USA

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- The top UN envoy in Somalia, James Swan, on Thursday told the Security Council that significant progress has been made in the political situation in the Horn of Africa country.

"I am pleased to report that significant progress has been made" since the signing of the May 27 Electoral Implementation Agreement between Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble and leaders of the federal member states, Swan told the Council meeting on the situation in Somalia.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just weeks before the U.S. is scheduled to end its war in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is rushing 3,000 fresh troops to the Kabul airport to help with a partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy. The move highlights the stunning speed of a Taliban takeover of much of the country, including their capture of Kandahar, the second-largest city and the birthplace of the Taliban movement.

WAIMEA, Hawaii (AP) — A metal roof sits atop the burned remains of a homestead on the once-lush slopes of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea — a dormant volcano and the state’s tallest peak — charred cars and motorcycles strewn about as wind-whipped sand and ash blast the scorched landscape.

Generations of Kumu Micah Kamohoalii’s family have lived on these lands reserved for Native Hawaiians, and his cousin owns this house destroyed by the state’s largest-ever wildfire.

(AP) --- No racial or ethnic group dominates for those under age 18, and white people declined in numbers for the first time on record in the overall U.S. population as the Hispanic and Asian populations boomed this past decade, according to the 2020 census data.

The figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau offered the most detailed portrait yet of how the country has changed since 2010 and will also be instrumental in redrawing the nation’s political maps.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators say transplant recipients and others with severely weakened immune systems can get an extra dose of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to better protect them as the delta variant continues to surge.

The late-night announcement Thursday by the Food and Drug Administration applies to several million Americans who are especially vulnerable because of organ transplants, certain cancers or other disorders. Several other countries, including France and Israel, have similar recommendations.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 (APP): UN expert has expressed concern over arrests, harassment, criminalization and threats against human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and within Israel, and called on Israeli government to make sure all Palestinian human rights defenders are protected.

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) – More than 175 U.S. public health experts, scientists and activists, urged President Joe Biden’s administration, to take urgent steps to confront the global spread of COVID-19, including immediate export of vaccine doses the country has stockpiled.

“We urge you to act now,” they wrote in a joint letter sent to senior White House officials on Tuesday, the full text of which was made public yesterday, in a report by The Washington Post.

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) – U.S. inflation remained elevated in July, but there were signs that inflation might have peaked, amid pandemic-related supply constraints and the emergence of the Delta variant.

The consumer price index (CPI) increased 0.5 percent in July, after rising 0.9 percent in June, the U.S. Labour Department said yesterday. Over the past 12 months, through July, the index increased 5.4 percent, the same increase as the period ending June and the largest 12-month increase since 2008.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden overcame skepticism, deep political polarization and legislative gamesmanship to win bipartisan approval in the Senate this week of his $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

But as the bill moves to consideration in the House alongside a $3.5 trillion budget that achieves the rest of Biden’s agenda, the president is facing an even more complicated task. He must keep a diverse, sometimes fractious Democratic Party in line behind the fragile compromises that underpin both measures.

LAME DEER, Mont. (AP) — A wildfire bore down on rural southeastern Montana towns Thursday as continuing hot, dry weather throughout the West drove flames through more than a dozen states.

Several thousand people remained under evacuation orders as the Richard Spring Fire advanced across the sparsely-populated Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.