North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. said Thursday that it has seized a North Korean cargo ship that was used to violate international sanctions, a first-of-its kind enforcement action that comes amid a tense moment in relations between the two countries.

The “Wise Honest,” North Korea’s second largest cargo ship, was detained in April 2018 as it traveled toward Indonesia. It’s now in the process of being moved to American Samoa, Justice Department officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans lashed out Thursday at fellow GOP Sen. Richard Burr for his committee’s subpoena of President Donald Trump’s son, a move that suggested the Russia investigation is not “case closed,” as some in the party insist. Trump said he was “very surprised” at the move.

BEIJING (AP) — President Donald Trump’s latest tariff hikes on Chinese goods took effect Friday and Beijing said it would retaliate, escalating a battle over China’s technology ambitions and other trade strains.

The Trump administration raised import taxes on $200 billion of Chinese imports from 10% to 25%. China’s Commerce Ministry said would take “necessary countermeasures” but gave no details.

WASHINGTON, May 9. /TASS/: President of the United States Donald Trump has ordered to extend for one more year a set of unilateral sanctions against Syria, the White House said in a statement.

"The regime’s brutal war on the Syrian people, who have been calling for freedom and a representative government, not only endangers the Syrian people themselves, but also generates instability throughout the region," the statement quoted President Trump as saying.

HOUSTON, May 8 (Xinhua): A project manager of China Mobile International Limited (CMI) said Tuesday night that energy enterprises, like companies in other industries, are facing challenging of cyber security.

Gongpeng Wei, project manager of CMI which is headquartered in Hong Kong and is a wholly owned subsidiary of China Mobile, told the 2019 Energy Industry Theme Reception, held in Houston, U.S. state of Texas during the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), that 2018 was a year of frequent information leakage incidents.

CHICAGO, May 8 (Xinhua): Death rates due to heart failure are increasing, and this increase is most prominent among younger adults under 65, considered premature death, said a study from Northwestern Medicine.

The study used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research data, which includes the underlying and contributing cause of death from all death certificates for 47.728 million individuals in the United States from 1999 to 2017.

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Xinhua): U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday asserted executive privilege on the Mueller report, protecting the Department of Justice from Congressional subpoenas.

Trump had "asserted executive privilege over the entirety of the subpoenaed materials," Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter to Congress.

New York, May 9, IRNA – Nuclear weapons are the biggest threat to humanity and international security, said an Iranian diplomat in the United Nations, adding the only way to get rid of the danger is to fully annihilate the nuclear arms.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A gateway to illegal marketplaces on the darknet has been shut down, the FBI announced Wednesday, and two of its alleged operators have been arrested and accused of making millions of dollars in kickbacks for their services.

A grand jury in Pittsburgh returned indictments against the two Israelis on charges of money laundering conspiracy. They’re accused of receiving more than $15 million from the operation, which ran from Oct. 2013 through this week, prosecutors said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Insurance claims have topped $12 billion for the November wildfires in California, making them the most expensive in state history.

The figure released Wednesday by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara covers the fire that largely destroyed the town of Paradise and two Southern California blazes. It’s up about $600 million from data released in January.

Most of the damages relate to the Paradise fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings.