USA

PASSAIC, N.J. (AP) — A large chemical fire burned through the night and into Saturday morning in northern New Jersey, its smoke so heavy that it was detected on weather radar and seen and smelled in neighboring New York City.

The fire at Majestic Industries and the Qualco chemical plant in Passaic spread to multiple buildings and threatened their collapse, officials said.

Water from firefighter hoses froze in cold weather and made the environment slick and hazardous for responders.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As America’s first second gentleman, Doug Emhoff has attended a U.S. naturalization ceremony in New York, dished up spaghetti and chocolate milk to kids at a YMCA near New Orleans and reminisced with second graders in Detroit about an early job at McDonald’s.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his election-year effort to dominate the Republican Party with a Saturday rally in Arizona in which he plans to castigate anyone who dares to question his lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, likely including the state’s GOP governor, Doug Ducey.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The failure of last week’s high-stakes diplomatic meetings to resolve escalating tensions over Ukraine has put Russia, the United States and its European allies in uncharted post-Cold War territory, posing significant challenges for the main players to avoid an outright and potentially disastrous confrontation.

WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers group, Stewart Rhodes, is due in a federal court in Plano, Texas, on Friday to face seditious conspiracy charges for his alleged role in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rhodes and 10 other associates or members of the group were accused by the Justice Department in an indictment unsealed on Thursday of plotting to storm the Capitol by force, in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday failed to pass a bill to slap sanctions on Russia's Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline sponsored by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a day after Democrats unveiled their own legislation.

The tally was 55 in favor and 44 against the bill that needed 60 votes to pass, a major hurdle in the 50-50 Senate. The vote spanned nearly seven hours as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer considered options on voting rights legislation.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, was denied parole Thursday by California’s governor, who said the killer remains a threat to the public and hasn’t taken responsibility for a crime that altered American history.

Kennedy, a U.S. senator from New York, was shot moments after he claimed victory in California’s pivotal Democratic presidential primary. Five others were wounded during the shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

WASHINGTON (AP) — All but conceding defeat, President Joe Biden said Thursday he’s now unsure the Democrats’ major elections and voting rights legislation can pass Congress this year. He spoke at the Capitol after a key fellow Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, dramatically announced her refusal to go along with changing Senate rules to muscle the bill past a Republican filibuster.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge is set to decide Friday whether a Milwaukee man accused of plowing his SUV through a Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring dozens more, will stand trial for murder.

Darrell Brooks Jr. is set to appear in Waukesha County court before Judge Michael Bohren for a preliminary hearing. Such hearings, when the judge decides whether there’s enough evidence to hold a defendant for trial, are usually a formality but can shed light on defense and prosecution strategies.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will nominate three people for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, including Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Fed and Treasury official, for the top regulatory slot and Lisa Cook, who would be the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board.