USA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday rejected a request by Chinese airlines for additional weekly flights between the two countries, but said the decision was not meant to escalate tensions over travel restrictions.

In a statement, the U.S. Department of Transportation said the decision was made to “maintain the parity” in scheduled passenger services between the two countries, adding it was willing to review the decision if Chinese aviation authorities adjusted their policies affecting U.S. carriers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Special Presidential Envoy Marshall Billingslea will travel to Austria on Monday and Tuesday to discuss “mutually agreed topics related to the future of arms control” with Russian Deputy Foreign Sergei Ryabkov, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

“The United States has extended an open invitation to the People’s Republic of China to join these discussions, and has made clear the need for all three countries to pursue arms control negotiations in good faith,” the State Department said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top U.S. federal prosecutor whose office has been investigating President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, on Friday refused to step down after the administration abruptly said it was replacing him.

The dramatic standoff marks the latest in series of unusual actions by Attorney General William Barr that critics say are meant to benefit Trump politically and undermine the independence of the Justice Department.

WASHINGTON, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve is incorporating three different recovery scenarios related to COVID-19 into this year's stress tests for large banks amid "unprecedented uncertainty" about the virus and the economy, a senior Fed official said Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday criticized former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton for moving to publish his book without formal clearance from the White House, but also suggested he was probably powerless to stop its release given that copies of the manuscript have already been widely distributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has abruptly dropped its insistence on secrecy for a $600 billion-plus coronavirus aid program for small businesses.

The administration announced Friday it will publicly disclose the names of recipients of the taxpayer-funded loans, the amounts they received in ranges, as well as demographic data on the businesses.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Baltimore’s disgraced former mayor pleaded guilty to a state perjury charge Friday for failing to disclose a business interest relating to her “Healthy Holly” children’s books on her financial disclosure forms when she was a state senator.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers added jobs in 46 states last month, evidence that the U.S. economy’s surprise hiring gain in May was spread broadly across the country — in both states that began reopening their economies early and those that did so only later.

GUADALUPE, Ariz. (AP) — A Hispanic immigrant working at a fast-food restaurant in North Carolina is rushed to the hospital after she contracts COVID-19. A sickened Honduran woman in Baltimore with no health insurance or immigration status avoids the doctor for two weeks and finally takes a cab to the hospital and ends up on oxygen.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pressing ahead in a pandemic, President Donald Trump looked to reverse a decline in his political fortunes Saturday by returning to the format that has so often energized himself and his loyal supporters: a raucous, no-holds-barred rally before tens of thousands of ardent fans, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma.