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China and the United States have agreed to cancel in phases the tariffs imposed during their months-long trade war, the Chinese commerce ministry said, without specifying a timetable. An interim U.S.-China trade deal is widely expected to include a U.S. pledge to scrap tariffs scheduled for Dec. 15 on about $156 billion worth of Chinese imports, including cell phones, laptop computers and toys.

The nine American women and children killed in northern Mexico were victims of a territorial dispute between an arm of the Sinaloa Cartel and a rival gang, officials said, and may have been used to lure one side into a firefight. Members of breakaway Mormon communities that settled in Mexico decades ago, the three families were ambushed as they drove along a dirt track in Sonora state.

U.S. congressional committees conducting an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump are due to hear for the first time on Thursday from a top adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, one of the last witnesses to testify behind closed doors before public hearings start next week. In a tweet on Wednesday, Trump called the probe a “phony scam.”

In Trump's shadow, Republican suburban slide shows little sign of slowing. Democratic gains in Pennsylvania, a state crucial to U.S. President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, suggest Republicans have yet to staunch the bleeding in the suburbs, where voters have increasingly revolted against Trump’s heated rhetoric.

World

Hong Kong students, many wearing banned black masks, chanted slogans at their graduation at the Chinese University on Thursday, with some holding up banners urging “Free Hong Kong, Revolution Now”. The students defied a ban on masks that the government imposed last month in a bid to curb sometimes violent unrest that has rocked the Chinese-ruled city for more than five months.

North Korea on Thursday called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe an “idiot and villain” who should not even dream of setting foot in Pyongyang, in a media commentary laden with insults in response to his criticism of a North Korean weapons test. North Korea tested what it called “super-large multiple rocket launchers” on Oct. 31, but Japan said they were likely ballistic missiles that violated U.N. sanctions.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday the United States was not fulfilling its pledge to remove a Kurdish militia from a Syrian border region and he will raise the issue when he meets President Donald Trump next week. A month ago, Turkey launched a cross-border offensive with Syrian rebels against Kurdish YPG fighters.

Britain’s smaller pro-European political parties have announced a “remain” electoral alliance in which they will step aside for each other in 60 constituencies in the upcoming election to deny Prime Minister Boris Johnson a parliamentary majority.