Midday Roundup: Trudeau, Obama now cross-border besties

Best buddies. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with U.S. President Barack Obama on his first state visit to the White House on Thursday. The two liberal leaders hope to strengthen ties between the United States and Canada on a range of issues. Trudeau told reporters the talks have been productive. “We found such broad agreement on issues that aren’t just good for one of our two countries, but indeed both of our countries as we tackle challenges on the economy, challenges on the environment, and understand that working together in constructive, productive ways is exactly what this relationship, and indeed this friendship, is all about,” Trudeau said. Obama said keeping trade flowing across the border is vital. Relations between the U.S. and the government of Trudeau’s predecessor had been strained since Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline in November.

Document drama. The Republican Party is joining the growing number of organizations suing the U.S. State Department over Hillary Clinton’s email. The Republican National Committee (RNC) is filing two lawsuits in federal court, calling for the release of text messages and communications between Clinton and her senior advisers during her tenure as secretary of state. Chairman Reince Priebus said the RNC requested the Clinton documents more than six months ago under the Freedom of Information Act, but the State Department refuses to respond. “We have a right for the State Department to comply with our request. The State Department doesn’t have the freedom to just blow off a political party just because it’s a political party,” Priebus said. A spokesman for Clinton called the lawsuits frivolous and said it was an attempt to damage her presidential campaign. Several watchdog organizations and The Associated Press have filed similar suits.

Coldblooded killings. Police are searching for suspects and witnesses to an attack in a poor Pittsburgh suburb that killed six people in what officials called a brutal, premeditated ambush. Two gunmen opened fire on a backyard barbecue in Wilkinsburg, Pa., Wednesday night. They cornered their victims on the back porch of the house, where four bodies were found after the shooting. A fifth victim died on the way to the hospital, and the sixth was the unborn child of a woman who was eight months pregnant. Prosecutors have ruled the baby’s death a homicide, too. The dead included two sisters, their brother, and two female cousins of the siblings. Some children at the cookout saw their mothers get killed, but none of the children were hurt. The mother of the sibling group, Jessica Shelton, talked about her family’s sorrow at a press conference Thursday: “I have no choice but to be strong, because I have grandchildren who lost their parents who I have to be strong for and live for,” Shelton said. “I’m just heartbroken today.”

Password problems. The FBI defended its handling of one of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhones, saying its decision to reset the password on an iCloud account isn’t the reason investigators are now locked out of the phone. The argument was part of a court filing in the FBI’s dispute with Apple over access to Syed Farook’s iPhone, which agents believe contains evidence related to the mass shooting Dec. 2 that killed 14 people. FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress last week that “there was a mistake” made when the FBI asked San Bernardino County, which owned the phone, to reset the password for an account tied to Farook. Apple claims if the FBI had not changed the iCloud password, its engineers could have helped investigators retrieve the phone’s data. But an agent involved in processing the evidence gave a statement saying the password reset did not harm the investigation.

WORLD Radio’s Christina Darnell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.