USA

WASHINGTON, July 8. /TASS/: The US decided to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine out of despair, but the move won’t affect Russia’s determination to achieve the goals of its special military operation, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Friday.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 8 (NNN-XINHUA) – UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, stands by his condemnation of Israel, for the excessive use of force in Jenin, said his deputy spokesman, yesterday.

At a press encounter at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday, Guterres condemned Israel for its excessive use of force in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Friday it is investigating an engine fire last week on a Boeing (BA.N) 737-900 MAX plane operated by United Airlines (UAL.O) at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

The NTSB said a fire warning light indicator came on after United Airlines Flight 2376 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida landed at Newark on June 28, prompting the crew shut down one of the engines.

July 7 (Reuters) - The United States announced on Friday that it would supply Ukraine with widely banned cluster munitions for its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces, and NATO's leader said the military alliance would unite at a summit next week on how to bring Ukraine closer to joining.

Rights groups and the United Nations secretary-general questioned Washington's decision on the munitions, part of an $800 million security package that brings total U.S. military aid to more than $40 billion since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

HOUSTON, July 7 (Xinhua) -- The gunman who killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in the U.S. state of Texas in 2019 was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms by a federal judge on Friday.

Prosecutors had recommended Patrick Crusius, a 24-year-old white supremacist targeting Latinos, receive consecutive life sentences for each of the 90 federal charges, including hate crimes and firearms offenses, to which he pleaded guilty.

UNITED NATIONS, July 7 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for the continuation of the agreements that allow food and fertilizer exports from Russia and Ukraine.

(AP) --- Just how similar is Instagram’s chatty new app, Threads, to Twitter?

In a cease-and-desist letter earlier this week, Twitter threatened legal action against Instagram parent company Meta over the new text-based app Threads, which it called a “copycat.”

Threads has drawn tens of millions of users since launching as the latest rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani could be disbarred in Washington after a review panel on Friday condemned how he pursued the false claims that then-President Donald Trump made about his 2020 presidential election loss.

Giuliani “claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence,” wrote the three-member panel in a report that details the errors and unsupported claims the former mayor made in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to overturn the Republican president’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Campaigning in Iowa, former President Donald Trump attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as an enemy of corn-based ethanol in his largest campaign event in the leadoff caucus state in nearly four months.

Trump, appearing Friday in Council Bluffs in the western part of the state, criticized his top 2024 Republican presidential rival for voting as a member of Congress to oppose the federal mandate for the fuel additive that Iowa leads the nation in producing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — At 31 years old, Nasrat Ahmad Yar had spent most of his adult life working with the U.S. military in Afghanistan before escaping to America in search of a better life for his wife and four children.

He found work as a ride-share driver and even managed to send money back to Afghanistan to help family and friends. He liked to play volleyball with friends in the Washington suburb where many Afghans who fled their country now live. At 6 feet 5 inches, he had a powerful serve.