North America

NEW YORK (AP) — Soon enough, a bedside Amazon device might know whether you’re sleeping — or not.

The e-commerce and tech giant said Wednesday it will start selling a device later this year that can track sleeping patterns without a wristband.

The device, called Halo Rise, will use no-contact sensors and artificial intelligence to measure a user’s movement and breathing patterns, allowing the device to track sleep stages during the night, the Seattle-based company said. Amazon said the device “does not include cameras or microphones,” and will go for $139.99.

(AP) --- Shares of Biogen and other drugmakers researching Alzheimer’s disease soared early Wednesday after Japan’s Eisai Co. said its potential treatment appeared to slow the fatal disease in a late-stage study.

The drugmaker said early results showed that its treatment, lecanemab, reduced patient clinical decline by 27% when compared to a placebo or fake drug after 18 months of the infused treatment.

Eisai announced results late Tuesday from a global study of nearly 1,800 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s.

(AP) --- One member of Rabbi David Wolpe’s diverse congregation left because Wolpe would not preach sermons criticizing Donald Trump. Scores of others left over resentment with the synagogue’s rules for combating COVID-19. But Wolpe remains steadfast in his resolve to avoid politics when he preaches at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.

“It is not easy to keep people comfortable with each other and as part of one community,” he said. “A great failing of modern American society is that people get to know each other’s politics before they get to know their humanity.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday his administration’s goal of ending hunger in the U.S. by the end of the decade was ambitious but doable, if only the nation would work together toward achieving it.

“I know we can do this,” Biden told an auditorium full of public health officials, private companies and Americans who have experienced hunger. They were gathered for the first White House conference on hunger, nutrition and health since 1969.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., (AP) — Hurricane Ian’s most damaging winds began hitting Florida’s southwest coast Wednesday, lashing the state with heavy rain and pushing a devastating storm surge after strengthening to the threshold of the most dangerous Category 5 status.

WASHINGTON, Sep 27 (APP): The United States has responded to India’s objections to Washington’s move to provide Pakistan $450 million for refurbishing the country’s F-16 fighters fleet to deal with terrorist threats, saying both South Asian nations are “our partners.”

“We don’t view our relationship with Pakistan, and on the other hand, we don’t view our relationship with India as in relation to one another,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price told his daily press briefing on Monday.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 27 (APP):The United Nations and its partners are scaling up relief operations in Pakistan’s flood-affected regions, as vector-borne and water-borne diseases spread in the underwater areas of Sindh and Balochistan provinces, a UN Spokesperson said Tuesday.

Responding to a question at his regular noon briefing, Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric also said that the outbreak of those infectious diseases was a matter of “growing concern.”

NEW YORK, Sept 27 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court set aside a judge's ruling that Donald Trump could be sued for defamation by E. Jean Carroll after denying he raped her, though it stopped short of declaring the former U.S. president immune from the author's lawsuit.

In a 2-1 decision on Tuesday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan asked an appeals court in Washington to weigh in on whether the laws of that district shielded Trump from liability.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for the use of every means to eliminate the nuclear threat.

Guterres made the appeal at a UN General Assembly high-level meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, which falls on Sept. 26.

"We come together on this international day to speak with one voice. To stand in defense of our world -- and our future. And to reject the claim that nuclear disarmament is some impossible utopian dream," he said.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Far from shying from his contrarian reputation, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Jonson is leaning into controversy as he runs for his third term.

Johnson has called for the end of guaranteed money for Medicare and Social Security, two popular programs that American politicians usually steer clear from. He’s trafficked in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and dabbled in pseudoscience around the coronavirus.