Axios

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Israel two weeks from now, as the campaign for the country's April 9 election enters its final stages. Pompeo's visit will be part of a regional trip that will include Lebanon and Kuwait.

Why it matters: A visit by the secretary of state in a country during an election campaign is a bit unusual. Pompeo is expected to be in Jerusalem for a summit between Israel, Greece and Cyprus to be held on March 20 — three weeks before the election. The visit is unusual also because Prime Minister Netanyahu will visit Washington four days later and meet President Trump at the White House.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone to explain how exactly he is complying with a court-issued gag order that prevents him from speaking publicly about his case, after Stone re-released a book — "The Myth of Russian Collusion: The Inside Story of How Donald Trump REALLY Won" — that criticizes the Mueller investigation.

Why it matters: Stone is on thin ice and could have his bail revoked if Jackson determines that he violated his gag order. He is also being asked to explain a now-deleted Instagram story in which he suggested he was framed. He has been given until March 11 to respond.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday criticized "the extent" of House reprimands against fellow freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has been accused of using anti-Semitic stereotypes in her criticisms of Israel.

"It’s not my position to tell people how to feel, or that their hurt is invalid. But incidents like these do beg the question: where are the resolutions against homophobic statements? For anti-blackness? For xenophobia? ... If House leadership is creating a standard & committing to calling a resolution for every incident - whether it’s the Congressional Black Caucus, CHC, etc, then thats a clear way to address the issue & we can all understand. But if they’re not, I think it’s valid to ask why not."

Seventy-five nations have agreed to participate in World Trade Organization talks, beginning in March, on cross-border e-commerce, one of the fastest-growing and thorniest areas of global trade.

The big picture: Consumer-facing e-commerce has become a $3.5 trillion global market, and some $700 billion of those purchases occur across borders, but there are almost no existing international rules in place for it.

Alibaba, which seemed contained to China for the first two decades of its existence, is steadily buddying up with U.S. companies and making inroads into the American market.

Driving the news: In just the past 12 months, Alibaba has teamed up with Kroger and Tiffany & Co, among other American companies, and has brought its payment system, Alipay, to thousands of U.S. stores. The latest partnership is with Office Depot — and the millions of small businesses which buy their office supplies there.

North Korea appears to have helmed a hacking campaign previously identified as "Operation Sharpshooter," according to a new report from McAfee, who first reported on the attacks in December.

The big picture: McAfee originally believed the attacks showed so much evidence they were from North Korea that it might indicate a different actor trying to frame Pyongyang. But the company's researchers now say that analysis of code and data from an intermediary server indicates the attacks really did originate from North Korea.

North Korean hackers continued a sustained attack on U.S. and European businesses as President Trump met with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, researchers at the cyber-security company McAfee told The New York Times Sunday.

Why it matters: North Korean hackers have been targeting financial institutions and other businesses, with reports the country is trying to circumvent sanctions. McAfee researchers told the Times they had been observing attacks for 18 months and had seen in excess of 100 victims. They said the relentless campaign did not stop for the two-day summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, which ended abruptly and without an agreement last week.

President Trump ignited outrage when he absolved Kim Jong-un of responsibility for the death of American college student Otto Warmbier, who left jail in North Korea in a terminal state.

Catch up quick: "I don't believe that he [Kim Jong-un] would have allowed that to happen; it just wasn’t to his advantage to allow that to happen," Trump said in a press conference after meeting with the North Korean dictator in Hanoi. "Those prisons are rough — they're rough places — and bad things happened. But I really don't believe that he — I don't believe that he knew about it."