[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] Senate Democrats announced their own program to counter China’s global influence, unveiling a sweeping $350 billion legislation package seeking to boost the United State’s position and recast diplomacy with Beijing. The plan was backed by 11 Democrats, but its prospects were unclear because Republicans control the Senate.

[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] Taliban and Afghan government forces faced off across Afghanistan hours after the start of long-awaited peace talks in Doha, underscoring the uphill challenge of settling a 19-year insurgency.

  [elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] More than 12,000 people in Greece are having to sleep outdoors without proper sanitation after a fire tore through the Moria migrant camp on the island of Lesbos.

[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] French police fired tear gas and arrested 256 people in Paris over the weekend as they tussled with “yellow vest” protesters seeking to revive an anti-government movement curbed by the coronavirus lockdown.

  [elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] The Trump administration has rejected U.S. oil refiners’ requests for waivers to spare them from obligations to blend biofuels like ethanol into their fuel.

  [elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] Oracle beat Microsoft in the battle for the U.S. arm of TikTok with a deal structured as a partnership rather than an outright sale. This deal has companies trying to navigate geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington.

  [elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] AstraZeneca said that it has resumed British clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most advanced in development, after getting the green light from safety watchdogs. The late-stage trials were suspended this week after an illness in a study subject.

  [elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] A gunman shot and critically wounded two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies as they sat in their patrol car late last week. Authorities are offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.

President Donald Trump hosted leaders from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for the signing of agreements for normalizing relations with Israel and the two Arab nations –  who agreed to reverse decades of ill will toward Israel without a resolution of its decades-old dispute with the Palestinians.

  [elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″] Hurricane Sally brought heavy winds and massive flooding as it landed on the U.S. Gulf Coast midweek as a Category 2 hurricane, the latest in what has been a busy season of dangerous storms in the United States.