USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate overwhelmingly approved a new North American trade agreement Thursday that rewrites the rules of trade with Canada and Mexico and gives President Donald Trump a major policy win before senators turn their full attention to his impeachment trial.

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge must decide the fate of former U.S. Rep. Christopher Collins after his lawyers and prosecutors disagreed over how he should be punished for conspiring in an insider trading scheme.

U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in Manhattan will sentence the 69-year-old Republican on Friday afternoon.

Collins’ lawyers said he is sorry and should face no prison time. Prosecutors, though, said in written arguments to the judge that he should go to prison for nearly five years.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump has barely started and already journalists are getting a glimpse of how hard it will be cover the event under harsh new media restrictions imposed by the Senate.

Thursday’s impeachment events were largely ceremonial, with the Senate formally receiving the articles of impeachment from the seven appointed managers from the House of Representatives. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and the full Senate were also formally sworn in. The trial begins in earnest on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A close associate of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is claiming Trump was directly involved in the effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Lev Parnas says he delivered an ultimatum in May, at Giuliani’s behest, to the incoming president of Ukraine that no senior U.S. officials would attend his inauguration and vital American security aid would be withheld if an investigation into Biden wasn’t announced.

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A former Canadian Armed Forces reservist and two other men who authorities say are linked to a violent white supremacist group were arrested Thursday, just days before they were believed to be headed to a pro-gun rally in Virginia’s capital.

The three men, members of The Base, were taken into custody on federal felony charges in Maryland and Delaware, the Justice Department said in a news release.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Selfies on a “Women for Trump” bus tour through Iowa. Volunteer training at a “Black Voices for Trump” organizing session in Philadelphia. A vice presidential headliner at a “Latinos for Trump” event in Florida.

President Donald Trump’s surrogates fanned out across the country Thursday in a show of force that is part of an aggressive — and uphill — effort to stretch his appeal beyond the base of working-class white voters who propelled him to victory in 2016.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House violated federal law in withholding security assistance to Ukraine, an action at the center of President Donald Trump’s impeachment, a federal watchdog agency said Thursday.

The Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Office of Management and Budget broke the law in holding up the aid, which Congress passed less than a year ago, saying “the President is not vested with the power to ignore or amend any such duly enacted law.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate opened the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump with quiet ceremony Thursday — senators standing at their desks to swear an oath of “impartial justice” as jurors, House prosecutors formally reciting the charges and Chief Justice John Roberts presiding.

The trial, only the third such undertaking in American history, is unfolding at the start of the election year, a time of deep political division in the nation. Four of the senators sitting in judgment on Trump are running for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge him in the fall.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 16 (APP): Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said after meeting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Wednesday evening that the repressive measures taken by India after annexing Kashmir in August last year have caused heightened tensions and are threatening international peace and security in South Asia.

The situation is very delicate and could spin out of control, he told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N) said on Thursday it is extending cancellations of Boeing Co (BA.N) 737 MAX flights until June 6, citing the planemaker’s decision to recommend pilot simulator training before resuming flights and uncertainty about when regulators will approve their return to service.

The decision follows a similar announcement by American Airlines Co (AAL.O) earlier this week to extend cancellations until June 3.