USA

WASHINGTON, November 3. /TASS/: The US Administration provides another aid package to Ukraine worth $125 million, which will include air defense systems, weapons and vehicles, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced.

WASHINGTON, November 4. /TASS/: Israel has significantly refined its plan for the military operation in the Gaza Strip following talks with Washington, a senior US official said.

The official said the "very direct" talks are happening all the time and the Israelis "have significantly refined what originally was their plan."

The US and Israel have conversations every time "when there are incidents," the official said at a news conference.

"We have regular discussions with the Israelis, offering them some advice from our hard experience," he said.

WASHINGTON, November 4. /TASS/: The US is using unarmed assets of the Department of Defense to help locate hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a senior US official said at a news conference.

"We are using unarmed DoD assets to try to help locate some of the American hostages," the official said. "We are going to do all we possibly can to make sure that all the hostages of all nationalities come out of Gaza."

FRANKFORT (Kentucky, US), Nov 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two workers were killed after an 11-story building collapsed in Kentucky earlier this week, trapping the men under concrete and steel and triggering a days-long rescue effort.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced Friday afternoon that both workers who were trapped in a Martin County coal preparation plant had died.

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives easily passed a bill on Friday to bolster sanctions on Iranian oil in a strong bipartisan vote.

The Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) bill, which passed 342-69, would impose measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The little asteroid visited by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft this week had a big surprise for scientists.

It turns out that the asteroid Dinkinesh has a dinky sidekick — a mini moon.

The discovery was made during Wednesday’s flyby of Dinkinesh, 300 million miles (480 million kilometers) away in the main asteroid belt beyond Mars. The spacecraft snapped a picture of the pair when it was about 270 miles out (435 kilometers).

SENECA, S.C. (AP) — A driver tried to crash through the exit gates of a South Carolina nuclear plant Thursday night about an hour after security asked the same car to leave when it tried to enter, authorities said.

A pop-up security barrier stopped the car with an Arkansas license plate at the Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca around 8 p.m., Oconee County Sheriff’s spokesman Jimmy Watt said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Marine Corps veteran who served as a politically appointed State Department official in former President Donald Trump’s administration was sentenced on Friday to nearly six years in prison for attacking police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As new Speaker Mike Johnson grabbed hold of the House gavel, he made a plea for Americans to “give me a chance” before making up their minds about the newcomer’s ability to lead the far-right House Republican majority that elected him to power.

What Johnson has shown in his first big test as the House passed a nearly $14.5 billion military aid package to Israel is that the easy-going social conservative is more than eager to lift up the priorities of his right flank rather than reach toward the political center in the name of compromise.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether a Trump era-ban on bump stocks, the gun attachments that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns, violates federal law.

The justices will hear arguments early next year over a regulation put in place by the Justice Department after a mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.

Federal appeals courts have come to different decisions about whether the regulation defining a bump stock as a machine gun comports with federal law.