North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration says it’s granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are already in the country — quickly making them eligible to work — as it grapples with growing numbers of people fleeing the South American country and elsewhere to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border.

MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Nigel was moving quickly northeastward over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday as a Category 1 storm, and at the same time a potential tropical cyclone appeared to be forming off the southeastern coast of the United States.

Nigel was centered about 505 miles (815 kilometers) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, the National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph) and was moving northeast at 30 mph (48 kph).

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma is set to execute an inmate Thursday morning for the 1996 slaying of a University of Oklahoma dance student, a case that went unsolved for years until DNA from the crime scene matched a man serving time for burglary.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh did something Thursday he hasn’t done in the two years since his life of privilege and power started to unravel — plead guilty to a crime.

Murdaugh admitted in federal court to 22 counts of financial fraud and money laundering.

NEW YORK (AP) — Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old Australian media magnate whose creation of Fox News made him a force in American politics, is stepping down as leader of both Fox’s parent company and his News Corp. media holdings.

Fox said Thursday that Murdoch would become chairman emeritus of both companies, effective at board meetings in November. His son, Lachlan, will become News Corp. chairman and continue as chief executive officer of Fox Corp.

UNITED NATIONS, September 20. /TASS/: The US and its allies have openly meddled in Ukrainian affairs since the Soviet breakup and there’s evidence they engineered the crisis in that country, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

OTTAWA, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Canada is not trying to provoke India by suggesting it was linked to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, but wants New Delhi to address the issue properly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday.

Trudeau announced on Monday that Canadian intelligence agencies were actively pursuing credible allegations tying New Delhi's agents to the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, in British Columbia in June, in a rare such attack on the world's largest democracy.

Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a climate summit of leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday that time was running out to tackle climate change, thanks in part to the "naked greed" of fossil fuel interests.

With the two-week U.N. climate summit, COP28, due to start on Nov. 29 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Guterres implored national policymakers to phase out climate-warming fossil fuels.

NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden plans to announce a $325 million military aid package for Ukraine on Thursday to coincide with a visit to Washington by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a U.S. official said on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

The weapons aid package was expected to include the second tranche of cluster munitions fired by a 155 millimeter Howitzer cannon, the U.S official said.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 20 (Reuters) - European Council President Charles Michel will ask China directly at the United Nations Security Council to do more to push Russia towards a "just peace" in Ukraine, according to his draft speech seen by Reuters at the UNGA.

At the Security Council meeting held on Wednesday during the annual high-level U.N. General Assembly in New York, Michel will call for "a just peace that respects the U.N. Charter and its core principles — the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation."