North America

WASHINGTON (AP) - After a white supremacist discussed plans on Facebook for a mass shooting at a synagogue, police in Washington used a new law to quickly seize his 12 firearms, long before he was convicted of any crime.

But when a Tennessee father became alarmed about his son after receiving a suicidal text message, he said the police determined they could not take his son’s guns away. A few months later, the man showed up at a church and shot seven worshippers one Sunday morning, killing one.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 24 (APP): With the humanitarian situation fast deteriorating in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, the United Nations hopes that it’s human rights officials’ negotiations with India for access to the disputed state, which is currently under lockdown, “can move forward”, UN Associate Spokesperson Eri Kaneko has said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated criticism of a French proposal to levy a tax aimed at big U.S. technology companies and threatened again to retaliate by taxing French wine.

Speaking to reporters at the White House before leaving for a Group of Seven summit in France, Trump said he is not a “big fan” of tech companies but “those are great American companies and frankly I don’t want France going out and taxing our companies.”

“And if they do that ... we’ll be taxing their wine like they’ve never seen before,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday the United States has a really good relationship with North Korea and that the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has been “pretty straight” with him.

“Kim Jong Un has been ... pretty straight with me,” Trump told reporters at the White House after North Korea fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, according to the South Korean military.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump sharply criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Friday and said he wouldn’t try to stop the chief U.S. central banker if he offered to resign.

Trump, departing the White House to travel to the G7 summit in France, told reporters, “I’m not happy with Jay Powell.”

His comments continued a war of words against Powell that, along with retaliatory tariffs imposed on U.S. goods by China, helped trigger a sharp drop on Friday in the U.S. stock market.

OTTAWA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa Friday urged Canada and the United States to release Meng Wanzhou, the wrongfully detained chief financial officer of Chinese technology company Huawei, without further delay and ensure her safe return to China.

"The Meng Wanzhou incident is not just a judicial case, but the U.S. using state power to work with its certain ally to suppress a private high-tech Chinese enterprise on unwarranted charges. This is a typical bullying behavior," a spokesperson for the embassy said.

FLORIDA, USA (AP) —  A white Florida man who told detectives he had a “pet peeve” about illegal parking in handicapped spots was convicted late Friday of manslaughter for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man outside a convenience store.

HOUSTON (AP) — A former Houston police officer has been charged with murder in connection with the deadly January drug raid of a home that killed a couple who lived there and injured five officers, prosecutors announced Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies (all times local):

12:35 a.m.

President Donald Trump is pushing back against those questioning whether he has the authority to order American companies to cut trade ties with China.

Trump on Friday morning tweeted that he “hereby ordered” U.S. companies to seek alternatives to doing business in China. The White House did not cite what authority the president could use to force private businesses to change their practices.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a trade war against China that has shaken the global economy, President Donald Trump gathered his most trusted economic aides in the Oval Office.

The assembled brain trust for Friday’s urgent consultations included an economics chief best known for his stint as a cable TV commentator; a trade adviser whose pro-tariff views are outside the economic mainstream; and a treasury secretary (joining by phone on his way back from vacation) who made millions off the housing crisis and then turned to financing Hollywood movies.