AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST

In SOTU address, Trump calls for end of resistance politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Face to face with emboldened Democrats, President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Washington to cast aside “revenge, resistance and retribution” and end “ridiculous partisan investigations” in a State of the Union address delivered at a vulnerable moment for his presidency.

Trump appealed for bipartisanship but refused to yield on the hard-line immigration policies that have infuriated Democrats and forced the recent government shutdown. He renewed his call for a border wall and cast illegal immigration as a threat to Americans’ safety and economic security.

Trump accepted no blame for his role in cultivating the rancorous atmosphere in the nation’s capital, and he didn’t outline a clear path for collaborating with Democrats who are eager to block his agenda. Their opposition was on vivid display as Democratic congresswomen in the audience formed a sea of white in a nod to early 20th-century suffragettes.

Trump is staring down a two-year stretch that will determine whether he is re-elected or leaves office in defeat. His speech sought to shore up Republican support that had eroded slightly during the recent government shutdown and previewed a fresh defence against Democrats as they ready a round of investigations into every aspect of his administration.

“If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation,” he declared. Lawmakers in the cavernous House chamber sat largely silent.

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s claims in his State of Union address

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is fact-checking remarks from President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech. Here’s a look at some of the claims we’ve examined:

MIDDLE EAST WARS

TRUMP: “Our brave troops have now been fighting in the Middle East for almost 19 years.”

THE FACTS: Trump exaggerated the length of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan began in October 2001, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The invasion of Iraq was in March 2003. The U.S. has been at war for a bit more than 17 years.

Also, he refers to fighting in the Middle East. Iraq is in the Middle East, but Afghanistan is in south and central Asia.

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Trump to meet North Korean leader Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will hold a two-day summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam to continue his efforts to persuade Kim to give up his nuclear weapons.

Trump has said his outreach to Kim and their first meeting last June in Singapore opened a path to peace. But there is not yet a concrete plan for how denuclearization could be implemented.

Denuclearizing North Korea is something that has eluded the U.S. for more than two decades, since it was first learned that North Korea was close to acquiring the means for nuclear weapons.

“As part of a bold new diplomacy, we continue our historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Trump said in his State of the Union address.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told Congress last week that U.S. intelligence officials do not believe Kim will eliminate his nuclear weapons or the capacity to build more because he believes they are key to the survival of the regime. Satellite video taken since the June summit has indicated North Korea is continuing to produce nuclear materials at its weapons factories.

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Abrams rebuts Trump: ‘We do not succeed alone’

ATLANTA (AP) — Stacey Abrams stepped onto the biggest stage of her political career Tuesday and accused President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans of abandoning working Americans and fomenting partisan and cultural discord.

The Georgia Democrat introduced herself to the nation months after narrowly losing her bid to become America’s first black female governor. Instead, she became the first black woman to deliver a State of the Union response.

Speaking from a union hall in Atlanta, Abrams combined her party’s vision of a more unified society with her personal story as a black daughter of the Deep South.

“These were our family values: faith, service, education and responsibility,” she said, arguing for “this uncommon grace of community.”

“We do not succeed alone,” she added. “In these United States, when times are tough, we can persevere because our friends and neighbours will come for us.”

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Yearbook staff disagree on whether racist photo was mix-up

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The racist yearbook photo that could sink Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s career may have been mistakenly placed on his profile page — but even if it were put there intentionally, it’s unlikely that many students would have noticed, according to alumni who put together the publication or submitted pictures to it 35 years ago.

Dr. Giac Chan Nguyen-Tan, a physician practicing in Connecticut, remembers that a page he laid out for the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook was changed without his knowledge before publication.

“Could (the offensive photo) have been slipped in there? Absolutely,” he said, adding that he doesn’t remember laying out Northam’s page, which ended up including a photo of one person in blackface and another dressed in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robes.

Fellow yearbook staffer Dr. William Elwood disagrees. Elwood said he doubts any photos were mixed up — and he says it’s unlikely that someone could have pulled a prank because a limited number of people had keys to the yearbook room. He said he took his job seriously and received no complaints after the yearbook was published.

Regardless of how the photo got there, it’s possible not many noticed what was in the yearbook; few students enrolled in the intense medical school program took the publication very seriously — or even looked at it — after it was published, several classmates said. For many, the yearbook was simply not a priority. Northam and his former roommate, Dr. John “Rob” Marsh, rushed off to the military immediately after graduation. Others embarked on their residencies.

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Women in white: Dem solidarity stands out at State of Union

WASHINGTON (AP) — The women of the House wore white. The men wore dark suits. And the contrast laid bare the growing gender gap between Democrats and Republicans.

