USA

NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden plans to announce a $325 million military aid package for Ukraine on Thursday to coincide with a visit to Washington by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a U.S. official said on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

The weapons aid package was expected to include the second tranche of cluster munitions fired by a 155 millimeter Howitzer cannon, the U.S official said.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 20 (Reuters) - European Council President Charles Michel will ask China directly at the United Nations Security Council to do more to push Russia towards a "just peace" in Ukraine, according to his draft speech seen by Reuters at the UNGA.

At the Security Council meeting held on Wednesday during the annual high-level U.N. General Assembly in New York, Michel will call for "a just peace that respects the U.N. Charter and its core principles — the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation."

WILMINGTON, Delaware, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The father of a woman who died in the Hawaii wildfires last month has launched a novel lawsuit against three major landowners, seeking to hold them responsible even though they did not start the fire and the blaze ignited on land they do not own.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — As more than 100,000 migrants arrived in New York City over the past year after crossing the border from Mexico, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have begged President Joe Biden for one thing, above all others, to ease the crisis:

“Let them work,” both Democrats have said repeatedly in speeches and interviews.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democrats will retain their one-vote majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives after voters in Pittsburgh on Tuesday elected former congressional aide Lindsay Powell.

Powell’s victory gives Democrats a 102-101 majority in the House. Republicans have a 28-22 majority in the Senate, creating a divided Legislature that has kept Democrats from passing priorities such as broadened protections for LGBTQ+ people and gun control measures and Republicans from wins on issues including school vouchers.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — All eyes will be on Ukraine’s president and Russia’s top diplomat at a U.N. Security Council meeting Wednesday: Will they clash? Will they speak? Will they avoid each other entirely?

The meeting’s topic is deeply relevant to those questions: It’s about upholding the U.N. Charter in Ukraine. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres minced no words this week in reiterating that Russia’s February 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbor violated the charter’s underpinning -- that the 193 U.N. member nations respect each others’ sovereignty and territorial integrity.

ATLANTA (AP) — Lawyers for three Georgia Republicans who falsely claimed that Donald Trump won the state and that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors are set to argue Wednesday that criminal charges against them should be moved from state to federal court.

David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathy Latham were among the 18 people indicted last month along with Trump on charges they participated in a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. All 19 defendants have pleaded not guilty.

KANSAS CITY NATIONAL SECURITY CAMPUS, Mo. (AP) — In an ultra-sterile room at a secure factory in Kansas City, U.S. government technicians refurbish the nation’s nuclear warheads. The job is exacting: Each warhead has thousands of springs, gears and copper contacts that must work in conjunction to set off a nuclear explosion.

NEW YORK (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to have his long-coveted meeting with President Joe Biden on Wednesday — bringing together the two leaders for the first time since the Israeli leader took office at the helm of his country’s far-right government late last year.

BRIGHTON, Colo. (AP) — Prosecutors are expected to present opening statements after jury selection wraps up Wednesday in the trial of two police officers charged in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was detained while walking in a Denver suburb.

In the first of several trials stemming from the death of McClain, lawyers for the two sides are expected to paint contrasting pictures of the deadly struggle between the officers and the 23-year-old, who was stopped by police while returning home from a convenience store. He was unarmed.