A federal agency reversed course Friday on the question of whether President Donald Trump tweeted stale information about Hurricane Dorian potentially hitting Alabama, upsetting meteorologists around the country.
On Sunday, Trump had warned that Alabama, along with the Carolinas and Georgia, was "most likely to be hit (much) harder than anticipated."
The National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama, tweeted later: "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama.
The system will remain too far east." But the president has been adamant throughout the week that he was correct, and the White House has deployed government resources and staff to back him.
The latest defense came out Friday evening, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a statement from an unidentified spokesman stating that information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to the president had demonstrated that 

Agency reverses course on Trump's Alabama hurricane claim

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Trump administration officials will meet next week to discuss whether to further restrict the number of refugees accepted into the U.S. each year, according to a senior administration official.
Some administration officials believe that the cap should be reduced because of the number of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border and other protections afforded to migrants who live in war-torn countries or those devastated by natural disasters. Some have argued for the number to be 15,000 or fewer, according to two other administration officials.
The officials were not allowed to speak publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Nothing has been decided. Senior leaders will meet in the Situation Room Tuesday to discuss the cap, which is set by the president and must be decided before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The New York Times first reported the meeting.
Right now, the cap is set at 30,000, and 28,501 refugees were accepted between Oct. 1, 2018, and ...

Trump administration officials discuss slashing refugee cap

Under a thatch-roof shelter in the Amazon rainforest, warriors wielding bows and arrows, elderly chieftains in face paint and nursing mothers gathered to debate a plan that some hope will hold at bay the loggers and other invaders threatening the tribes of the Tembe.
Some had travelled long distances on dirt roads that cut through the lush jungle, or in boats along a muddy brown tributary of the Amazon River, all part of a 1,080-square-mile (2,766-square-kilometer) Alto Rio Guama homeland that is officially protected but in practice under siege.
Some of the men wore a type of red face paint that signified they were ready for war. Recent clashes saw the Tembe burning the trucks and equipment of illegal loggers on their territory, which is located in a Brazilian state plagued by thousands of fires burning on cleared jungle lands.
Some saw hope in the sustainable development plan presented this week at the meeting in the village of Tekohaw. It would include drones and other technology to 

In the Amazon, indigenous debate how to save their lands

Satellite images appear to show the once-detained Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya-1 near the Syrian port of Tartus, despite U.S. efforts to seize the vessel.
Images obtained by The Associated Press early Saturday from Maxar Technologies showed the vessel there.
Iranian officials haven't acknowledged the ship went to Syria. The ship turned off its Automatic Identification System late Monday.
The new images matched a black-and-white image earlier tweeted by John Bolton, the US national security adviser.
Bolton had tweeted: "Anyone who said the Adrian Darya-1 wasn't headed to #Syria is in denial." Authorities in Gibraltar had seized the ship in July over concerns it would break European Union sanctions on Syria. They later released it after they say they received a promise from Iran that the vessel wouldn't go there.

Satellite images show Iran oil tanker sought by US off Syria

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow compared trade talks with China on Friday to the US standoff with Russia during the Cold War. In other words, negotiations could continue for a long time.
US and Chinese officials have agreed to hold their next round of talks in Washington next month.
Kudlow discounted the notion that next year's election increases the urgency for President Donald Trump to conclude the trade war.
"The stakes are so high, we have to get it right, and if that takes a decade, so be it," he said.
Kudlow emphasized that it took the United States decades to get the results it wanted with Russia.
He noted that he worked in the Ronald Reagan administration: "I remember President Reagan waging a similar fight against the Soviet Union."
"Sometimes you have to stick with it. And I think you will find this president's commitment is unlimited because he believes he is defending the country and its workers and its security," Kudlow said.
The US and China have raised tariffs 

White House adviser compares China trade talks to Cold War

High winds have toppled trees, grounded planes and left thousands of South Korean homes without electricity as Typhoon Lingling brushed up against the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea's safety ministry said on Saturday that strong winds and rain caused power failures in some 17,000 homes in the southern resort island of Jeju and southern mainland regions.
Storms have also toppled trees and streetlamps and damaged traffic signs in Jeju, caused airports to cancel 89 flights and forced 38 people to evacuate from their flooded homes in a city near capital Seoul.
There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The typhoon is expected to affect a broader part of the country as it passes off South Korea's west coast later on Saturday before making landfall in North Korea in the evening.

Typhoon leaves thousands of South Korean homes powerless

In a highly unusual move, three senior leaders of a SEAL team were dismissed Friday from their positions only weeks after a unit was sent home from Iraq accused of sexually assaulting a female service member and the platoon chief of another unit was convicted for posing with a human casualty.
Naval Special Warfare Command said Rear Adm. Collin Green relieved them because their leadership failures caused a breakdown of order and discipline within two units while deployed to combat zones.
It did not name the units. The men will remain in the Navy and they are not accused of any misconduct themselves.
The Navy did not make clear which two units it was referring to but it named the team leaders who were relieved.
They are the unit's commanding officer, Cdr. Edward Mason; executive officer, Lt. Cdr. Luke Im; and the team's top enlisted leader, Command Master Chief Hugh Spangler.
The Navy did not respond to requests asking to reach the men, and The Associated Press was unable to contact ...

US Navy dismisses SEAL team leaders amid sex assault allegation

The Justice Department is deciding whether to disclose a name sought by the plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit that seeks to link the government of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 attacks.
Attorney General William Barr faces a deadline later Friday to withhold or release the name contained in recently released FBI files. Barr may invoke a rarely used national security provision to keep it hidden.
Lawyers in the 9/11 lawsuit believe the name may be a Saudi official who oversaw two other men who provided assistance to two of the hijackers in Southern California.
The suit filed by injured victims, families of victims and others alleges Saudi government employees knowingly assisted the hijacking plot. The Saudi government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attack.

US deciding whether to disclose name in 9/11-Saudi suit

A Chinese ambassador said Friday his country is ready for any "undesirable or uninvited rhetoric" on issues like Hong Kong unrest or government detention centres in the Xinjiang region as the UN's top human rights body meets for three weeks starting Monday.
Chen Xu, China's envoy to UN institutions in Geneva, also insisted that Beijing doesn't believe that the Human Rights Council is the "right venue" to discuss issues like the protests in Hong Kong.
He said the government's response was about maintaining law and order.  At the last council session in June, Hong Kong singer Denise Ho sharply criticized the Chinese government's policies and handling of the protests, drawing interruptions from Chinese officials as she spoke at the invitation of one of many NGOs that are allowed to address the council.
Chen also repeated Beijing's criticism of a joint letter issued by 22 Western countries during the last session calling on China to end mass arbitrary detentions and other violations ...

China braces for 'uninvited rhetoric' at top UN rights body

Four candidates from three continents hope to succeed the late Yukiya Amano as the director general of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that Cornel Feruta of Romania, its chief coordinator under Amano and currently the acting director general, is one of the candidates.
Another candidate is Lassina Zerbo of Burkina Faso, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.
Also nominated in time for the Sept. 5 deadline were Rafael Mariano Grossi, Argentina's ambassador to the Vienna-based IAEA, and Marta Ziakova, the head of Slovakia's nuclear regulatory authority.
The agency expects to appoint its new leader in October, and he or she will take office by Jan. 1. Amano died in July.

UN nuclear watchdog has 4 candidates to take top job

The European Union says it's still waiting for proposals from the British government on how to end its political impasse on Brexit, while talks about their stalled withdrawal agreement continue in Brussels.
European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said that "for progress to be made in the talks, it remains crucial that the EU does receive concrete proposals on all changes that the United Kingdom would like to see, of course in compatibility with the withdrawal agreement."
UK negotiator David Frost on Friday held the second round of technical talks this week with EU officials at the European Commission's headquarters. The commission is supervising Brexit negotiations on behalf of Britain's 27 EU partners.
Two more sessions are set to be held next week.
Britain's opposition parties say they won't support Prime Minister Boris Johnson's call for an election when it comes to a vote next week.
The parties have been mulling whether to agree to a mid-October poll, which can only be ...

