USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Sunday that American aid to Ukraine will keep flowing for now as he sought to reassure allies of continued U.S. financial support for the war effort. But time is running out, the president said in a warning to Congress.

“We cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said in remarks from the Roosevelt Room after Congress averted a government shutdown by passing a short-term funding package late Saturday that dropped assistance for Ukraine in the battle against Russia.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The justices are taking the bench at the Supreme Court for the first time since late June. Their new term begins Monday with ethics concerns swirling around the court.

The only case being argued Monday concerns the meaning of the word “and” in a federal law dealing with prison terms for low-level drug dealers. The length of thousands of sentences a year is at stake.

The court also is expected to get rid of hundreds of appeals that accumulated over the summer.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has selected Laphonza Butler, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, to fill the U.S. Senate seat made vacant by the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In choosing Butler on Sunday, Newsom fulfilled his pledge to appoint a Black woman if Feinstein’s seat became open. However, he had been facing pressure from some Black politicians and advocacy groups to select Barbara Lee, a prominent Black congresswoman who is already running for the seat.

NEW YORK (AP) — With control over some of his most prized real estate holdings in jeopardy, former President Donald Trump says he will make a rare, voluntary trip to court in New York on Monday for the start of a civil trial in a lawsuit that already has resulted in a judge ruling that he committed fraud in his business dealings.

“I’m going to Court tomorrow morning to fight for my name and reputation,” Trump wrote Sunday night on his Truth Social platform.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An alternative mental health court program designed to fast-track people with untreated schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders into housing and medical care — potentially without their consent — kicked off in seven California counties, including San Francisco, on Monday.

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Philippe is threatening to unleash heavy rains and flash flooding in the Leeward Islands on Monday before eventually recurving out into the central Atlantic where it could gain hurricane status around midweek, forecasters say.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said at 5 a.m. Monday that Philippe was about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east-southeast of Barbuda. Top sustained winds were at 50 mph (85 kph) with higher gusts and Philippe was moving northwest at a slightly increased 7 mph (11 kph).

WASHINGTON (AP) — “How would you be different as speaker, compared to Mr. Boehner?” a reporter asked then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in September 2015 as the California Republican pursued, and eventually gave up, his first attempt at the speakership.

McCarthy laughed while standing next to outgoing Speaker John Boehner — who had just stepped down after facing a threat of removal — and joked that he was from a different generation and wouldn’t be as tan.

02 October 2023; MEMO: The chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee vowed on Saturday to block military aid and arms sales to Egypt if it does not take concrete steps to improve human rights in the country, Reuters reported.

Democratic US Senator Ben Cardin issued the threat in a statement, saying: “It is imperative that we continue to hold the government of Egypt, and all governments, accountable for their human rights violations.”

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The United States is monitoring a troubling Serbian military deployment along the border of Kosovo that is destabilizing the area, the White House said on Friday and called for the forces to be withdrawn.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that Kosovo's peacekeeping force is going to be increasing its presence of NATO forces in northern Kosovo as a result of the tensions.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said Saturday that his country supports China-proposed global initiatives on development, security, and civilization.

Venezuela applauds the efforts of countries that contribute to dialogue, understanding, global peace, and common progress, such as China, he told the General Debate of the UN General Assembly.