US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will address a major India-centric summit to be held here this month, according to the organisers of the event.
Organised by US India Business Council (USIBC), the two-day "India Ideas Summit" beginning on June 12 is the first major event after Narendra Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister for the second term this week.
While Pompeo is expected to lay the ground work for India-US relationship during Modi's second term, Ross in his key note is likely to address the economic and trade aspect of the bilateral ties.
"I think this is an important opportunity and quite frankly, I'm really excited that USIBC's India Ideas conference will be one of the first opportunities where both governments can really amplify this relationship after the election," USIBC president Nisha Desai Biswal told PTI on Thursday.
"We are expecting to have tremendous representation on the US side. Secretary Pompeo will be one of our keynote speakers 

Pompeo, Wilbur Ross to address this year's India Ideas Summit in Washington

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US Senator Cory Booker has hired over a dozen Asian American Pacific Islanders, mostly Indian-Americans, for his 2020 presidential campaign which is said to be the largest among the Democratic aspirants.
The first African-American Senator from New Jersey, Booker, 50, announced his 2020 presidential bid on February 1.
Currently there are nearly two dozen Democratic presidential aspirants, who will be pitted against each other in the party's primary elections beginning early next year.
Prominent among them include former Vice President Joe Biden, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard; Senators Kamala Harris, Michael Bennet, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
From his national press secretary Sabrina Singh, State operations director New Hampshire Shwetika Baijal to Iowa political director Rishi Bharwani; Booker has hired more than half a dozen Indian-Americans for his presidential campaign.
"I'm proud to be building a campaign that reflects the rich diversity of our country. Being inclusive of ..

US Senator Cory Booker hires several Indian-Americans for his 2020 presidential bid

The Scripps National Spelling Bee suffered a body blow when eight kids ended up co-champions because they were simply too accomplished to stumble over any of the words Scripps threw at them.
That doesn't mean it's irretrievably broken.
Even some critics who thought the words Thursday night were insultingly easy are optimistic that the bee can recover and produce a single champion next year and for many years to come.
"As spellers evolve, the bee does, too," 17-year-old former speller Grace Walters said Friday. She's the personal coach to last year's winner and three of this year's champions.
"The National Spelling Bee as we know it right now might be broken, but the bee is going to evolve. I think it can continue. ... I'll be really sad if it doesn't!" The extraordinary 2019 bee featured strong contestants, a field as deep and well-prepared as any in the event's 94-year history.
Of the 16 spellers in last year's prime-time finals, 10 made it back into this year's top 50. Seven made ...

Broken bee? Spelling experts say tougher words are out there

President Donald Trump is wading into the United Kingdom's political maelstrom days before he is set to embark on his first state visit there, saying Boris Johnson would make an "excellent" prime minister and calling Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, "nasty."
In an interview on Friday with the British tabloid The Sun, Trump expressed support for the controversial ex-foreign secretary in his bid to replace Theresa May, saying, "I think Boris would do a very good job. I think he would be excellent."
May is to step down amid an impasse over Brexit on June 7, just days after Trump is set to be feted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and after official observances of the 75th anniversary of D-Day are concluded.
Trump referred to the American-born Duchess of Sussex as "nasty" over comments she made in 2016 threatening to move to Canada if Trump won the White House.
"I didn't know that she was nasty," he said of Meghan when read her prior criticism. The former Meghan Markle married ...

On eve of UK visit, Trump backs Boris Johnson, dings duchess

US President Donald Trump has said that he would formally announce his bid for re-election at a June 18 rally in Florida - a state that was key to his victory in 2016.
Trump's wife Melania, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen will also be part of the evening event in Orlando at the Amway Center arena, Trump said on Twitter on Friday.
"I will be announcing my Second Term Presidential Run... on June 18th in Orlando," he said. "Join us for this Historic Rally!"
Trump has made it clear since taking office that he planned to run again in 2020, has held multiple campaign rallies and has already raised tens of millions of dollars.
When he speaks to his supporters, he often refers to his six remaining years in power -- not the 18 months left in his first term.
Trump will launch his campaign against the backdrop of mounting Democratic calls for his impeachment, including by several of the nearly two dozen members of the opposition party seeking to unseat him.
For now, the 72-year-old .

