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Highlights

Bernie Sanders will seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020, he said in an interview this morning. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and lost his bid for the party's presidential nomination in the 2016 White House race, made the announcement in an interview with Vermont Public Radio. He promised a “very different campaign” in an effort to oust Republican President Donald Trump.

A coalition of 16 U.S. states have sued President Donald Trump to block his decision to declare a national emergency to obtain funds for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California came after Trump invoked emergency powers on Friday to help build the wall.

Investigators from the North Carolina’s election board have uncovered a “coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme” in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district congressional vote. Executive director Kim Strach said a political operative working for Republican candidate Mark Harris hired workers to collect absentee ballot requests from voters and then return to retrieve the ballots, in violation of state law.

A new round of Sino-U.S. trade talks will take place in Washington today. Follow-up sessions at a higher level, led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, will happen later in the week. The talks are aimed at “achieving needed structural changes in China that affect trade between the United States and China. The two sides will also discuss China’s pledge to purchase a substantial amount of goods and services from the United States,” the White House said in a statement.

World

Karl Lagerfeld, fashion's prolific commander-in-chief, has died. Lagerfeld enjoyed the stature of a god among mortals in the world of fashion, where he stayed on top for well over half of a century and up to his death. The German designer was best known for his association with France’s Chanel, but Largerfeld, who simultaneously churned out collections for LVMH’s Fendi and his eponymous label - an unheard of feat in fashion - was almost a brand in his own right. Read our obituary here.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is building a massive economic hub at the alpine town of Samjiyon, which North Korean defectors and human rights activists say is being built “slave labor”. Kim hopes to build new apartments, hotels, a ski resort and commercial, cultural and medical facilities by late 2020 as part of his campaign for a self-reliant economy. Young workers at the facility get no pay, poor food and are forced to work more than 12 hours a day for up to 10 years in return for better chances to enter a university or join the all-powerful Workers’ Party.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday that his country was ready to cooperate with India in its investigation of a deadly bombing in the disputed Kashmir region last week, which India blamed on Pakistan, but warned of retaliation if attacked.

Honda will close its only British car plant in 2021 with the loss of up to 3,500 jobs, a major departure of Japanese investment announced just over a month before the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union. “This decision was not informed by Brexit,” said Honda Chief Executive Takahiro Hachigo, but the timing of the announcement comes amid deepening Japanese corporate worries about investing in Britain after it leaves the EU.

.@Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 435 days. Follow updates on the case: https://reut.rs/2SJk3He

7:30 AM - 19 Feb 2019