USA

CHICAGO (AP) — Two people are dead and another eight wounded following a shooting near a fast food restaurant in Chicago that sent bystanders scattering, authorities said.

The shooting happened about 10:40 p.m. Thursday near a McDonald’s on the city’s Near North Side, a few blocks from the city’s Magnificent Mile shopping district. One person was taken into custody and a weapon was recovered, police said in statement.

NEW YORK, May 19 (APP): Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu have expressed commitment to work together to enhance economic cooperation and unleash the full potential of Pakistan-Turkey trade relations.

This was agreed upon on the sidelines of the Ministerial meeting on ‘Global Food Security Call to Action’ held in New York, the Foreign Office said Wednesday.

Both sides agreed to remain in close contact to maintain the upward trajectory and add momentum to the friendly ties between Pakistan and Turkey.

WASHINGTON/SEOUL/TOKYO, May 19 (Reuters) - Joe Biden will visit Japan and South Korea on his first Asian trip as U.S. president, carrying a clear message to China, advisers and analysts say - don't try what Russia did in Ukraine anywhere in Asia, and especially not in Taiwan.

Biden departs for the five day trip on Thursday, after spending several months organizing allies to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special operation."

WASHINGTON, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The United States reopened its embassy in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, three months after it ceased operation in anticipation that Russia would launch a military operation in the country.

"Today we are officially resuming operations at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv," Blinken said in a statement posted on the State Department's website. Kyiv is the Romanized spelling of Ukraine's capital city based on the Ukrainian language.

18 May 2022; MEMO: A Pentagon investigation into a US air strike that killed dozens of people in Syria in 2019 found that the initial review of the attack by the military was mishandled with reporting delays but stopped short of calling for disciplinary action.

The inquiry found that most people killed in the attack were Daesh fighters and that military officials didn't violate the laws of war or deliberately conceal casualties, reports the New York Times.

19 May 2022; MEMO: In an apparent slip of the tongue, former US President George W Bush has condemned the "brutal" and "wholly unjustified" invasion of Iraq, when he meant to say Ukraine. The gaffe-prone 75 year old made the remark yesterday during an address at the Southern Methodist University's Bush Centre in Dallas, Texas.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Legislature approved a state spending package late Wednesday that would pay residents about $3,200 this year after a vote that would have boosted the payout to about $3,850 narrowly failed in the House.

WASHINGTON (AP) — COVID-19 cases are increasing in the United States — and could get even worse over the coming months, federal health officials warned Wednesday in urging areas hardest hit to consider reissuing calls for indoor masking.

Increasing numbers of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are putting more of the country under guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that call for masking and other infection precautions.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The white man accused of slaughtering 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket was scheduled to appear in court Thursday as authorities including the FBI continue to investigate the possibility of hate crime and terrorism charges.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden departs on a six-day trip to South Korea and Japan aiming to build rapport with the two nations’ leaders while also sending an unmistakable message to China: Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine should give Beijing pause about its own saber-rattling in the Pacific.