After a few days in Mar-a-Lago, Chinese president enjoys layover in Alaska

Chinese President Xi on Friday took in the natural beauty of Alaska Friday after meeting with President Trump at his resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
The two leaders said they made progress, but there were no breakthroughs regarding North Korea or trade. Trump announced that he launched an airstrike into Syria moments after dinning with his Chinese counterpart.
Xi requested time with Alaska’s Gov. Bill Walker as the Chinese delegation's plane made a refueling stop in Anchorage. His wife and the Chinese delegation stepped off the Boeing 747 and were greeted by Walker, his wife and several dignitaries. The Anchorage Daily News reported that the Alaska visit was kept under wraps until earlier this week.
The visitors and their hosts drove off in a line of SUVs, limos and other vehicles in 40-degree weather under blue skies. The sightseeing tour will include a stop at Beluga Point, a pullout on the scenic Seward Highway about 15 miles south of Anchorage.
The pullout offers a stunning view of the snow-capped Chugach Mountains and Turnagain Arm in Alaska's Cook Inlet. The waters are home to the endangered Beluga whale.
Walker said he was eager to tell Xi about the abundance of Alaska's resource development opportunities.
"We have tremendous potential in our oil and gas, tourism, fish, air cargo and mineral resource industries," Walker said in a statement issued before the meeting.
For Walker, even just a few hours of time with the president of the world's largest country can pay dividends.

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(Chugach Mountains bordering the north shores of Turnagain Arm)

China is the state's top export market, buying nearly $1.2 billion worth of goods in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The next top international market was Japan, at nearly $820 million, followed by South Korea, at $730 million.
Chris Hladick, the commissioner of the state's Commerce department, called the visit by the Chinese delegation a "once-in-a lifetime opportunity."
"We're not even shown on the map for the United States," he said, a nod to Alaska and Hawaii often being left off of maps of the U.S. "I think this is an extremely valuable opportunity to meet with our largest trade partner face to face."
The state's top export product to China? Fish, accounting for 58 percent. Frozen cod and flat fish, such as halibut, topped a lengthy list of fisheries products, which also included frozen salmon and pollock.
A distant second on the export list are minerals and ores, accounting for 27 percent. Included in that last year was about $130 million of precious metals, which Hladick said was likely gold from the Fairbanks area.
Lower-tier exports included oil, wood, scrap metal and airplane parts.
Hladick sees China as a potential market for Alaska coal and hoped to raise the issue with Chinese officials during their visit. "It's meetings like this that spark interest and then you follow up," Hladick said.
Having your largest trade partner drop in for a meeting is fortuitous when the state is in tough financial straits because of a prolonged period of low oil prices. Hladick said he'd be happy to get a 45-minute meeting with the Chinese trade minister.
Walker has been courting Asian markets -- particularly Japan and South Korea -- in trying to drum up interest in a liquefied natural gas project the state is pursuing. State officials wouldn't say if Walker would bring up the natural gas pipeline, which is in its early stages, during his visit with Xi, but it seemed unlikely that he wouldn't take time to tout the multi-billion dollar project that would take natural gas from Alaska's North Slope to a plant on the state's coast, where it would be liquefied and shipped.
Xi is the second major world leader to spend time in Alaska's largest city in the last few years. U.S. President Barack Obama used a three-day trip to Anchorage in 2015 to showcase the impact of climate change. King Harald V of Norway also made an official visit to Anchorage a few months before Obama.
Alaska's location provides a natural stopping point for world leaders to make refueling stops, and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage has hosted many presidents over the years for these short stints.
President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II met in 1984 during refueling stops at the airport in Fairbanks. Their paths were crossing as one finished and one began trips to Asia.

Expert: Watch to see if Kim Jong-Un goes into hiding after Syria strike

The U.S. bombardment of a Syrian airbase just outside of Homs Friday was likely seen by North Korea as a clear warning that President Trump will use his military if United States interests are at risk.
The immediate focus after the strikes was on Russia’s Vladimir Putin’s reaction. Russia was not happy with the U.S., it spoke in defense of Syria and moved warships. But now the attention is on the next move by another world leader: Kim Jong-Un.
Gordon Chang, a Daily Beast columnist and author of “Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On The World,” said in an emailed statement to Fox News Friday that the U.S. strike on the Syrian airfield “tells North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un that he must now heed American military power, something that he probably dismissed before.”
“Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, disappeared from public view for about six weeks in 2003 at the time of the Iraq war. Kim Jong-Un loves the public spotlight, and it will be telling if he similarly goes into hiding,” the author said.
The airstrikes are “a warning to China’s People’s Liberation Army, which had grown dismissive of the U.S. Navy and Air Force.  Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader visiting Mar-a-Lago, almost certainly interpreted the strike as a sign of disrespect to him,” Chang said.

