The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, says he is looking forward to working with the new leader of the National party after the resignation of Barnaby Joyce.

Speaking to reporters in Washington DC on Friday (early Saturday AEDT) just hours before meeting the US president, Donald Trump, at the White House, Turnbull thanked Joyce for his service as deputy prime minister.

“This is really a very personal matter for Barnaby. He has to deal, as he said, with some personal issues, he’s got to deal with a complaint that’s been made about him and as he said he believes he cannot do that from the despatch box,” Turnbull said outside Blair House in Washington DC.

Joyce announced on Friday he would resign as Australia’s deputy prime minister and leader of the Nationals following intense media scrutiny over his relationship with a former staffer, with whom he is expecting a baby in April.

“I look forward now obviously to working with the new leader of the National party who will be elected on Monday,” Turnbull said.

“Barnaby made his own decision to take leave to reflect on the circumstances and deal with personal matters.



“I think he’s taken the right decision and the judgment he’s made in resigning is the right one for himself and his family and, as I said, we thank him for his service and look forward to working with his successor.

“I want to thank him for his service as a minister, as deputy prime minister, over our years in government.

“The issues that have been subject of public discussion over the last two weeks have not been issues between the Nationals and Liberals — we have a 95-year-old political alliance, the longest in Australian history and it is absolutely enduring and I look forward now, obviously, to working with the new leader of the National party who will be elected on Monday.”



Later, after greeting Turnbull at the White House, Trump said America’s relationship with Australia wa “stronger than ever before”.

Trump and his wife, Melania, met Turnbull and his wife, Lucy, on the south lawn of the White House on Friday.

They then moved to the Oval Office where the couples sat on chairs and couches.

The White House media pool noted 15 seconds of silence with no interaction between the Turnbulls or Trumps as reporters watched on.

“The relationship we have with Australia is a terrific relationship and probably stronger now than ever before, maybe because of our relationship, our friendship,” Trump remarked after the awkward silence.

“We’re working on trade deals, we’re working on military and protection and all of the things that you would think we would be discussing today. A lot of good things will come out of this visit.”

The leaders are expected to discuss tough new sanctions Trump announced against North Korea, trade, security in the Indo-Pacific and infrastructure investment before holding a joint press conference with the White House press corps and Australian journalists.



Trump also said he hoped to follow Australia with its tough “merit-based” immigration policies and announced the US would name a new combat ship the USS Canberra.



“We will hopefully follow in your footsteps,” Trump, talking about immigration policies, said.</s>The Donald Trump administration and key Asian allies are preparing to expand interceptions of ships suspected of violating sanctions on North Korea, senior U.S. officials said.

Officials said this plan could include deploying U.S. Coast Guard forces to stop and search vessels in Asia-Pacific waters.

Officials said Washington has been talking to regional partners, including Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore, about coordinating a stepped-up crackdown that would go further than ever before in an attempt to squeeze Pyongyang’s use of seagoing trade to feed its nuclear missile programme.

While suspect ships have been intercepted before, the emerging strategy would expand the scope of such operations but stop short of imposing a naval blockade on North Korea.

Pyongyang has warned it would consider a blockade an act of war.

The strategy calls for closer tracking and possible seizure of ships suspected of carrying banned weapons components and other prohibited cargo to or from North Korea, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

They said depending on the scale of the campaign, the U. S. could consider beefing up the naval and air power of its Pacific Command.

The officials said the U.S.-led initiative, which has not been previously reported, shows Washington’s increasing urgency to force North Korea into negotiations over the abandonment of its weapons programmes.

They said North Korea may be only a few months away from completing development of a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, in spite of existing international sanctions that, at times, have been sidestepped by smuggling and ship-to-ship transfers at sea of banned goods.

“There is no doubt we all have to do more, short of direct military action, to show (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un we mean business,” said a senior administration official.

The effort could target vessels on the high seas or in the territorial waters of countries that choose to cooperate.

It was unclear, however, to what extent the campaign might extend beyond Asia.

Washington on Friday slapped sanctions on dozens more companies and vessels linked to North Korean shipping trade and urged the UN to blacklist a list of entities, a move it said was aimed at shutting down North Korea’s illicit maritime smuggling activities to obtain oil and sell coal.

Tighter sanctions plus a more assertive approach at sea could dial up tensions at a time when fragile diplomacy between North and South Korea has gained momentum.

