USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a cable to all U.S. diplomatic missions last month warning American diplomats that under federal law they should not take overt sides in the presidential campaign. On Tuesday, he plans to ignore his own warning by speaking to the Republican National Convention endorsing President Donald Trump for a second term.

CHICAGO (AP) — The only Native American on federal death row is set to die Wednesday for the slayings of a 9-year-old and her grandmother nearly two decades ago, though many Navajos are hoping for last-minute intervention by President Donald Trump to halt the execution.

If Lezmond Mitchell is put to death on schedule and becomes the fourth federal inmate executed this year, the federal government under the pro-death penalty president will have carried out more executions in 2020 than in the previous 56 years combined.

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — In the largest U.S. evacuation of the pandemic, more than half a million people were ordered to flee the Gulf Coast on Tuesday as Laura strengthened into a hurricane that forecasters said could slam Texas and Louisiana with ferocious winds, heavy flooding and the power to push seawater miles inland.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A Trump administration crackdown on nonessential travel coming from Mexico amid the coronavirus pandemic has created massive bottlenecks at the border, with drivers reporting waits of up to 10 hours to get into the U.S.

An employee at a company that provides support for businesses with Mexican operations saw the huge lines Sunday night from his home in Tijuana, Mexico. A U.S. citizen, he lined up at midnight for his 8 a.m. shift Monday in San Diego and still arrived 90 minutes late.

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Jacob Blake, the Black man shot multiple times by police in Wisconsin, is paralyzed, and it would “take a miracle” for him to walk again, his family’s attorney said Tuesday, while calling for the officer who opened fire to be arrested and others involved to lose their jobs.

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Melania Trump portrayed her husband as an authentic, uncompromising leader in a Rose Garden address Tuesday night as President Donald Trump turned to family, farmers and the trappings of the presidency to boost his reelection chances on the second night of the scaled-down Republican National Convention.

Mrs. Trump offered a polished portrait of Trump’s presidency that was often at odds with the crises, division and unforgiving actions of his administration.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Coronavirus lockdowns appear to have reduced the threat of Daesh group attacks in many countries, but the risk is greater in Iraq and Syria, a UN official said.

While Daesh is now a shadow of the organisation that occupied swathes of Iraq and Syria just a few years ago, it still has an estimated 10,000 fighters between those two countries.

However, movement curbs against the virus pandemic have reduced Daesh’s ability to launch raids elsewhere.

(Reuters) - A year ago, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned fellow central bankers of the significant risks posed by trade policy uncertainty, and the lack of precedents for monetary policy in the face of those unknowns.

As Powell this week prepares to address the Fed’s annual central bankers’ conference - usually held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but being conducted virtually this year because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic - uncertainty and the threat it poses to economic growth looms larger than ever.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese ambassador to Hungary, Duan Jielong, was on Monday elected a member of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

Duan was among six to have been elected in the first round of voting by the States Parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The other five were David J. Attard of Malta, Ida Caracciolo of Italy, Maria Teresa Infante Caffi of Chile, Maurice Kengne Kamga of Cameroon, and Markiyan Kulyk of Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump was nominated for a second term on Monday at the 2020 Republican National Convention (RNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, which has been scaled back due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump arrived at the Charlotte Convention Center on Monday afternoon, where over 300 delegates met in person for a roll call vote to formally nominate him and Vice President Mike Pence for the 2020 Republican presidential ticket.