North America

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund announced Saturday an increase in the weighting of the Chinese renminbi and U.S. dollar in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currency basket after completing a quinquennial review.

It marks the first SDR review since the renminbi formally became the fifth currency in the SDR basket in 2016. The review occurred about one year later than originally scheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and a delegation of GOP senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv during an unannounced visit Saturday, delivering the latest show of American solidarity with the country at war with Russia.

“Our delegation reaffirmed to President Zelenskyy that the United States stands squarely behind Ukraine and will sustain our support until Ukraine wins this war,” McConnell said in a statement released after the delegation had left Ukraine.

ATLANTA (AP) — The great vote-by-mail wave appears to be receding just as quickly as it arrived.

After tens of millions of people in the United States opted for mail ballots during the pandemic election of 2020, voters in early primary states are returning in droves to in-person voting this year.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Shoppers out on a weekend afternoon and a retired police officer working as a security guard were among the 10 shot and killed at a Buffalo supermarket by a white teenager who authorities say was motivated by racial hatred.

Police said Payton Gendron shot, in total, 11 Black people and two white people Saturday in a rampage at the Tops Friendly Market that the 18-year-old broadcast live before surrendering to authorities.

UNITED NATIONS, May 14 (APP): Renewed talks to come up with some common rules to promote greater security in space have taken place in Geneva this week, amid growing tensions between Russia and western countries.

UJN officials said that the move received wide-ranging support and participation from civil society and member states – including all five permanent members of the Security Council –

UNITED NATIONS, May 13. /TASS/: Russia intends to submit materials to the UN Security Council for conducting an investigation into military biological activities in Ukraine as part of international agreements, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said on Friday at a UNSC meeting that Russia called to discuss US biolaboratories in Ukraine.

"We have already built up a significant amount of material directly pointing to a violation by the US of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, he said. "We continue to collect and analyze these materials."

COLORADO SPRINGS, May 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Smoke from several major wildfires ringed Colorado Springs, Colorado’s second-largest city, torching eight homes, closing the city’s airport and causing thousands of evacuations, as dry conditions and heavy winds spread the blazes quickly throughout the area.

As night fell on Colorado Springs, located 112.6 km south of the state capital, Denver, dozens of fire crews from across the region responded to the grass fires, and were “gaining the upper hand,” according to Denver CBS4 News.

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine when he spoke by telephone to his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu on Friday for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon said.

Austin has tried multiple times to try and talk with Shoigu since the invasion started nearly three months ago, but officials said Moscow had appeared uninterested.

Austin stressed the importance of maintaining lines of communication, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket carried 53 satellites for the Starlink internet constellation into orbit Friday after blasting off from California.

The Falcon 9 booster lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:07 p.m., and minutes later the first stage landed on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean while the second stage continued toward low Earth orbit.

SpaceX later tweeted that the satellites were successfully deployed.

LOS ALAMOS N.M. (AP) — Public schools were closed and evacuation bags packed this week as a stubborn wildfire crept within a few miles of the city of Los Alamos and its companion U.S. national security lab — where assessing apocalyptic threats is a specialty and wildland fire is a beguiling equation.

Lighter winds on Friday allowed for the most intense aerial attack this week on those flames west of Santa Fe as well as the biggest U.S. wildfire burning farther east, south of Taos.