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The South Carolina Republican was Ukraine's most influential champion inside President Trump's mostly "America First" political orbit.
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He died from "a brief and sudden illness" on Saturday evening, his office said. Over more than two decades in the Senate, he consistently pushed for the use of U.S. military power overseas.
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(First column, 1st story, link)
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The Republican senator denied that he had suffered a heart attack and said he had left the hospital and moved to a physical rehabilitation center. He did not give a timetable for returning to Capitol Hill.
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(First column, 4th story, link)
Related stories:
HE LIVES! McConnell says he was hospitalized last month 'after a fall'...
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By the standards of the aging Senate, where the average age is more than 65, the South Carolina Republican wasn't particularly old.
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Trump announced on Tuesday at the NATO summit in Ankara that he would lift U.S. sanctions on Turkey and is considering selling the country F-35 fighter jets. Trump made the comment following a lavish state dinner hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he praised as a "great leader." The mayor of Istanbul and other Turkish politicians, civil society figures and journalists remain jailed on politically motivated charges.
"Here in Ankara, and in Turkey more broadly, this NATO summit is not taking place in a climate of freedom. We saw, in the two weeks leading up to this summit happening, authorities in Ankara arrested over 200 people in dawn raids," says Ruth Michaelson, a journalist based in Istanbul. "There has also been a protest ban enforced in Ankara, and that is a protest ban that extends even to leafleting."
Repression from the Turkish state has not been addressed during the summit; instead, "something that we've been hearing throughout the summit is that Turkey has this indispensable place in NATO," says Michaelson.
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