USA

UNITED NATIONS, April 17 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called on leaders of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to immediately cease hostilities and begin a dialogue to resolve the crisis in Sudan.

Guterres made the appeal before delivering his opening speech at a UN forum on financing for development.

He strongly condemned the outbreak of fighting in Sudan, noting that the situation has already led to "horrendous loss of life," including many civilians.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bank of America said its profits grew 15% last quarter, the latest of the big banks to do exceptionally well this earnings season as investors and consumers flock to Wall Street for safety after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

The nation’s second-largest bank by assets posted a profit of $8.2 billion, up from $7.1 billion in the same period a year earlier. On a per-share basis, BofA earnings rose to 94 cents from 80 cents. The results beat analysts’ expectations.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has signed an executive order containing more than 50 directives to increase access to child care and improve the work life of caregivers, the White House said Tuesday.

But the directives would be funded out of existing commitments, likely meaning their impact would carry more of a symbolic weight compared with the Democratic president’s call in 2021 to provide more than $425 billion to expand child care, improve its affordability and boost wages for caregivers, the White House said.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma’s governor is seeking the resignation of four county officials after a newspaper’s audio recording apparently captured some of them complaining about two of the paper’s journalists and knowing hit men and where two holes are dug.

A portion of the recording was released by the paper, and it also appears to capture one of the four making racist comments about Black people.

HEBRON, N.Y. (AP) — A woman looking for a friend’s house in upstate New York was shot to death after the car she was riding in mistakenly went to the wrong address and was met with gunfire in the driveway, authorities said Monday.

Kaylin Gillis, 20, was traveling through the rural town of Hebron with three other people Saturday night when the group made a wrong turn onto the property.

They were trying to turn the car around when the homeowner, Kevin Monahan, 65, came out onto his porch and fired two shots, according to Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — An 84-year-old white man in Kansas City, Missouri, was charged Monday with first-degree assault for shooting a Black teen who mistakenly went to the man’s home to pick up his younger brothers.

Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said at a news conference that there was a “racial component” Thursday night when Andrew Lester twice shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, who is recovering at home after being released from the hospital. But nothing in the charging documents says the shooting was racially motivated, Thompson clarified.

Washington, Apr 18 (PTI) Police in California have arrested 17 people in connection with a series of shootings in Gurdwaras in Stockton, Sacramento and other locations and seized weapons such as AK-47, handguns, and at least one machine gun in a series of raids carried out over 20 places, the State Attorney General said Monday.

WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (APP): The Kashmir Diaspora Coalition (KDC) and its six international affiliate advocacy organizations Sunday called on the leaders of Group of 20, an economic cooperation bloc comprising 19 industrialized countries and the European Union, not to participate in the group’s meetings in Indian occupied Kashmir, an internationally recognized disputed territory.

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from a Texas inmate convicted of robbery who argues that the 27 years he was forced by prison officials to spend in solitary confinement violated the constitutional bar against "cruel and unusual."

The justices turned away Dennis Hope's appeal of a lower court's ruling that he had failed to show that his prolonged solitary confinement violated the U.S. Constitution Eighth Amendment prohibition on excessive punishment.

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to make his case for cuts in federal spending to accompany a lifting of the government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in a speech at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

His speech comes as the federal government ticks closer to the moment sometime this summer when it will no longer be able to meet its financial obligations. Without action by the divided Congress, that would trigger a historic default that would shake the U.S. and world economies.