World briefs

CHINA A prominent figure in global finance said Beijing should press Washington to end their tariff battle by clamping down on exports of goods needed by American companies. The comments by Lou Jiwei, a former finance minister and chairman of the sovereign wealth fund, follow reports regulators are squeezing American companies. 

PHILIPPINES Dozens of people believed to be buried in a landslide unleashed by Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines probably did not survive, a mayor said yesterday, although rescuers kept digging through mud and debris covering a chapel where they had taken shelter. Of the 40 to 50 miners and their families believed inside the chapel, there is a “99 percent” chance that they all were killed.

USA With Wilmington cut off from the rest of North Carolina by still-rising floodwaters from Florence, officials plan to airlift food and water to the city of nearly 120,000 people as rescuers elsewhere pull inland residents from homes threatened by swollen rivers.

USA President Donald Trump’s eldest son is appearing to mock a woman’s sexual assault allegations against his father’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Christine Blasey Ford, a college professor, has come forth with an allegation that Brett Kavanaugh, the president’s nominee (pictured), assaulted her at a party more than 30 years ago.

RUSSIA A candidate in Russia’s Far East said he is starting a hunger strike over alleged irregularities in a gubernatorial race. With 95 percent of the ballots counted, Andrei Ishchenko of the Communist Party (pictured) had a 5 percent lead over the candidate from a pro-Kremlin party in Sunday’s runoff vote for governor of the Primorye region. But election officials reported a few hours later that, with all the votes counted, the Kremlin party’s candidate was on top.

WIKILEAKS “I, Julian Assange, hereby grant full authority to my friend, Israel Shamir, to both drop off and collect my passport, in order to get a visa,” said a letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Associated Press. The Nov. 30, 2010, missive is part of a much larger trove of WikiLeaks emails, chat logs, financial records, secretly recorded footage and other documents leaked.