The U.S. has now begun training Turkish troops, marking the final step before the two countries begin conducting joint patrols likely later this month around the strategic northern Syrian city of Manbij, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday. Mattis said that initial instruction for Turkey’s military trainers started, and will soon be followed by U.S. training of the broader Turkish force that will conduct the patrols. The forces are being trained in Turkey. The training had been delayed a bit while equipment was brought in and the two countries worked out the details of how military tactics and operations would be conducted. Ibrahim Kalin, Turkey’s presidential spokesman, said last week that the patrols would “begin very soon.” Mattis would not commit to a timeline, but acknowledged progress in the training steps needed for the patrols to start. The Manbij patrols are part of a “road map” that Ankara and Washington …

North Dakota is going ahead with requiring residents to provide a street address in order to vote on Election Day, even though some American Indian tribes have argued in federal court that they sometimes aren’t assigned on reservations. Secretary of State Al Jaeger’s office notified the state’s five tribes by email late Friday of North Dakota voter ID requirements. The email said obtaining a residential street address is a quick and no-cost process that can be done by notifying 911 coordinators in any of North Dakota’s 53 counties. A file containing a downloadable poster was attached to the email. “The effort is to educate people who vote and how to comply with the law,” Deputy Secretary of State Jim Silrum said Monday. Elections officials sent the email Friday hours after lawyers representing a group of Native Americans appealed their lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying new voter ID requirements …

The Republican senator who suddenly sits at the center of the explosive Supreme Court debate vowed Monday to ensure the FBI does “a real investigation” into President Donald Trump’s nominee as he trekked across New England while exploring a possible run for president.   “It does us no good to have an investigation that just gives us more cover,” Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake told hundreds of young people at the Forbes Under 30 Summit.   Flake’s comments come as the White House insisted it’s not “micromanaging” the new one-week review of decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Some Democratic lawmakers claimed the White House was keeping investigators from interviewing certain witnesses.   Flake delivered the message at a Boston conference hours before he faced New Hampshire voters for the second time this year. The 55-year-old Republican, who is retiring from the Senate at the end …

Charlie Branda is not an artist. When she opened an art studio on a stretch of asphalt known as Sedgwick Street, the 53-year-old mom and former commercial banker simply wanted to get to know her neighbors and to connect two sides of a thoroughfare that divides black and white, haves and have-nots. “The way it is now isn’t the way it has to be,” she remembers thinking. Branda had lived for years in and around Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood when she, her husband and two children moved into a red-brick house on the east, and wealthier, side of Sedgwick in 2008. Initially, she joined with her neighbors to demand that the city, police and absentee landlords do something about drug-dealing and occasional gunfire in the neighborhood. But she also spent a lot of time walking around, ignoring those who advised her to stay on “her side” of the street. “Hello!” …

After intense last-minute discussions ahead of a self-imposed midnight deadline, U.S. and Canadian officials announced late Sunday they reached a trade deal, allowing a modified three-way pact with Mexico to replace the nearly quarter-century old North American Free Trade Agreement.  The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) – underpinning $1.2 trillion in annual trade — is expected to be signed in 60 days by President Donald Trump and his Canadian and Mexican counterparts.  “We think this is a fantastic agreement for the United States,” a senior administration official told reporters on a hastily convened briefing call, adding that it is “a great win for the president.”  Trump had made criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a centerpiece of his successful 2016 election campaign.  “The worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country,” Trump had termed NAFTA, blaming it for the loss of American manufacturing …

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the nation’s toughest net neutrality measure Sunday, requiring internet providers to maintain a level playing field online. The move prompted an immediate lawsuit by the Trump administration.          Advocates of net neutrality hope the new law in the home of the global technology industry will have national implications by pushing Congress to enact national net neutrality rules or encouraging other states to follow suit.          But the U.S. Department of Justice wants to stop the law in its tracks, arguing that it creates burdensome, anti-consumer requirements that go against the federal government’s approach of deregulating the Internet.          “Once again the California Legislature has enacted an extreme and illegal state law attempting to frustrate federal policy,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.          The law is the latest example of the nation’s most populous …

The National Weather Service has announced flash flood watches for the Southwest United States and a tropical storm warning for northwest Mexico as Hurricane Rosa churns closer. According to the National Hurricane Center, Rosa is weakening but is still expected to be a tropical storm when it hits the Baja California Peninsula and Mexico’s Sonora state on Monday. As of Sunday afternoon, Rosa had maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometers per hour as it headed north at about 20 kph. Weather forecasters predict heavy rains and thunderstorms for the watch areas, which include the U.S. cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Outer bands of the storm are also expected to bring much-needed rain to coastal Southern California. Meanwhile, Hurricane Sergio continues to gain strength in the Atlantic but currently poses no threat to land. …