WASHINGTON/SEOUL, March 24: North Korea fired two short-range missiles at the weekend, U.S. and South Korean officials said, but Washington played down the first such tests under President Joe Biden and said it was still open to dialogue with Pyongyang.

WASHINGTON, Jan 20: During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden vowed to fight for the soul of America. As he formally assumes office as the next U.S. president on Wednesday, Biden now faces the steep task of repairing a nation’s soul in battered and desperate shape.

WASHINGTON, Jan 13: With at least five Republicans joining their push to impeach President Donald Trump over the storming of the U.S. Capitol, Democrats in the House of Representatives stood poised for a history-making vote to try to remove the president from office.

USA, Jan 3: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 4,225,756 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning and distributed 13,071,925 doses.

WASHINGTON, Nov 8: Kamala Harris made history on Saturday with her election as Joe Biden’s vice president, becoming the first woman, first Black American and first Asian American to win the second highest U.S. office.

WILMINGTON, Del, Nov 7: With Democratic challenger Joe Biden taking a lead in Pennsylvania and Georgia and inching closer to victory in the U.S. presidential election on Friday, Republican President Donald Trump has turned to the courts to challenge votes in several states.

WASHINGTON, Nov 3: More than 95 million Americans had cast their votes in the 2020 presidential election by Monday, according to a tally by the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida, a harbinger of what is expected to be the highest turnout of modern times.

WASHINGTON, Oct 28: More than 70 million Americans have cast ballots in the U.S. presidential election, more than half the total turnout of the 2016 election with one week to go until Election Day, according to a Tuesday tally from the U.S. Elections Project.

NEW YORK, March 31: The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic climbed past 3,000 on Monday, the deadliest day yet in the country’s mounting crisis, while New York cheered the arrival of a gleaming 1,000-bed U.S. Navy hospital ship as a sign of hope in the city’s desperate fight.

NEW YORK, March 27: The sum of known coronavirus U.S. cases soared well past 100,000, with more than 1,600 dead, as weary doctors and nurses coping with shortages resorted to extremes ranging from hiding scarce medical supplies to buying them on the black market.

CHICAGO, March 16: Officials across the country curtailed many elements of American life to fight the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, with health officials recommending that groups of 50 or more don’t get together and a government expert saying a 14-day national shutdown may be needed.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, March 15: Donald Trump tested negative for the coronavirus, his doctor said on Saturday, as the U.S. president extended a travel ban to Britain and Ireland to try to slow the spread of a pandemic that has shut down much of the daily routine of American life.

March 11: Alarming clusters of the coronavirus swelled on both coasts of the U.S. on Tuesday, with more than 70 cases now tied to a biotech conference in Boston and infections turning up at 10 nursing homes in the hard-hit Seattle area.

WASHINGTON, March 11: Joe Biden decisively won Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, seizing a key battleground state that helped propel Bernie Sanders’ insurgent candidacy four years ago. The former vice president’s victory there, as well as in Missouri, Mississippi and Idaho, dealt a serious blow to Sanders and substantially widened Biden’s path to the nomination.

LOS ANGELES, March  5: The U.S. death toll from coronavirus infections rose to 11 on Wednesday as new cases emerged around New York City and Los Angeles, while Seattle-area health officials discouraged social gatherings amid the nation’s largest outbreak.

WASHINGTON, March 3:  A resurgent Joe Biden scored victories from Texas to Massachusetts on Super Tuesday, revitalizing a presidential bid that was teetering on the edge of disaster just days earlier. But his rival, Bernie Sanders, seized the biggest prize with a win in California that ensured he and his embrace of democratic socialism would drive the Democrats’ nomination fight for the foreseeable future.

WASHINGTON, Feb 21: Intelligence officials have warned lawmakers that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election campaign to help President Donald Trump get reelected, three officials familiar with the closed-door briefing said Thursday.

WASHINGTON, Feb 21: A federal judge on Thursday sentenced President Donald Trump’s long-time adviser Roger Stone to three years and four months in prison and said his lies to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election posed a threat to American democracy.

LUCKNOW, Feb 20: U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to “drain the swamp” of lobbyists and elites in Washington D.C. Now, one Indian city is racing to clean up a stagnant river as he prepares to visit.

TOKYO, Feb 18: Japan plans to trial HIV medications to treat patients infected with coronavirus as its growing number of cases poses an increasing threat to the economy and public health, the government’s top spokesman said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, Feb 14: President Donald Trump said Thursday that he might end the long-running practice of letting other administration officials listen in on presidential calls with foreign leaders. That’s after Trump’s impeachment was triggered by his July phone call with the president of Ukraine.

TAIPEI, Feb 12: Three U.S. Air Force planes, including two B-52 bombers, flew near Taiwan on Wednesday, the island’s defense ministry said, after Taiwan’s air force scrambled earlier in the week to intercept Chinese jets.

WASHINGTON, Feb 7:  President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. at his direction has conducted a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen that killed Qassim al-Rimi, an al-Qaida leader who claimed responsibility for last year’s deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors.

WASHINGTON. Feb 6: President Donald Trump won impeachment acquittal Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, bringing to a close only the third presidential trial in American history with votes that split the country, tested civic norms and fed the tumultuous 2020 race for the White House.

