New York

NEW YORK (AP) — Video footage of the area around Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell on a day he survived an apparent suicide attempt “no longer exists,” federal prosecutors told a judge Thursday.

Officials at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York believed they had preserved footage of guards finding Epstein after he appeared to have attempted suicide, but actually saved a video from a different part of the jail, prosecutors said.

NEW YORK (AP) — The election was always going to be about Donald Trump.

But over the span of a few days, the yearslong focus on the Republican president’s performance on the economy, health care and immigration has been overtaken by an urgent debate over foreign policy and war. And as the sprint to Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucuses begins, both Trump and his Democratic rivals are being forced to navigate a delicate and dangerous military conflict with Iran that injects a new level of uncertainty into the 2020 contest.

NEW YORK, Jan 08 (APP): Pakistan will stand by the Kashmiri people in their just struggle for the exercise of their United Nations-pledged right of self-determination to rid themselves of the brutal Indian occupation, Ambassador Munir Akram told a large gathering of Pakistanis and Kashmiris in which U.N. diplomats also participated.

(Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday unveiled an economic strategy based on what he sees as his key strengths: a successful career in business and three terms as mayor of New York.

The plan itself includes policy positions largely in line with the Democratic Party mainstream but which Bloomberg, a billionaire former Republican, has not always embraced, such as a higher minimum wage.

NEW YORK (AP) --- Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s escalation of tensions with Iran proves him to be “dangerously incompetent” and puts the U.S. on the brink of war.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 07 (APP): The United Nations’ cultural agency has called for respecting international conventions on the protection of cultural property amid US President Donald Trump’s threat to attack Iran’s cultural sites.

The call from the head of the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Audrey Azoulay, came in response to Trump’s threat on Saturday to attack 52 sites in Iran, including cultural icons, if Tehran were to retaliate over the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a US airstrike on Friday.

January 7. / TASS/: The United States refused to issue a visa to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was about to leave for Thursday's meeting of the UN Security Council, Reuters news agency reported on Monday.

UN, January 6. /TASS/: Russia and China blocked the statement of the UN Security Council condemning the attack against the US Embassy in Iraq because it did not take into account the subsequent US air strike near the Baghdad airport, which resulted in killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said on Monday.

The US Permanent Mission to the UN said earlier that two permanent members of UNSC, Russia and China did not allow the statement to proceed.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called on parties concerned to exercise maximum restraint to stop escalation of global tensions.

Warning that "geopolitical tensions are at their highest level this century," the UN chief told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that he is "in constant contact" with leading officials around the world and his message is simple and clear: "stop escalation, exercise maximum restraint, re-start dialogue and renew international cooperation."

USA (AP) --- Rising tensions between Washington and Tehran are testing whether Joe Biden can capitalize on his decades of foreign policy experience as he seeks to challenge a president he derides as “dangerous” and “erratic.”