USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — No nation is too small or too distant from Washington, it seems, to be excluded from the Trump administration’s campaign to counter China’s efforts to supplant America as the dominant Pacific power.

Evidence of this is Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s decision to fly nearly halfway around the world partly so he can spend several hours in Palau, a Pacific archipelago of barely 20,000 people southeast of the Philippines.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — More than 50,000 people forced to flee their homes were allowed to return by Thursday night as firefighters made progress in their effort to put out massive and deadly wildfires in Northern California.

Officials were working on plans to repopulate other evacuated areas. Cooler weather and higher humidity, along with an influx of equipment and firefighters, continued to help hard-pressed crews fighting some of the largest fires in recent state history, burning in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

NEW YORK (AP) — To listen to television pundits wrapping up the Republican convention and evaluating President Donald Trump’s acceptance speech, the nation heads into the fall campaign as divided as it ever was.

“This was unquestionably the best Donald Trump production ever,” ABC News analyst Sara Fagen said as fireworks burst over Washington.

“This was repugnant,” said MSNBC’s Joy Reid.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just over 1 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that the coronavirus outbreak continues to threaten jobs even as the housing market, auto sales and other segments of the economy rebound from a springtime collapse.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people seeking jobless aid last week dropped by 98,000 from 1.1 million the week before.

HOUSTON (AP) — The Trump administration has sharply increased its use of hotels to detain immigrant children as young as 1 before expelling them from the United States during the coronavirus pandemic despite facing outcry from lawmakers and human-rights advocates.

Federal authorities said they detained 577 unaccompanied children in hotels through the end of July, up from 240 in April, May and June, according to a report published late Wednesday from a court-appointed monitor for detained immigrant youth.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States and most of the rest of the U.N. Security Council dug in their heels Thursday on diametrically opposed positions over the restoration of international sanctions on Iran.

In increasingly intense rhetorical terms, U.S. officials insisted they had acted legitimately in triggering a so-called “snapback” mechanism that would re-impose all U.N. sanctions Iran next month. They said the re-imposition of sanctions is a done deal and nothing can stop it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve announced a significant change Thursday in how it manages interest rates by saying it plans to keep rates near zero even after inflation has exceeded its 2% target level.

The change means the Fed is prepared to tolerate a higher level of inflation than it generally has in the past. And it means that borrowing rates for households and businesses — for everything from auto loans and home mortgages to corporate expansion — will likely remain ultra-low for years to come.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Capping a week of protests and outrage over the police shooting of a Black man in Wisconsin, civil rights advocates will highlight the scourge of police and vigilante violence against Black Americans at a commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Thousands are expected at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday, where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have A Dream” address, a vision of racial equality that remains elusive for millions of Americans.

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Until the police shooting of Jacob Blake, the bedroom community of Kenosha had been largely untouched by the level of demonstrations that were seen in nearby Milwaukee and Chicago after the death of George Floyd.

Like other places in America, Kenosha’s Black residents saw inequality in the way police treated them. But there had been nothing like the shooting that left Blake, who is Black, paralyzed. An officer shot Blake in the back Sunday as the 29-year-old leaned into his SUV, three of his children seated inside.

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Remnants of Hurricane Laura unleashed heavy rain and twisters hundreds of miles inland from a path of death and mangled buildings along the Gulf Coast, and forecasters warned an eastern turn would again make the storm a looming threat, this time to the densely populated Eastern Seaboard.

Trees were down and power was out as far north as Arkansas, where remnants of the storm that killed at least six people in the United States were centered. The once fearsome Category 4 hurricane packing 150-mph winds weakened to a depression after dark.