USA

(AP) --- The new omicron coronavirus mutant speeding around the world may bring another wave of chaos, threatening to further stretch hospital workers already struggling with a surge of delta cases and upend holiday plans for the second year in a row.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Abdulla Shahid, president of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), said yesterday that, his first goal for the New Year is to vaccinate the world and achieve vaccine equity, so that normalcy can return to the entire world at an earlier date.

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak said on Tuesday it will temporarily suspend a vaccine mandate for employees and now no longer expects to be forced to cut some service in January.

In a memo seen by Reuters, Amtrak Chief Executive Bill Flynn said the railroad would allow employees who were not vaccinated to get tested.

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday dismissed a bid by former President Donald Trump to keep his tax returns from a House of Representatives committee, ruling that Congress' legislative interest outweighed any deference Trump should receive as a former president.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden said in his ruling that Trump was "wrong on the law" in seeking to block the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns.

Dec 10 (Reuters) - Most of the 43 COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant identified in the United States so far were in people who were fully vaccinated, and a third of them had received a booster dose, according to a U.S. report published on Friday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that of the 43 cases attributed to Omicron variant, 34 people had been fully vaccinated. Fourteen of them had also received a booster, although five of those cases occurred less than 14 days after the additional shot before full protection kicks in.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The United States and the European Union (EU) must return to a full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iranian ambassador to the United Nations (UN) told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

"Now it is time for the U.S. and the EU to live up to their responsibilities and return to the full compliance with the JCPOA. The choice is theirs. We hope they seize this opportunity," said Majid Takht Ravanchi.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday morning gave a final approval to the measure that would lift the nation's borrowing limit by 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars, averting a looming debt default.

The Democrats-held House approved the measure by a 221-209 vote to raise the federal government's debt limit to roughly 31 trillion dollars, hours after the Senate passed the legislation in a party-line 50-49 vote on Tuesday.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A use-of-force and Taser expert testified Wednesday at Kim Potter’s manslaughter trial that police officers are allowed to use deadly force to stop fleeing suspects, as her attorneys argue that Potter was justified in shooting Black motorist Daunte Wright even if she didn’t intend to.

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) — The little red wagon was strewn upside down on a heap of rubble — a pile of boards and bricks, a mangled blue bicycle, a baby doll.

Behind it, there was little more than a hole in the ground where a house had stood. Across the street, the tidy homes on this cul-de-sac were reduced to mounds of lumber. Clothes hung from the branches of snapped trees. The walls of one house were gone, and the only thing left standing inside was a white Christmas tree.

(AP) --- The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped 800,000 on Tuesday, a once-unimaginable figure seen as doubly tragic, given that more than 200,000 of those lives were lost after the vaccine became available practically for the asking last spring.

The number of deaths, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Atlanta and St. Louis combined, or Minneapolis and Cleveland put together. It is roughly equivalent to how many Americans die each year from heart disease or stroke.