It would also stretch U.S. military resources needed elsewhere, possibly incur massive new costs and fuel misgivings among some countries in the region.

The initiative, which is being developed, would be fraught with challenges that could risk triggering North Korean retaliation and dividing the international community.

China and Russia, which have blocked U.S. efforts at the United Nations to win approval for use of force in North Korea interdiction operations, are likely to oppose new actions if they see the United States as overstepping.

A Chinese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such steps should only be taken under United Nations auspices.

China’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement to Reuters, said they did not know anything about the plan, but that in principle China believes UN resolutions on North Korea should be fully and thoroughly implemented.

“At the same time, we hope relevant countries act in accordance with Security Council resolutions and international law,” the ministry, without elaborating.

According to the senior U.S. official, Washington is expected to start gradually ratcheting up such operations soon even if discussions with allies have not been completed.

U.S. experts are developing legal arguments for doing more to stop sanctions-busting vessels, citing the last UN Security Council resolution which they say opened the door by calling on states to inspect suspect ships on the high seas or in their waters.

The officials said Washington is also drawing up rules of engagement aimed at avoiding armed confrontation at sea.</s>Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today: Trump’s listening sessions with the families of mass-shooting victims, the meaning of Mueller’s latest indictments, and lessons of Black Panther’s box-office success.

The White House hosted families from Parkland, Newtown, and Columbine for an emotional “listening session” with President Trump Wednesday afternoon, and will have another one with law enforcement officials today. Is this a signal that Trump may be genuinely interested in gun control — or is he just trying to saving face after his disappointing response last week?

By unleashing a wave of student anger and activism, the slaughter in Parkland may be shaking up the intractable American gun debate. But make no mistake about Trump: However much “listening” he purports to do, he will do absolutely nothing to remedy the epidemic of violence that is literally and figuratively consuming the country. Trump, who was endorsed by the NRA even before he won the presidential nomination and then benefited from $30 million of NRA campaign spending, is even now giving the gun lobby still more of what it paid for. Yesterday he called for more guns, not fewer, in schools, and he reiterated this nostrum with this incredible tweet this morning: “If a potential ‘sicko shooter’ knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there…problem solved.” Let us repeat this: Problem solved!

As Trump won’t cross the NRA — he saluted Wayne LaPierre and his colleagues as “Great American Patriots” in another tweet today — so he won’t cross his base on this issue any more than he did on immigration. His sympathetic noises about the victims of gun violence are as empty as his repeated claims that he sympathized with Dreamers and wanted to help them. But the hopeful news post-Parkland — tentatively hopeful, needless to say — is that the enraged student protesters are for the moment frightening Trump and the other NRA pawns of the GOP. That’s why Trump held his “listening” session. That’s why Florida state legislators exited through side doors when students stormed the state capitol in Tallahassee yesterday. That’s why Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, was a no-show at the town hall on guns broadcast by CNN last night. That’s why internet trolls are spewing out videos and tweets — some of them endorsed by Donald Trump Jr. — sliming the most outspoken Parkland students as frauds and plants. That’s why that great moralist Bill O’Reilly — remember him? — blamed the media for ginning up public sentiment for gun control by showcasing Parkland teenagers “in an emotional state.” These teenagers are scaring the Second Amendment zealots as adult gun reformers rarely have.

If the students don’t retreat, if their ranks expand, and if they follow through on their pledge to organize and vote, they may actually get some of the results that have eluded gun-control advocates for decades. But they will be up against daunting obstacles. Those obstacles include not only the NRA, Trump and his base, and nearly every Republican officeholder, but also supposedly “adult” conservatives who give cover to the gun lobby by calling for patience and moderation. Such voices have been out in force since the Parkland bloodbath. In the Times, Ross Douthat called for “a moral bridge between the civic vision of the Second Amendment advocates and the insights of their critics.” (This gives new meaning to “the bridge to nowhere.”) David Brooks echoed by recommending this proven dead end as the way forward to reform: “It’s necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points.” At The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan attributed the gun-violence epidemic to the internet, porn, video games, “violent entertainment culture,” and of course “the abortion regime.” Her legislative solution: “Trade banning assault weapons for banning late-term abortion.” Problem solved! This is the same kind of thinking that prompted John Kelly — once thought of as a supposed moderate in Trump’s inner circle — to argue that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”

Compromise is not going to end the rising wave of mass murder in America any more than it ended slavery. With all our focus on the mental illness of crazed killers like Nikolas Cruz and Stephen Paddock, we tend to lose sight that it’s another sign of mental illness that American political leaders and their apologists do nothing while the country literally destroys itself with gun violence.