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Retired four-star Gen. Jack Keane told Fox News on Wednesday that the U.S. is "rapidly and dangerously heading towards the reality that the military option is the only one left when it comes to getting North Korea to denuclearize and not weaponized [intercontinental ballistic missiles]."
Trump made it a point to address the media about the Syria strike at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida just moments after dining with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping.
The strike was a culmination of a rapid, three-day transformation for Trump, who has long opposed deeper U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war. Advisers said he was outraged by heartbreaking images of young children who were among the dozens killed in the chemical attack and ordered his national security team to swiftly prepare military options. The Los Angeles Times reported up to 15 dead in the strikes. A Syrian official said six were killed at the base and nine others in surrounding areas. The death toll could not be independently confirmed.
“This is Trump saying, ‘No, I am a man of my words,’” Reva Goujon, the vice president of Stratfor, told CNBC. “’When I make a threat, I will follow through.’ That’s certainly something the Chinese and North Koreans will be thinking about.”
Trump has said that if China doesn't exert more pressure on North Korea, the U.S. will act alone. The missile strikes on Syria bring more weight to that statement.

After Gorsuch confirmation, Trump likely considering next Supreme Court pick

When President Trump was running for office, one of his favorite selling points to the so-called "Never Trump" Republicans was: You can take me, or you can choose Hillary Clinton and get stuck with her justices.
The strategy proved effective.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt wrote a column in The Washington Examiner titled, “It’s the Supreme Court, Stupid.”
“If Hillary Clinton wins, the Left gavels in a solid, lasting, almost certainly permanent majority on the Supreme Court," he worte. "Every political issue has a theoretical path to SCOTUS, and only self-imposed judicial restraint has checked the Court's appetite and reach for two centuries."
Supreme Court appointments was a main focal point during the campaign because there was a vacancy. Conservative Antonin Scalia had died. Hours after his death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced that his chamber would not consider an Obama nominee and would instead wait until the new president was elected. There were 11 months left in Obama’s term at the time.
McConnell’s gambit worked. Obama's nomination, Judge Merrick Garland never saw the light of day, and Trump defeated Clinton.
Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch who—thanks to the Republican-controlled Senate’s decision to go nuclear—is set to be sworn in on Monday. The tilt of the court has regained its conservative tilt.
As soon as April 13, Gorsuch could take part in his first private conference, where justices decide whether to hear cases — and some of them could involve gun rights, voting rights and a Colorado baker's refusal to design a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding, The Associated Press reported.
But just as Gorsuch begins to get comfortable in his new chambers, Supreme Court observers are considering the real posibility that Trump could name additional justices. The court is collectively older than any other on record. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer are 84, 80 and 78, respectively.
Gorsuch's confirmation process was fought bitterly on both sides. Democrats assailed McConnell for choosing to go nuclear. Sen. Chuck Schumer said afterwards that there's no incentive for nominees to even speak to the minority anymore.
University of California at Irvine Professor Rick Hasen warned Democrats at the height of the Gorsuch fight that they had little to gain in filibustering the nomination.
"Imagine if in a year or so Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, or Kennedy leave the Court,” he wrote on Election Law Blog. “Then things get MUCH worse from the point of view of progressives. Then Roberts becomes the swing voter and there goes affirmative action, abortion rights, etc. If you think things with the Supreme Court are bad for progressive now they can get much, much worse.”
He went on the write that a better move for Democrats was to “save the firepower for that fight. It is possible that Senators like Susan Collins would be squeamish about such a nominee, and they might not vote to go nuclear. At that point, people can take to the streets and exert public pressure.”
In August, then-candidate Trump told The Washington Post that the next president may appoint up to five justices. That would change the direction of the court for decades. Trump’s first nomination is 49 years old.
The Washington Examiner, citing a Trump associates, repeated Trump's campaign number Friday. He “expects to name five to the court.”

