North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — The failure of last week’s high-stakes diplomatic meetings to resolve escalating tensions over Ukraine has put Russia, the United States and its European allies in uncharted post-Cold War territory, posing significant challenges for the main players to avoid an outright and potentially disastrous confrontation.

OTTAWA/WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Unvaccinated Canadian truckers re-entering Canada from the United States must get tested for COVID-19 and quarantine themselves starting Jan. 15, the Canadian government said on Thursday, a day after the Canadian border agency dropped the rule.

WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers group, Stewart Rhodes, is due in a federal court in Plano, Texas, on Friday to face seditious conspiracy charges for his alleged role in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rhodes and 10 other associates or members of the group were accused by the Justice Department in an indictment unsealed on Thursday of plotting to storm the Capitol by force, in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday failed to pass a bill to slap sanctions on Russia's Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline sponsored by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a day after Democrats unveiled their own legislation.

The tally was 55 in favor and 44 against the bill that needed 60 votes to pass, a major hurdle in the 50-50 Senate. The vote spanned nearly seven hours as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer considered options on voting rights legislation.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, was denied parole Thursday by California’s governor, who said the killer remains a threat to the public and hasn’t taken responsibility for a crime that altered American history.

Kennedy, a U.S. senator from New York, was shot moments after he claimed victory in California’s pivotal Democratic presidential primary. Five others were wounded during the shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

WASHINGTON (AP) — All but conceding defeat, President Joe Biden said Thursday he’s now unsure the Democrats’ major elections and voting rights legislation can pass Congress this year. He spoke at the Capitol after a key fellow Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, dramatically announced her refusal to go along with changing Senate rules to muscle the bill past a Republican filibuster.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge is set to decide Friday whether a Milwaukee man accused of plowing his SUV through a Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring dozens more, will stand trial for murder.

Darrell Brooks Jr. is set to appear in Waukesha County court before Judge Michael Bohren for a preliminary hearing. Such hearings, when the judge decides whether there’s enough evidence to hold a defendant for trial, are usually a formality but can shed light on defense and prosecution strategies.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will nominate three people for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, including Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Fed and Treasury official, for the top regulatory slot and Lisa Cook, who would be the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board.

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.

(AP) --- The Transportation Department is launching a $27 billion program to repair and upgrade roughly 15,000 highway bridges as part of the infrastructure law approved in November. The effort is being announced Friday as President Joe Biden tries to showcase how his policies are delivering for the public.

Under the five-year program, the federal government will release nearly $5.5 billion this fiscal year to states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and tribes, according to senior administration officials who insisted on anonymity to preview the plans.