USA

CHICAGO (AP) — Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson will meet in a runoff to be the next mayor of Chicago after voters on Tuesday denied incumbent Lori Lightfoot a second term, issuing a rebuke to a leader who made history as head of the nation’s third-largest city.

Vallas, a former schools CEO backed by the police union, and Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, advanced to the April 4 runoff after none of the nine candidates was able to secure over 50% of the vote to win outright.

WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled U.S. House is expected to vote on Tuesday on a bill to block President Joe Biden's administration from allowing retirement plans to consider environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG, issues in their investment decisions.

Republicans believe they could have enough support to fast-track a companion bill and pass it in the Senate. That would force Biden, a Democrat, to decide whether to sign or veto the joint resolution that would prevent the Labor Department from enforcing a new ESG regulation.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The UN mission in Mali condemned and vowed to investigate a recent raid where terrorists killed at least 12 civilians, a UN spokesman said on Monday.

The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, condemned the attack by an armed terrorist group in the village of Kani-Bonzon, in the Bandiagara region, said Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The raiders killed the villagers, wounded three others and torched several buildings.

27 Feb 2023; MEMO: NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 space mission, which included Emirati astronaut Sultan Al-Neyadi, has been called off minutes ahead of blast-off. The mission, which was to launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida as part of a six-month space mission to the International Space Station (ISS), was postponed due to an issue with ground systems, which is currently being investigated.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Parts of the Northeast are gearing up for what could be very heavy snow early Tuesday, after tornadoes and other powerful winds swept through parts of the Southern Plains, killing at least one person in Oklahoma, and some Michigan residents faced a sixth consecutive day without power following last week’s ice storm.

In California, the National Weather Service said winter storms will continue moving into the state through Wednesday after residents got a brief break from severe weather Sunday.

A look at the weather threats around the country:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday that it is creating a new task force to crack down on an explosion of the illegal exploitation of migrant children for labor in the U.S.

Hundreds of companies that employed nearly 4,000 children last year were found in violation of federal labor laws, a dramatic increase in the last five years.

STAGECOACH, Nev. (AP) — A medical transport flight that crashed in a mountainous area in northern Nevada, killing five all five people aboard the plane including a patient, apparently broke apart before hitting the ground, authorities said Sunday.

The National Transportation Safety Board has sent in a seven-member team of investigators to the site of Friday night’s crash near Stagecoach.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up a partisan legal fight over President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe away or reduce student loans held by millions of Americans.

The high court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, is hearing arguments Tuesday in two challenges to the plan, which has so far been blocked by Republican-appointed judges on lower courts.

Arguments are scheduled to last two hours, but likely will go much longer. The public can listen in on the court’s website.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26 (APP): The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), a Rome-based UN agency, concluded a visit on Saturday to earthquake-devastated Syrian and Turkish communities and aid supply routes, calling on authorities to open more border crossings to help survivors of the disaster that hit both countries in early February.

“While the world has quickly mobilized in support of people here, the impact of this quake will be felt for months and years to come,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement.

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - U.S. House Republicans are eyeing $150 billion in spending cuts that reflect a hardline drive to target education, healthcare and housing - particularly efforts to address racial inequities that conservatives deride as "woke" - as they push forward in talks on the federal debt ceiling.

House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington said Republicans are assembling a budget along the lines of a budget proposal developed by Russell Vought, who served as Republican President Donald Trump's budget chief.