North America

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 09 (APP): A World Health Organization (WHO) report released on the eve of World Mental Health Day, which is marked on Sunday, says that the world is falling short on its mental health investment goals, calling the lack of progress a “worldwide failure.”

According to the WHO’s Mental Health Atlas, released every three years, data from 171 countries shows that none of the body’s targets have been met for investing in mental health, ensuring community-based mental health services are available, awareness promotion, and strengthening information systems.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- A new study has found that the COVID-19 pandemic has not only intensified physical violence against Asians and Hispanics, but also aggravated less apparent forms of social discrimination against these ethnic minority groups in the United States.

The study, conducted by a group of professors from Columbia University and the University of California and released in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PNAS recently, has examined nationally representative survey data with an embedded vignette experiment about roommate selection.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. trade groups representing importers expressed disappointment with the White House's plan to leave the Section 301 tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in place, according to an article published on the Yahoo Finance website recently.

NEW YORK, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- COVID-19 outlook in the United States has improved a lot in recent weeks, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths all declining, but tens of thousands of Americans are still getting sick every day, and a top health official hesitates to predict an end date of the pandemic.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Federal prosecutors announced Friday that they won’t file charges against a white police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin last year — a shooting that sparked protests that led to the deaths of two men.

Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Blake, who is Black, during a domestic disturbance in Kenosha in August 2020. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down and sparked several nights of protests, some of which turned violent. An Illinois man shot three people, killing two of them, during one of the demonstrations.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — After water levels at a California dam fell to historic lows this summer, the main hydropower plant it feeds was shut down. At the Hoover Dam in Nevada — one of the country’s biggest hydropower generators — production is down by 25%. If extreme drought persists, federal officials say a dam in Arizona could stop producing electricity in coming years.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican Sen. Charles Grassley and Gov. Kim Reynolds embraced Donald Trump’s return to Iowa on Saturday, standing by the former president as he repeated his false claims of voter fraud and a stolen election to a crowd of thousands.

The state’s senior senator, who recently announced plans to run for an eighth six-year term, praised Trump as he introduced him by noting there was “a great crowd honoring a great president of the United States.”

WASHINGTON, October 9. /TASS/: US President Joe Biden has doubled refugee admission quotas from 62,500 people to 125,000 during the 2022 fiscal year (began on October 1), according to the statement made public by the White House.

"The admission of up to 125,000 refugees to the United States during Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest," the American leader stressed. It is planned to admit 10,000 refugees from Europe and Central Asia.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- All four people aboard were killed Friday afternoon after a small plane crashed and burst into flames near Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. media reported citing authorities.

Multiple media outlets cited the Federal Aviation Administration as saying that the single-engine Cessna 210 crashed about 1:10 p.m. soon after it took off from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in the northeast suburb of Atlanta.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Roger Marshall won’t let people forget he’s a doctor, putting “Doc” in the letterhead of his U.S. Senate office’s news releases. But when he talks about COVID-19 vaccines, some doctors and experts say the Kansas Republican sounds far more like a politician than a physician.