USA

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 29 (NNN-YPA) – Hans Grundberg, the special envoy of UN secretary-general for Yemen, said yesterday that, escalating violence in the country has been “among the worst” in recent years, and civilians are increasingly being targeted.

Airstrikes on Sana’a have resulted in civilian deaths and damage to noncombatant infrastructure, he said.

WASHINGTON, Dec 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is not currently considering recommending a vaccine mandate for domestic flights, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday.

"Certainly domestic flights has been a topic of conversation but that is not something we're revisiting right now," Walensky said on National Public Radio.

Walensky was responding to a question about remarks the previous day by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, that a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel should be considered.

Dec 29 (Reuters) - The average number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States hit a record high of 258,312 over the past seven days according to a Reuters tally on Wednesday as U.S. officials weigh the impact of the more transmissible Omicron variant.

The previous peak for the seven-day moving average was 250,141 confirmed cases recorded on Jan. 8 of this year.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The United States has seen heightened gun violence in 2021, which exposed the country's deep-rooted social and political problems, the Cable News Network (CNN) has recently reported.

The year of 2021 was a brutal year for gun violence in the United States, where more than two-thirds of the country's most populous cities have seen more homicides in 2021 than last year, according to a report by CNN on Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has earned an "incomplete" grade in its first-year foreign policy because of its anti-China approach, said an op-ed published recently on the Los Angeles Times.

In the article titled "Does the Biden administration deserve a passing grade in foreign policy," Gregory F. Treverton, former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, wrote that "on the Biden administration's first-year report card, its approach toward China earns it an 'incomplete' in foreign policy."

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The mayor of Mississippi’s capital city has ordered the closure of city hall and other offices due to a surge in new confirmed coronavirus cases, particularly the highly contagious delta and omicron variants.

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s new executive order closing offices went into effect Wednesday. Only essential employees will continue to work in person, he said. The order will stay in place until at least next Wednesday.

DENVER (AP) — A gunman who went on a shooting rampage in several locations around the Denver area, killing five people and wounding two, targeted his victims based on previous personal and business dealings, authorities said.

Lyndon James McLeod, 47, was also killed Monday night after he shot a police officer who confronted him in a busy shopping district in the Denver suburb of Lakewood. The officer managed to fire back at McLeod, killing him, Lakewood police spokesperson John Romero said Tuesday.

(AP) --- In February, with the images of the violent insurrection in Washington still fresh in the minds of Americans, newly confirmed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took the unprecedented step of signing a memo directing commanding officers across the military to institute a one-day stand-down to address extremism within the nation’s armed forces.

NEW YORK, Dec 28 (Reuters) - The judge in British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell's sex abuse trial said the jury would deliberate for at least one hour longer than usual if needed on Tuesday due to an "astronomical spike" in COVID-19 cases in the New York area.

"We now face a high and escalating risk that jurors and/or trial participants may need to quarantine," U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan told prosecutors and defense attorneys outside the presence of the jury, which had begun deliberating again on Tuesday morning.

Dec 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it raised COVID-19 related travel warnings for Malta, Moldova, Sweden and Argentina.

For Malta, Moldova and Sweden, the travel warning was raised to level four or "very high" while for Argentina, it was raised to level 3 or "high", the CDC said on Tuesday.