North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — A plea from uranium mining companies and nuclear power plant operators for tax breaks and other federal financial boosts is going before President Donald Trump, as his administration studies reviving the U.S. uranium industry in the name of national security.

Trump is scheduled to receive recommendations Thursday from a task force of national security, military and other federal officials about ways to revive U.S. uranium mining, which has lagged against global competition amid low uranium ore prices.

UNITED STATES (AP) - To President Donald Trump, the diplomat representing the U.S. in Ukraine was “bad news” — a supposedly rogue ambassador with a political bias against him.

But to those who know Marie Yovanovitch — the former envoy to Kyiv who is scheduled to testify before the House this week as Democrats intensify their impeachment inquiry — that characterization could not be more off-base.

ROCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday for the first time that President Donald Trump must be impeached for abusing the powers of his office to help his own reelection.

Biden made the remarks as part of a blistering 25-minute speech in New Hampshire, departing from his usual campaign pitch and signaling that he will aggressively confront Trump as the president faces an impeachment inquiry rooted in his unfounded accusations that the former vice president and his son had nefarious dealings in Ukraine.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A year after Hurricane Michael , the Florida county hardest hit by the Category 5 storm is still in crisis: Thousands in Bay County are homeless, medical care and housing are at a premium, domestic violence has become a problem and severely diminished mental health services are overwhelmed with backlogs.

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona elected official ran a human smuggling scheme that promised pregnant women thousands of dollars to lure them from a Pacific Island nation to the U.S., where they were crammed into houses to wait to give birth, sometimes with little to no prenatal care, prosecutors allege.

Paul Petersen, the Republican assessor of Arizona’s most populous county, was charged in Utah, Arizona and Arkansas with counts including human smuggling, sale of a child, fraud, forgery and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

DALLAS (AP) — Evidence from the trial of a former Dallas police officer convicted of killing her neighbor has fueled new questions about whether accused officers are treated differently than other suspects, including testimony that a camera in the cruiser where the officer sat after the shooting was flipped off and that her sexual text messages with her partner were deleted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two British militants believed to be part of an Islamic State group that beheaded hostages and was known as “The Beatles” have been moved out of a detention center in Syria and are in American custody, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

President Donald Trump said earlier Wednesday that the U.S. has moved some of the Islamic State prisoners amid fears some could escape custody as Turkey invades northeast Syria.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The combative White House letter vowing to defy the “illegitimate” impeachment inquiry has actually put President Donald Trump on a more certain path to charges. His refusal to honor subpoenas or allow testimony would likely play into a formal accusation against him.

The letter sent to House leaders by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone Tuesday evening declared the president would not cooperate with the investigation — a clear reason, Democrats say, to write an article of impeachment charging him with obstruction.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For once, Republicans and Democrats in Congress were in the same place: out of the loop.

When it came to President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement that U.S. forces would no longer protect Syrian Kurds from a Turkish invasion, his supporters knew as little as his critics.

All the effort by Republicans to assuage and court the mercurial president meant little in terms of their ability to dissuade him from a decision that most of them vehemently opposed. They found out about it like Democrats, late at night and on Twitter.

9 October 2019; AFP: The United Nations has an overall annual operating budget of several billion dollars, covering everything from humanitarian work to disarmament, but right now, it's just trying to make sure its employees get paid after this month.

How did the world body end up more than $200 million in the red?

The answer: member states who have not paid their expected contributions, including the United States.