USA

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — At the annual meeting of world leaders last year, the U.N. chief sounded a global alarm about the survival of humanity and the planet. This year, the alarm rang louder and more ominously, and the message was even more pressing: Wake up and take action — right now.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Friday directed federal agencies to get ready for a shutdown after House Republicans left town for the weekend with no viable plan to keep the government funded and avert politically and economically costly disruption of federal services.

(AP) --- The third Republican presidential debate will be held in Miami on Nov. 8, a day after several states hold off-year elections, and candidates will be facing the most stringent requirements yet to take part.

Participating candidates must secure 4% of the vote in multiple polls and 70,000 unique donors to earn a spot on the stage, the Republican National Committee said Friday. Party officials did not immediately respond to inquiries about who would moderate the debate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has gotten the updated COVID-19 vaccine and annual flu shot, the White House said Saturday.

The White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in a memo that Biden received both shots on Friday. O’Connor said Biden, 80, also was vaccinated several weeks ago against the respiratory illness known as RSV.

“As we enter the cold and flu season, the President encourages all Americans to follow his example and to check with their healthcare provider or pharmacist to assure that they are fully vaccinated,” O’Connor wrote.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — For months, Carlton Clemons endured crippling pain from a rotting wisdom tooth. He couldn’t sleep, barely ate and relied on painkillers to get by.

The 67-year-old from Nashville, Tennessee, could not afford to see a dentist on the $1,300-a-month his family gets in Social Security and disability payments. So he waited for the state to roll out a program this year that offers dental care to the more than 650,000 Medicaid recipients like him who are 21 and older. Tennessee is spending about $75 million annually on the program.

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado judge overseeing the first significant lawsuit to bar former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot on Friday issued a protective order prohibiting threats and intimidation in the case, saying the safety of those involved — including herself and her staff — was necessary as the groundbreaking litigation moves forward.

WASHINGTON (AP) — This probably wasn’t how President Joe Biden envisioned his big foreign policy week ending.

Biden spent much of the time trying to make the case to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly as well as to Democratic donors and voters that his decades of foreign policy experience and demonstrated moral clarity set him apart from Donald Trump, the early front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Residents in coastal North Carolina and Virginia braced for potential flooding after Tropical Storm Ophelia made landfall near a North Carolina barrier island on Saturday morning, bringing rain, damaging winds and dangerous surges of water.

United Nations (AP) — Russia’s top diplomat denounced the United States and the West on Saturday as self-interested defenders of a fading international order, but he didn’t discuss his country’s war in Ukraine in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

“The U.S. and its subordinate Western collective are continuing to fuel conflicts which artificially divide humanity into hostile blocks and hamper the achievement of overall aims. They’re doing everything they can to prevent the formation of a genuine multipolar world order,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

NEW YORK (AP) — In late 2020, Sen. Bob Menendez met with Philip Sellinger, a private practice lawyer and former fundraiser for the senator, to assess his potential fit as the next U.S. attorney for the state of New Jersey — and to discuss one case in particular.

If appointed, Sellinger would assume control of one of the largest prosecutor’s offices in the country, a post that comes with the power to bust mob bosses and go after corrupt public officials.