North America

LOS ANGELES, Sept 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest school system in the United States, announced yesterday, to require all eligible students aged 12 and older, to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

According to an order, approved yesterday afternoon by the school district’s board of education, all students aged 12 and older must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan 10, 2022, unless they have medical or other exemptions.

HAMILTON, Ontario, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday entered the crucial last stage of his reelection campaign after an inconclusive leaders' debate in which he failed to land many blows on his main rival.

Trudeau, who heads a minority government that depends on the opposition to pass legislation, called the Sept. 20 election, two years early, in an effort to capitalize on his Liberal government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - In a luxury hotel along Doha's coastline last year, Zalmay Khalilzad smiled as he shook hands with the Taliban's co-founder Mullah Baradar in front of journalists and diplomats from around the world.

"We have signed an agreement with the Taliban that achieves U.S. objectives," Khalilzad, the United States' special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, wrote on Twitter later that night.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Transportation Department is detailing efforts it says it is making to help airline customers who were wrongfully denied refunds after flights were canceled or changed during the pandemic.

The department says in a new report that it investigated 20 airlines over failures to issue prompt refunds to customers, and 18 of those probes are still going.

The department disclosed that an examination into United Airlines was dropped in January after the airline took steps resulting in “thousands” of customers getting refunds.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — A weather system affecting northwest California was expected to bring dry lightning and blustery winds through early Friday, unleashing a risk of new wildfires as thousands of firefighters have been making headway against existing blazes.

A warning for dangerous fire weather took effect in much of fire-scarred Northern California Thursday afternoon and was expected to last through at least 11 a.m. Friday.

(AP) --- Larger U.S. businesses now won’t have to decide whether to require their employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Doing so is now federal policy.

President Joe Biden announced sweeping new orders Thursday that will require employers with more than 100 workers to mandate immunizations or offer weekly testing. The new rules could affect as many as 100 million Americans, although it’s not clear how many of those people are currently unvaccinated.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden spoke with China’s Xi Jinping on Thursday amid growing frustration on the American side that high-level engagement between the two leaders’ top advisers has been largely unfruitful in the early going of the Biden presidency.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Evacuation flights have resumed for Westerners, but thousands of at-risk Afghans who had helped the United States are still stranded in their homeland with the U.S. Embassy shuttered, all American diplomats and troops gone and the Taliban now in charge.

With the United States and Taliban both insisting on travel documents that may no longer be possible to get in Afghanistan, the plight of those Afghans is testing President Joe Biden’s promises not to leave America’s allies behind.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors — in an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant.

Speaking at the White House Thursday, Biden sharply criticized the tens of millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives.

Sept 9 (Reuters) - The United States and Mexico on Thursday will resume high-level economic talks for the first time in four years as the two sides seek to find common ground on a host of issues such as climate change, workers' rights and immigration.

The so-called High-Level Economic Dialogue (HLED) will seek to pursue economic opportunities beyond the trade issues covered in the new North America trade agreement — the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA — that took effect in 2020.