USA

(AP) --- For years, South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh looked his anguished clients in the eyes and promised to help them with their medical bills, their suffering or simply to survive. Then he stole most, if not all, of what he won for many of them.

On Tuesday, those folks get to look right back at Murdaugh, in a prison jumpsuit, and tell him whatever they want as the disgraced lawyer, also convicted of murder, is sentenced for a decade worth of thefts from clients and his law firm.

WASHINGTON, November 27. /TASS/: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting of foreign ministers in Skopje this week, but it is not clear whether he will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov there, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien said at a special telephone briefing on Blinken’s trip to Europe.

"On the OSCE. Secretary Blinken is leading our [US] delegation," the diplomat noted.

WASHINGTON/RIYADH, Nov 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy warship responded to a distress call from a commercial tanker in the Gulf of Aden that had been seized by armed individuals and the vessel is now safe, U.S. officials said on Sunday.

The tanker, which had been carrying a cargo of phosphoric acid, was identified as the Central Park by the vessel's company. The officials did not identify the attackers.

In a statement, the U.S. military said the USS Mason, with help from allied ships, demanded that the commercial ship be released by the attackers.

NEW YORK, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Baby food in the United States may still contain potentially harmful pesticides, but is less toxic than it was about 30 years ago, according to a new study by a nonprofit U.S. environmental group.

Some 38 percent of conventional, or non-organic, baby food in the United States, is found to contain toxic pesticides, said the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in its latest research released in mid-November.

"At least one pesticide residue was detected in 22 of the 58 conventional baby foods," the EWG said.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — In New York, migrants at a city-run shelter grumble that relatives who settled before them refuse to offer a bed. In Chicago, a provider of mental health services to people in the country illegally pivoted to new arrivals sleeping at a police station across the street. In South Florida, some immigrants complain that people who came later get work permits that are out of reach for them.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden plans to skip the annual climate talks in Dubai this week, an event that is expected to draw heads of state and diplomats from roughly 200 nations and the Vatican. He has attended twice before.

The White House said it was sending a climate team, including Special Envoy John Kerry, climate adviser Ali Zaidi and clean energy adviser John Podesta.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress returns to session this week, lawmakers will be trying to forge an agreement on sending a new round of wartime assistance to Ukraine. But to succeed, they will have to find agreement on an issue that has confounded them for decades.

(AP) --- Consumers are scouring the internet for online deals as they begin to cap off the five-day post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza with Cyber Monday.

Even though e-commerce is now part and parcel of our everyday lives and much of the holiday shopping season, Cyber Monday –- a term coined back in 2005 by the National Retail Federation –- continues to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, thanks to the deals and the hype the industry has created to fuel it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is turning his attention to Ukraine, NATO and the Western Balkans after weeks of intense focus on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Blinken has spent much of the last month-and-a-half deeply engaged on the Gaza crisis, making two trips to the Middle East. Now, amid signs that a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas due to expire on Monday may be extended, Blinken is departing for Brussels for a NATO foreign ministers meeting.

NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) — President Joe Biden confirmed Sunday that Abigail Edan, a 4-year-old American girl held hostage by Hamas after her parents were killed, was released as part of the cease-fire deal in the Israel-Hamas war.

“Thank God she’s home,” Biden said told reporters. “I wish I were there to hold her.”