North America

NEW YORK, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Most Americans, who are concerned about such social issues as health care, gun violence and reproductive rights, have given up hope for any positive social change, The New York Post reported Wednesday, citing a recent poll.

The survey conducted by OnePoll, a market research company, showed that of the 2,000 Americans surveyed, nearly 67 percent are not optimistic that there will be any positive social change, said the report.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Three former Minneapolis police officers went before a federal judge during the last week to be sentenced for violating George Floyd’s civil rights, and for each man, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson handed out penalties well below what prosecutors sought and below federal guidelines.

Tou Thao, who held back concerned bystanders as Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck, got 3 1/2 years. J. Alexander Kueng, who pinned Floyd’s back, got three. And Thomas Lane, who held Floyd’s feet and asked twice about rolling the Black man on his side, got 2 1/2.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Friday it has reached an agreement with Moderna to buy 66 million doses of the company’s next generation of COVID-19 vaccine that targets the highly transmissible omicron variant, enough supply this winter for all who want the upgraded booster.

The order of the bivalent shot follows the announcement last month that the federal government had secured 105 million doses of a similar vaccine from rival drugmaker Pfizer. Both orders are scheduled for delivery in the fall and winter, assuming regulators sign off on their effectiveness.

TONOPAH, Nev. (AP) — The Nye County Commission is used to dealing with all sorts of hot-button controversies.

Water rights, livestock rules and marijuana licenses are among the many local dramas that consume the time of the five commissioners in this vast swath of rural and deeply Republican Nevada. Last spring, it was something new: voting machines.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin secreted themselves in a basement room at the Capitol.

The two men had been wrestling for more than a year in long, failed rounds of start-and-stop negotiations over President Joe Biden’s big rebuilding America package. But talks had jammed up — again. With the midterm elections near, control of Congress at stake, the president and his party were at the end of the line.

JACKSON, Ky. (AP) — Krystal Holbrook’s family started moving possessions to higher ground long before dawn, racing to save them from the rapidly rising floodwaters that were menacing southeastern Kentucky.

Her family scurried in the dark to move vehicles, campers, trailers and equipment. But as the water kept rising Thursday — leaving at least eight people dead and hundreds without homes in Kentucky -- they began to worry that they might run out of higher ground.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration likes to say Russia has become isolated internationally because of its invasion of Ukraine. Yet Moscow’s top officials have hardly been cloistered in the Kremlin. And now, even the U.S. wants to talk.

President Vladimir Putin has been meeting with world leaders, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is a NATO member. Meanwhile, his top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, is jetting around the world, smiling, shaking hands and posing for photos with foreign leaders — including some friends of the U.S.

NEW YORK, Jul 28 (APP): Highlighting climate change’s disproportionate impact on poor nations, Pakistan has called on the developed countries to fulfill their $100 billion commitment to help developing countries in reducing emissions and adapting to global warming.

HAVANA, July 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Belarus has become the first European country to approve the emergency use of a Cuban-made Covid-19 vaccine, the center that produces the jab said on Wednesday.

Belarus “approved today the use of Soberana Plus,” said the Finlay Vaccine Institute on Twitter.

Soberana Plus is one of three covid vaccines developed in Cuba, none of which have yet been approved by the World Health Organization.

WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) - Russian space officials have informed U.S. counterparts that Moscow would like to keep flying its cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) until their own orbital outpost is built and operational, a senior NASA official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Taken together with remarks from a senior Russian space official published on Wednesday, the latest indications are that Russia is still at least six years away from ending an orbital collaboration with the United States that dates back more than two decades.