USA

UN, February 8. /TASS/: Roger Waters, a founder of the UK rock legend Pink Floyd, has called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. He took part in the Russia-convened UN Security Council on Ukraine on Wednesday speaking via a videoconference link.

"We do not willingly raise our sons and daughters to provide fodder for your cannons. In our opinion, the only sensible course of actions today is an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. No if’s, not but’s no and’s," he said.

LOS ANGELES, Feb 8 (NNN-XINHUA) – More than 36 million trees died in the western U.S. state of California last year, due to the cumulative impacts of extended drought, overstocked forest conditions, insect outbreaks and disease, said a report by the U.S. Forest Service, yesterday.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The United States held briefings in Washington and Beijing with foreign diplomats from 40 nations about the Chinese spy balloon that Washington shot down on Saturday for spying over U.S. territory, a senior administration official and diplomats said on Tuesday.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Monday briefed nearly 150 foreign diplomats across 40 embassies, the official said, while in Beijing the U.S. embassy gathered foreign diplomats on Monday and Tuesday to present U.S. findings about the balloon.

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Mitt Romney told embattled fellow Republican Representative George Santos on Tuesday that should not be in Congress and shouldn't have taken a central seat at President Joe Biden's State of the Union address.

Romney, an elder statesman of the party and former Republican presidential candidate, was seen having a brief exchange with Santos, who has made multiple false claims about his past on his way into the House of Representatives chamber before the address.

07 Feb 2023; MEMO: The rising violence in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem has been compared to the Second Intifada by CIA Director William Burns following his recent visit to the region.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The toll of police brutality in America was on painful display Tuesday night as family members of Black men and women killed in custody joined lawmakers in the Capitol to hear President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

Seated near first lady Jill Biden were the mother and father of Tyre Nichols, who died after being savagely beaten by Memphis, Tennessee, police officers last month.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders painted a dystopian portrait of the country in her rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, leaning heavily into Republican culture war issues and accusing Biden of pursuing “woke fantasies.”

Speaking from the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Sanders sounded a lot like her former boss, Donald Trump, as she warned of a nation whose ideals are under attack and whose citizens are fighting for their freedoms.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden exhorted Congress Tuesday night to work with him to “finish the job” of rebuilding the economy and uniting the nation as he delivered a State of the Union address aimed at reassuring a country beset by pessimism and fraught political divisions.

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan.

While U.S. President Joe Biden gets set to deliver his second "State of the Union" address late on Tuesday, world markets will be more in thrall to what his Federal Reserve Chair makes of an increasingly confusing economic picture.

Jerome Powell makes his first speech since the Fed's latest quarter-point interest rate rise last week. More importantly, it's his first chance to comment on Friday's seemingly blockbuster U.S. employment report for January.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called on countries to take decisive action to change course before it is too late to prevent a global meltdown from occurring.

While presenting his priorities for the year to the UN General Assembly, Guterres appealed for urgent action to achieve peace, economic rights and development, climate action, respect for diversity, and inclusive societies -- both today and for generations to come.