North America

Nov 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will consider a pair of cases that could make it harder to pursue public corruption prosecutions - bids by an ex-aide to Democratic former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and a businessman to reverse bribery and fraud convictions.

The justices are set to hear arguments in the appeals by Joseph Percoco and Louis Ciminelli, who were charged in related cases in 2016 as part of a corruption crackdown by federal prosecutors in Manhattan centered on the halls of the state capital of Albany.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Venezuela’s government and its opposition on Saturday agreed to create a U.N.-managed fund to finance health, food and education programs for the poor, while the Biden administration eased some oil sanctions on the country in an effort to boost the newly restarted talks between the sides.

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. (AP) — Ads with the candidates’ ex-wives. Cries of “liar” flying in both directions. Stories of a squalid apartment building and abortions under pressure. Questioning an opponent’s independence. His intellect. His mental stability. His religious faith.

MONTREAL (AP) — Pedro Meraz says living in Colima, Mexico, was like living in a war zone, with shootings, burning cars and dismembered bodies being left outside of schools.

When his wife Rocio Gonzalez, a 28-year-old lawyer who worked with abused women, began receiving death threats from a cartel and the local authorities ignored her pleas for assistance, they knew they had to leave.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 (APP): A group of United Nations human rights experts has warned that Taliban restrictions on women’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan could amount to a “crime against humanity”.

“In recent months, violations of women and girls’ fundamental rights and freedoms in Afghanistan, already the most severe and unacceptable in the world, have sharply increased”, they said in a joint statement on Friday.

WASHINGTON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk said on Friday he would support Ron DeSantis in 2024 if the Florida governor, who recently coasted to a second term, were to run for president.

DeSantis earlier this month defeated Democratic opponent Charlie Crist by nearly 20 percentage points to be re-elected as Florida governor and cemented himself as the Republican Party's top rising star.

Nov 25 (Reuters) - A Walmart supervisor who killed six co-workers at a store in Virginia on Tuesday bought a handgun the day of the shooting and left a rambling note on his cellphone in which he railed against other employees who he felt had mocked and betrayed him.

Information on the firearm purchase and note was released by the city of Chesapeake on Friday in an update on its investigation into the shooting, in which 31-year-old Andre Bing opened fire on other workers before turning the gun on himself.

Nov 25 (Reuters) - The Biden administration has banned approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China's Huawei Technologies (HWT.UL) and ZTE (000063.SZ) because they pose "an unacceptable risk" to U.S. national security.

MEXICO CITY, Nov 25 (Reuters) - A decision should be made very soon on a dispute pitting Canada and Mexico against the United States on the interpretation of regional trade rules in the auto industry, Canada Minister of International Trade Mary Ng said on Friday.

Canada this year joined Mexico in a complaint against the United States over how to apply automotive sector content requirements under the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) free trade agreement, which came into effect in 2020.

HOUSTON, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Joe Biden administration is reluctant to declare a national emergency in the face of a surge of respiratory illness among children stemming from seasonal flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses, The Hill reported on Friday.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association last week urged the federal government to take action, arguing that an emergency declaration would grant more resources to help the health system.