USA

26 June 2019; AFP: The mystery of the Martian methane continues.

NASA's Curiosity Rover last week detected the highest ever levels of the colorless, odorless gas over the course of its seven year mission on the Red Planet, raising hopes it could be evidence of the existence of microbial life.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 (APP): Pakistan reaffirmed its dedication to the Palestinian cause at the 2019 pledging conference for the cash-strapped UN agency that assists Palestinian refugees by announcing a fresh commitment of financial support.

“The international community must not fail the Palestinian people,” Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the pledging event for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) held at UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, June 25 (Xinhua) -- The UN envoy for South Sudan said Tuesday that the South Sudanese's desire for peace is palpable and urged the country's politicians to respond to it.

UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for South Sudan David Shearer told the Security Council that "the desire for peace is palpable and there is a fierce aversion to any renewal of fighting."

The strong desire for peace is echoed in results of a Perception Survey carried out by UNMISS, the UN peacekeeping mission that Shearer leads in the country.

WASHINGTON, June 25 (Xinhua) -- A seven-day Section 301 tariffs hearing wrapped up Tuesday after more than 300 business representatives had made their case against Washington's proposed additional tariffs on Chinese imports.

The overwhelming sentiment expressed by representatives from various sectors was that imposing additional tariffs up to 25 percent on about 300 billion U.S. dollars worth of Chinese imports would significantly harm U.S. businesses and consumers.

UN, June 26. /TASS/: The Russian forces in Syria strike only terrorist facilities identified as such by intelligence data, Russia’s UN envoy, Vasily Nebenzya, said during a UN Security Council session to discuss the situation in the Middle East.

The Syrian government troops and the Aerospace Forces of Russia "conduct strikes that target only terrorist facilities, confirmed as such by intelligence data," he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — American businesses are bracing for a painful escalation in President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

Yet they might just get a reprieve.

If history repeats itself — and most analysts are betting it will — Trump and President Xi Jinping will agree to some kind of cease-fire when they meet late this week at a Group of 20 international summit in Osaka, Japan.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Climate change in the Western U.S. means more intense and frequent wildfires churning out waves of smoke that scientists say will sweep across the continent to affect tens of millions of people and cause a spike in premature deaths.

That emerging reality is prompting people in cities and rural areas alike to prepare for another summer of sooty skies along the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountains — the regions widely expected to suffer most from blazes tied to dryer, warmer conditions.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday the outlook for the U.S. economy has become cloudier since early May, with rising uncertainties over trade and global growth causing the central bank to reassess its next move on interest rates.

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Powell said the Fed is now grappling with the question of whether those uncertainties will continue to weigh on the outlook and require action.

NEW YORK (AP) — Liz Zito is a multimedia artist so immersed in the Mueller Report that she wrote fan fiction to fill in the parts that were redacted by the Justice Department. When she worried that other Americans didn’t know about the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller, she found her own way to make them accessible: A “performative reading” in downtown Manhattan.

DALLAS (AP) — A lawsuit filed by FedEx against the U.S. government over export rules follows a dispute over diverted shipments that were intended for Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecommunications-equipment giant.

The lawsuit challenges changes to export rules designed to keep technology out of the hands of entities or people that the U.S. government considers potential risks to national security.