North America

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s efforts to keep his tax returns private played out on both coasts Thursday, with a California judge handing him an initial victory and his lawyers in New York City arguing that federal prosecutors there are trying “to harass” him by seeking the documents.    

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration plunged into an extraordinary showdown with Congress Thursday over access to a whistleblower’s complaint about reported incidents including a private conversation between President Donald Trump and a foreign leader. The blocked complaint is both “serious” and “urgent,” the government’s intelligence watchdog said.

TORONTO (AP) — At a time when bigotry seems on the rise around the world and doors are being shut, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become known as a champion of diversity. Now, amid his bid for re-election, that reputation is under attack in a furor triggered by a photo of him in brownface at a costume party two decades ago.

On Thursday, the 47-year-old Trudeau struggled to contain the uproar, begging forgiveness and confessing he failed to grasp how offensive his actions were.

Washington, Sep 19 (AFP/PTI) Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved last weekend's attack on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, CBS News reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed US official.

The report came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, flying to the kingdom, called Saturday's strikes which knocked out half of Saudi crude output an "act of war."

CBS, without giving specifics about the US official or how they obtained the information, said Khamenei approved the attack only on condition that it be carried out in a way to deny Iranian involvement.

NEW YORK, Sep 19 (APP): A coalition of Muslim and human rights organizations called on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to cancel its plans to award Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi its Global Goalkeeper Award, citing Modi’s revocation of the disputed Kashmir region’s special status.

On August 5, Modi announced plans to scrap the constitutional article giving Kashmir autonomy, putting down a repressive lockdown and cutting internet and communications services.

WASHINGTON, September 19. /TASS/: Missile defense systems all over the world sometimes fail to demonstrate the intended result, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said, when asked by a reporter why Saudi troops, armed with US-made Patriot missile defense systems, failed to repel the recent drone attack on the kingdom’s oil facilities.

"We’ve seen air defense systems all around the world have mixed success," the Department of State press service quoted Pompeo as saying upon his arrival to Jeddah.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and Chinese deputy trade negotiators were set to resume face-to-face talks on Thursday for the first time in nearly two months as the world’s two largest economies try to bridge deep policy differences and find a way out of a bitter and protracted trade war.

The negotiations on Thursday and Friday are aimed at laying the groundwork for high-level talks in early October that will determine whether the two countries are working towards a solution or are headed for new and higher tariffs on each other’s goods.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 74) will spotlight climate change in the coming days when leaders gather at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss issues of common concern, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday.

"We will spotlight climate change, which threatens everyone and everything," the UN chief told reporters at a press conference.

Recalling his recent trip to the Bahamas, Guterres said that "the level of devastation was unlike anything I have ever seen."

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Bernie Sanders is still leading a revolution. But his ideas no longer feel quite so revolutionary.

The Vermont senator acknowledges that many of his top proposals, which were dismissed as radical four years ago, have been adopted by much of the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential primary field: “Medicare for All,” tuition-free college, spending trillions to combat climate change and a national $15 per hour minimum wage. But he’s out to prove that his second presidential campaign is still about fresh energy and ideas even if its refrains now sound familiar.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A president with few ideological constants, Donald Trump has consistently been leery of getting entangled in overseas military engagements. It’s a stance shaped by his belief that wars in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have drained America’s resources at home and its reputation abroad.