd covered him with a cream-colored scarf and offered him yogurt.

The brief celebration at the airport parking area with traditional drums was followed by Rita riding on a truck waving to supporters as they drove out of the airport.

He told reporters he was very happy but exhausted.

Rita reached Everest's 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak on Tuesday, the second time he had climbed to the summit in a week. He also reached the top of the world's highest peak on May 15, then returned to base camp before climbing again this past week.

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At the spelling bee, the most common sound is the toughest

WASHINGTON (AP) — The word that knocked runner-up Naysa Modi out of last year's Scripps National Spelling Bee was "Bewusstseinslage" — one of those flashy, impossible-sounding German-derived words that make the audience gasp when they are announced.

Naysa believes the seemingly mundane word that knocked her out the year before was just as intimidating, if not more.

For the spellers who will gather starting Monday at a convention centre outside Washington for this year's bee, an unremarkable sound is the cause of their angst, their sleepless nights, their lifelong memories of failure. It's the most common sound in the English language, represented in the dictionary by an upside-down "e," a gray chunk of linguistic mortar.

To the uninitiated, it sounds like "uh." Spellers know it by its proper name: the schwa.

"It's the bane of every speller's existence," Naysa said. "It's what we hate."

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Bong d'Or: Korean director wins Cannes' top prize

CANNES, France (AP) — South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's raucous social satire "Parasite," about a poor family of hustlers who find jobs with a wealthy family, won the Cannes Film Festival's top award, the Palme d'Or, on Saturday.

The win for "Parasite" marks the first Korean film to ever win the Palme. In the festival's closing ceremony, jury president Alejandro Inarritu said the choice had been "unanimous" for the nine-person jury.

The genre-mixing film, Bong's seventh, had arguably been celebrated more than others at Cannes this year, hailed by critics as the best yet from the 49-year-old director of "Snowpiercer" and "Okja."

"It's the 100th anniversary of the cinema in Korea this year. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Korean cinema, I think the Cannes Film Festival has offered me a very great gift," Bong told reporters after the ceremony.

It was the second straight Palme victory for an Asian director. Last year, the award went to Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Shoplifters," also a compassionate parable about an impoverished family.

News from © The Associated Press, 2019