Trump agrees to end government shutdown without border wall money
President Donald Trump agreed under mounting pressure to end a 35-day-old partial government shutdown without getting US$5.7 billion (S$7.7 billion) he demanded from Congress for a border wall, a three-week spending plan that sets up tough talks with lawmakers about how to address security along the US-Mexican border.
With polls showing most Americans blamed him for the painful shutdown - the longest of its kind in US history - Trump embraced a way out of the crisis that Democrats had been pushing for weeks.
But the Republican president vowed the shutdown would resume on Feb 15 if he is not satisfied with the results of the border security talks or he would declare a national emergency to get the wall money.
After the president announced the agreement, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said he hoped the experience would be a "lesson learned" for Trump and his party that it is self-defeating to shut down the government over policy disputes.
Flights disrupted at US East Coast airports due to shutdown
Hundreds of flights were grounded or delayed at New York-area and Philadelphia airports as more air traffic controllers called in sick on Friday, in one of the most tangible signs yet of disruption from a 35-day partial shutdown of the US government.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop for flights destined for New York's LaGuardia Airport on Friday morning before lifting it about an hour later.
Staff shortages also delayed flights at Newark Liberty International Airport and Philadelphia International Airport, the FAA said.
Around 200 people missing in Brazil dam collapse
Police and firemen were searching for about 200 people missing after a tailings dam burst at an iron ore mine owned by Brazilian miner Vale in southwestern Minas Gerais state.
Among those missing were 100 employees who were having lunch in the dam's administrative area when a torrent of sludge and water hit it, fire brigade spokesman Lieutenant Pedro Aihara said.
There was no immediate word of fatalities.
Consumer goods CEOs in Davos hot seat over plastic waste
Consumer products companies including Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola are emerging as new targets for global activism, with green groups blaming them for fouling the ocean with plastic and activists urging governments to regulate them.
At the annual World Economic Forum, the bosses of these and other firms like Unilever and PepsiCo have been on the defensive, in a way reminiscent of how coal and oil chiefs came under pressure over climate change in previous years.
"I see parallels to coal," Greenpeace executive director Jennifer Morgan told Reuters after she and Procter & Gamble boss David Taylor had a feisty exchange at a joint news conference at the forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos. "It's clear they are trying to not be regulated," she added.
Football: Sister will 'never stop' search for missing Sala as rescuers give up
The sister of Argentinian footballer Emiliano Sala, whose plane disappeared near the Channel Islands, vowed that she would "never stop" looking for her brother despite rescuers ending their search.
"We miss him and we know he's here," Romina Sala told a press conference in Cardiff, the Welsh city whose Premier League football team had just made Sala their record signing.
"We came looking for him and we're going to take him back with us," she added.