Trump responded to Mueller’s indictment laying out Russian election interference last week with a weekend tweetstorm that the Washington Post described as “unhinged,” and which included profanity, misspellings, and basic factual errors. What does this meltdown say about his ability to weather Mueller’s revelations going forward?

Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians made it clearer than ever that Trump will not weather the results of this investigation, and that the cost of firing Mueller now would be more politically catastrophic than ever. It’s revelatory that Trump didn’t initially figure this out. He originally and delusionally hailed the indictment as a vindication. He might still be doing so had Parkland not intervened. The gravity of the shooting forced him for appearances’ sake to forsake golf at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and instead cower indoors binge-watching cable TV and letting loose with his insane tweetstorm. Clearly those around him hadn’t had the guts to tell him how devastating the news of Mueller’s indictment was for him and those around him, including his son and son-in-law, so cable talking heads did so instead.

If you read the indictment, it’s clear that Mueller’s team knows in granular detail virtually everything that went on during the 2016 election, and is steadily laying out the criminality one step at a time. Trump defenders who keep saying there’s no there there now have to see (whether they acknowledge it or not) that there was a huge there there: what even Trump’s national security adviser H. R. McMaster felt compelled to describe as “incontrovertible” evidence of the Russian effort to sabotage American democracy at its heart, the ballot box. By proving that crime, the indictment lays the groundwork for charging those who attempted to obstruct the investigation of the crime. Meanwhile, Mueller keeps dealing out new cards, including a reported plea deal for Paul Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates and a reported investigation of a Chicago banker who may have been promised a White House job by Manafort in exchange for $16 million in loans. Manafort may soon have to decide whether he wants to spend the rest of his life in prison or start squealing on Trump. Still to come: the fruits of Mueller’s investigation into the Russian hacking of Clinton and DNC emails.

Another thing Trump may have belatedly figured out while gorging on Big Macs in front of his flat screen over the weekend: When his lawyer Ty Cobb last year told him that Mueller would wrap up his investigation by Thanksgiving, he meant Thanksgiving 2018.

Black Panther crushed box-office records in its opening weekend, taking in more then $400 million in global ticket sales. Will its success knock down the Hollywood myth that stories anchored in black culture, or with mostly black casts, can’t find global audiences?

Money is the only language that talks in Hollywood, and one would hope that the unassailable success of Black Panther will galvanize more industry bets on black filmmakers and the stories they want to tell. What’s more, Black Panther, though undoubtedly the kind of “violent entertainment culture” that Peggy Noonan would blame for school shootings, is an imaginative and uncompromising story of African-American empowerment, achieved not through sermonizing but within the transporting mythology of Marvel. Still, there have been so many articles celebrating the film as a commercial and cultural milestone that one wants to add a word of caution: It wasn’t that long ago that an even bigger victory in the mass marketplace, Barack Obama’s election as president, was seen as a breakthrough ushering in a post-racial America. When it comes to intransigent American conflicts — whether over race or guns — we have to be careful not to let hope blind us to the battles still ahead.</s>On Feb. 22, national treasure Oprah Winfrey appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to chat about all that's going on in her life. Topics from the Parkland, Florida activists to her rumored run for presidency were on the discussion board. However, once Ellen DeGeneres brought up President Donald Trump and his recent comments about her, Oprah's response to Donald Trump's tweet about her proved Oprah is not playing today (and sadly not running for president either).

DeGeneres asked Oprah about her feelings towards the president's infamous Feb. 18 tweet, in which Trump blasted Oprah's 60 Minutes interview from the same day by claiming it was biased. In response, Oprah threw the ultimate shade. She simply shrugged her shoulders and claimed she "doesn't like giving negativity power." Enough said.

In case you need a refresher on what we're talking about, on Feb. 18 Donald Trump took to Twitter to blast one of America's most beloved role models, spokeswomen, and television personality by calling her "biased" and "insecure."

But Oprah served the ultimate clap back. In the interview she was all nonchalance towards Trump's tweet. “I woke up and I just thought —” she said as she made a shrugging gesture. “And I don’t like giving negativity power, so I just thought, ‘what?’”

Clearly she's not letting his Twitter fingers affect her.

