USA

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Thousands of Ohio voters were held up or stymied in their efforts to get absentee ballots for last year’s general election because of missing or mismatched signatures on their ballot applications, an Associated Press review has found.

The signature requirement on such applications is a largely overlooked and spottily tracked step in Ohio’s voting process, which has shifted increasingly to mail-in ballots since early, no-fault absentee voting was instituted in 2005.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged Sunday that a Justice Department inspector general report identified “real sloppiness” in the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide and said he was wrong to have been “overconfident” about how the Russia investigation was handled.

CLINTON, Iowa (AP) — Seven Democratic presidential candidates will stand on stage this week in Los Angeles, a pool of survivors who have withstood almost a year on the campaign trail, sustained attacks from rivals in both parties, and five rounds of high-pressure debates.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are pushing for testimony from top White House officials in the rare impeachment trial that is fast becoming the next battleground ahead of House voting that is all but certain to result in President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

NEW YORK, Dec 15 (APP): An internationally acclaimed expert on genocide has grimly warned that Muslims in the Indian state of Assam and occupied Kashmir are just one step away from extermination, as he drew parallels between Narendra Modi’s government and Germany under the Nazis.

All the conditions are in place for genocide of Muslims in Kashmir and Assam, Dr. Gregory Stanton, an American who is the founder of Genocide Watch, told an audience on the Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., according to a press release issued by the Indian-American Muslim Council (IAMC).

NEW YORK, Dec 15 (APP): President United States, Donald Trump intends to withdraw about 4,000 troops from Afghanistan and will make the official announcement in the next coming days, a leading American television network reported on Saturday.

Three current and former United States officials told National Broadcasting Company (NBC) News the president is planning to announce the immediate withdrawal that will see a massive reduction in the current number of troops in the region, which are now between 12,000 and 13,000.

NEW YORK CITY, December 15. /TASS/: Republicans in the Congress upper chamber expect to put an end to impeachment process of US President Donald Trump as soon as possible. This was announced on Saturday by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is also Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

"This thing will come to the Senate, and it will die quickly, and I will do everything I can to make it die quickly," the South Carolina Republican said answering questions from CNN at a business forum in Doha, Qatar.

WASHINGTON, December 15. /TASS/: US President Donald Trump has criticized Fox News after it became known that the TV channel plans to interview former FBI Chief James Comey and head of the House intelligence committee Adam Schiff.

Trump dismissed Comey from his post of the FBI Chief in May 2017.

Schiff was behind the report on the impeachment investigation into President Trump.

WASHINGTON, December 15. /TASS/: The United States is reinstating its unilateral restrictions on the Iranian uranium enrichment facility in Fordow on December 15. All previous exceptions to the sanctions regime expire on Sunday, an official representative of the US Department of State told TASS.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear President Donald Trump’s appeals in three separate cases to prevent his financial records, including tax returns, being handed over to Democratic-led House of Representatives committees and a New York prosecutor.