Trump to formally announce re-election bid on June 18

SpaceX has said that the first 60 satellites in its "Starlink" constellation, which is intended to provide internet from space, will be less and less visible from Earth as they reach their final orbit.
Elon Musk's company created a must-see event for space enthusiasts when it launched all 60 satellites simultaneously on May 23 - a series of bright lights ascending through the night sky.
Over the past week, several observers have photographed and filmed the line of satellites, which pass over in just a few minutes.
But astronomers fear the constellation of broadband-beaming satellites, which could one day grow to as many as 12,000, could ruin scientific observation of the skies from telescopes.
Until now, Musk had downplayed the concerns -- earning criticism along the way.  But on Friday, the company seemed to address the issue.
SpaceX announced that "all 60 satellites have deployed their solar arrays successfully, generated positive power and communicated with our ground ...

SpaceX says 60 Starlink satellites will grow harder to see

The head of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah has warned that if there was war against Iran the whole Middle East region would "erupt", amid escalating US-Iranian tensions.
US President Donald "Trump, his administration, and his intelligence know well that  any war on Iran will not remain confined to Iran's borders", Hassan Nasrallah said.  "Any war on Iran will mean the whole region will erupt," said the head of the Iran-backed movement in a televised speech on Friday.
"And any American forces and American interests will be permissible" as a target, he said.
Hezbollah is listed as a "terrorist group" by the United States, and has fought several wars with US ally Israel to the south of Lebanon.
Nasrallah on Friday also slammed a proposed US peace deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Trump has dubbed "the deal of the century".
"It's a void deal... a historic crime," he said of the plan, that has already been rejected by the Palestinians as it is expected to largely ...

Hezbollah chief warns any war against Iran would engulf region

US President Donald Trump has said that he would formally announce his bid for re-election in 2020 on June 18 at a rally in Florida, with his wife by his side.
Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen will also be part of the event in Orlando at the Amway Center arena, Trump said on Twitter on Friday.
"I will be announcing my Second Term Presidential Run with First Lady Melania, Vice President Mike Pence, and Second Lady Karen Pence on June 18th in Orlando," he said.

Trump to formally announce his re-election bid on June 18

A former aide to Trump confidant Roger Stone has testified about WikiLeaks before a federal grand jury in an investigation related to special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
Andrew Miller testified for about two hours on Friday after losing a months-long legal battle to have the subpoena thrown out.
Although the Russia investigation is over, the grand jury that worked with Mueller still hears testimony in cases that are tied to the investigation. Mueller's team handed off several cases, including the one against Stone, to other federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors sought Miller's testimony as they built a case against Stone, who was charged earlier this year with lying to Congress about his efforts to alert the Trump campaign to WikiLeaks' plans to release damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
American intelligence agencies have concluded that WikiLeaks got the information from Russian agents.
Stone has pleaded not guilty.
Miller's attorney, 

Ex-Roger Stone aide testifies on WikiLeaks before grand jury

Hundreds of people rallied in support of Sudan's military rulers in the capital Khartoum, carrying posters of the generals while some chanted religious slogans.
"One hundred per cent military (rule)," shouted the crowds, the majority young men, as they gathered in central Khartoum on Friday.
Some of the demonstrators carried placards with pictures of the military council's chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The council has ruled the country since the ouster of president Omar al-Bashir on April 11, after months of protests against his authoritarian rule.
Negotiations between protesters who demonstrated against Bashir's rule and the military have broken down over whether a planned transitional body would be headed by a civilian or a military figure.
Many of those at the pro-military rally on Friday chanted slogans and waved banners in favour of sharia -- Islamic law -- and against secularism.
"Freedom, peace, justice, sharia is the choice of the 

Hundreds rally for military rulers in Khartoum

The captured widow of an Islamic State group leader helped the CIA in its hunt for the organisation's elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a British daily said Friday.
In an interview with The Guardian, Nisrine Assad Ibrahim also claimed not to have played a willing part in the detention of US hostage Kayla Mueller at her home.
She has been accused of helping to forcibly hold Mueller and other captives at the home, where the American woman was sexually assaulted by Baghdadi.
But when she herself was detained by the US military, the 29-year-old helped the CIA and Kurdish intelligence gain a detailed overview of the extremist supremo's hideouts and networks, investigators told the daily.
In February 2016, Ibrahim identified a house in the Iraqi city of Mosul in which Baghdadi was believed to have been staying, but the United States did not call in an air strike.
"I told them where the house was," she told The Guardian at a jail in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil.
"I knew he'd been there 

