North America

(AP) --- A jury in Michigan will begin its deliberations Monday in the trial of four men accused of designing a plan to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The jury picked a leader late Friday afternoon, following hours of closing arguments from lawyers, then said it would start discussing the case after the weekend.

Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta can be found guilty of conspiracy, even if it wasn’t possible to pull off the kidnapping in fall 2020, U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker said during jury instructions.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are launching a whirlwind of votes and Senate floor action Monday with the goal of confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court by the end of the week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee kicks off Monday morning with a vote on whether to move Jackson’s nomination to the Senate floor. Democrats will then wind the nomination through the 50-50 Senate, with a final vote in sight for President Joe Biden’s pick to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The usual crowds filled the streets as bars and nightclubs were closing in California’s capital city of Sacramento when the sound of rapid-fire gunshots sent people running in terror. In a matter of seconds, the latest U.S. mass shooting had left six people dead and 12 wounded.

NEW YORK, April 2. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said his country had exchanged draft documents on security guarantees with a number of countries.

"We do need guarantees of security from leading nations," he said in an interview to Fox News, adding that this applies to both NATO members and non-NATO countries. "We want those countries that wanted join this openly in addition to the US, Great Britain, Germany, France, Turkey."

 MEXICO CITY, April 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nine people including a policeman were killed in clashes early Saturday in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, a region that has been hit by violence linked to organized crime.

   “Elements of the Michoacan Police, National Guard, local police and Mexican Army neutralized eight criminal targets,” the local public security office said on Twitter. “A municipal agent lost his life in the line of duty.”

WASHINGTON, April 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The US will halt a pandemic policy that allowed migrants to be swiftly expelled over concerns about spreading Covid-19.

The policy known as Title 42 will end on May 23 after more than two years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

Aimed at stopping virus spread in migrant holding facilities, the Trump policy was twice extended by President Joe Biden.

Over 1.7 million people have been expelled under the policy.

MEXICO CITY, April 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Mexico, which has been subsidising gasoline to soften price spikes, said the policy would not apply in the US border region this week, citing shortages as more Americans drive south to fill their tanks.

The suspension of the subsidy from April 2-8 covers cities in the border states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora and Baja California, including Tijuana, one of the world’s busiest border crossings.

SAN JOSE, April 3 (Reuters) - Costa Ricans will choose a new president on Sunday to steer the Central American country through mounting debt woes and social discontent in a run-off between an anti-establishment outsider and former leader.

Final polling gave economist Rodrigo Chaves, a former longtime World Bank official, a slight lead over former President Jose Maria Figueres. Chaves had 41% of support, while Figueres was seen with 38%, with many voters still undecided, according to a poll by the University of Costa Rica published Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, April 3 (Xinhua) -- "After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States sought to establish its global supremacy. In the countless wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and many other countries, any threat to U.S. hegemony was to be eliminated," said a video recently removed by Facebook.

"The Ukrainian people are being sacrificed as pawns in order to advance NATO's confrontation with Russia. This confrontation ... is now escalating with breathtaking intensity," said the deleted video, according to the report on the World Socialist Web Site on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Most studies on the effectiveness of gun control measures or laws were deeply flawed, according to a report published on the Reason magazine on Thursday.

The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, analyzed the results of 27,900 research publications on the effectiveness of gun control laws, finding "only 123 studies, or 0.4 percent, that tested the effects rigorously," the report said.

"Some of the other 27,777 studies may have been useful for non-empirical discussions, but many others were deeply flawed," it said.