North America

Washington, Jun 11 (PTI) A group of eminent Indian-Americans from across the country have come together to host the first ever Hindu-American Summit for Political Engagement at the US Capitol, which organisers said along with others would be addressed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

OTTAWA, June 10. /TASS/: The Canadian authorities have decided to impose sanctions on 24 individuals and 17 entities that, in Ottawa’s version, "are contributing to the theft and destruction of cultural objects and Ukrainian culture," Global Affairs Canada said in a statement posted on its website on Saturday.

Among the blacklisted individuals are former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, blogger Yury Podolyaka, former DPR First Deputy Information Minister Daniil Bezsonov, and Culture Minister of the Kherson Region Alexander Kuzmenko.

HAVANA, June 10 (Reuters) - When the U.S. embassy in Havana reopened last May to Cubans seeking visas after a nearly five-year hiatus, the once proud 1950s vintage building was in shambles.

Pieces of its stone facade were crumbling from top floors, threatening passersby. A rusty perimeter fence, decrepit and obsolete, wobbled with the trade winds. Hurricane Irma had damaged lower windows, a guard post, and granite facing. Even the ambassador's dramatic perch - a balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico - was deemed unsafe.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Health advisers on Friday unanimously backed the full approval of a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug, a key step toward opening insurance coverage to U.S. seniors with early stages of the brain-robbing disease.

The drug, Leqembi, received conditional approval from the Food and Drug Administration in January based on early results suggesting it could slow Alzheimer’s progression by several months. The FDA now is reviewing more definitive results to decide whether the drug should receive the agency’s full endorsement.

FORT LIBERTY, N.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden traveled to the recently renamed Fort Liberty in North Carolina on Friday to sign an executive order that aims to bolster job opportunities for military and veteran spouses whose careers are often disrupted by their loved ones’ deployments.

Less than 100 miles away at the state’s Republican Party convention, GOP presidential contender, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, vowed to restore the former name of the base that until last week was called Fort Bragg in honor of a Confederate general, if voters elect him president.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s indictment on charges of mishandling classified documents is set to play out in a federal court in Florida. But about a thousand miles away, part of Trump’s defense is well underway in a different venue — the halls of Congress, where Republicans have been preparing for months to wage an aggressive counter-offensive against the Justice Department.

MIAMI (AP) — The federal indictment against Donald Trump accuses the former president of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate after leaving the White House in 2021, and then scheming and lying to thwart government efforts to recover them.

Justice Department prosecutors brought 37 felony counts against Trump in the indictment, relying upon photographs from Mar-a-Lago, surveillance video, text messages between staffers, Trump’s own words, those of his lawyers, and other evidence.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the Harvard-educated mathematician who retreated to a dingy shack in the Montana wilderness and ran a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died Saturday. He was 81.

Branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI, Kaczynski died at the federal prison medical center in Butner, North Carolina, Kristie Breshears, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons, told The Associated Press.

09 June 2023; MEMO: The White House said, on Friday, that Russia appeared to be deepening its defence cooperation with Iran and had received hundreds of one-way attack drones that it is using to strike Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Citing newly declassified information, the White House said the drones, or Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), were built in Iran, shipped across the Caspian Sea and then used by Russian forces against Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - The United States and five of its allies on Friday condemned the use of trade practices that amount to economic coercion in a joint declaration that did not single out other countries but appeared to be aimed at China.

Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand jointly released the statement with the United States, emphasizing that "trade-related economic coercion and non-market-oriented policies and practices" threatened the multi-lateral trading system and "harms relations between countries."