IS widow helped CIA in hunt for Baghdadi: report

The European Parliament has suspended the accreditation of all newly elected Spanish members after Carles Puigdemont and another Catalan separatist MEP were denied access to the building, sources said Friday.
Puigdemont, who was president of Catalonia at the time of the failed independence bid, was refused access to the parliament building Wednesday evening, one of Puigdemont's lawyers, Paul Bekaert, told AFP. So too was fellow Catalan politician Toni Comin.
They were also denied temporary accreditation, despite the fact that other Spanish members had already received theirs, which Bekaert denounced as "arbitrary and discriminatory".
The reason given was that the Parliament did not yet have the official list of Spanish members, he said.
Puigdemont fled to Belgium shortly after Catalonia declared independence to avoid arrest.
Although he has been elected to the European Parliament it is not clear if he will be able to take his seat.
Under Spanish rules, all of those elected to the ...

Spanish MEPs' access suspended over Catalan dispute

Some have died on the way, pregnant women lost their babies and one Haitian was shot in the arm, yet migrants still trek on foot through Panama's perilous Darien forest in the hope of one day reaching the United States.
To reach Panama from Colombia, the migrants -- mostly from Haiti and Cuba, but also Africa and Asia -- brave the nightmare journey across the 575,000 hectares of jungle where snakes and jaguars lurk. And there are no roads.
Migrants, many of whom cannot swim, also have to cross rivers where they could be swept away by a powerful current.
"In the group I came with, at least five people stayed behind (in the jungle) and are dying," said Pierre Louis Clivens, a Haitian who tackled the journey with his wife and seven-year-old son.
Yet the greatest danger stems from people and drug traffickers.
"They took all my money. They took three telephones, one of my husband's and two of mine, and the thief shot me in the left arm," said Marie-Claudia Toussaint, a Haitian with her arm 

Migrants dreaming of US brave hellish Panamanian jungle odyssey

- President Donald Trump says China's new ban on all fentanyl-related substances will be a "game-changer" in the deadly US opioid crisis, but experts warn it may just shift production elsewhere -- particularly Mexico.
Under pressure from Trump, China on May 1 banned all chemical analogues of fentanyl, the synthetic drug at the heart of an overdose epidemic that is killing tens of thousands of people a year in the United States.
Trump won the fentanyl concession as part of his trade war with China, which is allegedly the world's leading supplier of the powerful narcotic, along with designer drugs that mimic it and the precursor chemicals used to make all of them.
But law enforcement officials and anti-narcotics experts warn the ban will probably just push production to other countries -- including the United States' southern neighbor, whose powerful drug cartels are already deeply immersed in fentanyl trafficking.
Blame it on the "balloon effect", the idea that banning a drug is like ..

Amid fentanyl crackdown, Mexico risks 'balloon effect'

President Donald Trump escalated his surprise tariff threats against Mexico on Friday, triggering alarm about the likely economic fallout, spooking global markets and raising the prospect of US trade wars on multiple fronts.
Trump announced his readiness to levy tariffs on all Mexican imports, beginning at five percent starting June 10 and rising to as high as 25 per cent in coming months until Mexico substantially reduces the flow of illegal immigration.
Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said early Friday that his country was "doing our job" to stop the flow of undocumented migrants to the United States, and warned Trump that hitting his neighbor with tariffs would be a lose-lose game.  But the US president only doubled down on his threats of punishment, saying in a new flurry of tweets that "Mexico has taken advantage of the United States for decades."
The impact of new tariffs would be devastating for Mexico, which sends 80 percent of its exports to the US.
Lopez ...

