Washington DC

Washington, Sep 30 (AFP) President Donald Trump said Sunday he wants to meet the anonymous whistleblower at the center of the scandal threatening his presidency.

Trump has been relatively quiet this weekend but in a series of evening tweets he also blasted Democratic lawmakers and the media as he railed against the impeachment inquiry launched last week.

WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (NNN-Xinhua) — US President Donald Trump on Friday signed a stopgap funding bill, averting another government shutdown days before the end of the current fiscal year.

The so-called continuing resolution will keep the federal government running through Nov 21.

The House and Senate both passed the measure on a bipartisan basis to allow lawmakers to have more time to decide the specific spending levels for federal departments.

The current fiscal year ends on Sept 30 and the 2020 fiscal year starts on Oct 1.

United Nations, Sep 26 : Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Thursday boycotted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's opening statement at the meeting of the SAARC Council of Foreign Ministers, saying his country will not engage with India "until and unless" it lifts the "siege" in Kashmir.

The meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session here started in his absence.

WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Trump administration plans to dramatically lower the ceiling of a decades-old refugee resettlement programme to 18,000 people from its current level of 30,000, the State Department said.

“This refugee admissions proposal reaffirms America’s enduring commitment to assist the world’s displaced people, while fulfilling our first duty to protect and serve the American people,” the department said.

Washington, Sep 26 (PTI) Days after US President Donald Trump tried to woo Indian Americans by joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a mega rally in Houston, Democratic presidential aspirant Joe Biden was hosted for a major fund-raiser by this small but rich community.

The fund-raiser in Los Angeles Wednesday night was organised by Indian-American surgeon Sanjay Khurana and his software-engineer wife Mona, at their picturesque Manhattan Beach home. It was attended by about 150 top Indian Americans from in and around Hollywood.

Washington, Sep 26 (AFP/PTI) A homemade submarine carrying more than five tons of cocaine was intercepted in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America, the US Coast Guard said.

The 39-foot-long (12 metre) vessel had previously been detected by maritime surveillance, according to a statement published Tuesday.

NEW YORK, Sept 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Honduras signed a deal with the U.S. government on Wednesday that could push migrants who cross the country on the way to the United States back to seek asylum, in the latest bilateral deal with Central American countries aimed at curbing migration.

Wednesday’s “safe third country”-type deal is similar to agreements signed by El Salvador on Sept 20 and Guatemala on July 26. The countries have released few details about how the agreements would be implemented.

Acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire has threatened to resign over concerns that the White House may force him to stonewall Congress when testifying on Thursday about a whistleblower complaint on president Trump.

According to Washington Post, this revelation reflects the extraordinary tensions between the White House and the nation’s highest-ranking intelligence official over a matter that has triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and an intelligence official’s whistleblower complaint (all times local):

6:50 p.m.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is decrying reports that President Donald Trump urged the president of Ukraine to look into his son’s business dealings there.

Biden says in a statement that if the reports are true, “Then there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. manufacturing sector “already appears in recession” and overall economic growth is expected to slow “in the near horizon,” St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said on Friday, explaining why he dissented at a recent Fed meeting and wanted a deeper, half percentage point rate cut.

The Fed reduced its target overnight policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, to a level of between 1.75% and 2.0%, to offset slowing global growth and risks associated in part with President Donald Trump’s trade battles with China.