North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has cozied up to high-dollar donors at Upper East Side penthouses in New York and on West Coast decks in recent weeks. He has two more fundraisers in Manhattan on Thursday that will close out an end-of-quarter campaign blitz that his team believes will put him on strong financial footing for a 2024 White House contest expected to set spending records.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog will address a joint meeting of Congress on July 19 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Israel’s statehood and to reaffirm his nation’s special relationship with the United States, congressional leaders announced on Thursday.

TORONTO (AP) — A suspect has been charged in the stabbing of a professor and two students during a class on gender issues at Canada’s University of Waterloo in what police are calling a hate-motivated attack.

Waterloo Regional Police say Geovanny Villalba-Aleman, an international student who had been studying at the University of Waterloo, faces three counts of aggravated assault, four counts of assault with a weapon and two counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

ALLEN, Texas (AP) — Police released video footage on Wednesday of an officer killing a neo-Nazi gunman, quickly ending a mass shooting that left eight people dead and seven others wounded at a Dallas-area shopping mall.

The edited five-and-a-half-minute video details the final moments of Mauricio Garcia, 33, after he unleashed a rain of bullets from an AR-15-style rifle at the Allen Premium Outlets on May 6.

Those killed included three members of a Korean American family including a 3-year-old child, two young sisters, a security guard and an engineer from India.

NEW YORK (AP) — Three Florida men were arrested Thursday and charged with illegally making more than $22 million by insider trading ahead of the public announcement that an acquisition firm was going to take former President Donald Trump’s media company public.

The charges were outlined in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court that did not in any way implicate Trump or his media company, which owns his Truth Social platform.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian group of forces fighting in Ukraine, is believed to have been detained days after mercenaries staged a revolt inside Russia, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday, citing U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence assessments.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.

The court’s conservative majority overturned admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.

UNITED NATIONS, June 28 (NNN-XINHUA) — The United Nations verified 27,180 grave violations against children in armed conflict in 2022, affecting 18,890 children in 24 situations and one regional arrangement it monitored, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Of the 27,180 grave violations, 24,300 were committed in 2022 and 2,880 were committed earlier but verified in 2022. Of the 18,890 children affected, 13,469 were boys, 4,638 were girls, and 783 were sex unknown, shows the UN secretary-general’s annual report on children and armed conflict.

June 27 (Reuters) - Georgia's top election official, Brad Raffensperger, is scheduled on Wednesday to answer questions from federal investigators examining former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a spokesperson for Raffensperger's office said.

Raffensperger, Georgia's Republican secretary of state, will likely be asked about a phone call he received from Trump in January 2021, in which Trump was recorded asking Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to reverse President Joe Biden's victory in the state.

WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and believe that such aid demonstrates to China and other U.S. rivals a will to protect U.S. interests and allies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey.

The two-day poll that was concluded on Tuesday charted a sharp rise in backing for arming Ukraine, with 65% of the respondents approving of the shipments compared with 46% in a May poll.