National News

China has failed to send home North Korean workers by a December deadline in violation of United Nations sanctions, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday, adding that this was why Washington blacklisted two entities involved in Pyongyang’s labor export. A 2017 U.N. Security Council resolution, which China backed, demanded that all countries repatriate all North Korean workers by Dec. 22 to stop them earning foreign currency for North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The United States has estimated Pyongyang was earning more than $500 million a year from nearly 100,000 workers abroad, of which some 50,000 were in China and 30,000 in Russia.

France's Senate voted on Wednesday in favour of a bill that would allow single women and lesbian couples access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), the first major social reform of President Emmanuel Macron's term. The bill was passed 160-116 in the Senate, where Macron's centrist party is outnumbered by right-wing Republicans. The bill is part of a broader bioethics law, which in October cleared its first reading in the National Assembly, the lower house where Macron's party commands a majority.

A cow, a dog and a cop.

A man accused of fatally stabbing an Ohio woman, hiding her in a closet and a refrigerator and continuing to live in her apartment for days before the body was found in a nearby dumpster, has been arraigned on charges including murder. Terrel Ross, 37, of Dayton, also was arraigned Wednesday in Kettering Municipal Court on charges of felonious assault, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse in the slaying of Sierra Woodfork, 24, of Kettering. Court records didn't show an attorney for Ross, who did not enter any pleas during the video arraignment.

The poll, which ran from Jan. 17-22, also showed that U.S. public opinion has moved little since the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump in mid-December. About 44% of adults in the United States say Trump should be removed from office, another 15% say he should be reprimanded formally with a congressional censure, and 31% said the charges should be dismissed. Trump so far has blocked the Democrats' requests for documents related to the administration's activities in Ukraine last year.

A bipartisan majority of Americans want to see new witnesses testify in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, and the public appears to be largely following the proceedings even after a bruising congressional inquiry that lasted several months, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling released Wednesday. The poll, which ran from Jan. 17-22, also showed that U.S. public opinion has moved little since the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump in mid-December. About 44% of adults in the United States say Trump should be removed from office, another 15% say he should be reprimanded formally with a congressional censure, and 31% said the charges should be dismissed.

James Mitchell testified about the torture program he developed, which included waterboarding, rectal feeding, and hanging inmates from the ceiling.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is set to launch a broad review of its policy on Thursday that is likely to see her redefine the ECB's main goal and how to achieve it. The euro zone's central bank has fallen short of its inflation target of just under 2% for years despite increasingly aggressive stimulus measures under Lagarde's predecessor, Mario Draghi. ECB rate-setters are not expected to make any policy change this week but simply stand by their pledge to keep buying bonds and, if needed, cut interest rates until price growth in the euro zone heads back to their goal.

Jeff Bezos received a text from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with digital spyware, United Nations experts said.

The 70-year-old claimed to be a well-connected fixture in the entertainment industry focused on “faith and family.”

In a new poll, 63 percent of registered voters agree that the Senate should call new witnesses to testify during President Trump’s impeachment trial.

Tamas Ajan will stand aside as president of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) for 90 days pending investigations into allegations of corruption, the governing body said in a statement on Wednesday. American Ursula Papandrea, president of USA Weightlifting, becomes the IWF’s acting president until April, when Ajan hopes to return. Ajan, 81, has been at the sport’s governing body since 1976, serving 24 years as general secretary and 20 as president.

There's no keeping porn star Stormy Daniels and President Donald Trump out of California attorney Michael Avenatti's extortion case, a judge said Wednesday as he ordered the trial to commence Monday and refused the government's insistence that he ban mention of Daniels and Trump. The protests of a spirited but eventually frustrated prosecutor — Daniel Richenthal — were overruled by U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe during a hearing that set some boundaries for a Manhattan trial slated to last up to three weeks. Richenthal insisted it would politicize the trial if Daniels and Trump were mentioned to jurors by lawyers trying to explain why Avenatti is famous.

Swiss police on Wednesday used water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas to subdue demonstrators in Zurich who ignited fireworks and threw bottles as part of a protest targeting the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in Davos. Three people were arrested, one passerby was injured by fireworks and a policeman was hospitalized with unspecified injuries, Zurich police said in a news release after the demonstration broke up mid-evening.

After Schiff, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler returns to the lectern to tell more of what Democrats' call the president’s Ukraine scheme. After being admonished by the chief justice last night, Nadler begins by striking an apologetic tone. “Before I begin, I would like to thank the chief justice and the senators for your temperate listening and your patience last night as we went into the long hours,” Nadler, D-N.Y., says.

About 11 million TV viewers watched the start of the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Tuesday when lawmakers sparred for hours over witnesses and records for the historic proceedings, according to Nielsen ratings data. The total fell short of the roughly 13.8 million viewers across 10 broadcast and cable television networks who tuned in last November for the first day of the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry into Trump. The audience figure on Tuesday covered the 4-1/2 hours of daytime coverage by six cable and broadcast networks that aired live telecasts on Tuesday.

The ban in the Republican-dominated state, which took effect on Wednesday, exempts members of the clergy, lay pastors, and spiritual counselors not licensed by the state from the ban. Conversion therapy involves a variety of psychological and spiritual practices aimed at changing sexual orientation and gender identity in the belief that homosexuality and transgender identity are mental illnesses. The American Psychological Association has called the treatment harmful to young people.

Utah has became the 19th U.S. state to ban conversion therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity in lesbian, gay, transsexual, bisexual and queer children. The ban in the Republican-dominated state, which took effect on Wednesday, exempts members of the clergy, lay pastors, and spiritual counselors not licensed by the state from the ban. Conversion therapy involves a variety of psychological and spiritual practices aimed at changing sexual orientation and gender identity in the belief that homosexuality and transgender identity are mental illnesses.

The key witness against President Trump’s former confidant and political mentor Roger Stone has written a highly unusual letter to a federal judge asking her not to sentence Stone to prison.

Uterine fibroids are non-cancerous growths in the uterus that can cause problems such as pain, pressure, heavy periods and infertility in as many as half the women who have them. Elagolix is a pill whose effects appear and fade much more rapidly and predictably. "This does provide a different approach and many women may prefer that," lead study author Dr. William Schlaff of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.

Meanwhile, an Australian study is showing that while the vaccine also works in teens, it does not extend "herd immunity" to unvaccinated children, as some vaccines do. Both studies appear in The New England Journal of Medicine.