USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The tax-avoidance strategies that President Donald Trump capitalized on to shrink his tax bill to essentially zero are surprisingly common among major real estate developers and other uber-wealthy Americans.

Yet Trump characteristically pushed those strategies to the limit — perhaps to the breaking point.

So say tax experts in the wake of a New York Times report Sunday that found that Trump paid only $750 in taxes in both 2016 and 2017 — and none at all in 11 of the 18 years that the newspaper examined.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Revelations that President Donald Trump is personally liable for more than $400 million in debt are casting a shadow that ethics experts say raises national security concerns he could be manipulated to sway U.S. policy by organizations or individuals he’s indebted to.

New scrutiny of Trump, who claims great success as a private businessman, comes after The New York Times reported that tax records show he is personally carrying a staggering amount of debt — including more than $300 million in loans that will come due in the next four years.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he is “extremely concerned” over renewed hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh disputed region that erupted on Sunday.

According to news reports, at least 18 people have been killed along the line of contact in the worst fighting between the two former Soviet Republics in four years.

“He condemns the use of force and regrets the loss of life and the toll on the civilian population”, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

28 Sep 2020; MEMO: New York Democratic Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), on Friday cancelled her participation in an event commemorating the life of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

An AOC spokeswoman said Ocasio-Cortez would not attend the event, organised by Americans for Peace Now (APN) and which is scheduled to take place in October.

28 Sep 2020; MEMO: New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio pulled out of Saudi’s virtual world cities summit, citing the kingdom’s human rights abuses.

Washington, Sep 28 (PTI) The Biden campaign has launched an initiative to reach out to the Sikh community in the US and vowed to address the unique challenges, including xenophobia, being faced by the minority religious group in the country.

The Biden campaign, which launched the 'Sikh Americans for Biden', said it has plans for protecting Sikh-American youths in schools.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday that there's a chance she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin could reach an agreement on the next COVID-19 relief package.

"I trust Secretary Mnuchin to represent something that can reach a solution and I believe we can come to an agreement," Pelosi said on CNN's "State of the Union."

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- More than 3.6 million acres of land have burned from wildfires in California so far this year, and 26 people have died and nearly 7,630 structures have been damaged or destroyed, according to the Sunday update by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

The state's biggest-ever fire, the August Complex in Mendocino, Humboldt and Lake counties, has been active for 41 days and grown to 873,079 acres (about 3,533 square km) with 43 percent containment as of Sunday noon.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday expressed his great concern over the latest Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, calling on both sides to immediately stop fighting.

"The secretary-general is extremely concerned over the fresh resumption of hostilities along the line of contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. He condemns the use of force and regrets the loss of life and the toll on the civilian population," according to a statement issued by the secretary-general's spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wants voters to see Republicans’ push for a speedy Supreme Court confirmation as an end-run of Congress and the 2010 health care law.