North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new U.S. homes plummeted 8.9 percent in October, as the number of newly built, unsold homes sitting on the market climbed to its highest level since 2009.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 544,000 last month. New-home sales have declined in four of the past five months. Over the past year, sales of new homes have dropped 12 percent as higher mortgage rates have caused would-be buyers to back away.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is signaling potentially vulnerable spots in the financial system, citing U.S. businesses’ debt at the highest levels in more than two decades and risky debt growing.

The Fed’s report issued Wednesday was its first assessing the stability of the U.S. financial system. Ten years after the financial crisis, the new report points to excessive borrowing by households and businesses, banks’ elevated debt levels, and high prices for stocks and other assets exceeding their real value.

Washington, Nov 27 (AFP) President Donald Trump warned Monday that the deal taking Britain out of the European Union may inadvertently hamper trade between London and Washington.

"Sounds like a great deal for the EU," he said at the White House, before adding that "we have to take a look at seriously whether or not the UK is allowed to trade."

"You know, right now, if you look at the deal, they may not be able to trade with us, and that wouldn't be a good thing," he said.

CHICAGO, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Three Chicago police officers went on trial on Tuesday for alleged cover-up in the controversial killing of a black teenager by their colleague four years ago.

Jason Van Dyke, the fellow officer, was already found guilty of second-degree murder last month in fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014.

The three Chicago police officers have been accused of falsifying reports to protect Van Dyke. They now face charges of conspiracy, obstructing justice and official misconduct.

27 Nov 2018; DW: Donald Trump has warned General Motors that it's "playing around with the wrong person" following plans to close multiple plants in North America. Almost 15,000 jobs will be shed in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland and Ontario.

27 Nov 2018; AFP: Mexico deported scores of Central American migrants arrested after hundreds forced their way through a Mexican police blockade and headed for the United States but were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Around 500 men, women and children, part of a caravan of roughly 5,000 mainly Hondurans who have been trekking toward the US for weeks, scrambled over a rusted metal fence and surged into a concrete riverbed toward San Diego on Sunday.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — American farmers still working to get out their remaining soybeans after a weather-plagued harvest season are struggling to figure out what to do with a record crop now their traditionally dominant export market is largely closed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A member of the Uighur minority on Monday detailed torture and abuse she says she experienced in one of the internment camps where the Chinese government has detained hundreds of thousands of religious minorities.

Mihrigul Tursun, speaking to reporters in Washington, said she was interrogated for four days in a row without sleep, had her hair shaved and was subjected to an intrusive medical examination following her second arrest in China in 2017. After she was arrested a third time, the treatment grew worse.

27 Nov 2018; AP: One of the last industrial anchors in what was once Ohio’s manufacturing core is now on life support, just a little over a year after President Donald Trump told people not to leave and promised jobs would return to the area.

General Motors announced Monday it will stop small-car production at its assembly plant near Youngstown and consider closing it for good. Labor union leaders and others behind a campaign to save the plant in Lordstown are holding onto hope that they can persuade the automaker to find another use for the factory.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has rejected a central conclusion of a dire report on the economic costs of climate change released by his own administration, but economists said the warning of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in global warming costs is pretty much on the money.