USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed off on a plan that continues a dramatic drop in the number of refugees taken in by the U.S. to no more than 18,000 in fiscal year 2020.

When the State Department first announced the plan in September religious and humanitarian groups sharply criticized the administration.

In the last full year of the Obama administration, the refugee ceiling was 85,000. This year, the Trump administration set the limit at 30,000. That number was the lowest since the modern resettlement program’s creation in 1980.

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Family and friends will gather to remember former U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, who died of a rare virus at the age of 66.

The service for Hagan will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, where she lived for decades. A Hagan family spokeswoman has said the church service will be open to the public and followed by a visitation with the family.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Bristling at Elizabeth Warren’s suggestions that he’s a milquetoast moderate with small ideas, presidential candidate Joe Biden countered Saturday that he offers a “bold” vision for the country and warned that Democratic primary voters should not get distracted by the party’s increasingly tense battle over ideological labels.

ALONG THE BLACK MESA AND LAKE POWELL RAILROAD, Ariz. (AP) — Ron Little nestles into a familiar seat aboard a train locomotive and slides the window open, leaning out to get a better view of dozens of rail cars that stretch for a mile behind and the landscape he knows so well.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday put on hold a Trump administration rule requiring immigrants prove they will have health insurance or can pay for medical care before they can get visas.

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon granted a temporary restraining order that prevents the rule from going into effect Sunday. It’s not clear when he will rule on the merits of the case.

ORINDA, Calif. (AP) — Airbnb’s CEO said the company was taking actions against unauthorized parties in the wake of a deadly shooting at a Halloween party held at an Airbnb rental home in California.

In a series of tweets, Brian Chesky said Saturday the San Francisco-based company is expanding manual screening of “high risk” reservations and will remove guests who fail to comply with policies banning parties at Airbnb rental homes.

He also said the company is forming a “rapid response team” when complaints of unauthorized parties come in.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The words from one president to another, somewhat casual in tone, were not casual at all in meaning: “I would like you to do us a favor, though.”

Those words have now prompted deployment of the ultimate political weapon, an impeachment process enshrined in the Constitution as a means other than the ballot to remove a president from office.

When history writes the story, the seemingly innocent request from President Donald Trump to his Ukrainian counterpart will show their infamous July 25 phone call had a lot behind it, at least implicitly.

WASHINGTON (AP) — During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pushed the idea that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee servers, Manafort’s deputy told investigators during the special counsel’s Russia probe. The unsubstantiated theory, advanced by President Donald Trump even after he took office, would later help trigger the impeachment inquiry now consuming the White House.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 02 (APP): Pakistan has called for regulating the introduction of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), known as “killer robots”, which are capable of making their own combat decisions without human intervention, saying such devices would undermine world peace.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 02 (APP): Munir Akram, an expert at multilateral diplomacy, Friday took over as Pakistan’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations.

Ambassador Akram flew in from Islamabad earlier in the day. He replaces Maleeha Lodhi, who upon the completion of her tenure on Thursday left New York for home.