USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump heralded a breakthrough in U.S.-China trade talks, and markets rallied in relief over a de-escalation in tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

But closer inspection suggests there isn’t much substance, at least not yet, to the temporary truce Trump announced Friday at the White House after the U.S. and China wrapped up their 13th round of trade talks.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump “strongly condemns” a graphic and violent parody video that depicts a likeness of him shooting and stabbing opponents and members of the news media, the White House said Monday. But his press secretary said he hadn’t yet watched the two-minute clip.

The video, which drew widespread condemnation, was played during a conference held by conservative supporters of the president at his Miami golf resort last week.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A destructive fire that exploded on the edge of Los Angeles began beneath a high-voltage transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison, fire officials said Monday.

Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigators determined the origin of the Saddle Ridge Fire was beneath power lines on a dry, steep hillside above the city’s Sylmar neighborhood, Capt. Erik Scott told The Associated Press. The cause remained under investigation.

WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Just a month has passed since the last presidential debate, but the state of the Democrats’ 2020 race has shifted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser on Russia, told House impeachment investigators behind closed doors Monday that she had strongly and repeatedly objected to the ouster earlier this year of former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, according to a person familiar with the testimony.

Yovanovitch testified Friday that President Donald Trump pressured the State Department to fire her.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A white former Fort Worth police officer was being held in jail on a murder charge after shooting a black woman through a window of her home, and the department told a grieving community that investigators would ensure “no stone is left unturned” in the search for answers.

Aaron Dean, 34, was jailed Monday night on $200,000 bond after being charged with murder in an incident that began with a call about an open front door. Earlier in the day he resigned from the force, and the police chief said he would have been fired if he hadn’t.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Targeting Turkey’s economy, President Donald Trump announced sanctions aimed at restraining the Turks’ assault against Kurdish fighters and civilians in Syria — an assault Turkey began after Trump announced he was moving U.S. troops out of the way.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Monday that an additional round of tariffs on Chinese imports will likely be imposed if a trade deal with China has not been reached by then, but added that he expected the agreement to go through.

“I have every expectation - if there’s not a deal, those tariffs would go in place - but I expect we’ll have a deal,” he said in an interview with CNBC, when asked about a round of tariffs scheduled for Dec. 15.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration is set to impose economic sanctions on Ankara, potentially as early as this week, for its incursion into northern Syria, one of the few levers the United States still has over NATO-ally Turkey.

Using the U.S. military to stop the Turkish offensive on U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters was never an option, defense officials have said, and Trump asked the Pentagon on Sunday to begin a “deliberate” withdrawal of all U.S. troops from northern Syria.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump called his Phase 1 trade deal with China “by far, the greatest and biggest deal ever made,” even though nothing was agreed on paper, and most of the tariffs set upon Chinese goods remain in place.

While he lauded China for agreeing to buy as much as $50 billion in agricultural products, he left tariffs in place on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese products, raising concerns that tariffs will become the “new normal.”