Hillary Clinton’s campaign HQ evacuated over suspicious substance

Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters has been evacuated after a white powdery substance was discovered in an envelope.
New York Police said four people were exposed to the substance but no injuries or illnesses have been reported.
The envelope also contained writing but no death threats, according to authorities.
It was delivered to a Manhattan campaign office and found by two interns before being taken to Mrs Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters.
The 11th floor of the building was evacuated after the alert and the suspicious substance was tested.
It was not immediately known what the substance was, but police said early indications

At least 55 killed in Cameroon train derailment – minister

Fifty-five people were killed and almost 600 injured when a packed Cameroon passenger train derailed on Friday, leaving debris strewn across nearby tracks as carriages swung off the rails.
The train, travelling from the capital Yaounde to the economic hub Douala, was crammed with people due to road traffic disruption between the two cities and came off the tracks just before reaching the central city of Eseka, transport minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o said.
The minister, via state broadcaster CRTV, said 55 people had been confirmed dead and a further 575 were injured in the incident, updating an earlier toll.
“The cause of the accident is not yet clear,” he said, adding that several of the injured were in a very serious condition.
“Intervention and security teams have been mobilised,” the rail company Camrail, a subsidiary of French investment group Bollore, announced.

At least 19 killed in helicopter crash in Siberia

At least 19 people were killed when a helicopter crashed in northwestern Siberia, a Russian investigative committee has said.
Investigators said in a statement that an MI-8 helicopter carrying 22 people had crashed on Friday night outside the city of Novy Urengoy, and that “19 people have died from multiple injuries at the scene, according to preliminary data”.
The helicopter was flying from the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk to the town of Urengoy in the Yamalo-Nenetsky region when it crashed between 14:00 and 15:00 GMT, investigators said.
The regional branch of the emergencies ministry said it had been informed that a helicopter made a

Suicide bombers, mortar fire in battle for Iraq village

We need an ambulance, we need an ambulance,” an Iraqi officer says over the radio, moments after an explosives-rigged truck disappeared in a column of flame and dust.
Iraqi forces advancing toward a village in Nineveh province had already been targeted with gun and mortar fire from Islamic State group jihadists inside.
A suicide bomber then drove the explosives-rigged truck toward them, but security forces “blew up the vehicle before it reached” them, federal police Second Lieutenant Faruq Ahmed Mohammed told AFP at a position to the south.
Despite this, a police officer was lightly wounded in the blast, Mohammed said.
Security forces advanced and fell back, exchanging fire with the jihadists over a period of hours and eventually targeting them with mortar rounds.
The resistance they faced demonstrates that even a small number of jihadists can slow down larger and more heavily armed forces, especially when civilians are present — an issue Iraqi troops will continue to face as they push north toward the city of Mosul.

Forever Trump: Diehard supporters’ rallying cry

Pundits and pollsters say the bottom may be falling out of Donald Trump’s White House run, but diehard supporters in the western Pennsylvania city of Johnstown strongly disagree.
A few hours’ drive north and west from liberal Washington, Johnstown — the beating heart of Trump Country — is a world away from the US capital.
Industry in the region has been on the decline for decades. Smoke stacks from the steel plants have been quiet for years and large parts of its downtown are deserted.
There are few jobs remaining from the steel, coal and garment industries that once kept the local economy humming.
Many here say long-awaited deliverance has come in the person of Trump, the billionaire businessman who has promised to make Johnstown great again.
Trump’s campaign has stalled after lackluster performances at all three presidential debates with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Canada and EU may finally sign off on trade deal after seven years

A free-trade deal between Canada and the EU may finally be signed next week, following emergency talks early on Saturday.
The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, told reporters: “We are ready to sign on Thursday next week.”
The prolonged, seven-year talks may have caused concern in Whitehall over the UK’s ability to forge a trade deal with the EU following Brexit.
In the news conference, Mr Schulz admitted the issues has been on this side of the Atlantic: “The problems on the table are European problems and we have to solve it.
“I’m very optimistic that we can solve the problems we have within the European Union,” he said, adding that it had “perhaps” been a “decisive” meeting.
Canada’s Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland said: “From Canada’s perspective, our work is done.
“We have finished negotiating a very good agreement, and Canada is ready to sign this agreement.”

Libya naval forces deny charges of attack on migrant boat

Libyan naval forces denied charges from a rescue organisation that one of their crew had attacked a migrant boat packed with around 150 people, causing some to fall into the sea and at least four to drown, a spokesman said.
Some reports said that with the missing the death toll could rise into the 20s.
The Germany-based humanitarian group Sea-Watch said on Friday a speedboat labelled “Libyan Coast Guard” attacked a migrant boat packed with some 150 migrants, beating them with sticks. Four bodies were later recovered.
Migrant rescues are often complicated in Libya, where the U.N.-backed Tripoli government struggles to impose its authority, coast guard operations are under-equipt and police units are run by some of the competing armed brigades.
Sea-Watch, one of several non-governmental organisations operating vessels off the coast of Libya, said the speedboat swooped in just as they were about to go to the aid of the overcrowded rubber boat in the early hours of Friday.

Trump will accept election results – daughter

She is as calm and thoughtful as her father is strident and impetuous. She is Ivanka Trump, and the distance she has taken from her father Donald has earned her both the respect of Democrats and the head-scratching of analysts.
So the Republican candidate shocked the nation by saying he might not recognise the results of the presidential election if he loses? Ivanka, the model-turned-business-executive, insists “he’ll accept the outcome either way.”
So Donald Trump is caught bragging in lewd terms that he can do whatever he wants to women, then insists this was only “locker-room talk”? His daughter calls the comments “inappropriate and offensive” and admits that her father’s words can be “uncomfortable for us.”
Ivanka, soon to turn 35, is still clearly her father’s protegee. He has been unstinting in his praise for his glamorous offspring, a graduate of the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Trump counts on her to attract young and female voters.
In introducing her father at the Republican convention in July, Ivanka bragged about his

North Carolina voters flood polls after voting battle

Lines were long and excitement high as people queued in unusually hot fall weather on the first day of early voting in North Carolina.
Some 162,000 people cast their ballots on Thursday, according to numbers given by the state’s Board of Elections.
The voting season follows months of political wrangling over polling schedules that voting rights advocates, and in one case a federal court, said was an effort by Republicans to suppress the black vote – a demographic that generally swings Democrat.
“We’re going blue,” said Bill Jones, a 69-year-old African-American, referring to the colour of the Democratic Party. He waited for two hours outside the University City Regional Library to vote.
In 2008, Barack Obama reversed decades of Republican election wins in North Carolina. But in 2012, the state flipped Republican again.
In an average of state polls, Democrat Hillary Clinton is now ahead of Republican Donald Trump at 45.8 to 43.3 percent.