Top reason Americans will vote for Trump: ‘To stop Clinton’, suggests poll – The U.S. presidential election may turn out to be one of the world’s biggest un-popularity contests. Nearly half of American voters who support either Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump for the White House said they will mainly be trying to block the other side from winning, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday. READ FULL STORY
North Korea kicks off rare party congress, foreign journalists kept out: North Korea kicked off the first congress of its ruling Workers’ Party in 36 years on Friday, with Kim Jong Un expected to further consolidate his control over a country that has grown increasingly isolated over its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Ahead of the event, secretive North Korea trumpeted “miraculous results” and said advances in nuclear and ballistic missile developments were “the greatest gifts” for the rare party congress, but little of substance was revealed. READ FULL STORY
Canada wildfire: Officials evacuating 8,000 people by air – Canadian officials began evacuating 8,000 people from work camps north of devastated Fort McMurray by air and hoped to move thousands more via a highway convoy today if it is safe from a massive wildfire raging in Alberta that has grown to 85,000 hectares (210,035 acres). READ FULL STORY
Paul Ryan says he’s ‘just not ready’ to back Donald Trump: US House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking elected Republican official of the nation has said that he is “not ready” yet to back his party’s presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump. “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now,” Ryan told CNN in an interview. READ FULL STORY
Not using Congress to deny Pakistan F16s: US – The US is not using the Congressional objections as an excuse to deny Pakistan eight F-16 fighter jets at a subsidised rate, the Obama administration has said. “No, that’s not true,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner told reporters at his daily news conference when asked if it is just using Congress as an excuse not to give F-16 to Pakistan. READ FULL STORY