North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is extending the nationwide mask requirement for public transit for 15 days as it monitors an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was extending the order, which was set to expire on April 18, until May 3 to allow more time to study the BA.2 omicron subvariant that is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the U.S.

NEW YORK (AP) — A man sought in connection with an attack on a subway train in Brooklyn that left 10 people shot — and once again interrupted New York City’s long journey to post-pandemic normalcy — is now considered a suspect, Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is warning that countries that undermine the sanctions the United States and its allies have imposed on Russia will face consequences for their actions.

“The unified coalition of sanctioning countries will not be indifferent to actions that undermine the sanctions we’ve put in place,” Yellen says in prepared remarks to be delivered at the Atlantic Council on Wednesday.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — One of the busiest trade ports on the U.S.-Mexico border remained effectively closed Wednesday as frustration and traffic snarls mounted over new orders by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requiring extra inspections of commercial trucks as part of the Republican’s sprawling border security operation.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — President Joe Biden has now said Russia’s war in Ukraine amounts to “genocide,” accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”

“Yes, I called it genocide,” he told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”

Last week, Biden stopped short of saying Russia’s actions amounted to genocide.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia’s initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching, potentially decisive, battle for Ukraine’s contested Donbas region. Yet the Russian military is making little headway halting what has become a historic arms express.

NEW YORK (AP) — As the year began, New Yorkers shuddered at a subway crime straight out of urban nightmares — the death of a woman shoved onto the tracks by a disturbed stranger. The city’s new mayor vowed to “make sure New Yorkers feel safe in our subway system.”

But commuters Tuesday morning faced an attack that evoked many riders’ deepest fears. A rush-hour train car filled with smoke as it pulled into a Brooklyn station. Gunshots — at least 33 of them — rang out, wounding at least 10 people.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 12 (APP): The Asia and Pacific region’s economic recovery from COVID and other global shocks, must be anchored in an inclusive “new social contract”, to protect the vulnerable in the years ahead, according to a report published on Tuesday by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 12 (APP): The World Trade Organization (WTO) has cut its goods trade growth forecast for this year by about a third to 3 per cent, warning that the decline in commodity exports caused by the Ukraine war could cause mass hunger in developing countries.

UNITED NATIONS, April 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN Security Council — which on Monday held a session on the plight of women and children in Ukraine — will hold another meeting next week on the humanitarian situation there, in a bid to keep pressure on Russia despite its veto power over the powerful body, diplomats said.

The new meeting, proposed by France and Mexico, will “focus on refugees, third-country nationals and human trafficking,” said a diplomat on condition of anonymity.