USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Security-sealed rooms. Lock bags. And in the most rare of circumstances, the ability to handcuff a document pouch to a messenger to transport the nation’s secrets.

These are some of the ways Capitol Hill keeps classified documents secured, an elaborate system of government protocols and high-level security clearances that stands in stark contrast to the storage room stash of secrets at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

09 Sep 2022; MEMO: US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said on Friday that his country would not agree with Iran on a deal that fails to meet basic demands, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Iran's "latest response takes us backward", Blinken told reporters at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, following their meeting.

Blinken referred to Iran's official reply to the draft compromise, proposed by EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

09 Sep 2022; MEMO: The United States, on Friday, imposed sanctions on Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security and its Minister, accusing them of being tied to a disruptive July cyber attack on Albania and engaging in other cyber activities against the United States and its allies, Reuters reports.

The move comes after Albania severed diplomatic relations with Iran on Wednesday for the same incident, ordering Iranian diplomats and embassy staff to leave within 24 hours.

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to speak to U.S. arms makers and military leaders on Sept. 21, when he is expected to make an appeal for more weapons for his country's defense against Russia, according to an advance notice of the speech seen by Reuters.

Zelenskiy was set to speak by video link before a conference hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association in Austin, Texas, in his first-ever speech to the U.S. defense industry.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday appealed a ruling to appoint a special master to review documents FBI agents seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence last month.

The DOJ also asked District Judge Aileen Cannon to pause her order blocking federal prosecutors from further reviewing documents marked classified that were seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Florida has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and former top FBI officials, rejecting the former president’s claims that they and others acted in concert to concoct the Russia investigation that shadowed much of his administration.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said in a sharply worded ruling on Thursday that Trump’s lawsuit, filed in March, contained “glaring structural deficiencies” and that many of the “characterizations of events are implausible.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government on Friday imposed sanctions on Iran’s intelligence agency and its leadership in response to malicious cyberattacks on Albanian government computer systems in July.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Esmail Khatib, who heads the ministry, for what it said were cyber-related activities against the U.S. and its allies.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man accused of killing four people and wounding three others in a livestreamed shooting rampage that paralyzed Memphis and led to a city-wide manhunt was granted a public defender during Friday morning court appearance and will remain jailed on a first-degree murder charge.

Ezekiel Kelly, 19, told a judge he could not afford a lawyer for accusations in Wednesday’s attack that caused panic and fear across the city.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Californians tried to weather the extremes of a changing climate Friday, as a punishing heat wave that has helped fuel deadly wildfires had the state teetering on the edge of blackouts for a 10th consecutive day while a tropical storm barreled ashore with the promise of cooler temperatures but also possible flooding.

The abrupt swing in conditions even whipsawed weather junkies.

ATLANTA (AP) — A group of computer and election security experts is urging Georgia election officials to replace the state’s touchscreen voting machines with hand-marked paper ballots ahead of the November midterm elections, citing what they say are “serious threats” posed by an apparent breach of voting equipment in one county.