Oprah also went on to explain what really went down behind the 60 Minutes episode, which revisited 14 Michigan voters on both sides of the political aisle who she had interviewed in September about Trump's first year in office. Oprah explained that she was extremely persistent in making sure both Democratic and Republican viewpoints were equally represented throughout the interview, despite Trump's accusation of bias. "I was working very hard to do the opposite of what I was hate-tweeted about," she said.

Apart from Oprah throwing some delicious shade at Trump, she and DeGeneres discussed other, more serious, topics during the interview.

One of which surrounded the recent issue of gun control presented by the Parkland, Florida student activists, who survived the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. While speaking to the students' resilience, she compared the young adults to the likes of historic activists John Lewis and Diane Nash, who were key figures during the Civil Rights Movement. She also said she plans to donate $500,000 to help the students participating in the March 24 "March For Our Lives" rally in Washington D.C.

Some of the Parkland, Florida students, parents of victims, and gun control advocates met with President Trump on Feb. 21 to address the need for gun control and how to ensure more lives won't be lost to gun violence. Participants shared emotional stories about how the Feb. 14 shooting has impacted their lives since.

Samuel Zeif, senior of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, shared a particularly moving speech revealing his fear of public spaces since witnessing the shooting, and demanding change.

While many were thankful that Trump agreed to sit down and hear the thoughts of gun control advocates, the president's meeting notes tell a much more discouraging tale. Among the list, his fifth and final note simply states "I hear you," leading many to believe that Trump may not in fact be hearing us.

While she may not be running for president, at least we can always count on Oprah to speak the truth.</s>WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it was imposing its largest package of sanctions to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs, and President Donald Trump warned of a “phase two” that could be “very, very unfortunate for the world” if the steps did not work.

In addressing the Trump administration’s biggest national security challenge, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned one person, 27 companies and 28 ships, according to a statement on the U.S. Treasury Department’s website.

The United States also proposed a list of entities to be blacklisted under separate U.N. sanctions, a move “aimed at shutting down North Korea’s illicit maritime smuggling activities to obtain oil and sell coal.”

North Korea has been developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland and Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have exchanged taunts that have raised fears of war.

In August, Trump threatened to go beyond sanctions by bringing “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” although his administration has repeatedly said it prefers a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Speaking at a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump made apparent reference to military options his administration has repeatedly said remain on the table.

“If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go phase two,” Trump said. “Phase two may be a very rough thing, may be very, very unfortunate for the world. But hopefully the sanctions will work.”

The sanctions’ targets include a Taiwan passport holder, as well as shipping and energy firms in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. The actions block assets held by the firms and individuals in the United States and prohibit U.S. citizens from dealing with them.

The U.S. Treasury said the sanctions were designed to disrupt North Korean shipping and trading companies and vessels and further isolate Pyongyang. They are also aimed at ships located, registered or flagged in North Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Marshall Islands, Tanzania, Panama and the Comoros.

Last month, three Western European intelligence sources told Reuters that North Korea shipped coal to Russia last year and that it was then delivered to South Korea and Japan in a likely violation of U.N. sanctions.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the new sanctions would help prevent North Korea from skirting restrictions on trade in coal and other fuel through “evasive maritime activities.”

“The president is clearly frustrated and rightly so over the efforts that have failed in the past and also over the uptick in testing and the advances we’ve seen in the North Korean programme,” a senior administration official told reporters.

At another briefing, Mnuchin stood next to enlarged photos he said showed December 2017 images that revealed ship-to-ship transfers of fuel and other products destined for North Korea in an attempt to evade sanctions.

He said he could not rule out the prospect of the United States boarding and inspecting North Korean ships.

Mnuchin said virtually all shipping currently being used by North Korea was now under sanction and the U.S. government had “issued an advisory alerting the public to the significant sanctions risks to those continuing to enable shipments of goods to and from North Korea.”

Mnuchin said the number of sanctions steps taken by the United States against Pyongyang since 2005 was now 450 with approximately half imposed in the last year.

Christopher Ford, assistant secretary of state for international security and non-proliferation, told reporters sanctions already had affected North Korea’s weapons programs and this was shown by the lengths North Korea was going to try to evade sanctions.

Jonathan Schanzer of the Washington think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies said Friday’s move was “the largest tranche of DPRK (North Korea) sanctions” released by the Treasury Department.

“The only thing missing here today is action against Chinese banks,” he said. “We know they continue to undermine our efforts to isolate North Korea.”

