World News

Zimbabwe's umbrella public sector union has backed down from plans for a national strike, an official said on Thursday, citing the volatile situation in the country after violent protests this month were met by a security crackdown. from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2WxwunD

Germany, France and Britain have officially set up a European mechanism to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran and circumvent U.S. sanctions, two diplomats said on Thursday. from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2RvlaoF

Venezuela's self-declared interim president Juan Guaido has asked European Union governments to keep up the pressure on President Nicolas Maduro. from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2WynheL

Britain will take a few days to formulate some proposals to put to the European Union in an attempt to resolve the issue of Irish border arrangements after Brexit, foreign minister Jeremy Hunt told BBC radio on Thursday. from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2BdRR4o

Australia's two biggest miners on Thursday backed calls for an indigenous advisory body in parliament, saying Prime Minister Scott Morrison's opposition to the proposal did not "stand up to scrutiny". from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2TlbONK

Zimbabwe's umbrella public sector union has backed down from plans for a national strike, an official said on Thursday, citing the volatile situation in the country after this month's violent protests were met by a brutal security crackdown. from Reuters: World News https://reut.rs/2MMa65O

A blast of icy polar air brought dangerously low temperatures to the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday, causing at least three more deaths while halting mail delivery and forcing residents who pride themselves on their winter hardiness to huddle indoors. from Reuters: U.S. https://reut.rs/2S2U0KH

Farmers from North Dakota to Iowa buckled down for some of the coldest weather in a generation on Wednesday, throwing extra rations to pigs or building igloos for chickens in the teeth of sub-zero temperatures and bone-chilling winds. from Reuters: U.S. https://reut.rs/2SeelvN

The town that embraces its nickname as the "Icebox of the Nation" barely paused on Wednesday for the polar vortex that is gripping the U.S. Upper Midwest. from Reuters: U.S. https://reut.rs/2ToOVsH

Troubled by widespread health and safety hazards uncovered by a Reuters investigation into U.S. military housing, Congress will hold hearings next month to ensure that “what we’re seeing now can never happen again,” said Michigan Democrat Gary Peters, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. from Reuters: U.S. https://reut.rs/2Gc4obS

A Kentucky jury has awarded U.S. Senator Rand Paul more than $580,000 in damages against a next-door neighbor who broke six of the Republican lawmaker's ribs in a gardening dispute. from Reuters: U.S. https://reut.rs/2DLayOC

The U.S. government secretly shipped a large amount of deadly plutonium from a South Carolina site that produced the radioactive metal for nuclear bombs during the Cold War to Nevada, the Trump administration revealed on Wednesday. from Reuters: U.S. https://reut.rs/2WuK0bL

New York's attorney general on Wednesday said she has resolved a probe into a group of Colorado companies that once sold fake followers, "likes" and views on social media platforms, in the first U.S. settlement to deem such sales illegally deceptive. from Reuters: U.S. https://reut.rs/2Bes5gv