North America

WINDSOR, Ontario (AP) — Protesters opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other restrictions withdrew their vehicles from a key U.S.-Canadian border bridge Saturday though access remained blocked while other demonstrations ramped up in cities across Canada, including the capital, where police said they were awaiting more officers before ending what they described as an illegal occupation.

HONOLULU (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Japanese and South Korean counterparts Saturday in Hawaii to discuss the threat posed by nuclear-armed North Korea after Pyongyang began the year with a series of missile tests.

Blinken said at a news conference after the meeting that North Korea was “in a phase of provocation” and the three countries condemned the recent missile launches.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would cause “widespread human suffering” and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but “equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House said Saturday. It offered no suggestion that the hourlong call diminished the threat of an imminent war in Europe.

Biden also said the United States and its allies would respond “decisively and impose swift and severe costs” if the Kremlin attacked its neighbor, according to the White House.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 (APP): United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on the international community to “change track” in protecting the ocean from the climate crisis.

Global warming, biodiversity loss and pollution are a triple crisis facing the planet, he said in a video message to the One Ocean Summit taking place in the northern French coastal city of Brest., warning that the ocean “shoulders a great deal of the burden”.

As the ocean serves as a giant carbon and heat sink, it is growing warmer and more acidic, causing its ecosystems to suffer.

WASHINGTON, February 12. /TASS/: The global balance of power has changed since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference and Moscow has the right to demand changes in Europe’s security while NATO keeps ignoring this situation, Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University Peter Kuznick told TASS on Saturday.

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - About 150 U.S. troops from the Florida National Guard who have been in Ukraine to help train Ukrainian forces are leaving the country as the threat of a Russian invasion increases, the Pentagon said on Saturday.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the decision, first reported by Reuters, was made out of an abundance of caution and was informed by the State Department's decision to withdraw some staff from the U.S. embassy in Kyiv.

OTTAWA, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency in the largest province of Canada on Friday to end what he called truckers' "illegal occupation" of Ottawa -- an Ontario city and the Canadian capital -- and their blockade of the Canada-U.S. border.

Ford said that he would "urgently enact orders that will make crystal clear it is illegal and punishable to block and impede the movement of goods, people and services along critical infrastructure," including international border crossings, major highways, airports, ports, bridges and railways.

OTTAWA, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency in the largest province of Canada on Friday to end what he called truckers' "illegal occupation" of Ottawa -- an Ontario city and the Canadian capital -- and their blockade of the Canada-U.S. border.

Ford said that he would "urgently enact orders that will make crystal clear it is illegal and punishable to block and impede the movement of goods, people and services along critical infrastructure," including international border crossings, major highways, airports, ports, bridges and railways.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It took South Carolina lawmakers only two months to act when a female college student was kidnapped and killed by a man posing as an Uber driver. The Legislature acted swiftly to prevent such crimes in the future.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to put greater emphasis on potential damage from greenhouse gas emissions when creating rules for polluting industries.

U.S. District Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana sided with Republican attorneys general from energy producing states who said the administration’s action to raise the cost estimate of carbon emissions threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production.