USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — That bleak jobs report the White House had been bracing for never arrived Friday.

Instead, President Joe Biden got the pleasant surprise that the U.S. economy had powered through the omicron wave of the coronavirus and posted 467,000 new jobs in January — along with strong revisions to job gains in the two prior months. It showed just how much the pandemic’s grip on the economy has faded, though the nation is still grappling with high inflation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military investigation into the deadly attack during the Afghanistan evacuation has concluded that a suicide bomber, carrying 20 pounds of explosives packed with ball bearings, acted alone, and that the deaths of more than 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members were not preventable.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. experts say rebel groups in Darfur that signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government in 2020 continue to operate in Libya and profit from opportunities provided by the civil war and lack of government control in the oil-rich north African nation.

(AP) --- Former Vice President Mike Pence has directly rebutted Donald Trump’s false claims that he somehow could have overturned the results of the 2020 election, saying that the former president was simply “wrong.”

In a speech to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in Florida Friday, Pence addressed Trump’s intensifying efforts this week to advance the false narrative that, as vice president, he had the unilateral power to prevent President Joe Biden from taking office.

“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.”

NEW YORK (AP) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday continued its endorsement of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for adults, now that U.S. regulators have given the shots their full approval.

The decision has little practical effect. Tens of millions of Americans have already gotten Moderna shots, following its emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration more than a year ago.

Earlier this week, the FDA gave the product full licensure, following the kind of rigorous, time-consuming review given to other vaccines.

NEW YORK, Feb 04 (APP): Pakistan will not “rest or relent” until the Kashmiri people have realized their right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions, Ambassador Munir Akram said Friday.

Speaking in a webinar commemorating Kashmir Solidarity Day on Feb 5, the Pakistan envoy said that the Kashmir dispute was the unfinished agenda of self-determination in the South Asian sub-continent.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- All three of U.S. President Joe Biden's nominees to join the Federal Reserve board vowed on Thursday to reduce high inflation if they are confirmed by the Senate, while sustaining the economic recovery.

"I want to recognize the toll inflation exacts on working people who are concerned about how far their paychecks will go for essentials like food, housing, and transportation," Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Fed governor and Biden's nominee as the Fed's vice chair for supervision, said at a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a new set of actions aimed at reducing gun violence across the country.

The Biden administration will crack down on illegal flow of guns, help prosecutors bring cases against those using "ghost guns" -- unserialized and untraceable firearms -- to commit crimes, and pursue unlawful gun sellers, among other things, according to the White House.

Biden paid a visit to New York City on Thursday afternoon, where he called for more funding for community policing and law enforcement agencies.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — The man convicted of murder for shooting Ahmaud Arbery withdrew his guilty plea on a federal hate crime charge Friday, electing to stand trial for a second time in the 2020 killing of a Black man that became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice.

Travis McMichael reversed his plan to plead guilty in the federal case days after a U.S. District Court judge rejected terms of a plea deal between defense attorneys and prosecutors that was met with passionate objections by Arbery’s parents.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison will join the review of the fatal shooting of a Black man by Minneapolis police, authorities said Friday, shortly after police released body camera footage that showed SWAT team officers entering an apartment and shooting the 22-year-old man, who was wrapped in a blanket and had a gun in his hand.

Amir Locke was killed in the shooting just before 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Police said Locke pointed a loaded gun “in the direction of officers.” An incident report said he had two wounds in the chest and one in the right wrist.