North America

HAVANA, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Cuba on Friday sent a team of 50 health professionals from the Henry Reeve Medical Contingent to the Bahamas, local media reported.

"It will contribute to reducing the COVID-19 infection rates in the Bahamas, which soared due to the Omicron variant," Deputy Minister of Public Health Regla Angulo was quoted as saying by Cuban state news agency ACN.

It is the first medical brigade the country has dispatched overseas this year to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, according to ACN.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. military and its civilian leaders are wrong to wage the "New Cold War" by overemphasizing militarized responses to economic and diplomatic challenges, The Diplomat magazine has reported.

Perhaps the key American misstep, the report said Wednesday, is relying too much on hyper-expensive legacy weapons -- aircraft carriers, unusable and redundant nuclear missiles, over-budget and underperforming F-35 fighter jets -- that can't protect U.S. interests and citizens well.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Taking over from the Republic of Guinea the leadership of the Group of 77 (G77) and China for 2022, Pakistan assumed its duties on Friday.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi presided over the proceedings of the opening segment of the handover ceremony held in a virtual format, which was also attended by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and president of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid.

"The work of the Group of 77 and China is pivotal," said the UN chief.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials on Friday encouraged more Americans to wear the kind of N95 or KN95 masks used by health-care workers to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Those kinds of masks are considered better at filtering the air. But they were in short supply previously, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials had said they should be prioritized for health care workers.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s attorney general is asking federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into 16 Republicans who submitted false certificates stating they were the state’s presidential electors despite Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in 2020.

Dana Nessel, a Democrat, disclosed Thursday that her office had been evaluating charges for nearly a year but decided to refer the matter to the U.S. attorney in western Michigan.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Concerned but not giving up, President Joe Biden is anxiously pushing ahead to prod people to get COVID-19 shots after the Supreme Court put a halt to the administration’s sweeping vaccinate-or-test plan for large employers.

At a time when hospitals are being overrun and record numbers of people are getting infected with the omicron variant, the administration hopes states and companies will order their own vaccinate-or-test requirements. And if the presidential “bully pulpit” still counts for persuasion, Biden intends to use it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined a Russian effort is underway to create a pretext for its troops to further invade Ukraine, and Moscow has already prepositioned operatives to conduct “a false-flag operation” in eastern Ukraine, according to the White House.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday the intelligence findings show Russia is also laying the groundwork through a social media disinformation campaign that frames Ukraine as an aggressor that has been preparing an imminent attack against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine.

PASSAIC, N.J. (AP) — A large chemical fire burned through the night and into Saturday morning in northern New Jersey, its smoke so heavy that it was detected on weather radar and seen and smelled in neighboring New York City.

The fire at Majestic Industries and the Qualco chemical plant in Passaic spread to multiple buildings and threatened their collapse, officials said.

Water from firefighter hoses froze in cold weather and made the environment slick and hazardous for responders.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As America’s first second gentleman, Doug Emhoff has attended a U.S. naturalization ceremony in New York, dished up spaghetti and chocolate milk to kids at a YMCA near New Orleans and reminisced with second graders in Detroit about an early job at McDonald’s.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his election-year effort to dominate the Republican Party with a Saturday rally in Arizona in which he plans to castigate anyone who dares to question his lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, likely including the state’s GOP governor, Doug Ducey.