North America

WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - The United States believes that the Russian military's Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, visited Ukraine's Donbas region last week but cannot confirm media reports that he was wounded during fighting, a U.S. defense official said on Monday.

"We can confirm he was in the Donbas," the senior U.S. official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON, May 3 (Reuters) - Two months after warning that Beijing appeared poised to help Russia in its fight against Ukraine, senior U.S. officials say they have not detected overt Chinese military and economic support, a welcome development in the tense U.S.-China relationship.

U.S. officials told Reuters in recent days they remain wary about China's long-standing support for Russia in general, but that the military and economic support that they worried about has not come to pass, at least for now. The relief comes at a pivotal time.

OTTAWA, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday announced a new federal investment in project funding for automaker Stellantis that will modernize assembly plants and increase the production of electric vehicles (EV).

According to a news release from the prime minister's office, the Canadian government is investing up to 529 million Canadian dollars (423 million U.S. dollars) into this project. The Province of Ontario is also supporting the project with an investment of up to 513 million Canadian dollars (410 million U.S. dollars).

Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine), May 3 (AP) A senior US official warned that Russia plans to annex large portions of eastern Ukraine later this month, and the Mariupol steel mill that has become the city's last stronghold of resistance came under renewed assault a day after the first evacuation of civilians from the plant.

Washington, May 3 (PTI) Around the world, Muslims are being targeted with violence, US President Joe Biden said on Monday asserting that Muslims make America stronger every single day even as they still face real challenges and threats in the society that they live in.

At a White House reception to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, Biden said he has appointed the first Muslim to serve as Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — Wind-whipped flames raced across more of New Mexico’s pine-covered mountainsides on Monday, closing in on a town of 13,000 people where some residents hurried to pack their cars with belongings, others hustled to clear brush from around their homes, and police were called in to help evacuate the state’s psychiatric hospital.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — On a dusty field on the east side of Mexico’s sprawling capital, some 500 Ukrainian refugees are waiting in large tents under a searing sun for the United States government to tell them they can come.

The camp has only been open a week and 50 to 100 people are arriving every day. Some have already been to the U.S. border in Tijuana where they were told they would no longer be admitted. Others arrived at airports in Mexico City or Cancun, anywhere they could find a ticket from Europe.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The planes take off almost daily from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware — hulking C-17s loaded up with Javelins, Stingers, howitzers and other material being hustled to Eastern Europe to resupply Ukraine’s military in its fight against Russia.

The game-changing impact of those arms is exactly what President Joe Biden hopes to spotlight as he visits a Lockheed Martin plant in Alabama on Tuesday that builds the portable Javelin anti-tank weapons that have played a crucial role in Ukraine.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio Republicans will vote Tuesday in one of the most contentious and closely watched Senate primaries in the U.S., deciding a race that is an early referendum on former President Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP as the midterm primary season kicks into high gear.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A draft opinion suggests the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a Politico report released Monday.

A decision to overrule Roe would lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states and could have huge ramifications for this year’s elections. But it’s unclear if the draft represents the court’s final word on the matter — opinions often change in ways big and small in the drafting process.