EU still waiting for UK's plans for Brexit deal

Afghanistan's president has postponed a planned visit to Washington early next week where he was to discuss the US-Taliban talks on ending America's longest war, a person familiar with the negotiations said Friday.
The development emerged after the US envoy negotiating with the Taliban, Zalmay Khalilzad, abruptly returned to Qatar for unexpected talks with the insurgents on the deal that he had described as complete just days ago.
The Taliban maintain a political office in the Gulf Arab state.
The agreement "in principle" to begin a US troop withdrawal only needed President Donald Trump's approval, Khalilzad had announced on Monday.
The person who told The Associated Press of President Ashraf Ghani's postponed Washington trip was not authorised to talk to reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Since Khalilzad's announcement on Monday, two horrific Taliban car bombings in the Afghan capital, Kabul  one of which killed a US service member  and objections to the deal from the ...

Afghan president postpones US trip to discuss Taliban deal

China on Friday criticised Washington's opposition to Chinese-made next-generation telecoms technology after Vice President Mike Pence called on Iceland and other governments to find alternatives.
A foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, accused American leaders of "abusing the concept of national security" to block Chinese commercial activity.
China's Huawei Technologies Ltd. is a leader in next-generation, or 5G, technology.
Washington says Huawei is a security risk, an accusation the company denies.
Huawei, the country's first global tech brand, is at the center of US-Chinese tension over economic and technological competition.
The company accused US authorities this week of launching cyberattacks to break into its computer systems and of trying to coerce Huawei employees to supply information about it.
Washington wants to "work with Iceland and other freedom-loving nations to find alternatives to essentially China's state-based 5G operation," Pence said in a meeting this week ...

China criticises US opposition to Chinese 5G telecom tech

A Tennessee priest who banned Harry Potter books from a Catholic school's library was accused by parents of causing their children psychological and spiritual harm.
The Tennessean obtained a 2017 letter from 14 St. Edward Catholic School parents, urging the Nashville diocese to remove the Rev. Dan Reehil.
The letter, with 50 bullet points, said Reehil is a toxic narcissist who hates Pope Francis and views himself as "a soldier of God."
It said "Our school, however, consists of children, not soldiers."
Diocesan spokesman Rick Musacchio said Reehil's views, like that of the retired, more liberal pastor he replaced, both have homes in the church.
Reehil didn't respond to the newspaper's interview requests. In an email, he said he removed J K Rowling's books because they contain "actual spells and curses.

Parents complained of priest who banned Harry Potter books

Iran's foreign minister defended his country's plan to take further steps away from the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if Europe fails to provide a solution on reviving it by a deadline that expires Friday.
The remarks by Mohammad Javad Zarif came as Iran is poised to begin work on advanced centrifuges that will enrich uranium faster as the nuclear deal unravels.
The European Union, meanwhile, expressed concern about Iran's plan to defy provisions of the agreement and urged the Islamic Republic to step back from the brink.
The crisis stems from President Donald Trump's pullout from the accord over a year ago and the imposition of escalated U.S. sanctions on Tehran that have choked off Iran's ability to sell its crude oil abroad, a crucial source of government revenue, and sent its economy into freefall.
Meanwhile, a last-minute French proposal offering a $15-billion line of credit to compensate Iran over the choked off crude sales looked increasingly unlikely.
Zarif did not say ..

Iran's FM defends planned new steps away from nuclear deal

Dozens of flights have been cancelled and parks are being closed in South Korea as powerful Typhoon Lingling gains momentum on its path toward the Korean Peninsula.
The Korea Meteorological Association says the typhoon was 430 kilometers (267 miles) southwest of the southern resort island of Jeju as of Friday afternoon.
The storm is forecast to pass off the west coast of South Korea on Saturday afternoon before making landfall in North Korea on Saturday evening.
The agency is warning about possible flooding, landslides and structure damage caused by "strong rain combined with very strong wind" expected nationwide until early Sunday.
Jeju International Airport has cancelled 80 flights and South Korea's transport ministry says more flights are expected to be cancelled nationwide.
Seoul has closed its public parks and zoos.