Tougher sanctions may jeopardise the latest detente between the two Koreas, illustrated by the North’s participation in the Winter Olympics in the South, amid preparations for talks about a possible summit between North Korea’s Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Nevertheless, South Korea welcomed the U.S. sanctions saying they would “alert those who are illegally trading with North Korea and therefore bolster the international community to carry out resolutions from the U.N. Security Council”.

Japan also supported the new sanctions, Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said, according to the Kyodo news agency.

Taiwan said it was in touch with the United States and would investigate its citizens and entities suspected of helping North Korea. It also called on Taiwan firms and citizens not to break U.N. sanctions.

Reuters was unable to locate contact details for the Chinese companies listed in the new U.S. sanctions.

In a commentary carried by Korean Central News Agency on Saturday, North Korea said it never intended to aim its nuclear weapons at South Korea, adding the weapons will only be aimed at the United States.

North Korea last year conducted dozens of missile launches and its sixth and largest nuclear test in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. It defends the weapons programs as essential to deter U.S. aggression. It has been more than two months since North Korea’s last missile test.

Kim said he wants to boost the “warm climate of reconciliation and dialogue” with South Korea, which hosts 28,500 U.S. troops, after a high-level delegation, including his sister, returned from the Olympics.

In an extension of that rapprochement, the North agreed on Friday to hold working-level talks on Tuesday for the Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics on the North’s side of the border village of Panmunjom.

In December, the United Nations approved a U.S.-drafted measure limiting North Korea’s access to refined petroleum products and crude oil, which North Korea said amounted to an act of war.

In January, Washington announced a round of sanctions and urged China and Russia to expel North Koreans raising funds for the programs.

The U.N. Security Council banned North Korean exports of coal on Aug. 5 under sanctions intended to cut off an important source of the foreign currency Pyongyang needs to fund its weapons programs.

The new U.S. sanctions were announced while Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, is visiting South Korea. At a dinner with Moon at Seoul’s presidential Blue House, Ivanka Trump said the United States wanted to “reaffirm our commitment to our maximum pressure campaign to ensure that the Korean Peninsula is denuclearised.”

Moon said North Korea’s participation in the Olympics had “led to lowering of tensions on the peninsula and an improvement in inter-Korean relations” and were thanks to President Trump’s “strong support for inter-Korean dialogue.”

Ivanka Trump’s visit to South Korea coincides with that of a sanctioned North Korean official, Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee blamed for the 2010 sinking of a South Korean navy ship that killed 46 sailors. His delegation will attend the closing ceremony and also meet Moon.

The Blue House has said there are no official opportunities for U.S. and North Korean officials to meet.</s>Washington (CNN) With tensions flaring between President Donald Trump and national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the Pentagon is considering options that would allow the President to potentially move the three-star general out of his current role and back into the military, according to half a dozen defense and administration officials.

A search is quietly being conducted by the Pentagon to see if there is a four-star military job suited for McMaster, these officials said.

Several sources told CNN that the push for a replacement comes after months of personal tension between McMaster and Trump. The task of easing McMaster out of his role as national security adviser presents a unique challenge for the White House.

While administration officials have privately said the preference is to move McMaster into a position within the Army or Defense Department that qualifies as a promotion, some within the Pentagon feel he has become politicized in the White House and have expressed reservations about him returning to the military in a prominent role. Some defense officials caution that the President could also go as far as not to offer him a fourth star and force him to retire.

This is not the first time McMaster has faced speculation that his job may be in jeopardy and sources with knowledge of McMaster's standing in the White House have repeatedly said that he has been on thin ice for months.

There was discussion in the West Wing about replacing him last fall, but he ultimately survived because officials, including the President himself, were skeptical about the optics of appointing a third national security adviser in less than a year, several sources told CNN. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned amid controversy over his contact with Russian officials within a month of taking the job.

The decision was also driven by the White House's challenge attracting top talent for jobs in the administration due to Trump's "blacklist" of individuals who have criticized the President, his personality and the Russia investigation, according to a senior Republican source.

However, those familiar with the President's thinking don't believe McMaster's job is any safer now. "He is safe until he's not," the senior Republican with knowledge of the White House added.

The White House did not respond to CNN's request for comment. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that Trump "still has confidence in General McMaster."

Tensions between Trump and McMaster have been playing out for months and were on full display this weekend after Trump publicly chided him over remarks he made regarding Russian interference in the election.

