North America

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22 (NNN-KBC) — Kenya is committed to supporting the Global Fund and implementing the agreed targets aimed at combating HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria, President William Ruto has said.

While addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in his first maiden speech, the President rallied other African States to work together to fight the three diseases through mobilization of much-needed resources.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22 (Reuters) - World leaders at the United Nations on Thursday called for Moscow to be held accountable for human rights violations in Ukraine as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended Moscow's war and accused its neighbor of committing atrocities.

Addressing a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on atrocities committed in Ukraine since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion, Lavrov accused Ukraine of creating threats against Russian security and "brazenly trampling" the rights of Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The heads of the nation's largest banks faced pointed criticism on Thursday from Republicans complaining the firms are inappropriately taking liberal stances on social and cultural issues.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized Wednesday that the private sector is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

"The private sector is critical," the top UN official said in his video message to the 7th annual SDG Business Forum, which was held on the sidelines of the general debate of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.

The secretary-general welcomed the effort of the event organizers to bring the private sector together to rescue the SDGs.

CAGUAS, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Fiona left hundreds of people stranded across Puerto Rico after smashing roads and bridges, with authorities still struggling to reach them four days after the storm smacked the U.S. territory, causing historic flooding.

Government officials have been working with religious groups, nonprofits and others braving landslides, thick mud and broken asphalt by foot to provide food, water and medicine for people in need, but they are under pressure to clear a path so vehicles can enter isolated areas soon.

WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones took the stand Thursday at his defamation trial in Connecticut as he tried to limit the damages he must pay for promoting the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.

More than a dozen family members of some of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting also showed up to observe his testimony in Waterbury Superior Court, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Newtown, where the shooting occurred.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A powerful magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Mexico early Thursday, causing at least two deaths, damaging buildings and setting off landslides.

The earthquake struck at 1:19 a.m. near the epicenter of a magnitude 7.6 quake that hit three days earlier in the western state of Michoacan. It was also blamed for two deaths.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday’s earthquake was centered in a sparsely populated area 31 miles (50 kilometers) south-southwest of Aguililla, Michoacan, at a depth of 15 miles (24.1 kilometers).

NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden met Thursday with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, giving Biden his first chance for face-to-face engagement with a key Pacific leader who came to power earlier this year.

(AP) --- An Ohio man who testified at a congressional hearing about why he stormed the U.S. Capitol avoided a term of imprisonment when a federal judge sentenced him on Thursday to two years of probation for his role in the mob’s attack.

After his televised testimony at a U.S. House committee’s hearing in July, Stephen Ayres approached and apologized to a group of police officers who had struggled to repel the crowd of rioters on Jan. 6, 2021.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Ukraine’s president laid out a detailed case against Russia’s invasion at the United Nations and demanded punishment from world leaders in a speech delivered just hours after Moscow made an extraordinary announcement that it would mobilize some reservists for the war effort.

Buoyed by a counteroffensive that has retaken swaths of territory that the Russians seized, Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed in a video address Wednesday that his forces would not stop until they had reclaimed all of Ukraine.