USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Haith, owner and CEO of a Denver-based restaurant chain called Teriyaki Madness, is in an unusual position for people like him: He’s making money through food delivery and pickup and wants to borrow funds so he can expand.

Yet so far, a Federal Reserve lending program set up specifically for small and medium-sized businesses like his hasn’t been much help. He can’t find a bank that’s participating in the program, and he isn’t clear on a lot of the details about how it works. For example, he isn’t sure how much he could borrow.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The biggest cases of the Supreme Court term so far have a surprising common thread.

On a court with five Republican appointees, the liberal justices have been in the majority in rulings that make workplace discrimination against gay and transgender people illegal, protect young immigrants from deportation and, as of Monday, struck down a Louisiana law that restricted abortion providers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For more than three years, President Donald Trump instilled such fear in the Republican Party’s leaders that most kept criticism of his turbulent leadership or inconsistent politics to themselves.

That’s beginning to change.

Four months before voters decide the Republican president’s reelection, some in Trump’s party are daring to say the quiet part out loud as Trump struggles to navigate competing national crises and a scattershot campaign message.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Long a symbol of pride to some and hatred to others, the Confederate battle flag is losing its place of official prominence 155 years after rebellious Southern states lost a war to perpetuate slavery.

Mississippi’s Republican-controlled Legislature voted Sunday to remove the Civil War emblem from the state flag, a move that was both years in the making and notable for its swiftness amid a national debate over racial inequality following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Mississippi’s was the last state flag to include the design.

(AP) --- Arizona’s Republican governor shut down bars, movie theaters, gyms and water parks Monday and leaders in several states ordered residents to wear masks in public in a dramatic course reversal amid an alarming resurgence of coronavirus cases nationwide.

Among those implementing the face-covering orders is the city of Jacksonville, Florida, where mask-averse President Donald Trump plans to accept the Republican nomination in August. Trump has refused to wear a mask during visits to states and businesses that require them.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight Republican lawmakers attended a White House briefing about explosive allegations that Russia secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan — intelligence the White House insisted the president himself had not been fully read in on.

(AP) --- Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.

NEW YORK, Jun 28 (APP): A prominent Pakistani-American organization Sunday welcomed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s call for restoration of the rights of people in Indian occupied Kashmir as well as those of Muslims and other minorities in India, with the hope that, as US president, he would take immediate practical steps to uphold their respective causes.

WASHINGTON, June 29. /TASS/: Over 390 Russian nationals are on board of an aircraft, which took off from New York to Moscow late on Sunday, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov told journalists.

"Indeed, a plane just departed [from New York] carrying back home 394 people, including 17 babies," Antonov said.

WASHINGTON, June 28 (Xinhua) -- The House of southern U.S. state Mississippi on Sunday passed a bill to remove a Confederate battle emblem from its state flag, local media reported.

The House passed the bill in a vote of 91 to 23 with broad bipartisan support, said the reports.

The bill now sends to the state Senate and Republican Governor Tate Reeves has said he will sign it if passed.