COLU @ CONCEPTS

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump is saying “we’ll see what happens” with top strategist Steve Bannon. The president refused to express confidence in Bannon during an impromptu news conference Tuesday. “He’s a good person. He actually gets very unfair press in that regard,” Trump said. “But we’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon.” Bannon was a key general election campaign adviser and has been a forceful but contentious presence in a divided White House. The former leader of conservative Breitbart News has drawn fire from some of Trump’s closest advisers, including son-in-law Jared Kushner. Though Bannon has survived being on the outs at earlier points in the administration, the president is being pressed anew to fire him. The anti-Bannon campaign comes as Trump is facing heated criticism for not immediately condemning by name white supremacists and other hate groups after deadly violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bannon once described Breitbart as ...

BEIJING (AP) — China has urged the United States and North Korea to “hit the brakes” on threatening words and work toward a peaceful resolution of their tense standoff created by Pyongyang’s recent missile tests and threats to fire them toward Guam. The dispute has also raised fears in South Korea, where a conservative political party on Wednesday called for the United States to bring back tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula. In a sign of growing concern on the part of Pyongyang’s only major ally, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, that the two countries should work together to contain tensions and permit no one to “stir up an incident on their doorstep,” according to a statement posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website. “The most important task at hand is for the U.S. and North Korea to ‘hit the brakes’ on their mutual needling of each other with words and actions, to lower the temp...

MORIYA, Japan (AP) — Thousands upon thousands of cans are filled with beer, capped and washed, wrapped into six-packs, and boxed at dizzying speeds — 1,500 a minute, to be exact — on humming conveyor belts that zip and wind in a sprawling factory near Tokyo. Nary a soul is in sight in this picture-perfect image of Japanese automation. The machines do all the heavy lifting at this plant run by Asahi Breweries, Japan’s top brewer. The human job is to make sure the machines do the work right, and to check on the quality the sensors are monitoring. Shinichi Uno “Basically, nothing goes wrong. The lines are up and running 96 percent,” said Shinichi Uno, a manager at the plant. “Although machines make things, human beings oversee the machines.” The  debate  over machines snatching jobs from people is muted in Japan, where birth rates have been sinking for decades, raising fears of a labor shortage. It would be hard to find a culture that celebrates robots more, ev...

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s antiquities ministry says that archaeologists have discovered three tombs dating back more than 2,000 years, from the Ptolemaic Period. The discovery was made in the Nile Valley province of Minya south of Cairo, in an area known as al-Kamin al-Sahrawi. Tuesday’s statement by the ministry says the unearthed sarcophagi and clay fragments suggest that the area was a large necropolis from sometime between the 27th Dynasty and the Greco-Roman period. One of the tombs has a burial shaft carved in rock and leads to a chamber where anthropoid lids and four sarcophagi for two women and two men were found. Another tomb contains two chambers; one of them has six burial holes, including one for a child. Excavation work for the third tomb is still underway. Source: www.apnews.com 

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin man who doctors say came perilously close to death after accidentally shooting a nail into his heart while working on his house calmly drove himself to the hospital and even parked his pickup truck in the lot before walking into the emergency room. Doug Bergeson is ready to get back to work this week after surviving a June 25 ordeal that others might not have taken in such stride. Bergeson told The Associated Press he was working on framing in a fireplace at his house near Peshtigo in northeast Wisconsin when his nail gun accidentally fired, sending a nail ricocheting off some wood and into his chest. “I thought it just nicked me. I looked down. I couldn’t see anything,” Bergeson said in an interview Tuesday. “I felt OK. I wasn’t worried about the injury. I couldn’t feel any pressure or blood building up.” As he tugged at his sweatshirt, Bergeson, 52, said he realized only about 1 inch of the 3½-inch nail was sticking out of his chest. “I could...

NEW YORK (AP) — Daniel Craig will return for a fifth go-around as James Bond. The actor confirmed reports he would reprise his role as the suave British spy for “Bond 25” during  an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday night. The announcement is a reversal for Craig, who told Time Out London in 2015 he’d rather slash his wrists than do another Bond film. Craig chalks up that comment as “a stupid answer” and tells Colbert he “couldn’t be happier” to return to the role. Craig breathed new life into the Bond franchise when he took over as 007 for 2006′s “Casino Royale.” “Bond 25” hits theaters in November 2019. Source: www.apnews.com 

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — With tires screeching and bodies flying, Marcus Martin shoved his fiancee out of the way of a car charging through a crowd of peaceful protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Marcus Martin was promptly hit and upended by the car as it plowed through the crowd. Flat on his back with a broken leg, he says he experienced several minutes of terror. “The only thing running through my mind was: please don’t let her be dead,” Martin, 26, told The Associated Press in an interview. “Please don’t let her be dead.” Marissa Blair was OK, and Martin’s body was captured in a photograph as he tumbled over the crashing car that fatally hit Heather Heyer, a friend who had been marching with Blair and Martin. Nineteen others were injured. Martin’s mother, Kimberly Martin, was terrified as she watched the scene replayed on television. “I’m thanking God, because after seeing that photo and then I’m seeing videos and I’m seeing my son behind this car and then whe...