North America

HONOLULU (AP) — The Latest on demonstrations against a giant telescope in Hawaii (all times local):

4:35 p.m.

An indigenous group in Canada is asking the Canadian government to stop funding a giant telescope planned for Hawaii’s tallest mountain.

The Canadian Press reports the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs wrote Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Hawaii Gov. David Ige asking them to shut down the Thirty Meter Telescope project.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The woman set to become Puerto Rico’s next governor has been criticized for her reluctance to confront problems in Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s administration during her nearly two years as the territory’s top law enforcement official.

That criticism is likely to complicate Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez’s ability to complete Rosselló’s term in the face of widespread public anger toward the departing governor and some of his male aides over a leaked online chat in which they mocked their constituents and made insulting remarks about women.

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — The bus carrying dozens of Central Americans from the Texas border arrived in this northern Mexican city late at night and pulled up next to the station. Men and women disembarked with children in their arms or staggering sleepily by their sides, looked around fearfully and wondered what to do.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Mueller, the taciturn lawman at the center of a polarizing American drama, bluntly dismissed President Donald Trump’s claims of “total exoneration” in the federal probe of Russia’s 2016 election interference. In a long day of congressional testimony, Mueller warned that Moscow’s actions represented — and still represent — a great threat to American democracy.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to stop denying asylum to anyone who transits through another country to reach the U.S. border, marking the latest legal defeat for a president waging an all-out battle to stem the flow of migrants entering from Mexico.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco came hours after another federal judge in Washington, D.C., let the 9-day-old policy stand. The California judge’s preliminary injunction halts the policy while the lawsuit plays out in court.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said late Wednesday that he will resign Aug. 2 after nearly two weeks of furious protests and political upheaval touched off by a leak of crude and insulting chat messages between him and his top advisers.

A crowd of demonstrators outside the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan erupted into cheers and singing after his announcement on Facebook just before midnight

Addressing the protests, Rosselló said, “The demands have been overwhelming and I’ve received them with highest degree of humility.”

US President Trump has vetoed three joint congressional resolutions prohibiting emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) worth more than $8 billion.

"This resolution would weaken America's global competitiveness and damage the important relationships we share with our allies and partners," Trump wrote in veto messages.

24 July 2019; AFP: Seven years ago, US special agent Ray Donovan began an in-depth study of the Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman saga -- and it quickly became an obsession.

Now, the tall, 48-year-old New Yorker displays behind glass in his office the beige T-shirt that prisoner 3912 -- Guzman, the former head of the Sinaloa cartel -- wore when he was extradited from Mexico to the United States on January 19, 2017.

24 July 2019; AFP: A new spacecraft's solar sail successfully deployed Tuesday one month after launch, as it journeys around earth carrying a small satellite.

LightSail 2, as the spacecraft is called, will harness the momentum of packets of light energy known as photons.

Its developer, the Planetary Society, a US organization that promotes space exploration, marked the occasion on Twitter with: "DEPLOYMENT COMPLETE!"

24 July 2019; AFP: Robert Mueller arrived on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a marathon day of testimony on the two-year Russian meddling investigation, under pressure to spell out whether he believes President Donald Trump committed a crime.

Three months after releasing the final report on his probe into the 2016 election, much of the American public remains unclear about the former special counsel's findings on whether Trump criminally obstructed justice and whether his campaign colluded with Russians.