Cartoons about Twitter

Twitter files lawsuit over US government attempt to identify users behind anti-Trump account

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the U.S government over an attempt to reveal the identities of the users behind the @ALT_USCIS account, which has been critical of President Trump’s administration.
A “rogue” government account, @ALT_USCIS describes its goal as “immigration resistance” and is now at the center of the row between Twitter and two government agencies - the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Twitter wants to prevent the agencies from “unlawfully abusing a limited-purpose investigatory tool to try to unmask the real identity of one or more persons who have been using Twitter’s social media platform,” according to the lawsuit. The users have harnessed @ALT_USCIS “to express public criticism of the Department and the current Administration,” it adds.
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@ALT_USCIS is one of a number of so-called “alternative agency” accounts set up on the social media site following Trump’s inauguration, Twitter explains. These accounts provide a platform for purported current or former employees of federal agencies, without revealing their identities.
“Like other accounts of this sort, @ALT_USCIS claims to be run by one or more current government employees—in this case, employees of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services,” Twitter says, in its suit. “And as with other such accounts, the person or persons who established and speak through @ALT_USCIS have identified themselves only by means of this pseudonymous account name.”
On March 14 Twitter received a CBP summons “demanding that Twitter provide them records that would unmask, or likely lead to unmasking, the identity of the person(s) responsible for the @ALT_USCIS account,” according to the suit, which describes the summons as unlawful. “Permitting CBP to pierce the pseudonym of the @ALT_USCIS account would have a grave chilling effect on the speech of that account in particular and on the many other ‘alternative agency’ accounts that have been created to voice dissent to government policies,” it added.
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The account has racked up over 35,000 followers since it was set up in January 2017. In its description, @ALT_USCIS says that it does not express the views of DHS or the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The @ALT_USCIS account tweeted part of Twitter’s lawsuit Thursday.
The ACLU’s national Twitter account tweeted its support for the social media site Thursday. “We're glad Twitter is pushing back,” it said.
Twitter declined to comment on its legal action when contacted by Fox News. The DHS and CBP have not yet responded to a request for comment on this story.

Russia says Syria airstrike an 'aggression' by US

Miller says US strike signals Russia: 'Control your client'

The U.S. airstrike in Syria early Friday morning was an "aggression against a sovereign state" and in violation of international law, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin believes that the U.S. has dealt the strikes under "far-fetched pretext."
Russia also suspened an agreement with the U.S. to avoid mid-air collisions over Syria in wake of the airstrikes. The deal had been made for safety precautions when engaging military targets.
Russia has argued that the death of civilians in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday resulted from Syrian forces hitting a rebel chemical arsenal there.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday that "either Russia has been complicit (in the attacks) or Russia has been simply incompetent."
Peskov said that the U.S. has ignored past incidents of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian rebels. He argued that the Syrian government has destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles under international control.
Russia added that no servicemen dies in the U.S. airstrike.
The U.S. launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield early Friday in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil war in 2011.
Trump addressed the media shortly after reports on the airstrike began to surface.
"It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons," Trump said. "Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types."

