National security adviser John Bolton confirmed on "Fox News Sunday" that a Trump administration official signed a document pledging to pay North Korea a $2 million hospital bill to release Otto Warmbier, though he said no money was ultimately transferred.
Chinese espionage has increased efforts to recruit U.S. intelligence officers — especially CIA officers — in a new trend that some believe could be linked to the theft of 5.6 million fingerprint records stolen in 2015 from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Wall Street Journal reports.
What's new: “China cases historically have involved economic espionage, and specifically targeting former intel officers seems like a new trend,” Jeff Asher, former CIA officer and current consultant, told the WSJ. Law enforcement and intelligence officials have characterized Chinese espionage as "the single most significant long-term strategic threat" to the country," the WSJ reports.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) responded on Friday to the Mueller report's stance that Russia successfully accessed the computer systems of at least 1 Florida county government and planted malware in an election equipment manufacturer's systems, the New York Times reports.
What's new: Rubio told the NYT that Russian hackers "were 'in a position' to change voter roll data," in addition to being able to access the Florida voting system, but he doesn't believe they acted on that access.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday that the country's second Belt and Road forum resulted in $64 billion worth of deals among business leaders, the AFP reports.
What's new: Italy, Yemen, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Luxembourg, Jamaica, Peru, Barbados and Cyprus are the latest countries to join China's sprawling infrastructure initiative, which, critics say, benefits China at the expense of its partners and leads to unsustainable debt. Xi reportedly did not disclose more details about his claims of creating $64 billion in deals at the forum.
In the face of U.S. hostility, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping today "vowed to work together for greater economic integration in Eurasia," the South China Morning Post reports.
What's new: Xi called for greater cooperation between the two countries in areas ranging from trade to aerospace, while meeting with Putin on the sidelines of a forum of world leaders on China's Belt and Road infrastructure (BRI) initiative.
African swine fever has devastated the vast pig farms in China and now threatens to spread elsewhere, various reports say.
Why it matters: The highly contagious virus — which has minimal risk of mutating to become harmful to humans — has spread so rapidly since August that officials are warning it could go global, the Wall Street Journal reports, possibly even reaching U.S. shores.
The news that the U.S. economy grew 3.2% the first quarter of this year gives the U.S. some "leverage" in upcoming trade talks with China, National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."
"I'm cautiously optimistic about the deal ... China's economy is slumping and has been for some time."
U.S. economic and national security is threatened by China's strategic plan for dominance in multiple areas, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in an interview Friday with Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Why it matters: These so-called "generational threats" will shape the future of the U.S., Wray warns.
