North America

20 Feb 2019; AFP: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that trade talks with China are complex but are "going very well" and again indicated the March 1 deadline for raising tariffs could be extended.

Officials on Tuesday resumed the high-stakes negotiations aimed at ending a damaging tariff war between the economic superpowers.

Houston, Feb 19 (PTI) An Indian-American couple was found dead in their home in an apparent murder-suicide at an affluent suburb in the US state of Texas, police said.

Police officers were called to the house in Sugar Land on Monday around 6 am.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he expected to see the ultimate denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula while pointing out that he had no pressing schedule for that objective.

Trump told the press Tuesday that he was looking forward to meeting Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), next week in Hanoi, Vietnam. "I think a lot of things will come out of it," he said.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Monday she’s not a democratic socialist, a not-so-veiled distinction setting her apart from New Hampshire voters’ favorite 2016 primary candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sanders, a potential rival for the party’s 2020 nomination, has described himself as a democratic socialist, and the Vermont independent didn’t abandon the politically fraught label for his previous campaign.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Justice Department official says Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave his position in the middle of next month.

The official was not authorized to discuss the move by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity on Monday night.

The White House is expected to name a replacement for Rosenstein this week.

Rosenstein’s departure had been expected with the confirmation of William Barr as attorney general last week.

Rosenstein has been on the job for nearly two years.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The country’s last undecided congressional election was marred by falsified signatures, disappearing documents and blank ballots that were filled in by people hired by the Republican candidate, North Carolina elections officials said.

The state elections board could decide as early as Tuesday whether possibly criminal ballot fraud was unfortunate but tolerable, or whether to order a new election in the 9th congressional district.

MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. The company - operator of the Nord Stream 2 project, Nord Stream 2 AG, laid about 700 km in total for two lines of the gas pipeline (1,224 km each), Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday, according to the Ministry of Energy.

"In total, around 700 km of the gas pipeline have been laid along both lines," Novak said after a telephone conversation with Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany Peter Altmaier. Novak noted that the project is being implemented in accordance with the schedule.

WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US-China trade talks aimed at ending a damaging tariff war resumed from Tuesday (Feb 19) in Washington, the White House said.

The last set of talks ended Friday in Beijing with no deal, though US President Donald Trump said the discussions were going “extremely well” and suggested he could extend a March 1 truce deadline for an agreement to be reached.

The next round of negotiations will commence with deputy-level meetings before moving on to principal-level talks on Thursday, a White House statement said.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Active, middle-aged men able to complete more than 40 push-ups had a significantly lower risk of developing cardiovascular diseases than those who were able to do less than 10, a new study showed.

"This study emphasizes the importance of physical fitness on health, and why clinicians should assess fitness during clinical encounters," said senior author Stefanos Kales, professor in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard Chan School and chief of occupational medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- A grade-six student in the U.S. state of Florida was arrested after he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in his classroom, but local police said Monday that he was arrested "for disrupting the classroom" and "NOT for refusing to participate" in the pledge.

On Feb. 4, the 11-year-old student, who is black, refused to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag in his classroom, citing "racist" and "offensive to black people" as reasons, CNN reported quoting the school district and local police statements.