US missiles target Syria airfield in response to chemical weapons attack

The United States launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield early Friday in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil war in 2011.
"It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons," President Donald Trump said in a statement. "Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types."
Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles targeted an airbase at Shayrat, located outside Homs. The missiles targeted the base's airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said initial indications were that the strike had "severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment ... reducing the Syrian Government's ability to deliver chemical weapons." There was no immediate word about any casualties.
Trump said the base was used as the staging point for Tuesday's chemical weapons attack on rebel-held territory, which killed as many as 72 civilians, including women and children.
"Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children," Trump said from Mar-a-Lago, Fla. "Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror."
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the strike should cause a "big shift in Assad's calculus."
"Obviously the regime maintains a certain capability to commit mass murder with chemical weapons beyond this air field," McMaster said. "But it was aimed at this airfield because we could trace that attack back to this facility. It was not a small strike."
The U.S. missiles hit at 8:45 p.m. Eastern time, 3:45 a.m. Friday morning in Syria. Syrian state TV called the attack an "aggression" that lead to "losses."
U.S. military officials said they informed their Russian counterparts of the impending attack in an effort to avoid any accident involving Russian forces. Nevertheless, Russia's Deputy U.N. ambassador Vladimir Safronkov warned that any negative consequences from the strikes would be on the "shoulders of those who initiated such a doubtful and tragic enterprise."
Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that "there are Russians at the base," but said they had been warned "multiple times" to leave. He did not know whether Russian aircraft were at the base when the missiles hit.
The U.S. also notified its partner countries in the region prior to launching the strikes.
U.S. defense officials tell Fox News that two warships based in the eastern Mediterranean, the USS Porter and the USS Ross, have been training for the past two days to execute this mission.
“Our forward deployed ships give us the capability to quickly respond to threats," said a Navy official. "These strikes in Syria are a perfect example - this is why we're there."
The original plans called for two targets, the airbase and a chemical weapons storage facility. However, Pentagon planners decided late Thursday to target just the airbase.
As a candidate, Trump warned against against the U.S. getting pulled into the Syrian civil war. But the president earlier in the week appeared moved by the photos of children killed in the chemical attack.
"I think what happened in Syria is one of the truly egregious crimes and shouldn't have happened and it shouldn't be allowed to happen," Trump told reporters traveling on Air Force One to Florida earlier , where he was holding a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Late Thursday, a U.S. government official told Fox News that the intelligence community has high confidence that the attack was carried out by Syrian government aircraft. The official said the analysis was consistent with eyewitness reports that fixed-wing aircraft launched the strike.
The official described the use of sarin gas in the attack as a watershed. The Assad government had agreed to disband its chemical weapons capability by 2014 under an agreement coordinated with the Obama administration and Russia. Tuesday's attack was considered a breach of that agreement.
The Turkish ministry of health says the preliminary results show the use of sarin gas. Sarin is a colorless, odorless liquid and is highly volatile while moving from its liquid state to a gas. Unlike chlorine, which the Assad government has used on a regular basis, sarin does not dissipate quickly. The victims in Tuesday’s attack showed all the hallmarks of a sarin attack – including twitching, jerking and foaming at the mouth.
Trump's decision to attack Syria came three-and-a-half years after President Barack Obama threatened Assad with military action after an earlier chemical weapons attack killed hundreds outside of Damascus. Obama had declared the use of such weapons a "red line." At the time, several American ships in the Mediterranean were poised to launch missiles, only for Obama to abruptly pull back after key U.S. ally Britain and the U.S. Congress balked at his plan.
He opted instead for the Russian-backed plan that was supposed to remove and eliminate Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.
The world learned of the chemical attack earlier in the week in footage that showed people dying in the streets and bodies of children stacked in piles.
The U.S. show of force in Syria raises legal questions. It's unclear what authority Trump is relying on to attack another government. When Obama intervened in Libya in 2011, he used a U.N. Security Council mandate and NATO's overall leadership of the mission to argue that he had legal authority — arguments that many Republicans opposed. Trump can't rely on either justification here.
Unclear also is whether Trump is adopting any broader effort to combat Assad. Under Obama, the United States largely pulled back from its support for so-called "moderate" rebels when Russia's military intervention in September 2015 led them to suffer a series of battlefield defeats. Instead, Obama sought to work with Russia on a negotiated transition.
Trump and his top aides had acknowledged in recent days the "reality" of Assad being in power, saying his ouster was no longer a priority. But the chemical weapons attack seemed to spur a rethink. In Florida on Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said of Assad: "There's no role for him to govern the Syrian people."

Initial reports indicate Syrian airbase 'almost completely destroyed' after US strike

The Syrian airfield targeted by United States airstrikes early Friday was “almost completely destroyed,” a human rights group in the country said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the missile attack damaged over a dozen hangars, a fuel depot and an air defense base. About 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles hit the Shayrat air base, southeast of Homs, a small installation with two runways.
At least seven Syrian soldiers were killed and nine wounded in the airstrike, the country's military said. The governor of Homs province said he did not believe the strikes caused a large number of “human casualties.” A Syrian official the attack caused deaths and a fire, but did not elaborate.
The U.S. missiles hit at 3:45 a.m. local time in Syria. Syrian state TV called the attack an "aggression" that lead to "losses."
"Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat Airfield, reducing the Syrian government's ability to deliver chemical weapons," Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said, according to Reuters.
Davis said the U.S. was still assessing the result of the 59 Tomahawks it fired, expressing hope that Assad's government learned a lesson. He said it was ultimately "the regime's choice" if more U.S. military action would be needed.
The U.S. launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil war in 2011.
U.S. officials called the airstrike a “one-off” and said there are no plans for escalation.
The U.S. airstrike in Syria was an "aggression against a sovereign state" and in violation of international law, the Kremlin said in a statement. Shortly before the strikes, the head of information policy commission in the upper house of Russian parliament, Alexei Pushkov, said on Twitter said that if Trump launches a military action in Syria it would put him in "the same league with Bush and Obama."
President Trump on Thursday called for all “civilized nations” to join the U.S. “in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.”
A survivor of the chemical attack in a northern Syrian town says he hopes the U.S. missile attack could help put an end to Syrian government airstrikes, creating a safe area for civilians.
Alaa Alyousef, a 27-year old resident of Khan Sheikhoun, said Friday the U.S. missile attack "alleviates a small part of our sufferings," but he worries it will be like "anesthetics," to save face. AlYousef said the U.S. is capable of "paralyzing" Syrian warplanes.
"What good is a strike on Shayart air base alone while we have more than 15 other air bases," he said.