USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Biden administration properly ended a Trump-era policy forcing some U.S. asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico.

The justices’ 5-4 decision for the administration came in a case about the “Remain in Mexico” policy under President Donald Trump. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision and was joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh as well as the court’s three liberal justices — Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a blow to the fight against climate change, the Supreme Court on Thursday limited how the nation’s main anti-air pollution law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

By a 6-3 vote, with conservatives in the majority, the court said that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ketanji Brown Jackson has been sworn in to the Supreme Court, shattering a glass ceiling as the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court.

The 51-year-old Jackson is the court’s 116th justice and she took the place Thursday of the justice she once worked for. Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement took effect at noon.

Moments later, joined by her family, Jackson recited the two oaths required of Supreme Court justices, one administered by Breyer and the other by Chief Justice John Roberts.

WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's administration added five companies in China to a trade blacklist on Tuesday for allegedly supporting Russia's military and defense industrial base, flexing its muscle to enforce sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the blacklist, said the targeted companies had supplied items to Russian "entities of concern" before the Feb. 24 invasion, adding that they "continue to contract to supply Russian entity listed and sanctioned parties."

HOUSTON, June 29 (Xinhua) -- Another migrant died Tuesday at a local hospital, pushing the death toll of migrants found Monday inside a sweltering 18-wheeler in San Antonio to 51.

Authorities said the tragedy in this major Texas city saw the highest ever death count from human trafficking near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Among the dead, five were children. At least 27 were from Mexico, three from Guatemala and four from Honduras, local media reported, citing officials from these countries.

LOS ANGELES, June 28 (Xinhua) -- The White House said Tuesday it will start distributing the monkeypox vaccines across the country to address the spread of the virus, focusing on people most at risk and communities with the highest numbers of cases.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will immediately send 56,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine to areas with high transmission. An additional 240,000 doses will be distributed over the next few weeks, with even more to come this summer and fall.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy shrank at a 1.6% annual pace in the first three months of the year even though consumers and businesses kept spending at a decent pace, the government reported Wednesday in a slight downgrade from its previous estimate for January-March quarter.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A multinational task force designed to seize Russian oligarchs’ wealth has blocked and frozen $30 billion in sanctioned individuals’ property and funds in its first 100 days in operation, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday.

That’s on top of the yachts, other vessels and luxury real estate that have been impounded as well as $300 billion in Russian Central Bank funds that have been immobilized, the department said.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Victims have been found with no identification documents at all and in one case a stolen ID. Remote villages lack phone service to reach family members and determine the whereabouts of missing migrants. Fingerprint data has to be shared and matched by different governments.

More than a day after the discovery of a stifling trailer in San Antonio where 51 migrants who died were abandoned in the sweltering heat, few identities of the victims have been made public, illustrating the challenges authorities face in tracing people who cross borders clandestinely.

DENVER (AP) — Republicans in Colorado rejected two prominent candidates whose political profiles were centered on election falsehoods in a fresh reminder that fealty to former President Donald Trump’s lies about mass voter fraud is no guarantee of success with conservative voters.