USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities were hunting Thursday for whoever sent suspicious letters — including some containing fentanyl — to elections offices in at least five states this week, delaying the counting of ballots in some local races in the latest instance of threats faced by election workers around the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on trade, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations in the first engagement between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies in nearly a year, Biden administration officials said.

The White House has said for weeks that it anticipated Biden and Xi would meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, but negotiations went down to the eve of the gathering, which kicks off Saturday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A project to build a first-of-a-kind small modular nuclear reactor power plant was terminated Wednesday, another blow to the Biden administration’s clean energy agenda following cancellations last week of two major offshore wind projects.

Oregon-based NuScale Power has the only small modular nuclear reactor design certified for use in the United States. For its first project, the company was working with a group of Utah utilities to demonstrate a six-reactor plant at the Idaho National Laboratory, generating enough electricity to power more than 300,000 homes.

YANKEETOWN, Fla. (AP) — A freshwater spring bubbles amid the mangroves, cabbage palms and red cedars on Sweetheart Island, a two-acre uninhabited patch of paradise about a mile off the coast of this little Gulf Coast town.

Pelicans divebomb nearby into the cool waters of Florida’s Withlacoochee Bay and the open view westward holds the promise of dazzling sunsets.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers were thwarted Thursday in their longshot bid to immediately end the New York civil fraud trial that threatens the former president’s real estate empire.

Judge Arthur Engoron didn’t rule on the request, but indicated the trial will go on as scheduled Monday with Donald Trump Jr. returning to the stand as the first defense witness.

Trump’s lawyers had asked Engoron to cut the trial short and issue a verdict clearing Trump, his company and top executives including Trump Jr. of wrongdoing.

NEW YORK (AP) — Joe Manchin’s decision not to seek reelection virtually ensures that the Democratic Party will lose his Senate seat next year in deep-red West Virginia, making the party’s steep path to retaining its razor-thin Senate majority even more difficult.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The white Honda Civic sped down Highway 57, a rural two-lane corridor that reaches the U.S.-Mexico border, after a Texas sheriff’s deputy tried pulling over the car and gave chase when it didn’t stop.

High-speed pursuits of migrants and suspected smugglers have become routine in Texas. But Wednesday’s chase came to one of the deadliest endings in recent years: a head-on crash that killed eight people, including Honduran citizens and two residents of Georgia.

SMITHS STATION, Ala. (AP) — After the 2019 suicide of a local teenager, small-town mayor and pastor F.L. “Bubba” Copeland helped students place roadside signs in his Alabama community to try to reach others who might be hurting.

“You are worthy of love.” “Don’t give up.” “You matter.”

Those were the same messages friends said they tried to get through to Copeland before he took his own life along one of those county roads two days after a conservative news site exposed social media posts where he appeared in women’s clothing, a wig and makeup.

by Ramona Wadi

UN, November 10. /TASS/: The UN Security Council will hold a meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Friday, November 10, the office of the representative of the UN Secretary General told reporters.

The meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question will be held at 03:00 p.m. local time (11:00 p.m. Moscow time).