A court-appointed lawyer for an Afghan woman and U.S. permanent resident whom the Justice Department alleges is an “alien terrorist” vowed Thursday to vigorously fight the government’s efforts to deport her, telling a federal judge that the entire legal process is unfair and unconstitutional. In the first-ever test case before the secretive and never-before-used Alien…
European football’s governing body UEFA said on Thursday it would boycott the World Cup should FIFA press ahead with its private investor plan. “No UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been…
Washington — President Trump on Thursday said he has “no objection” to withdrawing Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general until Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina leave office in January, as their concerns have effectively placed Blanche’s nomination process on hold. Cornyn in particular has demanded that the Justice…
Ege-Cap Ferret, France — French authorities gave the go-ahead Thursday for 84,000 evacuees forced out by a monster wildfire to go back to their homes in southwest France, the strongest sign yet that firefighters are turning a corner in their battle against the flames that have burned an area four times the size of Paris. The…
The death toll has grown to at least 34 people in southwestern Japan after a powerful earthquake on Tuesday, according to the prefectural government of Kumamoto, on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu, where the quake struck. The disaster destroyed homes, triggered an explosion at a mall and caused a factory chimney to collapse. Two days…
The nation’s gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 1.5% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday, weaker than economists expected and a sign the Iran war is hurting growth. Economists polled by Reuters predicted GDP would rise at an annualized rate of 2.1% for April to June. GDP measures the…
The Trump administration on Thursday reiterated its view that China’s alleged efforts to collect millions of American voter registration files constituted election interference — an allegation leveled by President Trump in a primetime address two weeks ago. The White House said the voter files that were swept up by China “included non-publicly available data,” in…
Kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian ballistic missile and drone barrage across Ukraine overnight into Thursday killed at least eight civilians, including children, and wounded dozens of others, officials said. The blitz expanded Russia’s almost daily bombardment of Ukrainian cities as Moscow apparently looked to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses. NATO member…
New Zealand’s top diplomat Winston Peters drew the ire of Beijing’s ambassador in Wellington on Thursday after telling a lawmaker of Chinese descent to “go back to your own country”. During a debate about New Zealand’s response to the Covid pandemic on Wednesday, populist NZ First leader Peters was asked by China-born Green Party member…
The Foreign Office (FO) said on Thursday that Pakistan was doing its “utmost” to bring the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table under the Islamabad memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed last month. Addressing a weekly press briefing, FO spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Pakistan noted with concern that the security situation in the…
