North America

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the third quarter of 2023 was revised down to an annual rate of 4.9 percent in its third and final estimate, the Commerce Department reported on Thursday.

In the "advance" estimate, U.S. GDP in the third quarter grew by an annual rate of 4.9 percent, and the figure was revised up to 5.2 percent in the second estimate.

The update primarily reflected a downward revision to consumer spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, were revised down.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Thursday again delayed a vote on a watered-down resolution to deliver desperately needed aid to Gaza — a revision backed by the United States, while other countries support a stronger text that would include the now eliminated call for the urgent suspension of hostilities between Israel and Hamas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Chinese counterpart on Thursday, in the first of what officials said will be renewed talks between the two nation’s senior military leaders, as the Biden administration works to thaw relations with Beijing.

NEW YORK (AP) — Rudy Giuliani filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, acknowledging severe financial strain exacerbated by his pursuit of Donald Trump false 2020 election claims and a jury’s award of $148 million to two former Georgia election workers he defamed.

The former New York City mayor listed nearly $153 million in existing or potential debts, including almost $1 million in tax liabilities, money he owes lawyers and many millions of dollars in potential legal judgments in lawsuits against him. He estimated he had assets in the range of $1 million to $10 million.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden believes “serious scrutiny” is warranted for the planned acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, the White House said Thursday after days of silence on a transaction that has drawn alarm from the steelworkers union.

WASHINGTON (AP) — This Congress started with showy bluster, a bitter 15-round, multi-day spectacle to elect a House speaker, a Republican who vowed to “never quit,” and then did just that.

House lawmakers proceeded not only to oust the GOP speaker, they also punished their own colleagues with censures and expulsion, launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and were barely able to conduct the basics of governing by keeping federal offices from shuttering.

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A jury cleared three Washington state police officers of all criminal charges Thursday in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained face-down on a Tacoma sidewalk as he pleaded for breath.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge hearing a challenge to a transgender health care ban for minors and restrictions for adults noted Thursday that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly spread false information about doctors mutilating children’s genitals even though there’s been no such documented cases.

The law was sold as defending children from mutilation when it is actually about preventing trans children from getting health care, Judge Robert Hinkle said to Mohammad Jazil, a lawyer for the state.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Police officers responding to a deadly shooting inside the business school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, mistook the gunman for a bystander and urged him to get out of the building amid the frantic search for the suspect and victims, according to body camera footage and police accounts.

With their weapons drawn, the two Las Vegas police officers climbed stairs to a second-floor walkway overlooking the ground floor of the business school during the Dec. 6 shooting that left three professors dead and one wounded on the 30,000-student campus.

UNITED NATIONS, December 21. /TASS/: Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s first deputy envoy to the UN, cautioned against allowing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to spill over to Syria.