Wearing the colour of the suffragists, the Democratic women of the House put on a stunning display of solidarity during the State of the Union address Tuesday.

They paid tribute to the women who came before them and gave a nod to their own achievement, as more women than ever are now representatives in the House.

There were white pantsuits, of course. But also sheath power dresses. Even a puffy zip snow vest. Hats for some. Shawls and scarves.

In the chamber, there has long been a growing gender divide as Democrats elect far more women than Republicans. The House now has more than 100 women in office. But the vast majority of them, about 90, are Democrats. House Republican women number just over a dozen.

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Vietnam site for 2nd Trump-Kim summit may bring wins for all

BANGKOK (AP) — Vietnam’s selection as the venue for the second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is largely a matter of convenience and security, but not without bigger stakes.

Washington’s goal for the talks Feb. 27-28 is for North Korea to agree give up its nuclear weapons. North Korea frames the issue more broadly, seeking a removal of the “nuclear threat” from U.S. military forces in South Korea.

Host Vietnam hopes to boost its diplomatic leverage against its powerful neighbour, China, which contests waters in the South China Sea claimed by Hanoi.

But Vietnam’s history as a U.S. adversary that transitioned on its own terms to a dynamic free-market economy under a communist political system suggests a larger meaning for the summit.

“By choosing Vietnam, the two leaders send a strong strategic message to the world that they are willing to make a breakthrough decision to turn an enemy into a friend and together make the world a better place, following the example of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship,” said Le Hong Hiep, a research fellow at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

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Mississippi considers abortion ban after fetal heartbeat

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi lawmakers are considering what could become one of the strictest abortion laws in the country. Bills that passed legislative committees Tuesday would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant has said he will sign either House Bill 732 or Senate Bill 2116 , which are moving to the full House and Senate for more work. Supporters and opponents anticipate a court fight.

An Iowa judge struck down a similar law there last month.

Several states could consider tighter abortion restrictions to get a challenge up to the more conservative U.S. Supreme Court to try to overturn the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Mississippi has some of the tightest abortion laws in the U.S., with a 24-hour waiting period and parental consent for minors required, with some exceptions. The state last year enacted a law banning abortion after 15 weeks, and a federal judge declared it unconstitutional.

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Red carpet nixed after Liam Neeson reveals racist thoughts

NEW YORK (AP) — The red carpet for the premiere of Liam Neeson’s latest film was cancelled Tuesday, a day after a British newspaper published an interview in which the actor discussed wanting to kill a random black person nearly 40 years ago when a close friend told him she had been raped by a black man.

Organizers of the New York premiere of “Cold Pursuit” said they were cancelling interviews and photo opportunities for the film hours after Neeson appeared on “Good Morning America” to explain his past racist thoughts. He told interviewer Robin Roberts he is not a racist and moved past his desire for violence after seeking help from a priest and from friends.

Neeson said in an interview published Monday by The Independent that after learning his friend’s attacker was black, he “went up and down areas with a cosh (stick or truncheon)” hoping a black person “would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him.”

“It took me a week, maybe a week and a half, to go through that,” Neeson said.

Neeson told Roberts he had asked about the race of the attacker, along with other descriptive characteristics. He said Tuesday the topic came up because the interviewer asked him about how he tapped into the feelings of revenge that he displays in “Cold Pursuit,” which tells the story of a father who seeks violent revenge for his son’s death.

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21 Savage’s English origins stun fans of the Atlanta rapper

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was a shock for fans when 21 Savage was taken into custody by U.S. immigration agents in Georgia. It was an even bigger shock to learn he had been an immigrant in the first place.

The Grammy-nominated rapper and his music are so deeply associated with Atlanta that the notion he was actually born in England and brought to the U.S. as a child felt downright bizarre.

Scores of surprised tweets came after his Sunday arrest. Memes bloomed that some called cruel under the circumstances, including one of him dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard, along with an old video of him talking in a mock English accent about tea and crumpets. While the United Kingdom is responsible for rap icon Slick Rick, he also grew up in America, and its rappers traditionally have not had much success in America.

“It seems so outlandish that the prototypical Atlanta rapper is not from Atlanta,” said Samuel Hine, a writer and editor at GQ who researched 21 Savage and spent a day with him for a profile in the magazine last year. “I think that’s why so many people were sort of making fun of him, and making memes.”

By all accounts, few knew his real birthplace, and it certainly wasn’t publicly known. His accent gave no indication, and his birth name, She’yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, could come from any number of birthplaces.

The Associated Press