USA

NEW YORK, July 9. /TASS/: US billionaire Elon Musk has terminated his deal to purchase Twitter social network, CNBC television channel reported.

According to CNBC, "Musk wants to end his deal to buy Twitter, according to a letter sent by a lawyer on his behalf to the company’s chief legal officer."

A copy of the letter was published on the official website of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In the letter, attorney Mike Ringler charged that "Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations."

LANGLEY, Va., July 8 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday thanked staff at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency for warning the world about Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to invade Ukraine, and hailed what he called the "quiet bravery" of America's spies.

Marking the CIA's 75th anniversary, Biden said he had been involved with the agency for 52 of those years, first as a junior senator on a 1975 committee set up to investigate mind control experiments and other abuses by the agency.

WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury on Friday said it was moving to terminate a 1979 tax treaty with Hungary in the wake of Budapest's decision to block the European Union's implementation of a new, 15% global minimum tax.

A Treasury spokesperson said that since Hungary lowered its corporate tax rate to 9% - less than half the 21% U.S. rate - the tax treaty unilaterally benefits Hungary.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government hasn’t done enough to protect a rare species of whale from lethal entanglement in lobster fishing gear, and new rules are needed to protect the species from extinction, a judge has ruled.

The government has violated both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act by failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled on Friday. The whales number less than 340 in the world and have been declining rapidly in population in recent years.

NEW YORK (AP) — As Donald Trump considers another White House run, polls show he’s the most popular figure in the Republican Party. But it wasn’t always that way.

Competing at one point against a dozen rivals for the presidential nomination in 2016, Trump won only about one-third of the vote in key early states. He even lost in Iowa, which kicks off the nomination process.

HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (AP) — Bobby Shapiro ran down Central Avenue in socks, moving toward the street corner where gunfire had erupted just moments before. At first, he only wanted to confirm that what he was hearing was real — a mass shooting at a July 4 parade in Highland Park.

Any sense of disbelief vanished with the sight of bone fragments, blood and pieces of flesh lying in the street where a parade was marching just minutes before. Then he saw the bodies.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two weeks after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February, Kremlin-backed rebels assaulted a nursing home in the eastern region of Luhansk. Dozens of elderly and disabled patients, many of them bedridden, were trapped inside without water or electricity.

The March 11 assault set off a fire that spread throughout the facility, suffocating people who couldn’t move. A small number of patients and staff escaped and fled into a nearby forest, finally getting assistance after walking for 5 kilometers (3 miles).

WASHINGTON (AP) — It would have been something never quite before seen in America — a defeated president, Donald Trump, standing at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2001, with a mob of supporters, some armed, contesting the election outcome.

Trump intended to go there that day. His allies had been planning for the moment, envisioning the president delivering a speech outside the building or even entering the House chamber amid objections to Congress certifying the 2020 election results for Democrat Joe Biden.

WASHINGTON, Jul 08 (APP): Prominent Kashmiri leader Ghulam Nabi Fai, has paid tributes to Sardar Muhammad Abdul Qayyum Khan, a former prime minister of Azad Kashmir, calling him a “preeminent” leader who strived to uphold the human and political rights of the people of the disputed State.

UNITED NATIONS, July 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations Security Council will continue negotiating Friday on extending authorization of aid transfers across Syria’s border, one day after a scheduled vote was scrapped following disagreement between Russia and the West.

Moscow is seeking a six-month extension, with the possibility to renew, while Western nations want a full year for the transfers, which are being conducted without approval from Damascus.