"General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems," Trump tweeted. "Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!"

The criticism laid bare the strained relationship between the two men and left some wondering how much longer McMaster has left in the administration. For months, Trump has privately expressed irritation with McMaster stemming from differences in "personality and style," the senior Republican source said.

The two have never gotten along, and Trump continues to chafe at McMaster's demeanor when he briefs him, feeling that he is gruff and condescending, according to a source who is familiar with his thinking.

He prefers the briefing style of someone like CIA Director Mike Pompeo or Defense Secretary James Mattis, who patiently answer his questions, regardless of the premise. McMaster, meanwhile, is the person who delivers the news that Trump doesn't want to hear on a daily basis, according to the senior Republican source.

The issue is not political but mostly stylistic, as McMaster and Mattis tend to discuss information before it is presented to the President, the same source added.

CNN previously reported that McMaster has been at odds with the President and other cabinet officials over the last year.

He has also been undercut by others in Trump's orbit like former chief strategist Steve Bannon, according to congressional and administration officials. A source familiar with the situation said Trump's perception of McMaster is still influenced by the legacy of Bannon who maintained a tense relationship with McMaster after McMaster removed him from the National Security Council.

"He paid McMaster back by spreading rumors and whispering in Trump's ear," the senior Republican source said, adding that "Bannon poisoned the well."

Officials could not yet confirm what job McMaster might be nominated for if he were to leave the White House.

The current commander of US forces in South Korea, General Vincent Brooks, is expected to leave his post on a scheduled rotation in the coming months but his successor has already been earmarked within the Army but not yet made public, several officials said.

Another possible option would be to name McMaster as the replacement for Gen. John Nicholson who has served as commander of the coalition in Afghanistan since 2016.

Some officials have told CNN that the Pentagon may be looking to identify a slot that is not too high profile, because McMaster would be transitioning back to the military from a White House position akin to a political appointee.

If moved back into a military role that involves testifying before Congress, McMaster might be viewed as simply supporting the White House rather than providing lawmakers with his best military advice, one defense official said.

Lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee would likely have questions about McMaster's time in the White House should he be nominated for a military role but an aide to one senior Republican member told CNN that there do not appear to be any obvious red flags at the outset that would inherently prevent his confirmation.

A second defense official said McMaster is well aware of those political sensitivities.

However, one top Pentagon official said McMaster's role in the administration should not prevent him from earning his fourth star, comparing his transition to other military officers like Colin Powell who have gone back and forth between the Pentagon and the White House.

McMaster would also have the option of retiring from active duty at any time if he chose to do so.

But officials told CNN that the White House's wish is to find McMaster a four-star job that is seen as acknowledging his service.</s>China responded angrily Saturday to new sanctions the United States imposed on North Korea, maintaining they were counterproductive to efforts to halt Pyongyang's nuclear and long-range missile development programs.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Friday what he called the "largest ever" set of sanctions against North Korea and threatened a "phase two" if the measures weren't effective.

The sanctions target one person, 27 companies and 28 ships registered in China and seven other countries with the intent of eliminating North Korea's illicit shipping and trade. They block assets held by the companies in the U.S. and prohibit U.S. citizens from interacting with them.

China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Beijing "resolutely opposes" the U.S. for "enacting unilateral sanctions" and vowed to "seriously handle" the issue in accordance with the law. The ministry also demanded that the U.S. immediately lift the sanctions "to avoid harming bilateral cooperation in the relevant area."

Saturday's statement was China's latest in a series of denunciations of any sanctions against North Korea not imposed within the framework of the United Nations.

China, traditionally North Korea's closest ally, insists it has fully enforced existing sanctions against Pyongyang. China's trade with North Korea in January fell to its lowest level in nearly four years, the latest indication China has maintained pressure on the isolated country.

Since last August, the U.S. has helped oversee three rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea. The pressure has not stopped Pyongyang from conducting more nuclear and missile tests.

The new sanctions' effectiveness depends on whether they can successfully be implemented. And the U.S. has limited leverage over many of the shipping companies involved in helping North Korea evade sanctions, warned Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction.

"A lot of the companies working with North Korea are very small," Samore said. "And they don't care whether they work with the United States."

Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official, praised the new sanctions for addressing North Korean shipping, which he said "has long been a gaping hole in the U.S. sanctions regime."

"The only thing missing ... is action against complicit Chinese banks," said Schanzer, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "We know they continue to undermine our efforts to isolate North Korea."

