China trip

postponed

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is delaying a diplomatic trip to China that was planned for months but began to unravel as he pressured Beijing and other world powers to form a military coalition to protect the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said Tuesday while meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in the Oval Office that he would be going to China in five or six weeks’ time instead of at the end of the month.

Trump’s visit to China is seen as an opportunity to build on a fragile trade truce between the two superpowers, but it became tangled in his effort to find an endgame to his war in Iran.

Bondi faces

subpoena

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi has been subpoenaed to answer questions from Congress about the Justice Department’s sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and the agency’s handling of millions of files related to the disgraced financier.

Bondi was ordered Tuesday to appear for a deposition on April 14 by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform after a vote earlier this month that was supported by five Republicans. The Justice Department’s failure to fend off the subpoena from the Republican-led committee underscores widespread discontent among President Donald Trump’s own base over Bondi’s management of the review and release of a trove of documents from the criminal investigation into Epstein.

Gunman killed

at VA clinic

JASPER, Ga. (AP) — Police in Georgia responded to a shooting at a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic, where a suspect was shot and killed by police.

Officials say Jasper police were sent to the VA clinic around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The city says in a statement on Facebook that officers confronted the suspected shooter, who was shot.

One victim was found at the scene and airlifted to a hospital.

Vatican tribunal

declares mistrial

ROME (AP) — The Vatican appeals tribunal has declared a mistrial in the Holy See’s big “trial of the century.” It’s a stunning blow to both Pope Francis’ legacy and Vatican prosecutors who had prosecuted a cardinal and several other people on alleged financial crimes.

In a 16-page ruling, the appeals court ruled that Francis and Vatican prosecutors both made procedural errors that nullified the original indictment of Cardinal Angelo Becciu and required a new trial. The court set a June 22 as the date for the new trial to begin. Defense lawyers say such a ruling is enormously significant if not historic, since it amounts to a Vatican court declaring an act of the pope had no effect.