North America

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Kyle Rittenhouse provoked bloodshed on the streets of Kenosha by bringing a semi-automatic rifle to a protest and menacing others, and when the shooting stopped, he walked off like a “hero in a Western,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday at Rittenhouse’s murder trial.

But Rittenhouse’s lawyer countered that the shooting started after the young man was ambushed by a “crazy person” that night and feared his gun was going to be wrested away and used to kill him. Defense attorney Mark Richards said Rittenhouse acted in self-defense.

NEW YORK, Nov 15 (APP): The US military covered up a series of airstrikes in 2019 that killed dozens of Syrian civilians during the campaign against supposed Da’esh targets, according to a report in The New York Times.

The strikes in Baghuz, in Syria’s east, targeted a group of women and children huddled by a river, that had been identified as such by Air Force personnel monitoring the area. The report said personnel were shocked by the bombings and it was not immediately clear who had ordered them.

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will tell Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a virtual meeting on Monday meant toreduce the chances of a superpower conflict that China must "play by the rules of the road" like a responsible nation, a senior U.S. administration official said.

The video dialogue, initiated by Biden and expected by the United States to run for several hours on Monday evening, Washington time, will be about setting terms for future U.S.-China competition, the official told reporters.

HOUSTON, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A 9-year-old boy, critically injured during the Astroworld music festival stampede ten days ago in Houston, south central U.S. state Texas, died on Sunday, bringing the death toll of the tragedy to 10, his family told local media.

The boy named Ezra Blount had been on life support since the Nov. 5 tragedy, according to a report from ABC13.

Ezra's father told ABC13 last week that his son was a young fan of rapper Travis Scott.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving member of the Senate, said Monday he will not seek reelection in 2022 to the seat he has held for eight terms.

Leahy, 81, said he and his wife, Marcelle, have concluded that “it is time to pass the torch to the next Vermonter who will carry on this work for our great state. It’s time to come home.”

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrat Beto O’Rourke is running for governor of Texas, pursuing a blue breakthrough in America’s biggest red state after his star-making U.S. Senate campaign in 2018 put him closer than anyone else in decades.

O’Rourke’s announcement Monday kicks off a third run for office in as many election cycles. He burst into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary as a party phenomena but dropped out just eight months later as money and fanfare dried up.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The $1 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signs into law represents a historic achievement at a time of deeply fractured politics. But the compromises needed to bridge the political divide suggest that the spending might not be as transformative as Biden has promised for the U.S. economy.

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Attorneys were set to make closing arguments Monday at Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial in the shootings of three men during street unrest in Wisconsin, the last word before a jury begins deliberating in a case that underscored Americans’ bitter divisions on issues of guns, protests and policing.

Rittenhouse, 18, of Antioch, Illinois, faces charges ranging from intentional homicide — punishable by life in prison — to an underage weapons charge that could mean a few months in jail if convicted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary who holds the purse strings to much of President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure package, was holding forth with reporters on its impact — the promise of more electric cars, intercity train routes, bigger airports — when a pointed question came.

How would he go about building racial equity into infrastructure?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser expressed confidence Sunday that the White House’s $1.85 trillion domestic policy package will quickly pass the House this week and said approval couldn’t come at a more urgent time as prices of consumer goods spike.

“Inflation is high right now. And it is affecting consumers in their pocketbook and also in their outlook for the economy,” said Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council.