North America

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — With power due back for almost all of New Orleans by next week, Mayor LaToya Cantrell strongly encouraged residents who evacuated because of Hurricane Ida to begin returning home. But outside the city, the prospects of recovery appeared bleaker, with no timeline on power restoration and homes and businesses in tatters.

WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A British-born man who was a member of a team of Daesh militants in Syria nicknamed “The Beatles” and accused of beheading American hostages pleaded guilty to eight US criminal charges including lethal hostage taking and conspiracy to support terrorists.

London-born Alexanda Kotey is one of two Daesh members who were held in Iraq by the US military before being flown to the United States to face trial on terrorism charges.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The intensive care rooms at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center are full, each a blinking jungle of tubes, wires and mechanical breathing machines. The patients nestled inside are a lot alike: All unvaccinated, mostly middle-aged, paralyzed and sedated, reliant on life support and locked in a silent struggle against COVID-19.

But watch for a moment, and glimpses of who they were before the coronavirus become clear.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is calling for greater public resolve to confront climate change and help the nation deal with the fierce storms, flooding and wildfires that have beset the country as he makes a sojourn to hurricane-battered Louisiana on Friday.

“My message to everyone affected is: We’re all in this together,” Biden said in a speech Thursday at the White House, where he addressed the multiple natural disasters that have unfolded this week. “The nation is here to help.”

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana officials launched an investigation into the deaths of four nursing home residents who had been evacuated to a warehouse ahead of Hurricane Ida, as state residents struggling in the wake of the storm sought financial relief and other help amid small signs of recovery.

NEW YORK (AP) — A stunned U.S. East Coast faced a rising death toll, surging rivers and tornado damage Thursday after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, drowning more than 40 people in their homes and cars.

In a region that had been warned about potentially deadly flash flooding but hadn’t braced for such a blow from the no-longer-hurricane, the storm killed at least 46 people from Maryland to Connecticut on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 02 (APP): A senior United Nations official has warned that UN food stocks in Afghanistan could run out this month, underscoring a critical need for US $ 200 million to provide food to the most vulnerable.

Speaking to New York-based correspondents from Kabul via video-link, Deputy Special Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said every effort was being made to bring in more supplies and that Pakistan was helping to meet the grave situation.

WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - A British-born man who was a member of a team of Islamic State militants in Syria nicknamed "The Beatles" accused of beheading American hostages was due to plead guilty on Thursday to U.S. criminal charges, according to a federal court record.

A docket entry for the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, showed a change of plea hearing was scheduled on Thursday for Alexanda Kotey, one of two Islamic State members who had been held in Iraq by the U.S. military before being flown to the United States to face trial on terrorism charges.

NEW YORK, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- As the United States is surpassing an average of 160,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant and the return of many students to the classroom for a new academic year seriously concern officials and health experts.

The pandemic is not only stretching hospitals thin with the surge of patients, particularly unvaccinated people and children, but also wearing the country out in the fields of tourism, tech businesses and social welfare.

SCHOOL DIVISION

WASHINGTON (AP) — It looked like a zombie apocalypse.

For the U.S. military pilots and aircrew about to make their final takeoffs out of Afghanistan, the sky was lit up with fireworks and sporadic gunfire and the airfield littered with battered shells of airplanes and destroyed equipment. Stray dogs raced around the tarmac. And Taliban fighters, visible in the darkness through the green-tinged view of night vision goggles, walked the airfield waving an eerie goodbye.