North America

OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday assured Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that American officials were working to free two Canadian men who have been held by China since late last year.

The pair, now facing espionage charges, were detained after Canadian police picked up Huawei Technologies Co Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver last December on a U.S. arrest warrant.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Russia's deputy UN envoy on Thursday appealed to European countries to heed the United States' recent withdrawal from a Cold War arms control treaty and warned of a possible new arms race.

At a Security Council meeting, Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's acting permanent representative to the United Nations, called on the Europeans to act to prevent the deployment of U.S. intermediate-range missiles on their continent.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy said Thursday that it is unacceptable to use China as an excuse for the United States to leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which ended on Aug. 2 after the United States formally withdrew from it.

CHICAGO (AP) — From fiery protests outside detention centers in Texas, New Jersey and Rhode Island to a sit-in that blockaded an Amazon store in New York, a fledgling coalition of liberal Jewish groups is increasingly making itself heard as it fights the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Using the social media tag #JewsAgainstIce, the movement has likened President Donald Trump’s actions on asylum and incarceration to what went on as the Holocaust was taking shape.

PROLE, Iowa (AP) — Campaigning under the stifling August sun, Joe Biden assailed President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, accusing him of squandering a strong economy and putting Americans’ financial security at risk.

But he was quick to add that he was not hoping for the worst.

“I never wish for a recession. Period,” the former vice president and current Democratic presidential candidate told reporters in Prole, Iowa.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As global leaders gather on two continents to take account of a darkening economic outlook, this is the picture they face:

Factories are slumping, many businesses are paralyzed, global growth is sputtering and the world’s two mightiest economies are in the grip of a dangerous trade war.

Barely a year after most of the world’s major countries were enjoying an unusual moment of shared prosperity, the global economy may be at risk of returning to the rut it tumbled into after the financial crisis of 2007-2009.

Four people have been shot in San Julian Park in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon. A social worker and a security guard who were in the park were also struck by gunfire. Two shooters, including a woman, are still at large.

According to Los Angeles Times, gunfire erupted shortly after noon in San Julian Park at 5th and San Julian streets, where homeless people often congregate, according to the LAPD . The park is one block east of the Police Department’s Central Division station.

NEW YORK, Aug 22 (APP): Deploring lack of any response to his repeated offers of dialogue to India before and after the Aug. 5 crackdown in occupied Kashmir, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said he would no longer seek dialogue with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, whom he accused of harbouring intentions to change the demographic character of the Muslim-majority region.

22 August 2019; AFP: US President Donald Trump proclaimed himself "the Chosen One" Wednesday as he defended his trade war against China, indicating that it was his destiny to take on Beijing.

Trump -- who had earlier approvingly retweeted a description of himself as the King of Israel -- said his predecessors had allowed the United States to be taken advantage of on trade and intellectual property and it had befallen him to undo the damage.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After two years touting a booming economy as his own doing, U.S. President Donald Trump is test driving a new message on the economy: Any chance of a recession is not his fault. But Democrats, who are shifting their message too, seem to be saying “not so fast.”

Trump has moved from touting positive economic indicators since his 2016 election to now trying to blame someone else for a possible economic slowdown, while his advisers and officials are scrambling to insist there is nothing to worry about.