North America

HAVANA, Feb 6 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – Russian Foreign Affairs Minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrive in Cuba on Wednesday, to bolster political and economic ties with the Caribbean island, local media said.

Lavrov is scheduled to meet with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, as part of a four-day, three-nation tour of Latin America.

HAVANA, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov was expected to arrive in Cuba on Wednesday to bolster political and economic ties with the Caribbean island, local media said.

Lavrov was scheduled to meet with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, as part of a four-day, three-nation tour of Latin America.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- The international community should make every effort to turn around the deteriorating ocean ecosystem, Peter Thomson, United Nations secretary-general's special envoy for the ocean, said on Wednesday.

"The health of the ocean is in decline. And we have to do everything possible to turn that around for obvious reasons," Thomson said while briefing reporters at the UN headquarters on the preparations for the 2020 UN Ocean Conference slated for Lisbon, Portugal, on June 2-6.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The impeachment of President Donald Trump is over, but it’s far from case closed on Ukraine.

A full accounting of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, stemming in large part from the foreign policy entanglements pursued by personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, remains unfinished despite Trump’s acquittal Wednesday in the Senate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least 138 people deported to El Salvador from the United States in recent years were subsequently killed, Human Rights Watch says in a report that comes as the Trump administration makes it harder for Central Americans to seek refuge here.

A majority of the deaths documented by Human Rights Watch in the report Wednesday occurred less than a year after the deportees returned to El Salvador; some were within days. The organization also confirmed at least 70 cases of sexual assault or other violence following their arrival in the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, widely considered the Senate’s most endangered Democrat, voted Wednesday to convict President Donald Trump as the Senate impeachment trial concluded with Trump’s acquittal — and Republicans will try to use Jones’ vote against him as they seek to reclaim the once reliably red state.

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Chris Wray said Wednesday that Russia is engaged in “information warfare” heading into the 2020 presidential election, though he said law enforcement has not seen ongoing efforts by Russia to target America’s election infrastructure.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the final gavel banging down Wednesday on impeachment, President Donald Trump barreled ahead in his reelection fight with a united Republican Party behind him, and emboldened by reassuring poll numbers and chaos in the Democratic race to replace him.

SOMERSWORTH, N.H. (AP) — Joe Biden entered the Democratic presidential race as a favorite, the candidate with the longest resume, a network of establishment donors and a pitch that he could win the kind of voters who would defeat President Donald Trump.

Now, humbled by a disappointing showing in the Iowa caucuses, Biden is hoping for something quite different: that New Hampshire will make him the second coming of “the Comeback Kid.”

USA (AP) --- As concerns about China’s virus outbreak spread, universities all over the world are scrambling to assess the risks to their programs, and some are canceling study-abroad opportunities and prohibiting travel affecting hundreds of thousands of students.

From Europe to Australia and the United States, universities in countries that host Chinese students have reconsidered academic-related travel to and from China. In the U.S., the cancellations add to the tension between two governments whose relations were already sour.