Trump doubles down on Mexico tariff threat, markets rattled

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday renamed the country's airports to commemorate tsars and space pioneers as well as writer Anton Chekhov and operatic tenor Dmitri Hvorostovsky after an online poll that stirred up controversy.
Russia's Sheremetyevo airport will now be named after national poet Alexander Pushkin, known for witty works such as "Eugene Onegin," while the airport of the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on far eastern Sakhalin Island will take Chekhov's name, even though he visited the island only to write about the grim conditions in its tsarist-era prisons.
An online poll launched last autumn asked the public to nominate and vote on famous figures whose names could be given to around 40 airports across Russia.  Until now, almost all the country's airports have been named after their geographical location, usually the names of villages.
There was controversy over the renaming of the airport of the western city of Kaliningrad, formerly part of Germany, as many locals ...

Putin renames airports after famous Russians

A Pakistani court has sentenced three militants to five years in prison after finding them guilty of collecting funds for an outlawed group that claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian troops in Kashmir earlier this year.
According to a statement released by a counter-terrorism department Friday, the three men have begun serving their sentences.
It says the three unidentified men were local leaders of outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed, which claimed responsibility for the Feb 14 suicide attack in Kashmir. The bombing at the time raised tensions between India and Pakistan and brought the two nuclear rivals to the brink of war.

Pakistan sentences 3 to 5-year in jail over terror financing

Tens of thousands of mourners, some of whom camped outside overnight, gathered on Friday to finally say farewell to Etienne Tshisekedi, the Congolese opposition icon whose son was declared president earlier this year.
The stadium ceremony came more than two years after the elder Tshisekedi died abroad at age 84. His rift with then-president Joseph Kabila was so entrenched that his remains were not allowed to return after his death in Belgium of a pulmonary embolism in 2017.
After Kabila gave way to pressure for a new presidential election in January, Tshisekedi's son Felix was declared the winner. He vowed that his father's remains would come home to Congo, where he was the face of the political opposition for decades.
"I haven't slept in two days. I will only sleep once they have buried him," said Lisette Kapinga, 32, who was among the crowd gathered at Martyrs Stadium in Kinshasa where many wore dresses made of fabric with Tshisekedi's image.
In life, Etienne Tshisekedi was at times 

Congolese finally pay tribute to late opposition leader

The UN atomic watchdog said Friday that Iran continues to stay within the limitations set by the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, but reported its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and heavy water are growing and raised questions for the first time about Iran's adherence to a key provision intended to limit the country's use of advanced centrifuges.
In a confidential quarterly report distributed to member states and seen by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has stayed within key limitations set in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, for uranium and heavy water stockpiles.
But while in past reports the IAEA said Iran's research and development on enrichment "has been conducted using centrifuges within the limits defined in the JCPOA," the Friday report instead changed the wording to say it "has been conducted using centrifuges specified in the JCPOA."
In a footnote, the agency said that "up to 33 IR-6 centrifuges have ...

UN atomic watchdog raises questions of Iran's centrifuge use

Nearly a year after Beau Biden died of brain cancer, Kamala Harris was still grieving.
Speaking at the California Democratic Party's convention in 2016, Harris spoke of Biden's family as one that "truly represents our nation's highest ideals, a powerful belief in the nobility of public service."
She then praised his father, Joe, saying the then-vice president "has given so much to our country and on top of everything he has accomplished, he gave to us my dear friend, Beau." Joe Biden later took the stage, calling Harris among the "great friends" he and Beau had in California.
Harris and Beau Biden formed a close friendship during their time as state attorneys general  Harris in California and Biden in Delaware. It was that relationship that drew Harris closer to Joe Biden and has come into focus now that they're both vying for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Most of the two dozen White House hopefuls have pre-existing friendships from their time on Capitol Hill or other ...

Biden, Harris friendship faces the test of a campaign

Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris are dueling over Hispanic votes in California.
The two prominent Democratic presidential candidates are scheduled to appear Friday at a forum organized by immigrant rights activists in Pasadena.
There will be tough competition to win over Latino voters in the state, where Hispanics represent the largest ethnic group and favor Democrats in their politics.
But candidates also can expect a skeptical look from many Latino voters who have heard promises for years about immigration reform that never arrived.
Expected to join Sanders and Harris at the event are fellow Democratic contenders Julian Castro, a former Obama administration housing secretary, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
This weekend, 14 rivals seeking the 2020 nomination head to San Francisco for a state Democratic convention.

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