Korean Peninsula awaits typhoon; dozens of flights canceled

Iran's foreign minister has defended his country's plan to take further steps away from a 2015 nuclear deal if Europe fails to provide solution on reviving it.
Mohammad Javad Zarif was speaking Friday at a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart in Jakarta.
Zarif did not say what exact steps his country will take as a deadline it gave Europeans to save the deal is to expire on Friday.
He said the measures that his country has taken are in response to U.S. sanctions, which he called economic terrorism.
The 2015 deal with world powers has steadily unraveled following President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the accord last year.

Iran defends plan for further steps away from nuclear deal

It's a scene many Muscovites have grown used to seeing this summer as a new wave of anti-government demonstrations gripped the Russian capital: Two masked, heavily clad riot policemen drag away a shrieking teenager as the protesters around them try to free her.
But then the two officers abruptly straighten up when she kicks and shouts.
"Well done! That was much better," one of them says, patting her shoulder.
"But don't fight back or they'll hurt you." It was a protest defense training session organized by a group of civic activists at the Sakharov Center, a venue named for the Soviet Union's most famous dissident, Andrei Sakharov.
About 100 people had gathered for the training, including a dozen or so members of the grassroots group Bessrochka, which emerged last year. Its name can be loosely translated to "Protest Without End."
Although its membership is still small, the group's use of digital tools, its organization efforts and education of recruits mark a shift in civil ...

Russian protesters aided by digital tools, self-organizing

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper cautioned European allies against cozying up to China, arguing on Friday that Beijing seeks greater global influence by leveraging economic power and stealing technology.
"The more dependent a country becomes on Chinese investment and trade, the more susceptible they are to coercion and retribution when they act outside of Beijing's wishes," Esper said in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank.
Esper's assertion that China is seeking to expand its influence at the expense of others has been a common U.S. government refrain for years, including during President Barack Obama's administration.
By taking this message to London, Esper seemed to be suggesting that Europeans do not fully share U.S. concerns, which often center on China's efforts to militarize disputed territory in the South China Sea and its vast trade surplus with the U.S.
"I would caution my friends in Europe  this is not a problem in some distant land that does not ...

US defense chief cautions Europe to be wary of China

Low-cost fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB says it is suspending leather purchases from Brazil in response to the Amazon fires.
The Stockholm-based group says "a temporary ban on leather from Brazil" was linked to "the severe fires in the Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest and the connections to cattle production."
H&M said Friday that the ban will remain in place "until there are credible assurances ... that the leather does not contribute to environmental harm in the Amazon."
The group added that "the vast majority" of its leather comes from Europe, and only a small part originates from Brazil.
Last week, the owner of Timberland, Vans and several other shoe and clothing brands said it has stopped buying leather from Brazil because of the rainforest fires.

H&M stops buying leather from Brazil over Amazon fires

The Taliban attacked a third provincial capital in Afghanistan in less than a week, killing at least two civilians, an official said Friday as a US envoy was back in Qatar for unexpected talks on a US-Taliban deal he had described as complete just days earlier.
Farah provincial governor Mohammad Shoaib Sabet told The Associated Press that another 15 people were wounded in the latest attack, citing local hospitals, and that airstrikes had been carried out against the militant group.
Small clashes continued in the city, he said.
This week's spike in violence, including two shattering Taliban car bombings in the capital, Kabul, comes after US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said he and the insurgents had reached a deal "in principle" that would begin a US troop pullout in exchange for Taliban counter-terror guarantees.
Khalilzad abruptly returned to Qatar, where the Taliban have a political office, from Kabul for more talks Thursday evening, even though earlier in the week he said the deal only ..

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