USA

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The window is still open to reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal but Tehran has yet to indicate whether it is willing to resume talks in Vienna or whether it would do so on the basis of where they left off in June, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Initial jobless claims in the United States rose last week for a second straight week to 351,000, indicating a disrupted labor market recovery amid the Delta variant surge, the U.S. Labor Department reported on Thursday.

In the week ending Sept. 18, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 16,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of 335,000, according to a report released by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Developing countries are suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic's economic effects disproportionately, world leaders have warned at the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

The debate continued on Wednesday with real-time and pre-recorded video messages from 29 heads of state and government, calling for more finance to and more say by developing countries.

23 Sep 2021; MEMO: The leader of the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee yesterday introduced legislation to provide $1 billion to Israel to replenish its Iron Dome missile defence system, a day after the funding was removed from a broader spending bill, Reuters reports.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Leaders who are “playing” at unity and stuffing pressing problems into an overflowing bag of woe. A world that’s in the same boat, but first-class passengers get the lifeboats. A United Nations that resembles ”a retired superhero” that has lost sight of what it used to be.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy certainly wasn’t the only world leader at this week’s U.N. General Assembly meeting to paint a dire picture of international relations. But the former actor and comedian may well have painted the most colorful one.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis testified Wednesday in the trial of fallen tech star Elizabeth Holmes, saying the entrepreneur misled him into believing she was on the verge of rolling out a blood-testing breakthrough that he hoped would help save lives of troops in battle.

NEW YORK (AP) — After being pummeled by two tropical storms that submerged basements, cracked home foundations and destroyed belongings, Northeastern U.S. residents still in the throes of recovery are being hit with another unexpected blow: Thousands of families are now swamped with financial losses because they didn’t have flood insurance.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — One desperate California school district is sending flyers home in students’ lunchboxes, telling parents it’s “now hiring.” Elsewhere, principals are filling in as crossing guards, teachers are being offered signing bonuses and schools are moving back to online learning.

Now that schools have welcomed students back to classrooms, they face a new challenge: a shortage of teachers and staff the likes of which some districts say they have never seen.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With a personal push, President Joe Biden pressed fellow Democrats to hasten work on his big “build back better” agenda Wednesday, telling them to come up with a final framework and their best topline budget figure as the party labors to bridge its divisions in Congress ahead of crucial voting deadlines.

DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — For the final leg of his journey from Chile to the United States, Haitian migrant Fabricio Jean followed detailed instructions sent to him via WhatsApp from his brother in New Jersey who had recently taken the route to the Texas border.

His brother wired him money for the trip, then meticulously mapped it out, warning him of areas heavy with Mexican immigration officials.