Wednesday morning news

U.S. to resume military exercises in Korea » The United States will resume military exercises on the Korean Peninsula. That according to Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday.

The U.S. military had suspended several of its largest exercises as a show of good faith amid nuclear talks with North Korea, but Mattis said the military will pick up where it left off.

MATTIS: We will work very closely, as I’ve said, with the secretary of state, and what he needs done, we will certainly do to reinforce his effort, but at this time there is no discussion about further suspensions. 

Mattis said the U.S. military never entirely halted exercises on the peninsula, but added that those exercises were not large enough to be misinterpreted by North Korea.

His announcement came just days after the Trump administration cancelled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s latest planned trip to Pyongyang, saying North Korea isn’t doing enough to hold up its end of the bargain.

Trump says Google skewing search results, Google responds » President Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Tuesday the White House is “taking a look” at whether the government should regulate Google.

That remark came just hours after President Trump accused Google of rigging its search results to favor negative news about him. Trump tweeted that search results for “Trump News” turn up almost entirely negative stories from what he called the “Fake News Media,” including CNN. And he added—quote—“They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation—will be addressed!”

Speaking to reporters later in the day he repeated…

TRUMP: Yeah, I think Google is really taking advantage of a lot of people, and I think that’s a very serious thing and a really serious charge. I think what Google and others are doing, if you look at what’s going on with Twitter, if you look at what’s going on at Facebook, they better be careful because you can’t do that to people. 

Google pushed back on that claim Tuesday, saying its goal is to make sure users get the most relevant answers to their queries quickly. A statement from the company said “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”

Lawmakers grill Justice Dept official over Trump dossier connections » Lawmakers on Capitol Hill questioned a Justice Department official Tuesday about his connections to a controversial anti-Trump dossier. Bruce Ohr met with members of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees behind closed doors.

The dossier in question was commissioned by a group called Fusion GPS and it was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

The Justice Department used that dossier to justify a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on former Trump aide Carter Page.

Florida Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis said documents show Bruce Ohr served “almost as an intermediary between the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS, and the Obama Justice Department.”  

DESANTIS: So it’s really an unprecedented use of official prosecutorial resources to have him that deeply involved in generating this opposition research. 

Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie worked at Fusion GPS and was involved in research that formed part of the anti-Trump dossier.

Republicans want to know who within the Justice Department knew about those connections.

Study: PR death toll from Maria 3,000 » Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello is raising the official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to nearly 3,000. That in response to a government-commissioned study finding officials severely undercounted deaths from the storm.

He’s also creating a commission to implement recommendations in the report and creating a registry of people who may be vulnerable in a future storm, such as the elderly and disabled.

Maria slammed Puerto Rico as a strong category 4 hurricane nearly a year ago, devastating infrastructure on the island. Many of the deaths attributed to the storm came in the weeks and months that followed, when many had limited access to medical care.

Cardinal denies abuse cover-up » The archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Donald Wuerl, this week denied cover-up claims made against him by a former Vatican official. WORLD Radio’s Sarah Schweinsberg has that story.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: In a statement released Monday, Wuerl denied he was ever informed of the sexual accusations and penalties leveled against his predecessor.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò over the weekend published a letter accusing senior Vatican officials of knowing as early as 2000 that former Archbishop Theodore McCarrick regularly invited seminarians into his bed.

Viganò’s letter said Pope Benedict sanctioned McCarrick but Wuerl and Pope Francis supported his continued involvement in public ministry during his retirement.

In his statement, Wuerl said he never received information about any document from Benedict with directives against McCarrick. On Monday, Francis refused to comment on Viganò’s letter as he wrapped up a two-day trip to Ireland.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Washington Wednesday. And marking 100 years since the pandemic of 1918. This is The World and Everything in It.

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford speak to reporters during a news conference at the Pentagon, Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2018 in Washington. 

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