USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden gathered other world powers Tuesday to coordinate on Ukraine as it battles Russia in a war now almost 20 months long — a deliberate show of U.S. support at a time when the future of its aid is entangled with a volatile faction of House Republicans who want to cut off money to Kyiv.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers who had been sitting in stunned silence gasped at the declaration: The office of speaker “is hereby declared vacant.”

For the first time ever, a House speaker had been voted out of the position, plunging Congress into a new degree of turmoil. “Now what?” someone in the chamber yelled out.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday criticized his former boss-turned-rival, Donald Trump, for calling retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a traitor over phone calls he made to China in the final stormy months of their administration.

“Frankly what Donald Trump said about him in that tweet, about treason and death, was utterly inexcusable,” the GOP presidential candidate said at a national security and foreign policy event at Washington’s Georgetown University co-hosted by The Associated Press.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota lawmaker who had flown to Arizona to be part of his sister’s sendoff before she deployed overseas gave the woman a hug and told her to “stay safe.”

Hours later, state Sen. Doug Larsen, his wife, and their two young sons were killed on their way home when the single-engine Piper Cherokee he was flying crashed in Utah on Sunday after a refueling stop.

NEW YORK (AP) — A prosecutor opened a criminal fraud trial Wednesday by telling jurors that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was on top of the world a year ago, hobnobbing with people like football star Tom Brady and ex-President Bill Clinton, before his historic fraud was exposed, leaving customers and investors without at least $10 billion they thought was secure.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Rehn pointed at Bankman-Fried, sitting with his lawyers in a suit, and accused him of “committing a massive fraud.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Warned to mind his out-of-court comments, former President Donald Trump returned to his New York civil fraud trial Wednesday as lawyers on both sides closely questioned an accountant who prepared financial statements at the heart of the case.

Outside the courtroom, Trump’s lawyers appealed a key pretrial ruling.

The civil case, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accuses Trump and his business of exaggerating his wealth in financial statements that went to banks, insurers and others.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A shooting interrupted a homecoming week celebration at Baltimore’s Morgan State University on Tuesday, wounding five people and prompting an hourslong lockdown of the historically Black college.

Students hunkered down for several hours, as police went room to room looking for suspects. No arrests were made.

Police Commissioner Richard Worley said the five victims, four men and one woman, are between the ages of 18 and 22. Their injuries were not life-threatening, he told reporters at a news conference early Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For much of the world, China’s Xinjiang region is notorious, a place where ethnic Uyghurs face forced labor and arbitrary detention. But a group of visiting foreign journalists was left with a decidedly different impression.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers walked off the job Wednesday in multiple states, kicking off a major health care strike amid an extraordinary year for U.S. labor organizing and work stoppages.

Kaiser Permanente is one of the country’s larger insurers and health care system operators, with 39 hospitals nationwide. The nonprofit company, based in Oakland, California, provides health coverage for nearly 13 million people, sending customers to clinics and hospitals it runs or contracts with to provide care.

Houston, Oct 4 (PTI) Two men of Indian origin in the US have pleaded guilty to their participation in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme by obtaining loans under an economic assistance plan following the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, the justice department said.