USA

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 19 (APP): Pakistan threw its full weight behind the new United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action to combat hate speech, saying that language was being used to secure narrow political and electoral gains in many parts of the world, including the South Asian region.

“An inevitable consequence is to fan the flames of bigotry, intolerance, anti-Muslim hatred and xenophobia,” Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres unveiled the strategy at a special meeting held in the packed ECOSOC chamber on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, June 18 (Xinhua) -- "We shall not allow disputes and differences to define the current China-U.S. relationship" as the two sides have far more common interests, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said here on Tuesday.

Speaking at an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral ties, Cui noted that some people have asserted that as China pursues a different development path, it will surely "move America's cheese," or have gone further by clamoring for the "decoupling" of the two countries and even a "new Cold War".

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man fatally shot in a Southern California Costco store was mentally ill and off his medication when he pushed or slapped an off-duty police officer who opened fire and killed the man and critically wounded the man’s parents, the lawyer for the man’s family said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’ll hold trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week at a summit of nations in Japan. And U.S. and Chinese negotiators will resume talks before the leaders meet.

Financial markets greeted the news with relief Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.4% higher, adding 353 points.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is getting a taste of the regulatory pushback it will face as it creates a new digital currency with corporate partners.

Just hours after the social media giant unveiled early plans for the Libra cryptocurrency, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire insisted that only governments can issue sovereign currencies. He said Facebook must ensure that Libra won’t hurt consumers or be used for illegal activities.

“We will demand guarantees that such transactions cannot be diverted, for example for financing terrorism,” he said on Europe-1 radio.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Iran said Tuesday they were not seeking war with each other as tensions simmered between the two in the Persian Gulf and President Donald Trump vowed the U.S. would respond to any attack.

“We have a lot of things going with Iran,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a campaign event in Florida. “We’ll see what happens. Let me just say this: We are very prepared.”

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — U.S. authorities seized 33,000 pounds, or 15,000 kilograms, of cocaine from a ship at Philadelphia’s port in what they described as one of the largest drug busts in American history.

They said the haul could have been worth more than $1 billion on the street.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump could have a tough time making good on his threat to deport millions of people living in the U.S. illegally. But maybe that wasn’t his point.

Trump’s late-night messages Monday promised that starting next week his administration “will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve seems poised to pivot from keeping interest rates steady to holding out the option of cutting rates if it were to decide that the economic expansion needs support.

The Fed isn’t considered ready to announce that it’s reducing rates for the first time in more than a decade. But when it ends its latest policy meeting Wednesday, the central bank is expected to signal an inclination to ease credit sometime within the next several months. What it won’t likely do is indicate when that might happen.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia and China have blocked the U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea from declaring that Pyongyang breached the annual limit for importing refined petroleum products which are key for its economy, two U.N. diplomats said Tuesday.

The diplomats said the Russians and Chinese notified the committee before Tuesday’s deadline for objections.