North America

WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - The passage of two U.S. warships on Sunday through international waters in the Taiwan Strait is "very consistent" with the U.S. "one China policy" and seeking a free and open Indo-Pacific, a White House official said.

"This was planned long ago," John Kirby, National Security Council spokesperson, said on CNN, of the first transit of the strait by U.S. warships since House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan earlier this month, enraging China.

Aug 28 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday condemned an abusive verbal attack on his deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, which he described as an "extremely disturbing harassment" that was not an isolated incident.

"We are seeing increasingly people in public life and people in positions of responsibility, particularly women, racialized Canadians, people of minority or different community groups, being targeted almost because of the increasing strength of your voices," Trudeau said in an address on Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Florida told the Justice Department on Saturday to provide her with more specific information about the classified records removed from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate and said it was her “preliminary intent” to appoint a special master in the case.

HOUSTON (AP) — A man evicted from a Houston apartment building shot five other tenants — killing three of them — Sunday morning after setting fire to the house to lure them out, police said. Officers fatally shot the gunman.

The incident happened at about 1 a.m. Sunday in a mixed industrial-residential neighborhood in southwest Houston. Police and fire crews responded to the apartment house after reports of the fire, police Chief Troy Finner said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s new moon rocket remained on track to blast off on a crucial test flight Monday, despite a series of lightning strikes at the launch pad.

The 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful ever built by NASA. It’s poised to send an empty crew capsule into lunar orbit, a half-century after NASA’s Apollo program, which landed 12 astronauts on the moon.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — As hopes faded of rescuing 10 men trapped in a flooded Mexican coal mine, evidence mounted that the current administration’s populist policies have driven the revival of the dangerous, primitive mines that continue claiming lives.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador enacted a plan two years ago to revive coal-fired power plants in northern Mexico and give preference to buying coal from the smallest mines. The purchases were part of the president’s policies to give more income to the poorest Mexicans.

FORT JACKSON, S.C. (AP) — Chaz Andrews has wanted to join the Army since he was 19, but he has failed the service’s academic test more than 10 times over the past decade.

Now, at age 29, Andrews thinks he has a real shot to pass, thanks to a new Army program that gives lower-performing recruits up to 90 days of academic or fitness instruction to help them meet military standards.

28 August 2022; MEMO: A judge in the United States has recommended that the victims of the 9/11 attacks and their families not be allowed to receive billions of dollars in Afghanistan's Central Bank assets, saying that those assets are beyond the US government's authority.

27 August 2022; AA: Frank McKenzie, a former top general who led US Central Command from 2019 to April 2022, has said that Washington engaged in failed nation-building in Afghanistan and insisted on a Western model for the country which was wrong.

27 August 2022; AA: The US announced Friday that it will appoint an envoy for the Arctic region for the first time in its history amid Russia’s increased military actions in the region recently.

"... the President plans to elevate the Arctic Coordinator position by appointing an Ambassador-at-Large for the Arctic Region, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate," Vedant Patel, deputy spokesperson of the State Department, said in a written statement.