USA

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A winter storm packing powerful winds, heavy rain and potentially several feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada shut down mountain highways, toppled trees and triggered flood watches and avalanche warnings on Saturday from the coast of Northern California to Lake Tahoe.

More than 250 miles (400 kilometers) of the Sierra remained under a winter storm warning at least until Sunday night or early Monday from north of Reno to south of Yosemite National Park.

HONOLULU (AP) — Scientists lowered the alert level for the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island from a warning to a watch on Saturday and said the mountain’s first eruption in nearly 40 years may soon end.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a bulletin that the eruption on the mountain’s northeast rift zone was continuing, but lava output and volcanic gas emissions were “greatly reduced.”

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its own private lander Sunday, blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket with the United Arab Emirates’ first lunar rover and a toylike robot from Japan that’s designed to roll around up there in the gray dust.

It will take nearly five months for the lander and its experiments to reach the moon.

New York, Dec 10 (PTI) Nihar Malaviya, an Indian-origin publishing executive, has been named interim CEO of New York-based international publishing group Penguin Random House after its current chief executive officer Markus Dohle announced he is stepping down from the role.

10 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkish media disclosed that the defence spending draft bill, which includes the budget of the US Department of Defence, witnessed $18,368 million worth of cuts from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia allocations.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — In response to rising hate speech and discrimination worldwide, UN Secretary-General (UNSG) António Guterres has urged countries to take concrete steps to protect minorities and other communities at risk of genocide.    

Guterres made the appeal in his message to mark the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, observed on Friday.

WASHINGTON, Kan., Dec 10 (Reuters) - Residents near the site of the worst U.S. oil pipeline leak in a decade took the commotion and smell in stride as emergency crews labored to clean up in near-freezing temperatures, and investigators searched for clues to what caused the spill.

A heavy odor of oil hung in the air as tractor trailers ferried generators, lighting and ground mats to a muddy site on the outskirts of this farming community.

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- More than 25,000 people were hospitalized due to flu in the United States in the week ending Dec. 3, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Seasonal influenza activity remains high across the country, said the CDC.

There have been at least 13 million illnesses, 120,000 hospitalizations, and 7,300 deaths from flu so far this season in the United States, according to the CDC.

HOUSTON (AP) — Fourteen years after Hurricane Ike ripped through thousands of homes and businesses near Galveston, Texas — but mostly spared the region’s oil refineries and chemical plants — the U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to authorize the most expensive project ever recommended by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect against the next raging storm.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Georgia’s 2022 election season ended dramatically this past week, but that was because of the closely watched Senate runoff that solidified Democratic control of the chamber and not for any large-scale problems with voting.

That led Republicans in the state to say concerns over a 2021 law that imposed several new restrictions on voting were overblown.