North America

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran has not drawn back to a less threatening military posture in the region following the Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Arabia, the top U.S. admiral in the Middle East told Reuters, suggesting persistent concern despite a lull in violence.

“I don’t believe that they’re drawing back at all,” Vice Admiral Jim Malloy, commander of the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, said in an interview.

Washington, Oct 2 (PTI) Trade deals are not simple arithmetic but much more complicated as they involve a number of variables, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said, exuding confidence that India and US will "find a fix" to their trade disputes with intense engagement going on between the two countries.

Trade tensions between India and the US have been rising with American President Donald Trump complaining that tariffs imposed by New Delhi on American products were "no longer acceptable".

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order on health care, pledging to "protect and improve" Medicare, especially the Medicare Advantage plans offered by private insurers to seniors.

The executive order, an alternative to the Medicare for All Act of 2019 proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, is perceived as Trump's bid to appeal to voters in the 2020 election, in which healthcare is a major topic.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Two years after a shooter rained gunfire on country music fans from a high-rise Las Vegas Strip hotel, MGM Resorts International has agreed to pay up to $800 million to families of the 58 people who died and hundreds of others who were injured, attorneys announced Thursday.

The out-of-court agreement will resolve lawsuits in at least 10 states seeking compensation from the hotel owner for physical and psychological injuries received in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other U.S., U.K. and Australian officials are pressing Facebook to give authorities a way to read encrypted messages sent by ordinary users, re-igniting tensions between tech companies and law enforcement.

Facebook’s WhatsApp already uses so-called end-to-end encryption, which locks up messages so that even Facebook can’t read their contents. Facebook plans to extend that protection to Messenger and Instagram Direct.

CHICAGO (AP) — A jury convicted a man of first-degree murder Thursday night in the shooting death of a 9-year-old Chicago boy who was lured into an alley with the promise of a juice box.

Prosecutors contended that Dwright Boone-Doty and fellow gang member Corey Morgan planned the November 2015 killing of Tyshawn Lee before Boone-Doty took a gun Morgan gave him and shot the boy.

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — A man opened fire Thursday in the lobby of a building for senior residents, killing a man and wounding two women and then barricading himself inside his apartment before surrendering, police said.

The injuries of the wounded people were critical and they were taken to a hospital, fire department officials said.

The shooter was identified by police Thursday evening as 80-year-old Robert E. Breck, a resident of the 15-story Smith Tower building. Vancouver Police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said he surrendered.

Dallas (AP) --- The questioning dragged on all day and into the evening as lawyers queried hundreds of prospective jurors for potential bias in the trial of Amber Guyger, the white Dallas police officer who fatally shot a black neighbor in his own living room.

Finally, the judge sent everyone home except the attorneys, who made their final selections in private.

It wasn’t until jurors filed into the courtroom for opening statements that the public got its first look at something many had hoped for: a panel that was as racially diverse as Dallas County.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders are reacting in two ways to President Donald Trump’s public call for another foreign government, China, to investigate his political rival: silence and support.

Several House and Senate leaders stayed mum Thursday as Trump escalated the controversy that has fueled an impeachment inquiry and plowed through another norm of American politics. Foreign interference in elections has long been viewed as a threat to U.S. sovereignty and the integrity of democracy, and soliciting foreign help in an election is illegal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top U.S. diplomats encouraged Ukraine’s newly elected president to conduct an investigation linked to Joe Biden’s family in return for a high-profile visit to Washington with President Donald Trump. It soon escalated into what one feared was a “crazy” swap that risked vital U.S. military aid.

That’s according to a cache of text messages released late Thursday by House investigators following a 10-hour interview with one of the diplomats, Kurt Volker, who stepped down as special envoy to Ukraine amid the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.