USA

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, voted to unionize on Friday, marking the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant’s history and handing an unexpected win to a nascent group that fueled the union drive.

Warehouse workers cast 2,654 votes in favor of a union, giving the fledgling Amazon Labor Union enough support to pull off a victory. According to the National Labor Relations Board, which is overseeing the process, 2,131 workers rejected the union bid.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate acquitted former President Donald Trump last year of inciting the Capitol insurrection. But neither Trump nor any of his top advisers have faced charges over the attack in a court of law, and it’s uncertain if they ever will.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 31 (APP): The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), known as MONUSCO, has secured the crash site of the ill-fated UN helicopter in which six Pakistani peacekeepers were martyred, and begun a preliminary investigation into the incident, a UN spokesman said Thursday.

One Russian and one Serbian peacekeepers also died in the crash on Tuesday.

RICHMOND (Virginia, US), March 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An ex-British jihadist on federal trial in the US has said he was fighting on behalf of “suffering Muslims”.

El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, stands accused of hostage-taking and conspiracy to commit murder as part of a group of Daesh militants, known as the “Beatles” for their British accents.

But in court on Wednesday, Elsheikh claimed he was not part of the group.

The group is said to have tortured and beheaded hostages in Syria, including several journalists and aid workers.

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (NNN-Xinhua) — As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, 23 countries – home to around 405 million schoolchildren – are yet to fully reopen schools, with many schoolchildren at risk of dropping out, said the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Over the past two years, nearly 147 million children missed more than half of their in-person schooling, amounting to 2 trillion hours of lost learning, UNICEF said in a report called “Are children really learning?”

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over before receiving his second COVID-19 booster shot.

"We're now in a new moment in this pandemic," Biden said in remarks from the White House. "It does not mean that COVID-19 is over."

The veteran Democrat and former U.S. senator representing Delaware went on to urge Congress to "secure more funding for the COVID-19 response."

"There is no wall you can build high enough to keep out a virus," he pleaded. "Congress needs to act now. Please."

31 March 2022; MEMO: The US Treasury Department said yesterday that it has imposed new sanctions on five individuals and several entities alleged by Washington to be involved in Iran's ballistic missile programme.

The treasury said that the sanctions target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unit responsible for research and development of ballistic missiles, as well as Iran's Parchin Chemical Industries. This is the intermediary which procures parts for missile propellant systems.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As members of the Ukrainian parliament were pleading for aid on Capitol Hill, an air raid siren blared from one of their cell phones — a wrenching alert from the war-torn country back home.

One of the visitors reached into her bag, pulled out the phone and let the siren wail in the halls of Congress.

“Right now, you hear the sound?” said Anastasia Radina, a member of the Ukrainian Rada.

(AP) --- A line of severe storms packing isolated tornadoes and high winds ripped across the Deep South overnight, toppling trees and power lines and leaving homes and businesses damaged as the vast weather front raced across several states.

At least two confirmed tornadoes injured several people Wednesday, damaged homes and businesses and downed power lines in Mississippi and Tennessee after earlier storm damage in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas.

OCEAN CITY, Md. (AP) — A U.S. Navy aircraft with three people aboard crashed in waters near the Eastern Shore boundary of Virginia and Maryland on Wednesday evening, killing one, authorities said.

Lt. Cmdr. Rob Myers, a public affairs officer with Naval Air Force Atlantic, told The Associated Press the plane was conducting routine flight operations in the vicinity of Wallops Island, Virginia, when it went down around 7:30 p.m.

Two injured people were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard and one was found dead in the aircraft, U.S. Navy E2-D Hawkeye, Myers said.