North America

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks gave up early gains and turned lower on Wall Street after an unexpectedly strong report on the job market raised concerns that the Federal Reserve will need to keep the pressure on inflation with aggressive interest rate increases.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% as of 11:34 a.m. Eastern. It had been up as much as 1% shortly after trading opened. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166 points, or 0.5%, to 32,566 and the Nasdaq fell 0.5%.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz’s two-day sentencing hearing began Tuesday with the families of the 17 people he murdered getting their first chance to speak to him directly, using emotional and often angry terms to describe the devastation he brought to their lives.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday put a temporary hold on the handover of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee.

Roberts’ order gives the Supreme Court time to weigh the legal issues in Trump’s emergency appeal to the high court, filed Monday.

Without court intervention, the tax returns could have been provided as early as Thursday by the Treasury Department to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least three Republicans running for the U.S. House attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and made their way toward the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection to stop Joe Biden’s election.

Countless other House Republican candidates are skeptics and deniers of the 2020 election lost by Donald Trump.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 31 (APP): The outlook for global labour markets has worsened in recent months and if current trends continue, vacancies will grow more scarce while global jobs growth will deteriorate significantly during the rest of the year, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), a Geneva-based UN agency.

Estimates from ILO for the third quarter of 2022, indicate that the level of hours worked was 1.5 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, amounting to a deficit of 40 million full-time jobs.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 31 (APP): Faisal Shahkar, a top Pakistani police officer, has been appointed as the Police Adviser in the United Nations Department of Peace Operations (DPO), a UN spokesman spokesman announced Monday.

Shahkar succeeds Luis Carrilho of Portugal who recently completed his assignment.

Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told the UN regular noon briefing that Shahkar, who was appointed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, brings to the position more than 30 years of national and international experience.

SAN SAALVADOR, Oct 31 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — The fight against gangs in El Salvador took center stage this week after the announcement that 56,190 of its members or alleged collaborators are already behind bars.    

The issue occupies space in the political and media that keep a strict count of the deaths that occur and that are attributable to the gangs.

October is about to become the safest month in recent years with more than 20 days without deaths due to gang actions, according to authorities.

WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy said on Monday he wants a U.S. national security review of a Saudi Arabian conglomerate's stake in Twitter Inc after Elon Musk's takeover of the social media company.

Murphy said he was asking the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) — which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers — "to conduct an investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia's purchase of Twitter."

MEXICO CITY, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Twitter should undo the "damage" done to former U.S. President Donald Trump by the cancellation of his account, Mexico's president said on Monday, as he expressed hope that new owner Elon Musk would curb censorship on the social media platform.

The remarks by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador came just days before U.S. midterm elections in which the Republican Party is forecast to make congressional gains against President Joe Biden's Democrats.

Oct 31 (Reuters) - A 42-year-old man accused of attacking U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband last week has been charged by federal prosecutors with assault and attempted kidnapping, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday.

David DePape, 42, is accused of breaking into the Pelosis' San Francisco residence early on Friday and assaulting Paul Pelosi, 82. The two counts DePape faces carry up to 50 years in prison, the department said.