News Wrap: Trump announces new tariffs on Chinese goods – PBS NewsHour

Judy Woodruff:

Most Democrats backed the bill, along with 28 Republicans. Another two dozen Republicans opposed it, saying that it adds too much to the national debt.

We will get the details after the news summary.

There is word that North Korea has fired more short-range weapons for the third time in eight days. Details on the tests were scarce, but President Trump today dismissed any concerns. He said — quote — “These are short-range missiles. They’re very standard.”

The president also declined again to address news reports that Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden is dead. The reports say that he was killed within the last two years, possibly in a U.S. airstrike. He was the apparent heir to his father’s work with al-Qaida, and was about 30 years old. Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in 2011.

In Yemen, missile and bombing attacks killed 51 people today in Aden, a city held by the government and its Saudi allies. Officials said 36 people died in a missile strike at a military camp. Thirteen others were killed in a car bombing. The explosions left buildings charred and floors soaked in blood at the military camp. The government blamed Shiite rebels allied with Iran.

Russian officials have deployed the military as vast wildfires rage across parts of Siberia and the Russian far east. Fires are now burning in parts of five regions, and now cover an area the size of Belgium. As flames spread in remote forests, crews have struggled to make headway. And officials say dry conditions aren’t helping.

Judy Woodruff:

Heavy smoke from the fires has cloaked hundreds of Russian towns and cities and even reached Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

Fires are also spreading across Indonesia, with six provinces now under a state of emergency. A dangerous haze has blanketed an area that is home to more than 23 million people. Some 6,000 firefighters have been deployed, but the fires have charred more than 74,000 acres.

The ice sheet covering most of Greenland is rapidly melting under the same heat wave that broke records across Europe last week. Images from the Danish territory show melting across 56 percent of the ice sheet. The area has been growing, with forecasts of continued warm and sunny weather. Much of the melt will refreeze, but the amount that is lost for good might exceed the record loss in 2012.

Back in this country, former FBI Director James Comey will not face charges over his handling of memos about his conversations with President Trump. Reports today said that the Justice Department found no grounds to proceed. Comey let a reporter have access to some of his memos, which contained low-level classified material that prompted the review.

And Puerto Rican lawmakers today delayed putting Pedro Pierluisi in line to be governor until at least next week. He was chosen by outgoing Governor Ricardo Rossello, who is resigning down tomorrow. Pierluisi had represented Puerto Rico in the U.S. Congress, but he faces opposition over his legal work for the island’s highly unpopular fiscal oversight board.