Trump ‘not satisfied’ with explanations of Khashoggi death
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday he’s not satisfied with the explanations he’s heard about the death of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi and is awaiting reports from U.S. personnel returning from the region.
Khashoggi, who lived in the United States and wrote critically about the Saudi royal family, died earlier this month at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia said he was killed in a fistfight, but Turkish officials said the 59-year-old Washington Post columnist was attacked and killed by a 15-man Saudi team.
Asked if he believed Saudi Arabia’s explanation, Trump said, “I am not satisfied with what I’ve heard.”
“We’re going to get to the bottom of it. We have people over in Saudi Arabia now. We have top intelligence people in Turkey. They’re coming back either tonight or tomorrow,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for a political rally in Texas.
“We’re going to know a lot over the next two days about the Saudi situation,” said Trump. “It’s a very sad thing.”
Category 4 Hurricane Willa threatens Mexico’s Pacific coast
MEXICO CITY — A potential catastrophic Hurricane Willa swept toward Mexico’s Pacific coast with winds of 150 mph Monday, threatening a stretch of high-rise resort hotels, surfing beaches and fishing villages.
After briefly reaching Category 5 strength, the storm’s maximum sustained winds weakened slightly to Category 4 by the evening. But it remained “extremely dangerous” and was expected to bring “life-threatening storm surge, wind and rainfall” to parts of west-central and southwestern Mexico ahead of an expected Tuesday landfall, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Hotel workers started taping up windows, and officials began evacuating thousands of people and shuttered schools in a low-lying landscape where towns sit amid farmland tucked between the sea and lagoons. A decree of “extraordinary emergency” was issued for 19 municipalities in Nayarit and Sinaloa states, the federal Interior Department announced.
The hurricane was expected to pass over or near the Islas Marias — a set of islands about 60 miles offshore that include a nature preserve and a federal prison — early Tuesday.
Forecasters said Willa would then blow ashore in the afternoon or evening somewhere along a 140-mile stretch extending from the resort town of Mazatlan to San Blas.
Trump projects optimistic while stumping for Cruz
HOUSTON — President Donald Trump projected midterm optimism in Texas on Monday, saying the “blue wave is being dissipated a little.”
Trump spoke before a massive crowd in Houston on behalf of his former foe Sen. Ted Cruz, who faces a strong challenge from Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke. When the two competed in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Trump would frequently deride his rival as “Lyin’ Ted” but said in Texas that their relationship had come a long way.
“Nobody has helped me more with your tax cut, with your regulation,” Trump said of Cruz. “He defended your jobs, he defended your borders, and we are defending that border, by the way.”
Trump also attacked O’Rourke, dubbing him a “stone-cold phony.”
U.S. general visits troops fighting Islamic State in Syria
AL-TANF, Syria — The top U.S. commander for the Middle East made an unannounced visit Monday to a key military outpost in southern Syria, pressing the need for a continued U.S. presence there to root out remaining Islamic State fighters and serve as leverage against growing Iranian activity in the region.
Striding through the rocky and dusty al-Tanf garrison, Army Gen. Joseph Votel said the outpost near the Iraq and Jordan borders still serves an important purpose even though U.S. and coalition troops have “largely eliminated” the Islamic State group from the area. But he said the overall mission has not shifted into a counter-Iran campaign.
“We have a defeat ISIS mission,” said Votel, referring to the Islamic State group. “But I do recognize that our presence, our development of partners and relationships down here does have an indirect effect on some of the malign activities that Iran and their various proxies and surrogates would like to pursue down here.”
By wire sources