North America

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Republicans have found success in Democratic strongholds like Maryland and Massachusetts when they have fielded moderate candidates who could appeal to voters in both parties. With Democrats facing headwinds this year, Republicans had hoped that strategy could pay off yet again.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 19 (APP): The United Nations is set to study reports about India’s attempts at rigging the upcoming elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Secretary-General’s Deputy spokesman said, while emphasizing that all communities should be “fairly” treated and represented.

Responding to a question at the daily news briefing in New York about permitting temporary residents in the Muslim-majority Indian occupied Kashmir to register as voters, Spokesman Farhan Aziz Haq said the matter would “need to be studied.”

UN, August 19. /TASS/: The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) in Ukraine, needs to be demilitarized, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Friday.

"First of all, what is true is that if it is demilitarized as we propose, the plant, the problem will be solved," the UN chief’s press office quoted him as saying to journalists upon a visit to the city of Odessa.

"Obviously, the electricity from Zaporozhye [NPP] is Ukrainian electricity, and it's necessary, especially during the winter for the Ukrainian people, and this principle must be fully respected," he added.

OTTAWA, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday nominated an Indigenous person to join Canada's Supreme Court, a first for the country's highest court.

Michelle O'Bonsawin, a judge on Ontario's Superior Court since 2017 and an Abenaki member of the Odanak First Nation, will join the court in September when a long-serving member retires, the prime minister's office said in a statement.

OTTAWA, Aug 19 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will visit Canada next week to focus on Arctic security amid climate change and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office said on Friday.

Stoltenberg will travel to Canada from Aug. 24 to Aug. 26 and will be accompanied by Trudeau during the visit.

On Thursday he will stop in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, a hamlet in the far north and one of the main stops for vessels traversing the Arctic Ocean's Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Aug 19 (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund staff will visit Sri Lanka at the end of August with a goal of making progress on a staff-level agreement for an aid package in the near term to help the island nation weather a severe economic crisis, the IMF said on Friday.

Staff from the global lender will be in Colombo, the capital, from Aug. 24-31, the IMF said.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- Multiple people have been reportedly killed after two planes collided while attempting to land in Watsonville, U.S. State of California, authorities tweeted Thursday afternoon.

The crash happened around 2:56 p.m. (2156 GMT) at the Watsonville Municipal Airport and multiple agencies rushed to the scene at around 3:37 p.m. (2237 GMT), according to the city's official Twitter account.

An investigation into the incident is underway. 

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. oil industry hit a legal roadblock in January when a judge struck down a $192 million oil and natural gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico over future global warming emissions from burning the fuels. It came at a pivotal time for Chevron, Exxon and other industry players: the Biden administration had curtailed opportunities for new offshore drilling, while raising climate change concerns.

BOSTON (AP) — Three men, including a Mafia hitman, have been charged in the 2018 prison killing of notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Bulger’s death raised questions about why the known “snitch” was placed in the West Virginia prison’s general population instead of more protective housing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Last week’s attack on author Salman Rushdie and the indictment of an Iranian national in a plot to kill former national security adviser John Bolton have given the Biden administration new headaches as it attempts to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

A resolution may be tantalizingly close. But as the U.S. and Europe weigh Iran’s latest response to an EU proposal described as the West’s final offer, the administration faces new and potentially insurmountable domestic political hurdles to forging a lasting agreement.