North America

OTTAWA, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The leader of Canada's main opposition Conservative Party squares off against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a televised debate on Thursday that could go a long way in deciding who wins a Sept. 20 election.

Erin O'Toole took over his right-leaning party last year during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and insiders concede he has had trouble introducing himself to voters.

REDMOND, Washington (AP) — Microsoft told employees Thursday that it has indefinitely delayed their return to U.S. offices until it’s safer to do so.

“Given the uncertainty of COVID-19, we’ve decided against attempting to forecast a new date for a full reopening of our U.S. work sites,” Jared Spataro, a corporate vice president, wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft had already postponed its planned return to the workplace from September to no earlier than Oct. 4, but now says the re-opening won’t be next month.

VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — Rain was pouring down on southeast Georgia and coastal South Carolina as Mindy, now a tropical depression, made its way across the state state early Thursday morning.

The storm made landfall in St. Vincent Island, Florida, on Wednesday night. Mindy was expected to cause as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rainfall across the Florida Panhandle and portions of southern Georgia and South Carolina through Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. Scattered flash, urban, and small-stream floods are possible.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Now that an iconic statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee has been taken down from its perch above Richmond’s Monument Avenue, crews plan to remove a piece of history from its gigantic pedestal.

HOUMA, La. (AP) — The death toll in Louisiana from Hurricane Ida rose to 26 Wednesday, after health officials reported 11 additional deaths in New Orleans, mostly older people who perished from the heat. The announcement was grim news amid signs the city was returning to normal with almost fully restored power and a lifted nighttime curfew.

OTTAWA, Sept 8 (NNN-XINHUA) – Canada began yesterday, to allow entry for fully vaccinated foreigners, who had a full course of a Health Canada-approved vaccine.

Canada approved four COVID-19 vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson.

To be eligible, foreigners must have been allowed at least 14 days to pass, since their last vaccine shot, and show proof of a negative molecular test for COVID-19, that’s no more than 72 hours old.

08 Sep 2021; MEMO: US President Joe Biden yesterday authorised an aid package worth $47 million to the Lebanese army.

Biden issued a memorandum authorising Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to withdraw up to $25 million in commodities and services from the US government to provide immediate assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

He has also authorised Blinken to withdraw up to $22 million in "defense articles and services from the Ministry of Defense" to provide immediate assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

08 Sep 2021; MEMO: Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to set up an independent international mechanism to monitor and report on the human rights situation in Egypt and investigate grave human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The White House budget office on Tuesday called on U.S. Congress to pass a short-term funding bill to avoid a potential federal government shutdown as current government funding is set to lapse at the end of September.

"With the end of the fiscal year rapidly approaching, it's clear that Congress will need to pass a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to provide more time for the FY 2022 process to unfold," Shalanda Young, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said in a White House blog post.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- A Russian envoy on Tuesday told the United Nations (UN) Security Council that some states are trying to monopolize the international order or impose their own values on the rest of humanity.

"What is even more regretful is the attempts to present the ideology elaborated by separate groups of states as a 'guiding light' for the entire humanity," Anna Evstigneeva, deputy permanent representative of Russia to the UN, said at the Security Council Briefing on the Maintenance of International Peace and Security.