Property damage claims from a series of deadly October wildfires now exceed $3.3 billion, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said Tuesday. The figure represented claims for homes and businesses insured by 15 companies and was more than triple the previous estimate of $1 billion. Jones said the number would continue to rise as more claims were reported. The amount of claims now reported means that the fires caused more damage than California’s 1991 Oakland Hills fire, which was previously the state’s costliest, with $2.7 billion in damage in 2015 dollars, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. Forty-three people were killed in the October blazes that tore through Northern California, including the state’s renowned winemaking regions in Napa and Sonoma counties. They destroyed at least 8,900 buildings as more than 100,000 people were forced to evacuate. It was the deadliest series of fires in California history. Several dozen …

Immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua who have Temporary Protected Status in the United States will learn by Monday whether that status is to be extended. If the Department of Homeland Security does not extend TPS for the two countries by November 6, permission to live and work in the U.S. will expire for thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans on January 5. Honduras and Nicaragua became TPS-designated countries in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch cut a swath of devastation through them. In Honduras, “the hurricane killed 5,657 people and displaced approximately 1.1 million people,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says on its website. The storm also destroyed about 70 percent of the country’s infrastructure. Nicaragua fared no better. USCIS says 3,045 people were killed and 885 were reported missing. “Landslides and floods destroyed entire villages and caused extensive damage to the transportation network, housing, medical and educational facilities, water supply and sanitation …

House Republicans, straining to make last-minute changes to their far-reaching tax proposal, on Tuesday delayed the rollout by a day after they failed to finalize the details. The plan pushed by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress is a top legislative priority. The details originally were to be unveiled on Wednesday, but that was delayed until Thursday, a senior GOP aide said Tuesday night. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the individual wasn’t allowed to publicly discuss the schedule. The tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee had worked throughout the day and evening to produce a plan for the first overhaul of the nation’s tax code in three decades.   Although they had settled on some key details — such as a cut in the corporate tax rate to 20 percent and maintaining the top personal income tax rate for the wealthy of 39.6 percent — …

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was a “gold mine” of intelligence, helping the military better understand insurgents and how they imprison the enemy, two agents testified Tuesday as defense attorneys sought to show the soldier’s contributions since he was returned in a prisoner swap. The testimony runs counterpoint to the case prosecutors presented at Bergdahl’s sentencing hearing, calling on severely wounded soldiers to offer gripping testimony about the injuries that troops suffered while searching for Bergdahl after he walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, testified Monday and apologized to the wounded. He faces up to life in prison. The military judge hearing the case has wide leeway in deciding Bergdahl’s punishment. Amber Dach, who spent 16 years in military intelligence, was the primary analyst assigned to Bergdahl’s case for the five years after he disappeared. She described how …

President Donald Trump is working to discredit and marginalize an adviser to his 2016 campaign who took steps to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from a Russian source close to the Kremlin. Trump branded George Papadopoulos “low level” and a “liar” Tuesday, a turnaround from describing him as an “excellent guy” when he joined his campaign team.   It’s become harder for Trump to speak dismissively of the Russia investigation now that his former campaign chief is under house arrest and Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying about his Russian interactions. But he’s trying.   A look at statements by Trump and spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders after the special counsel’s investigation unsealed criminal charges against Paul Manafort and his business associate and revealed Papadopoulos’ plea:   Trump tweet Tuesday: “Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar.” The Facts: Papadopoulos, …

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says the U.S. is spending more than $200 million each day on the response to three major hurricanes and huge wildfires. FEMA Administrator Brock Long told a Senate oversight committee Tuesday the challenge presented by hurricanes Irma, Harvey and Maria is unprecedented in the history of his agency. He also noted costs from the recent wild fires in California, which Long called the worst devastation he has ever seen. Long thanked the legislators for the $52 billion in emergency relief allocated so far, but said recovering from the recent spate of disasters will be tremendously expensive. Long said he also needs additional legal authority from Congress to build the power grid in Puerto Rico back better than it was before. …

The co-owner of a Fifth Avenue skyscraper controlled by the family of Jared Kushner says demolishing the tower to build luxury apartments is not practical and the building will likely remain as offices.   Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steven Roth told investors on Tuesday that the Kushner family’s plan to raise billions from investors to rebuild the tower is “not feasible.” He added that “it’s likely that the building will revert to an office building.” The project drew criticism after media reports that the Kushner Cos. was negotiating with a Chinese insurer with ties to the ruling Communist Party, among other big foreign investors. Critics say such deals would raise conflicts of interest issues with Jared Kushner serving in the White House as an adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump.   …

U.S. President Donald Trump disparaged one-time foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos on Tuesday, a day after it was disclosed that he pleaded guilty to charges of lying to federal agents but has been cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election. A year ago, Trump described Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old energy and oil consultant, as an “excellent guy.” But in a new Twitter comment from the White House, Trump said, “Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!” Trump said, “The Fake News is working overtime,” referring to mainstream U.S. news outlets’ widespread coverage of Papadopoulos’ guilty plea in early October and the indictment of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his protege Rick Gates on money laundering and conspiracy charges linked to their multimillion-dollar lobbying effort for one-time Ukrainian strongman …

Bosnian authorities say a man with suspected terrorism links has been extradited to the United States.   The prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Tuesday that the agency has taken part in a “complex operation” to locate the suspect and hand him over to the U.S. No other details were immediately revealed.   Bosnian media have identified the suspect as Mirsad Kandic, a Kosovo-born Islamic State group supporter sought for years by the U.S.   The Zurnal online news portal says Kandic was arrested in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo in July, and kept in detention until the extradition Tuesday. Kandic has reportedly spent time in the former IS stronghold of Raqqa, and helped Australian teenage suicide bomber Jake Bilardi, also known as Jihadi Jake, reach the Islamic-held territory in 2014. …

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly described Confederate General Robert E. Lee as an “honorable man” Monday and said the U.S. Civil War was caused by the “lack of an ability to compromise.” Kelly did not expound on how the conflict could have been averted through compromise. His remarks, however, reflected those of President Donald Trump, who has resisted the removal of monuments honoring the Confederacy and Lee, the commander of the Confederate States of America – commonly known as the Confederacy. The Confederacy originally consisted of Lee’s home state of Virginia and six other southern slave-holding states which seceded from the U.S. and whose economies were dependent on a vast plantation system that relied on the labor of African-American slaves. Although some maintain the Civil War was fought to preserve states’ rights, there is general agreement among scholars that slavery was the impetus of the conflict. In its …

October 31 is Halloween in the United States, the eve of All Saints Day. Traditionally, children and young adults go door-to-door in search of treats.  Here’s how we’re celebrating it – and we’ve included photos from countries who have similar celebrations around this day. …

Efforts to restore electricity to Puerto Rico nearly six weeks after Hurricane Maria are shifting as the island’s utility and its regulators, along with U.S. authorities, removed a key contractor and moved to triple the funding of another. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is leading the federal power restoration effort, said it plans to boost the size of a key contract awarded to Fluor Corp. by $600 million, to $840 million, according to a government filing. The Army Corps said it was modifying the contract to ensure “continued execution of the critical repair and restoration of the electric power grid in Puerto Rico.” It comes a day after Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) said they would cancel a $300 million contract with Whitefish Energy Holdings, after an uproar over the deal’s provisions and the tiny Montana company’s lack of experience …

Republican Sen. John McCain on Monday gratefully thanked U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen for sacrificing for fellow Americans “who won’t be asked to make sacrifices for you” in an emotional address from the former Navy pilot now battling brain cancer.   With a mix of humor and pathos, the six-term Arizona senator returned to his alma mater to speak to the Brigade of Midshipmen and field a few questions about past presidential campaigns, the Russia probe and advice for those at the academy in Annapolis, Maryland.   McCain, 81, described himself as an “undistinguished member of the class of 1958” and now stands as the “luckiest guy you’ll ever know.” The senator underwent surgery in mid-July to remove a 2-inch (51-millimeter) blood clot in his brain after being diagnosed with an aggressive tumor called a glioblastoma.   “Many of you will risk everything for your country. You will make sacrifices for …

For nearly 40 years, Paul Manafort has been one of Washington’s top lobbyists, paid millions of dollars to represent controversial  figures from around the globe who needed to burnish their standing in the U.S. capital, including the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos,  Zaire’s military dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and most recently Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych. At the same time, he has been a Republican political operative, advising and serving an array of the party’s presidents since the 1970s. Just last year, he briefly was campaign chairman for the upstart candidacy of real estate mogul Donald Trump on his eventually successful run to the White House. Now the lobbying and political worlds of the 68-year-old Manafort have achieved a merger of sorts. A federal grand jury in Washington indicted him in a money-laundering scheme linked to his lobbying for Moscow-supported Yanukovych before the Kyiv leader was ousted in 2014 and fled to Russia …

The special counsel investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia took a dramatic turn Monday with criminal indictments of two former Trump campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Special Counsel Robert Mueller also revealed that a former Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in connection with the Russia probe. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington. …