Until that step is taken, he said, North Korea "will be able to operate rather freely in the formal financial sector."</s>Feb 21 (Reuters) - Sam Nunberg, a former political aide to Donald Trump, will be interviewed on Thursday as part of a U.S. special counsel's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Nunberg started working for then-businessman Trump in 2011, making him one of his earliest political advisers, but he was fired from the Republican's campaign in August 2015 before the heat of the 2016 presidential race.

Nunberg's interview in Washington with U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about a week after investigators questioned President Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Nunberg visited Bannon in the West Wing and considers him a close friend, according to an interview with Newsmax last year.

Nunberg, 36, is also an associate of Trump ally and longtime political consultant Roger Stone.

Patrick Brackley, the attorney who will accompany Nunberg to visit Mueller's team, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mueller's investigation arose in part from the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia had meddled in the election and that its goals eventually included aiding Trump who won a surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Russia denies the allegations and Trump says there was no collusion between Moscow and his campaign.

Mueller has charged several Trump associates and more than a dozen Russians.

Nunberg has had an on-off relationship with Trump over the years. He was dismissed months into the presidential campaign after Business Insider reported that he had written racially- charged Facebook posts in 2007. Nunberg told Business Insider he did not remember writing them and apologized.

Trump later sued Nunberg seeking damages of $10 million, saying the former aide had broken a confidentiality agreement. The lawsuit was settled in August 2016 and the one-page filing in a New York court did not provide details of the terms.

Nunberg said in a court filing in the case that Trump accused him of being the source for a media report about an argument between two other Trump campaign aides, Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks.

Nunberg denied being the source for the media report.

In an affidavit, Nunberg said the argument was part of an affair between Lewandowski, then Trump's campaign manager, and Hicks, then Trump´s spokeswoman and now White House communications director.

At the time Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, called Nunberg´s allegations "categorically untrue." (reporting by Nathan Layne in Washington; additional reporting by Steve Holland; editing by Grant McCool)</s>Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today: Trump’s listening sessions with the families of mass-shooting victims, the meaning of Mueller’s latest indictments, and lessons of Black Panther’s box-office success.

The White House hosted families from Parkland, Newtown, and Columbine for an emotional “listening session” with President Trump Wednesday afternoon, and will have another one with law enforcement officials today. Is this a signal that Trump may be genuinely interested in gun control — or is he just trying to saving face after his disappointing response last week?

By unleashing a wave of student anger and activism, the slaughter in Parkland may be shaking up the intractable American gun debate. But make no mistake about Trump: However much “listening” he purports to do, he will do absolutely nothing to remedy the epidemic of violence that is literally and figuratively consuming the country. Trump, who was endorsed by the NRA even before he won the presidential nomination and then benefited from $30 million of NRA campaign spending, is even now giving the gun lobby still more of what it paid for. Yesterday he called for more guns, not fewer, in schools, and he reiterated this nostrum with this incredible tweet this morning: “If a potential ‘sicko shooter’ knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there…problem solved.” Let us repeat this: Problem solved!

As Trump won’t cross the NRA — he saluted Wayne LaPierre and his colleagues as “Great American Patriots” in another tweet today — so he won’t cross his base on this issue any more than he did on immigration. His sympathetic noises about the victims of gun violence are as empty as his repeated claims that he sympathized with Dreamers and wanted to help them. But the hopeful news post-Parkland — tentatively hopeful, needless to say — is that the enraged student protesters are for the moment frightening Trump and the other NRA pawns of the GOP. That’s why Trump held his “listening” session. That’s why Florida state legislators exited through side doors when students stormed the state capitol in Tallahassee yesterday. That’s why Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, was a no-show at the town hall on guns broadcast by CNN last night. That’s why internet trolls are spewing out videos and tweets — some of them endorsed by Donald Trump Jr. — sliming the most outspoken Parkland students as frauds and plants. That’s why that great moralist Bill O’Reilly — remember him? — blamed the media for ginning up public sentiment for gun control by showcasing Parkland teenagers “in an emotional state.” These teenagers are scaring the Second Amendment zealots as adult gun reformers rarely have.

