USA

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Amazon is protesting the Pentagon’s decision to award a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft, citing “unmistakable bias” in the process.

Amazon’s competitive bid for the “war cloud” project drew criticism from President Donald Trump and its business rivals. The project, formally called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, pitted leading tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and IBM against one another

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to block a subpoena for his tax returns, in a test of the president’s ability to defy investigations.

The filing Thursday sets the stage for a high court showdown over the tax returns Trump has refused to release, unlike every other modern president. The justices also could weigh in more broadly on Trump’s claim that sitting presidents can’t be prosecuted or investigated for crimes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Deval Patrick was in need of a pep talk.

He was staring down reelection as Massachusetts governor in 2010, in the midst of a sluggish economic recovery that would ultimately contribute to sweeping Democratic defeats across the country. In stepped President Barack Obama, a close friend and political ally, who was in town for an event. The two men met for a “get in the game” conversation that helped put Patrick on the path to a second term.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (AP) — A student pulled a gun from his backpack and opened fire at a Southern California high school Thursday, killing two students and wounding three others before shooting himself in the head on his 16th birthday, authorities said.

The attacker was hospitalized in critical condition, officials said, and investigators offered no immediate motive.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An ambassador, her firing and a pair of fixers.

Those details stand at the center of Marie Yovanovitch’s story, a personal ordeal she’ll relate to Americans and the world Friday as part of the Democrat-driven impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

What led to the career diplomat’s firing, Democrats say, is a key chapter in Trump’s holdup of military aid while he pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son. Republicans dismiss that as not credible.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House will hear from a singular witness Friday in the Trump impeachment hearings: Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was targeted by the president’s allies in a “smear” campaign now central to the inquiry.

The career diplomat, who served both Republican and Democratic presidents, is expected to relay her striking story of being suddenly recalled by Donald Trump and told to “watch my back” in a swiftly developing series of events that sounded alarms about the White House’s shadow foreign policy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday congratulated Jeanine Anez, a Bolivian senator who became interim president of the South American country following the resignation of Evo Morales, the State Department said.

“The United States applauds Bolivian Senator Jeanine Anez for stepping up as Interim President of State to lead her nation through this democratic transition, under the constitution of Bolivia and in accordance with the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Pompeo said in a statement.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with his Norwegian counterpart Ine Eriksen Soreide in Washington, discussing the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders meeting and other issues.

The two senior officials on Tuesday spoke about the preparations for the upcoming NATO leaders meeting, defense cooperation, the Arctic, and global security issues, including in Afghanistan and Syria, according to a State Department statement Wednesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- More than 39 million U.S. dollars in funding was approved on Wednesday for a project that will build resilience and mitigate the effects of climate change, benefitting nearly 1 million Nepalis, the UN-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF) said.

Co-funding the initiative, Nepal's Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE) is adding another 8 million U.S. dollars for a total of more than 47 million U.S. dollars, which will see the project to fruition over the course of seven years, GCF said in a press release Wednesday.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- NASA scientists have discovered a potential place for its Mars 2020 rover to look for signs of ancient life in Jezero Crater where the rover will land in February of 2021.

The study published Tuesday in the journal Icarus showed the existence of distinct deposits of minerals called carbonates along the inner rim of the crater, the site of a lake more than 3.5 billion years ago.