USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just one month ago, President Joe Biden and his health advisers announced big plans to soon deliver a booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine to all Americans. But after campaigning for the White House on a pledge to “follow the science,” Biden found himself uncharacteristically ahead of it with that lofty pronouncement.

Some of nation’s top medical advisers on Friday delivered a stinging rebuke of the idea, in essence telling the White House: not so fast.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The fence around the Capitol is back up. The D.C. police department is at the ready, and U.S. Capitol Police have requested assistance from nearby law enforcement agencies including the U.S. National Guard.

The Capitol police are taking no chances as they prepare for Saturday’s rally at the U.S. Capitol in support of rioters imprisoned after the violent Jan. 6 insurrection. They’re working to avoid a repeat of the pre-inauguration attack.

17 Sep 2021; MEMO: Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed today to help Israel normalize relations with additional countries in the Muslim and Arab worlds as he commemorated the one-year anniversary of former President Donald Trump's Abraham Accords.

Washington, Sep 18 (PTI) Asserting that America's Indo-Pacific pivot is in full swing under the Joe Biden administration, experts believe that the first-ever in-person Quad summit involving Australia, India, Japan and the United States at the White House next week is a natural culmination of a process restarted in 2017.

Washington, Sep 17 (AP-PTI) The Pentagon retreated from its defence of a drone strike that killed multiple civilians in Afghanistan last month, announcing Friday that a review revealed that only civilians were killed in the attack, not an Islamic State extremist as first believed.

The strike was a tragic mistake," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference.

ON BOARD THE GEO BARENTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA (AP) — A U.N. migration agency official expressed concerns Friday over the disappearance of thousands of Europe-bound migrants who were intercepted and returned to Libya as more and more desperate people risk their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Revamp the tax code and important federal health care and environment programs. Spend $3.5 trillion over 10 years, but maybe a lot less. Ensure that no more than three Democrats in all of Congress vote “no” because Republicans will be unanimously opposed.

Try to finish within the next couple of weeks. And oh yes: Failure means President Joe Biden’s own party will have repudiated him on the cornerstone of his domestic agenda.

THREE RIVERS, Calif. (AP) — California wildfires have burned into at least four groves of gigantic ancient sequoias in national parks and forests, though cooler weather on Friday helped crews trying to keep the flames away from a famous cluster containing the world’s largest tree.

The fires lapped into the groves with trees that can be up to 200 feet (61 meters) tall and 2,000 years old, including Oriole Lake Grove in Sequoia National Park and Peyrone North and South groves in the neighboring Sequoia National Forest.

DENVER (AP) — A judge on Friday sentenced a former student to life in prison without parole for a 2019 shooting inside a suburban Denver high school that killed one teenager and injured eight others, telling the defendant he had shown no remorse and had failed to help a devastated community understand his actions.

Devon Erickson, now 20, was convicted in June of 46 charges, including first-degree murder in the death of Kendrick Castillo, an 18-year-old senior hailed as a hero for trying to stop the attack on a classroom at STEM School Highlands Ranch, south of Denver.

DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration plans the widescale expulsion of Haitian migrants from a small Texas border city by putting them on on flights to Haiti starting Sunday, an official said Friday, representing a swift and dramatic response to thousands who suddenly crossed the border from Mexico and gathered under and around a bridge.