North America

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general’s office late Tuesday told a court its investigators had uncovered evidence that former President Donald Trump’s company used “fraudulent or misleading” asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits.

The court filing said state authorities haven’t yet decided whether to bring a civil lawsuit in connection with the allegations, but that investigators need to question Trump and his two eldest children as part of the probe.

Trump and his lawyers say the investigation is politically motivated.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 18 (APP): Pakistan Tuesday called for “coherent and concerted” response to the “daunting” challenges the Group of 77 (developing countries) are facing to ensure that “none of us is left behind”.

“Our responsibility today to address the multiple challenges facing our countries is daunting,” Ambassador Munir Akram, who is the chairman of the the key group for 2022, told its first ambassadorial meeting.

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The White House is seeking to "reset" talks on its $1.75 trillion spending bill, aiming to salvage climate change measures but pare down or cut items like the child tax credit and paid family leave to appeal to U.S. Senator Joe Manchin and other Democrats as soon as this week, said two people working on the plan.

NEW YORK, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Oil prices on Tuesday climbed to their highest since 2014 as possible supply disruption after attacks in the Middle East added to an already tight supply outlook.

Brent crude futures rose 35 cents, or 0.4%, to $86.83 a barrelby 1:36 p.m. EST (1836 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 88 cents, or 1.1%, to $84.70 a barrel.

During the session, both benchmarks touched their highest since October 2014 with Brent at $88.13 and WTI at $85.74.

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - AT&T (T.N) and Verizon Communications (VZ.N) on Tuesday agreed to temporarily defer turning on some wireless towers near key airports to avert a significant disruption to U.S. flights.

Both AT&T and Verizon will launch new C-Band 5G wireless service on Wednesday but agreed to delay some deployment near airports that had threatened to result in massive flights cancellations.

NEW YORK, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The United States is bracing for "tough weeks" ahead in many parts of the country as the Omicron surge has not yet peaked, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has warned.

In an interview with CNN, Murthy spoke of the good news of the plateaus and drops in known cases in the Northeast, especially in New York City and New Jersey, while noting that challenges remain ahead, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A lawyer for Baltimore’s top prosecutor has outlined her defense against federal criminal charges stemming from her purchase of two Florida vacation homes.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby is accused of lying about meeting qualifications for coronavirus-related distributions from a city retirement plan.

Her attorney, A. Scott Bolden, told reporters on Monday that Mosby was entitled to make an early withdrawal from her retirement savings without facing any penalties.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Attorney General William P. Barr has a memoir coming out March 8 titled “One Damn Thing After Another,” and billed by his publisher as a “vivid and forthright book” of his time serving two “drastically different” presidents, Donald Trump and George H.W. Bush.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration plans to significantly expand efforts to stave off catastrophic wildfires that have torched areas of the U.S. West by more aggressively thinning forests around areas called “hotspots” where nature and neighborhoods collide.

As climate change heats up and dries out the West, administration officials said they have crafted a $50 billion plan to more than double the use of controlled fires and logging to reduce trees and other vegetation that serves as tinder in the most at-risk areas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Ukraine this week and meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as tensions between the U.S. and Russia escalate over a possible Russian invasion of its neighbor, the State Department said Tuesday.

Blinken will be in Kyiv on the hastily arranged trip to show U.S. support following inconclusive diplomatic talks between Moscow and the West in Europe last week that failed to resolve stark disagreements over Ukraine and other security matters.