North America

UNITED NATIONS, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday told a United Nations high-level meeting that Iranian people are subjected to the most brutal form of "economic terrorism."

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major break with a longtime ally, the Trump administration on Wednesday said Turkey is being kicked out of an American-led fighter aircraft program because it is buying a Russian air defense system that would aid Russian intelligence.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is heading for a showdown with President Donald Trump after the House voted on Wednesday to block his administration from selling billions of dollars in weapons and maintenance support to Saudi Arabia.

Trump, who has sought to forge closer ties with Riyadh, has pledged to veto the resolutions of disapproval that passed the Democratic-led House largely along party lines. Two of the resolutions passed with 238 votes, while a third was approved with 237. Each of the measures garnered just four Republican backers.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House easily killed a maverick Democrat’s effort Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for his recent racial insults against lawmakers of color, a vote that provided an early snapshot of just how divided Democrats are over ousting him as the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns rev up.

Democrats leaned against the resolution by Texas Rep. Al Green by 137-95.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday misrepresented words from Rep. Ilhan Omar to make her sound like an al-Qaida sympathizer and exaggerated the performance of the economy under his watch.

A look at claims from his rally in North Carolina:

OMAR

TRUMP quotes Omar as saying: “You don’t say ‘America’ with this intensity. You say ‘al-Qaida,’ it makes you proud. Al-Qaida makes you proud. You don’t speak that way about America.”

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Is a peek into the future worth your privacy in the present? That concern was pushed to the spotlight this week with the resurgence of a smartphone app that uses artificial intelligence to transform your current face into your younger and older selves.

People raised fears on Twitter and other social media sites that on iPhones, FaceApp would be able to see and upload all your photos, including screenshots with sensitive financial or health information or photos of kids with the names of their schools in the background.

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) —  Jurors began deliberating but didn’t reach a decision Wednesday on whether a former University of Illinois doctoral student should be put to death for the brutal slaying of a scholar from China he abducted at a bus stop.

Brent Christensen’s attorney, Elisabeth Pollock, teared up earlier in the day during closing arguments in the penalty phase in U.S. District Court in Peoria, at one point walking behind her 30-year-old client and putting her hands on his shoulders.

NEW YORK (AP) — Mexican drug kingpin and escape artist Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced Wednesday to life behind bars in a U.S. prison, expressing no remorse over his conviction for a massive drug conspiracy that spread murder and mayhem for more than two decades.

Instead, a defiant Guzman took a parting shot at a judge in federal court in Brooklyn by accusing him of making a mockery of the U.S. justice system in refusing to order a new trial based on unsubstantiated allegations of juror misconduct.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled House voted Wednesday to hold two top Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas related to a decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

The House voted, 230-198, to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt. The vote, a political blow to the Trump administration, is largely symbolic because the Justice Department is unlikely to prosecute the two men.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A new policy to deny asylum to anyone who shows up on the Mexican border after traveling through another country threatens to exacerbate overcrowding at severely strained U.S. immigration detention centers and makeshift holding areas.

Photos and video of Vice President Mike Pence’s visit Friday to McAllen, Texas, showing men crammed behind chain-link fences offered the latest glimpse into squalid conditions at Customs and Border Protection facilities. Women are being held in smaller tents at the station.