BEIJING, Feb 3: The United States has taken actions that create and spread fear following a coronavirus outbreak in China, instead of offering any significant assistance, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday.

Jan 31: Reviving some of the most polarizing speech lines from his 2016 campaign and mocking his potential Democratic opponents, Trump regaled the crowd with a series of campaign promises, including revamping the U.S. healthcare system and continuing to build a wall along the country’s southern border with Mexico.

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, Jan 31: The U.S. government warned Americans not to travel to China as the death toll from a new coronavirus reached 213 on Friday and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency.

WASHINGTON, Jan 31: Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee declared late Thursday he will oppose calling more witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, all but dashing Democratic efforts to hear more testimony and boosting chances the Senate will vote quickly to acquit the president.

WASHINGTON, Jan 30: In a striking shift from President Donald Trump’s claim of “perfect” dealings with Ukraine, his defense asserted at his Senate trial that a trade of U.S. military aid for political favors — even if proven — could not be grounds for his impeachment.

WASHINGTON, Jan 29: U.S. House Democrats on Wednesday will unveil a proposed $760 billion infrastructure spending bill over five years that aims to rebuild sagging roads and bridges and reduce carbon pollution.

WASHINGTON, Jan 29: Revelations from former national security adviser John Bolton’s upcoming book are adding some drama to the ongoing Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Some reasons they could be important:

WASHINGTON, Jan 29: Republicans lack the votes to block witnesses at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded late Tuesday, a potentially major hurdle for Trump’s hopes to end the trial with a quick acquittal. Earlier, Trump’s lawyers concluded his defense with a plea to move on.

KABUL, Jan 28: Afghan forces and Taliban fighters clashed in a central region where a U.S. military aircraft crashed, officials said on Tuesday, as the government tried to reach the wreckage site in a Taliban stronghold.

WASHINGTON, Jan 28: President Donald Trump’s legal team is raising a broad-based attack on the impeachment case against him even as it mostly brushes past allegations in a new book that could undercut a key defense argument at his Senate trial.

JERUSALEM, Jan 27: U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to present to Israeli leaders details of his long-delayed peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians on Monday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 The stakes over witness testimony at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial are rising now that a draft of a book from former national security adviser John Bolton appears to undercut a key defense argument.

DUBAI, Jan 27: Iranians should not allow U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” approach to harm national unity ahead of parliamentary elections, President Hassan Rouhani said in a speech, lashing out at hardliners over mass disqualification of candidates.

FRONTERA HIDALGO, Mexico, Jan 24: From the roadside stand where his family sells mole, barbecue and chicken stew, Miguel Ángel Vázquez has seen all the caravans of Central American migrants and asylum seekers stream past his front door in recent years, throngs of people driven to flee poverty and violence in hopes of a better life in the United States.

WASHINGTON, Jan 24: Democratic House prosecutors made an expansive case Thursday at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial that he abused power like no other president in history, swept up by a “completely bogus” Ukraine theory pushed by attorney Rudy Giuliani.

WASHINGTON, Jan 23: The Trump administration is coming out Thursday with new visa restrictions aimed at restricting “birth tourism,” in which women travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children can have a coveted U.S. passport.

BEIRUT, Jan 23: Iran has long sought the withdrawal of American forces from neighboring Iraq, but the U.S. killing of an Iranian general and an Iraqi militia commander in Baghdad has added new impetus to the effort, stoking anti-American feelings that Tehran hopes to exploit to help realize the goal.

SYDNEY, Jan 23: Three American crew members died Thursday when a C-130 Hercules aerial water tanker crashed while battling wildfires in southeastern Australia, officials said.

LOS ANGELES, Jan 23: Nine parents who were deported as the Trump administration separated thousands of migrant families landed back into the U.S. late Wednesday to reunite with children they had not seen in a year and a half.

WASHINGTON, Jan 23: The challenge is becoming increasingly clear for House Democrats prosecuting President Donald Trump’s impeachment case as the Senate convenes for a second day of arguments in the landmark trial.

WASHINGTON, Jan 22: The U.S. Senate plunged into President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Tuesday with Republicans abruptly abandoning plans to cram opening arguments into two late-night sessions and Democrats arguing for more witnesses to expose Trump’s “trifecta” of offenses.

VANCOUVER/TORONTO, Jan 21:  A lawyer for Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou argued on Monday that “double criminality” was at the center of a trial to decide whether she can be extradited to the United States, a case that has strained relations between Ottawa and Beijing.

DUBAI, Jan 21:  Iran has asked the U.S. and French authorities for equipment to download information from black boxes on a downed Ukrainian airliner, a request that will add to international frustration at Tehran’s failure to send the recorders abroad for analysis.

WASHINGTON, Jan 20: President Donald Trump’s defense team and the prosecutors of his impeachment are laying out their arguments over whether his conduct toward Ukraine warrants his removal from office.

BEIJING, Jan 19: China will negotiate with American companies and increase imports of U.S. goods and products according to market principles, an official with its state planner said on Sunday.

SEOUL, Jan 16: To avoid any “misunderstandings” that could trigger sanctions, South Korea should run any plans to engage with North Korea through a joint working group established with the United States, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea said on Thursday.