North America

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein’s armed guards and the sharp rocks that lie beneath the turquoise waters glistening around his Caribbean island have long deterred boaters from the area, but curiosity has overcome concern since the financier apparently killed himself in jail as he awaited trial in New York on sex trafficking charges.

DENVER (AP) — John Hickenlooper will drop out of the Democratic presidential primary on Thursday, according to a Democrat close to him.

The two-term former Colorado governor, who ran as a moderate warning of the perils of extreme partisanship, struggled with fundraising and low polling numbers. His planned departure from the 2020 race was confirmed Wednesday night by a Democrat who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly before the announcement and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that trade talks with China can wait until tensions in Hong Kong have eased, tweeting: “Of course China wants to make a deal. Let them work humanely with Hong Kong first!”

Trump also praised Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling him a “great leader” and saying he could quickly resolve the unrest in Hong Kong if he wanted to. “I have ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it. Personal meeting?” Trump tweeted.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A gunman who opened fire on police Wednesday as they were serving a drug warrant in Philadelphia, wounding six officers and triggering a standoff that extended into the night, is in police custody, authorities said.

Philadelphia police Sgt. Eric Gripp said early Thursday morning that the man was taken into custody after an hourslong standoff with police.

6 Policemen have been shot, and a total of 9 injured in a shooting incident on Wednesday in Philadelphia’s Tioga-Nicetown section.

According to ABC Action News; shooting started around 4:30 p.m. when police attempted to serve a narcotics warrant at a home along the 3600 block of North 15th Street. Two police officers remain trapped inside the home.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 (APP): Pakistan has expressed the hope that the 15-member Security Council would meet soon to deal with the grave situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir resulting from India’s move to annex the disputed region, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said Tuesday,

“We would like the Security Council to take note of the illegal annexation by India,” she said in an interview with BBC News, after making a formal request for a Council meeting.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 (APP): Diplomats and humanitarian experts on Tuesday praised the 1949 Geneva Conventions that for 70 years have banned attacks on civilians, schools and hospitals while acknowledging an uptick in egregious violations of the laws of war in high-tech modern warfare.

“We are failing the most vulnerable,” Heiko Maas, Germany’s minister for foreign affairs, said at a meeting of the Security Council to mark the birth of the Geneva Conventions in 1949. “We are not living up to our legal and ethical obligations.”

Monaca (US), Aug 14 (AFP/PTI) President Donald Trump has threatened to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization if conditions are not improved.

"We will leave if we have to," Trump told a cheering audience of workers at a Shell chemical plant in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

14 August 2019; AFP: US President Donald Trump was assailed Tuesday for his hands-off approach to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, avoiding criticizing Beijing even as Chinese troops massed on the border to the territory.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Tuesday said in a statement that it stands ready to support China's search-and-rescue efforts after the Typhoon Lekima.

"The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that, on 10 August, Tropical Cyclone Lekima made landfall in the Chinese city of Wenling in Zhejiang Province and made a second landfall the following day on the coast of Qingdao in Shandong Province in the country's east," according to the statement.