North America

TORONTO (AP) — Canada’s Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it has been invited by Iran to participate in the download and analysis of the flight recorders from the downing of a Ukraine International Airlines jet “whenever and wherever” that takes place.

Iran has acknowledged that its armed forces fired two Russian anti-aircraft missiles at the jetliner that crashed after taking off from Tehran’s main airport earlier this month, killing all 176 people on board. Fifty-seven Canadians died and 138 of the passengers were headed to Canada.

SEATTLE (AP) — A shootout in downtown Seattle that left a woman dead and a 9-year-old boy injured was the third violent incident this week in a part of the city long known for rampant drug use and street unrest.

Business groups implored officials to improve public safety. And while crime rates in Seattle are low compared to other big cities, critics say mayhem downtown – from shootings, to drug dealing and the effects of the city’s ongoing homelessness crisis – makes locals and tourists feel unsafe.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — State lawmakers across the U.S. have reached a troubling milestone for allegations of sexual misconduct, even as they have taken significant steps to try to prevent and investigate such behavior.

Recent complaints filed against Michigan state Sen. Peter Lucido mean at least 101 state legislators now have been publicly accused of sexual harassment or misconduct since the start of 2017, according to an Associated Press review.

NEW YORK (AP) — They are circling each other like wary boxers, with taunts on Twitter, snarky asides and belittling descriptions. They rose to prominence in Manhattan on parallel tracks, amassed wealth real and perceived and displayed a penchant for putting their names on things.

That’s where the similarities end. President Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg could hardly be more different as people, but now they both want the same job: Trump’s.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic House prosecutors made an expansive case Thursday at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial that he abused power like no other president in history, swept up by a “completely bogus” Ukraine theory pushed by attorney Rudy Giuliani.

On Friday, the Democrats will press their final day of arguments before skeptical Republican senators, focusing on the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress’ investigation.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 (APP): Emphasizing the need for building United Nations’ capacity to deal with the threats to peace, a Pakistani delegate has called on the Security Council to resolve the decades-old Kashmir dispute by implementing its own resolutions that pledged the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people to decide their destiny.

23 Jan 2019; MEMO: The White House is opposing any Israeli move to annex parts of the occupied West Bank “before declaring its [US] prospective plan to settle the Israel-Palestinian conflict, known as Deal of the Century,” a US official announced yesterday.

23 January 2020; AFP: Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun sought to pivot from a bruising period of crisis and scandal on Wednesday, pledging a renewed commitment to safety and transparency and endorsing the long-term viability of the 737 MAX plane.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House impeachment managers, a group of seven House Democrats acting as prosecutors, started making their opening arguments Wednesday on why President Donald Trump should be convicted and removed from office, as an impeachment trial in the Senate entered the second day.

WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States announced its first case of a new virus that has claimed at least 17 lives in China and sickened hundreds, joining countries around the world in ramping up measures to block its spread.

The man, a US resident in his 30s who lives near Seattle in Washington state, is in good condition, according to federal and state officials, and approached authorities himself after reading about the SARS-like virus in news reports.