WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday that he will not resign if asked to do so by President Donald Trump, and that he is prepared to be patient in deciding when to raise interest rates again.

Both of those messages cheered stock market investors who had been worried about Trump’s repeated attacks on his hand-picked choice to lead the nation’s central bank and also the Fed’s seemingly inexorable march to higher rates.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers went on a hiring spree in December, adding a surprising 312,000 jobs and providing a dose of reassurance about the economy after a turbulent few months on Wall Street.

The job gains reported Friday by the Labor Department came despite a trade war with China, a global slowdown and a partial government shutdown now entering its third week.

New Delhi January 04, PTI: Seven people were killed after an LPG cylinder blast in a building, where work related to ceiling fans was being carried out, in West Delhi's Sudarshan Park triggered a collapse bringing a portion of the structure down, police said.

The fire department received a call about the collapse at around 8.48pm on Thursday and eight fire tenders, along with ambulances, were rushed to the spot, they said.

MOSCOW, January 4. /TASS/. Paul Whelan detained in Russia on suspicion of spying may hold passports of other countries apart from the US and British citizenship, a source in Russia’s Foreign Ministry told TASS on Friday.

"I believe the British citizenship and American citizenship are not the last," he said.

NEW DELHI, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- The local government in India's eastern state of Bihar Friday ordered culling of over 15,000 poultry birds following confirmation of bird flu, officials said.

The orders were given by department of animal husbandry in Munger district, about 179 km east of Patna, the capital city of Bihar.

Nagpur, Jan 4 (PTI) Unemployment is the biggest of the major problems facing the country, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari Fiday said, adding that there was a "difference" between employment and jobs.

He was addressing a youth empowerment summit organised by Fortune Foundation here.

Bengaluru, Jan 4 (PTI) A clerk working in the office ofthe Minister for Backward Classes Welfare was arrested here Friday after Rs 14 lakh in unaccounted cash was seized from him, police said.

Minister C Puttarangashetty who was not in the city alleged conspiracy behind the incident.

"We have arrested a person by name Mohan. We are interrogating him," Assistant Police Commissioner of Cubbon Park sub division Manjunath T said.

Acting on a tip-off, the police nabbed Mohan when he was taking the cash inside Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat.

Chatra (Jharkhand), Jan 4 (PTI) One Maoist activist was killed in an encounter with security forces inside a jungle in the Naxal-affected Chatra district on Friday, a senior police officer said.

Security forces comprising district armed police and the CRPF were on anti-Maoist operation near Gouri under Bashistnagar police station area, when the ultras started firing.

The securitymen retaliated and in the ensuing encounter, one of the Maoist activist was killed, DIG (North Chotanagpur), Pankaj Kamboj told PTI.

New Delhi, Jan 4 (PTI) Lok Sabha Friday passed a bill to amend the Aadhaar Act and two related laws which will allow individuals to offer voluntarily biometric ID as a means of identity verification for obtaining services such as opening bank account and procuring mobile phone connection.

KANPUR: Nearly 51 textile factories will now stop production up to March 4. These industrial units do not have a zero discharge system. The wastes of these plants are directly falling into the Ganges. In absence of non-tapping of the ICI Drain and the Gunda Nullah, the effluents are directly going down through these streams into the Pandu River which later merges into the Ganges. This cannot be allowed until the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad.

KANPUR:  With the surety of inclusion of two new cattle catching vehicle by the Nagar Nigam, the pace of catching the stray animals will increase and the target of catching one hundred cattle will also be fulfilled.

These vehicles were purchased from the amounts sanctioned under different heads.

BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's lunar rover, Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, left the first ever "footprint" from a human spacecraft on the far side of the moon late at night on Thursday, after it separated from the lander smoothly.

The rover touched the lunar surface at 10:22 p.m. on Thursday, leaving a trace on the loose lunar soil. The process was recorded by the camera on the lander and the images were sent back to the Earth via the relay satellite "Queqiao", the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced.