USA

WASHINGTON, November 15. /TASS/: US and Russian officials have held the 18th session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in Geneva, the press service of the US Department of State said on Thursday.

"The eighteenth session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission under the U.S.-Russia New START Treaty was held in Geneva from November 6-13, 2019," the press service said.

THE UNITED NATIONS, November 15. /TASS/: Illegal military presence of the United States in Syria should be stopped despite their interest in oil deposits, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said at the UN Security Council session on Thursday.

15 November 2019; AFP: Discredit the witnesses, dismiss the accusations against President Donald Trump as hearsay, shift the focus to the Bidens, unmask the whistleblower.

The outlines of the White House defense are clear after Day One of the impeachment hearings in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Trump claimed he was "too busy" to watch the first round of public hearings that could see him potentially removed from office for abuse of power.

15 Nov 2019; MEMO: UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard on Thursday sharply criticized German and French leaders for their “cowardly” silence on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Anadolu Agency reports.

“This incident [Khashoggi’s murder] has demonstrated us the cowardice of the international community,” Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, told internet portal Business Insider.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A school shooter who was 14 when he killed a first grader on a school playground in South Carolina after killing his father in their home was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole.

Jesse Osborne targeted Townville Elementary School because he had spent seven years there. Prosecutors, who pushed for the life sentence, said the teen was familiar with the classroom layout and knew there was no police officer on campus.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — About 50 shoppers lined up early Thursday ahead of the reopening of a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that had been closed since August, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexicans opened fire in the store and killed 22 people.

On the day of the attack, Walmart didn’t have a security guard on duty. But as the doors opened to the public for the first time in three months and shoppers streamed into the renovated space, they passed dozens of sheriff’s deputies, security guards and store employees.

WASHINGTON (AP) — European and other members of the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group must take back and prosecute their nationals detained in Iraq and Syria to help keep IS from regaining territory, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are refining part of their impeachment case against the president to a simple allegation: Bribery.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday brushed aside the Latin phrase “quid pro quo” that Democrats have been using to describe President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine. As the impeachment hearings go public, they’re going for a more colloquial term that may resonate with more Americans.

“Quid pro quo: Bribery,” Pelosi said about Trump’s July 25 phone call in which he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a favor.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say the biography on an Instagram account believed to belong to the gunman who killed two students at his California high school said, “Saugus, have fun at school tomorrow.”

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials say the message was posted Thursday morning but it’s unclear when. They say it was later removed, and they don’t know who made the change.

Authorities say off-duty officers whose children went to Saugus High School in Santa Clarita were the first on scene and provided first aid to the victims.

BOSSIER CITY, La. (AP) — President Donald Trump said the impeachment probe has been “very hard” on his family, even as he tried to flex his political muscle to flip the governor’s mansion in deep-red Louisiana.

Speaking in friendly territory in a state he carried in 2016 by 20 percentage points, Trump lashed out Thursday at Democratic investigators and what he called a “deranged impeachment witch hunt.” While arguing it was a political boon for his reelection, he acknowledged for the first time a personal toll from the impeachment process that stands to cloud his legacy.