North America

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - President Nayib Bukele and a group of soldiers armed with automatic weapons briefly occupied El Salvador’s Congress on Sunday, stepping up a pressure campaign to force lawmakers to back a crime-fighting plan.

Watched by soldiers in full battle uniform, Bukele, 38, sat in the seat reserved for the president of Congress and cupped his hands together to pray, he said, for patience with lawmakers, few of whom turned up at the special session.

CHICAGO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- One person was arrested after two men were shot to death during a robbery that happened early Sunday morning in Chinatown on the south side of Chicago.

The men, aged 38 and 39, respectively, were standing in the parking lot of an apartment complex at 2:13 a.m. with a 44-year-old woman when someone walked up and tried to rob them, local media quoted Chicago police as saying.

The men resisted, and the suspect fired multiple shots at their heads. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Europe and NASA’s Solar Orbiter rocketed into space Sunday night on an unprecedented mission to capture the first pictures of the sun’s elusive poles.

“We’re on the way to the sun. Go Solar Orbiter!” said Cesar Garcia Marirrodriga, project manager for the European Space Agency. “It’s a fantastic moment ... it’s like, well, we’re unstoppable.”

The $1.5 billion spacecraft will join NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, launched 1 1/2 years ago, in coming perilously close to the sun to unveil its secrets.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is offering a $4.8 trillion election-year budget plan that recycles previously rejected cuts to domestic programs to promise a balanced budget in 15 years — all while boosting the military and leaving Social Security and Medicare benefits untouched.

Trump’s fiscal 2021 plan, to be released Monday, promises the government’s deficit will crest above $1 trillion only for the current budget year before steadily decreasing to more manageable levels.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Joe Biden is facing increasingly formidable competition in South Carolina, a state his campaign has long assumed was safely in his column and one he’s repeatedly described as a “firewall” in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and billionaire activist Tom Steyer are challenging the former vice president’s standing in South Carolina. The Feb. 29 primary is the first contest in the South on the 2020 election calendar and serves as an important gauge of black support.

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — The Latest on the 2020 Democratic presidential race and Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire (all times local):

6:45 p.m.

Elizabeth Warren is tweaking her standard campaign speech, saying that she’s in the best position to win what some see as an “unwinnable” election for any Democrat against President Donald Trump.

NEW YORK (AP) — A gunman was arrested after he ambushed police officers in the Bronx twice in 12 hours, authorities said, wounding two in attacks that brought outrage from officials who blamed the violence on an atmosphere of anti-police rhetoric.

Robert Williams, 45, of the Bronx, was captured after he walked into a police station in the Bronx and started shooting shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday, police said. His shots struck a lieutenant in the arm and narrowly missed other police personnel before he ran out of bullets, lay down and tossed his pistol, officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronted with the threat of trillion-dollar-plus deficits for as far as the eye can see, President Donald Trump is offering a $4.8 trillion budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year that rehashes previously rejected spending cuts while leaving Social Security and Medicare benefits untouched.

Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget plan, to be released Monday, isn’t likely to generate a serious Washington dialogue about what to do, if anything this election year, about entrenched fiscal problems that have deficits surging despite a healthy economy.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a close ally of President Donald Trump, said Sunday that the Justice Department has established a way to review information gathered in Ukraine by Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has targeted Democrat Joe Biden and his son.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Attorney General William Barr told him during a conversation Sunday that the department has “created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it’s verified.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign plans to ask for a “partial recanvass” of the results of last week’s Iowa caucuses.

A campaign aide confirmed the plans Sunday night, ahead of a Monday deadline for candidates to ask the Iowa Democratic Party to recanvass the results. A recanvass is not a recount, but a check of the vote count against paper records to ensure the counts were reported accurately.

The state party released updated results on Sunday showing Pete Buttigieg leading Sanders by two state delegate equivalents out of 2,152 counted.