USA

NEW-YORK, March 20. /TASS/: Moscow’s case must be heard as part of a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc, Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, said in an interview with New York Times published on Saturday.

According to him, "the Russian case must be heard, because after this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc"

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - Accounts that thousands of residents of Ukraine's besieged port city of Mariupol have been forcibly deported to Russia are "disturbing" and "unconscionable" if true, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Sunday.

Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," Thomas-Greenfield said the United States had not yet confirmed the allegations made on Saturday by the Mariupol city council via its Telegram channel. 

UNITED NATIONS, March 19 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Friday refuted U.S. attacks on China's human rights record and urged it to face up to its own human rights violations.

Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, accused U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield of abusing a commemorative meeting of the General Assembly on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Four people were shot and wounded in downtown Austin, Texas, early Sunday as the city hosts the annual South by Southwest festival, police said.

The Austin Police Department told people to avoid the area at around 2:50 a.m., warning via Twitter that the gunman was still at large.

However, police tweeted that a suspect was in custody shortly before 5 a.m.

Police and the Austin-Travis County EMS said the victims’ injures were not life-threatening, and all four had been taken to the hospital.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Lagging behind Russia in developing hypersonic weapons, the U.S. Navy is rushing to field its first, with installation on a warship starting as soon as late next year.

The United States is in a race with Russia and China to develop these weapons, which travel at speeds akin to ballistic missiles but are difficult to shoot down because of their maneuverability.

DENVER (AP) — The surprising advantage Democrats gained during the torturous process of rewriting the nation’s congressional maps may be short-lived, creating the potential for more frequent clashes over how political power should be distributed across the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, is going before the Senate Judiciary Committee with the path to her historic confirmation seemingly clear.

Committee hearings begin Monday for the 51-year-old Jackson, a federal judge for the past nine years. She is expected to present an opening statement late in the day, then answer questions from the committee’s 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans over the next two days.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just days before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Joe Biden quietly dispatched a team to European Union headquarters in Belgium.

These were not spy chiefs or generals, but experts in reading fine print and tracking the flow of money, computer chips and other goods around the world. Their mandate: inflict maximum pain on Russian President Vladimir Putin, making it harder, if not impossible, for him to fund a prolonged war in Ukraine and denying him access to technologies at the core of modern warfare.

Des Moines (Iowa), Mar 19 (AP) The confirmation of bird flu at another Iowa egg-laying farm will force the killing of more than 5 million chickens, state officials said Friday.

It's the second confirmed case of avian influenza in Buena Vista County, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) northwest of Des Moines, but the latest outbreak is at an operation with 5.3 million chickens. The earlier case was at a farm with about 50,000 turkeys.

19 March 2022; MEMO: The Israeli murder of US peace activist Rachel Corrie was marked on 16 March, 2022, the 19th anniversary of her death. Along with eight others, Corrie acted as a human shield to prevent Israeli bulldozers from demolishing Palestinian homes in Gaza.