If the students don’t retreat, if their ranks expand, and if they follow through on their pledge to organize and vote, they may actually get some of the results that have eluded gun-control advocates for decades. But they will be up against daunting obstacles. Those obstacles include not only the NRA, Trump and his base, and nearly every Republican officeholder, but also supposedly “adult” conservatives who give cover to the gun lobby by calling for patience and moderation. Such voices have been out in force since the Parkland bloodbath. In the Times, Ross Douthat called for “a moral bridge between the civic vision of the Second Amendment advocates and the insights of their critics.” (This gives new meaning to “the bridge to nowhere.”) David Brooks echoed by recommending this proven dead end as the way forward to reform: “It’s necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points.” At The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan attributed the gun-violence epidemic to the internet, porn, video games, “violent entertainment culture,” and of course “the abortion regime.” Her legislative solution: “Trade banning assault weapons for banning late-term abortion.” Problem solved! This is the same kind of thinking that prompted John Kelly — once thought of as a supposed moderate in Trump’s inner circle — to argue that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”

Compromise is not going to end the rising wave of mass murder in America any more than it ended slavery. With all our focus on the mental illness of crazed killers like Nikolas Cruz and Stephen Paddock, we tend to lose sight that it’s another sign of mental illness that American political leaders and their apologists do nothing while the country literally destroys itself with gun violence.

Trump responded to Mueller’s indictment laying out Russian election interference last week with a weekend tweetstorm that the Washington Post described as “unhinged,” and which included profanity, misspellings, and basic factual errors. What does this meltdown say about his ability to weather Mueller’s revelations going forward?

Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians made it clearer than ever that Trump will not weather the results of this investigation, and that the cost of firing Mueller now would be more politically catastrophic than ever. It’s revelatory that Trump didn’t initially figure this out. He originally and delusionally hailed the indictment as a vindication. He might still be doing so had Parkland not intervened. The gravity of the shooting forced him for appearances’ sake to forsake golf at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and instead cower indoors binge-watching cable TV and letting loose with his insane tweetstorm. Clearly those around him hadn’t had the guts to tell him how devastating the news of Mueller’s indictment was for him and those around him, including his son and son-in-law, so cable talking heads did so instead.

If you read the indictment, it’s clear that Mueller’s team knows in granular detail virtually everything that went on during the 2016 election, and is steadily laying out the criminality one step at a time. Trump defenders who keep saying there’s no there there now have to see (whether they acknowledge it or not) that there was a huge there there: what even Trump’s national security adviser H. R. McMaster felt compelled to describe as “incontrovertible” evidence of the Russian effort to sabotage American democracy at its heart, the ballot box. By proving that crime, the indictment lays the groundwork for charging those who attempted to obstruct the investigation of the crime. Meanwhile, Mueller keeps dealing out new cards, including a reported plea deal for Paul Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates and a reported investigation of a Chicago banker who may have been promised a White House job by Manafort in exchange for $16 million in loans. Manafort may soon have to decide whether he wants to spend the rest of his life in prison or start squealing on Trump. Still to come: the fruits of Mueller’s investigation into the Russian hacking of Clinton and DNC emails.

Another thing Trump may have belatedly figured out while gorging on Big Macs in front of his flat screen over the weekend: When his lawyer Ty Cobb last year told him that Mueller would wrap up his investigation by Thanksgiving, he meant Thanksgiving 2018.

Black Panther crushed box-office records in its opening weekend, taking in more then $400 million in global ticket sales. Will its success knock down the Hollywood myth that stories anchored in black culture, or with mostly black casts, can’t find global audiences?

Money is the only language that talks in Hollywood, and one would hope that the unassailable success of Black Panther will galvanize more industry bets on black filmmakers and the stories they want to tell. What’s more, Black Panther, though undoubtedly the kind of “violent entertainment culture” that Peggy Noonan would blame for school shootings, is an imaginative and uncompromising story of African-American empowerment, achieved not through sermonizing but within the transporting mythology of Marvel. Still, there have been so many articles celebrating the film as a commercial and cultural milestone that one wants to add a word of caution: It wasn’t that long ago that an even bigger victory in the mass marketplace, Barack Obama’s election as president, was seen as a breakthrough ushering in a post-racial America. When it comes to intransigent American conflicts — whether over race or guns — we have to be careful not to let hope blind us to the battles still ahead.</s>Real US debt levels could be shocking 2,000% of GDP, Wall Street...

Putting all that together paints a daunting picture but one that requires nuance to understand. Paramount is realizing that not all of the debt obligations are set in stone.

Economy

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U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the White House. Trump indicated that there would be new sanctions against the North Korean regime.