USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Negotiations on a package of spending bills to fund the federal government have produced a key breakthrough, though considerably more work is needed to wrap up the long-delayed measures.

Top lawmakers of the House and Senate Appropriations committees on Saturday confirmed agreement on allocations for each of the 12 spending bills, a step that allows negotiations on the $1.4 trillion budget bundle to begin in earnest to try to pass the measures by a Dec. 20 deadline.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — With billions in federal aid and seats in Congress at stake, some states are dragging their feet in carrying out one of the Census Bureau’s chief recommendations for making sure everyone is counted during the 2020 census.

Five states — Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas — have not set up “complete count committees” that would create public awareness campaigns to encourage people to fill out the questionnaires.

NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Bloomberg will not accept political donations if he runs for president and he will not take a salary if he wins, according to senior aides who offered new details on Saturday about the New York billionaire’s plans to navigate his wealth as he marches toward a formal 2020 announcement.

“He has never taken a political contribution in his life. He is not about to start,” Bloomberg chief adviser Howard Wolfson said in an interview. “He cannot be bought.”

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The humanitarian situation remains very serious in South Sudan and it is anticipated that 7.5 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance next year, said a UN official on Friday.

ATLANTA (AP) — Winning black female voters? On Thursday night in Atlanta, Sen. Elizabeth Warren showed she has a plan for that.

The Massachusetts senator has built a top-tier campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination largely by gathering support from progressive whites. But the contours of her new approach — and the preparation that went into it — was apparent well before Warren took the stage at Clark-Atlanta University.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he does not expect to be impeached, claiming Democrats have “absolutely nothing” incriminating, despite days of public testimony by witnesses who said Trump withheld aid from Ukraine to press the country to investigate his political rivals.

Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Friday, “I think it’s very hard to impeach you when they have absolutely nothing.” Trump said if the House did vote to impeach him, he would welcome a trial in the Senate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After two weeks of public hearings, Democrats could soon turn the impeachment process over to the House Judiciary Committee. They’re moving “expeditiously” ahead as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has instructed.

PABLO, Mont. (AP) — Attorney General William Barr announced a nationwide plan Friday to address the crisis of missing and slain Native American women as concerns mount over the level of violence they face.

Barr announced the plan, known as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Initiative, during a visit with tribal leaders and law enforcement officials on the Flathead Reservation in Montana.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday congratulated Lebanon as the country marked its independence day but made no mention of the hold-up in aid that State Department and Pentagon officials have complained about for weeks.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A former CIA case agent was sentenced to 19 years in prison Friday for an espionage conspiracy in which prosecutors say he received more than $840,000 from China to divulge the names of human sources and his knowledge of spycraft.

The sentence imposed on Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 55, was significantly longer than the 10-years sought by defense attorneys.