USA

NEW YORK, February 25. /TASS/: US President Joe Biden said that Ukraine does not currently need F-16 fighters, so for now he rules out their transfer to Kiev.

"I am ruling it out for now," he said in response to a related question in an interview with ABC television. Excerpts from the interview were aired on Friday.

Biden added that at the moment "he (Ukrainian President Vladmir Zelensky - TASS) needs tanks, artillery, air defense, including HIMARS."

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia immediately and unconditionally withdraw its troops from Ukraine, marking the one-year anniversary of the war (Feb 24) with a call for a “just and lasting” peace.

Ukraine earned strong backing in a nonbinding vote that saw 141 of the 193 UN members in support, seven opposed and 32, including China and India abstaining.

NEW YORK, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks fell on Friday as a hotter-than-expected inflation report rattled Wall Street.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 336.99 points, or 1.02 percent, to 32,816.92. The S&P 500 sank 42.28 points, or 1.05 percent, to 3,970.04. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 195.46 points, or 1.69 percent, to 11,394.94.

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- More than 100,000 homes and businesses across California were left in the dark early Friday as a heavy winter storm continued lashing the most populous state in the United States.

According to PowerOutage.US, a website that tracks, records and aggregates power outages across the country and updates its data every 10 minutes, about 116,000 California customers were without electricity as of 10:00 a.m. local time Friday.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for preventing further escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and giving peace "a chance."

"We must prevent further escalation," he told a Security Council high-level meeting on Ukraine, which was convened on the first anniversary of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and attended by about 30 foreign ministers and diplomats.

"We must all encourage every meaningful effort to end the bloodshed and, at long last, give peace a chance," said Guterres.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An appeals court has struck down a federal fisheries management rule requiring operators of privately owned charter boats in the Gulf of Mexico to equip their vessels with tracking devices, a victory for a group of Louisiana and Florida charter operators who challenged the rule in a 2020 lawsuit.

Thursday’s ruling by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed a lower court decision upholding the regulation, which had been developed to help regulators keep track of the amount of fish caught on recreational charter vessels.

BOSTON (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. John Olver, a Democrat who represented western Massachusetts communities for more than two decades in Congress, has died. He was 86.

Olver served in both the Massachusetts House and Senate before winning a 1991 special election for the Congressional seat left vacant by the death of Republican Rep. Silvio O. Conte.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina business magnate has been indicted again on federal criminal charges, this time on accusations that he conspired to skim large amounts of money from his insurance companies, then lied about it to regulators to hide the scheme with two co-conspirators.

A 13-count grand jury indictment in Charlotte was filed Thursday against Greg E. Lindberg of Durham, whom federal prosecutors allege has defrauded thousands of policyholders, news outlets reported.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Three defendants from an extended family arrested in a 2018 law enforcement raid on a ramshackle desert encampment rejected compromise offers from prosecutors to resolve kidnapping, terrorism and weapons charges in proceedings Friday at U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — At age 9, T’yonna Major excelled at her school work and in gymnastics, shown flexing her arms after competitions with newly won medals around her neck in photos her proud dad posted on social media.

“She was a light to everyone that knew her,” the girl’s father, Tokiyo Major, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe, where he has asked for donations to help pay for his daughter’s funeral. “She was everything to us.”