USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a meeting a year in the making.

President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down together on Wednesday just outside of San Francisco, where Asian leaders gathered for an annual summit. It was almost exactly one year since their last encounter in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of another global gathering.

In addition to a formal bilateral meeting, Biden and Xi shared a lunch with top advisers and strolled the verdant grounds of the luxury estate where their meeting took place.

Woodside/Beijing, Nov 16 (PTI) US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have agreed to resume high-level military-to-military communication and counter-narcotics cooperation as they met for four hours in a bid to establish a working relationship amidst Beijing's aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region.

13 November 2023; MEMO: UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, alongside staff members, observed a minute of silence on Monday to honour colleagues who perished in Gaza due to Israeli assaults, Anadolu Agency reports.

13 November 2023; MEMO: An internal dissent memo within the US State Department has accused President Joe Biden of “spreading misinformation” on Israel’s assault against the Gaza Strip and has acknowledged that Israel is committing “war crimes”, in what is the latest occurrence of dissent in American policy bodies during the ongoing hostilities.

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Democratic and Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate said on Wednesday they would try to quickly pass legislation to keep the government funded, preventing a partial shutdown form beginning this weekend.

"No drama, no delay, no government shutdown. That's our goal and we hope to have an agreement very soon," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor.

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - U.S. public support for Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza is eroding and most Americans think Israel should call a ceasefire to a conflict that has ballooned into a humanitarian crisis, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Some 32% of respondents in the two-day opinion poll, which closed on Tuesday, said "the U.S. should support Israel" when asked what role the United States should take in the fighting. That was down from 41% who said the U.S. should back Israel in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Oct. 12-13.

ETNA, Ohio (AP) — A charter bus filled with high school students was rear-ended by a semitruck on an Ohio highway Tuesday morning, leaving six people dead and 18 injured, officials said.

Five vehicles were involved in the crash, including a Pioneer Trails charter bus carrying students and chaperones from the Tuscarawas Valley Local School District in eastern Ohio, said Licking County Emergency Management Agency Director Sean Grady.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A man accused of a mass shooting at a Colorado supermarket in 2021 pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity Tuesday as a judge ruled the case can move to a trial following testimony giving new details of how he killed most of the 10 victims in just over a minute using a gun with a high-capacity magazine.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The area under an elevated Los Angeles freeway that burned last weekend was a kind of open-air warehouse with businesses storing everything from wood pallets to cardboard boxes to hand sanitizer on lots leased by the state through a little-known program that now is under scrutiny.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats pushed ahead Tuesday with a resolution that would allow for the quick confirmation of hundreds of military nominees, an attempt to maneuver around a blockade from Sen. Tommy Tuberville over a Pentagon abortion policy.