Friday morning news: June 8, 2018

Trump meets with Japanese PM » TRUMP: Mr. Prime Minister it’s an honor to have you with us. 

President Trump welcoming Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House on Thursday. He said the meeting, in part, was to get the prime minister’s input Trump’s upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The president told reporters that the historic meeting, scheduled for this Tuesday in Singapore is just the beginning of lengthy process.

TRUMP: I think it’s not a one meeting deal. It would be wonderful if it were. We’ll start with perhaps a good relationship, and that’s something that’s very important toward the ultimate making of a deal. 

The president stated once again that Pyongyang will have to give up its nuclear weapons program and that sanctions against North Korea will remain in place until it does.

President Trump and Prime Minister Abe also talked trade. Trump said those talks centered on the U-S trade deficit with Japan.

G7 starts today » That discussion came just hours ahead of the start of economic talks G7 Summit in Quebec, where the president is expected to get a chilly reception today.

Leaders of the 7 global economic powers, including Canada, France and Great Britain, have expressed “concern and disappointment” with Trump’s decision to impose steel and aluminum tariffs.

But Trump’s national economic adviser Larry Kudlow said his boss is eager to talk about the U.S. economy with world leaders.

KUDLOW: America has a growth story. Our unemployment rates are low. We’ve probably had the lowest unemployment claims as a share of the workforce in history, business confidence is booming. We’re going to take that story to the G7 meeting.

Kudlow said the U.S. now has the fastest growing economy in the world, thanks to tax cuts and regulatory reform. 

HUD rent increase » Housing Secretary Ben Carson traveled to Detroit on Thursday to open the agency’s first Envision Center. It’s designed to combine government and community resources to help the poor help themselves out of poverty.

CARSON:  There are actually a lot of resources in our society, and  lot of people with very good hearts who would love to do things, but there’s not a mechanism to do it. So what we’re doing is bringing in juxtaposition the resources to the need.

Carson opened the Envision Center amid criticism over his plan to raise rents and impose work requirements on Americans who qualify for rental assistance.

Carson unveiled that proposal in April. It would increase renters’ contributions from 30 percent to 35 percent and raise the minimum rent from $50 to $150.

A new critical analysis claims the plan would raise rent for low-income tenants in the country’s 100 largest cities by 20 percent each year. That’s about six times more than the growth in average hourly earnings. Congress must still sign off on Carson’s proposal before it could take effect.

Several more U.S. workers pulled from china after strange symptoms » The U.S. government is still trying to determine what’s causing a variety of strange health problems for American diplomats in China. Paul Butler has that story:

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: This week, the State Department announced it would pull more U-S diplomats out of China for medical tests.

That announcement came two weeks after a government employee in Guangzhou, China, complained of medical symptoms—similar to what occurred in so-called sonic attacks in Cuba in 20-16. Diplomats in those attacks described hearing strange sounds before doctors diagnosed concussion-like symptoms.

The U-S government has dispatched a medical team to the Southern Chinese city to evaluate diplomatic staff and their families. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed symptoms include “dizziness, headaches, visual problems, hearing loss, and difficulty sleeping.”

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Paul Butler.

I’m Kent Covington. Up next, more World Journalism Institute student questions on Culture Friday. Plus, a special staff greeting from the 2018 WORLD retreat. This is The World and Everything in It.

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, second from left, speaks during his meeting with President Donald Trump, right, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, June 7, 2018. 

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