UNITED STATES

Michael Cohen testifies against Trump in trial

In a courtroom showdown five years in the making, Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen testified on Tuesday that he worked to boost the supposed value of the former president's assets to "whatever number Trump told us to". Testifying as a key witness in New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case against Trump, Cohen said Trump tasked him and other former Trump Organization executives with doctoring financial statements to boost the value of the company's holdings. Outside court, Trump dismissed Cohen's account as the words of "a proven liar".

MEXICO

Hurricane Otis makes landfall near Acapulco

A major Category 5 hurricane made landfall near Mexico's Pacific beach resort of Acapulco early on Wednesday, threatening to wreak "catastrophic" damage, the US National Hurricane Center, or NHC, said. Hurricane Otis was packing maximum sustained winds of 265 kilometers per hour when it came ashore, the NHC said. The storm had rapidly strengthened to the most powerful category of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as it neared land. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador made an appeal on social media for people to move to emergency shelters and away from rivers, streams and ravines.

RUSSIA

Moscow studying US arms control proposals

Moscow has received proposals from Washington on arms control and is currently studying them, state news agency RIA quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov as saying. RIA cited Ryabkov as saying that Russia was not ready to resume dialogue on strategic stability with the US, but was prepared to consider new proposals from Washington on prisoner exchanges. In another development, Russia resumed sea passenger transport linking Japan after a long break, local media reported on Wednesday.