North America

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The 92-year-old businessman who represented Taiwan at this week’s summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in San Francisco expressed hope Friday that the meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping should help to reduce tensions between the two superpowers and in the region.

Morris Chang, the founder of the microchip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, also suggested the meeting could help to promote economic stability and reliable supply chains.

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will campaign Saturday in west-central Iowa as part of his fall push to sign up supporters and volunteers ahead of the state’s leadoff caucuses, now less than two months away.

Trump is expected to headline an organizing rally in Fort Dodge, a GOP-leaning hub, the latest in a series of targeted regional stops aimed at seizing on the large crowds the former president draws to press attendees to commit to voting for him on Jan. 15.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged Friday to work side-by-side to confront illicit fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. and to manage the growing number of migrants traveling north to the border between their nation.

“Nothing is beyond our reach in my view if Mexico and the United States stand together and work together,” Biden said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Syria have long battled with U.S. and coalition forces, launching sporadic attacks against bases in the region where troops are deployed to fight Islamic State group insurgents.

But since Oct. 17, as civilian deaths in Israel’s war against Hamas began to skyrocket, there has been a dramatic spike in attacks by Iran’s proxies, operating under the umbrella name of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury on Friday sentenced a woman to 90 years in prison for the May 2022 shooting death of rising professional cyclist Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson in a case that sent investigators on a 43-day international search for the killer.

Jurors deliberated for just over three hours before delivering the sentence for Kaitlin Armstrong, who investigators say tracked Wilson to the apartment where she was staying and shot her three times. They took only two hours on Thursday to convict her of murder.

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado judge on Friday found that former President Donald Trump engaged in insurrection during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol but rejected an effort to keep him off the state’s primary ballot because it’s unclear whether a Civil War-era Constitutional amendment barring insurrectionists from public office applies to the presidency.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- In a world shadowed by the turmoil in Ukraine and Gaza, the urgency for reforming the UN Security Council has reached an unprecedented peak, Dennis Francis, president of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), said on Thursday.

Amid the assembly's annual discourse, evaluating the United Nations' foremost platform for peace and security, Francis conveyed with deep conviction that without fundamental structural reform, the council's effectiveness and credibility are destined to progressively diminish.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The bullets began piercing the windows of the hospital as women cradling young children ran from room to room searching for a safe place to hide while the heavily armed gang drew closer.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury on Thursday convicted a woman of murder in the May 2022 shooting death of rising professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson in a case that led investigators on a 43-day international search for the killer.

Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, faces a penalty of up to life in prison. The sentencing phase of her trial will continue Friday.