USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Until recently, the act of governing seemed to happen at the speed of presidential tweets. But now President Joe Biden is settling in for what appears will be a long, summer slog of legislating.

Congress is hunkered down, the House and Senate grinding through a monthslong stretch, lawmakers trying to draft Biden’s big infrastructure ideas into bills that could actually be signed into law. Perhaps not since the drafting of the Affordable Care Act more than a decade ago has Washington tried a legislative lift as heavy.

It’s going to take a while.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Their countries at crossroads, the new leaders of the United States and Israel have inherited a relationship that is at once imperiled by increasingly partisan domestic political considerations and deeply bound in history and an engrained recognition that they need each other.

How President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett manage that relationship will shape the prospects for peace and stability in the Middle East.

ATLANTA (AP) — Eight children in a van from a youth home for abused or neglected children were killed in a fiery multi-vehicle crash on a wet interstate that also killed a man and his baby in another vehicle, the most devastating blow from a tropical depression that claimed 13 lives in Alabama as it caused flash floods and spurred tornadoes that destroyed dozens of homes.

The crash happened Saturday about 35 miles (55 kilometers) south of Montgomery on Interstate 65 after vehicles likely hydroplaned on wet roads, said Butler County Coroner Wayne Garlock.

WASHINGTON, Jun 20 (APP): Pakistan will help as a “moral and humanitarian responsibility” in the ongoing efforts to recover a Taliban-held American hostage, Mark Frerichs, a Pakistani embassy spokesperson has said, responding to a media report that expressed fears that United States’ hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan has dimmed hope for his release.

ABC News said that the location of Frerichs, a 58-year-old civil engineer, who was kidnapped in January 2020 from Kabul, is unknown.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Authorities in Alabama say a suspected tornado spurred by Tropical Storm Claudette demolished or badly damaged at least 50 homes in a small town just north of the Florida border.

Sheriff Heath Jackson in Escambia County said a suspected tornado “pretty much leveled” a mobile home park, toppled trees onto houses and ripped the roof off of a high school gym. Most of the damage was done in or near the towns of Brewton and East Brewton, about 48 miles (77 kilometers) north of Pensacola, Florida.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Southwest U.S. continued to bake Saturday, and weather forecasters kept warnings in effect for excessive heat in Arizona, Nevada and desert areas, at least through the weekend.

High temperature marks didn’t fall Saturday, but Phoenix reached a sweltering high of 115 degrees (46 C) for the day and Las Vegas hit 111 degrees (44 C). Both were 3 degrees shy of records for the date, forecasters said.

WASHINGTON, June 19. /TASS/: The United States has prepared contingency funds to help Ukraine in case of a possible escalation at its national border with Russia, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

"The idea that we have held back security assistance to Ukraine is nonsense," the statement from Psaki reads. "Just last week - in the run-up to the US-Russia Summit - we provided a $150 million package of security assistance, including lethal assistance."

WASHINGTON, June 19. /TASS/: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a telephone conversation with Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau on Friday night and discussed among other issues a possible threat posed by the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project to the European energy security, US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

19 June 2021; MEMO: Vermont State Labour Council has announced joining alliance of Labor for Palestine which stands against "Israeli apartheid," raising the number of American labour bodies which joined this alliance to 15.

"Our affiliate Vermont State Labor Council AFL-CIO joins its counterpart at the Connecticut Labor Council in standing against Israeli apartheid," the council said in a statement posted on Facebook.

SURPRISE (Arizona, US), June 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A 19-year-old Arizona man was charged after a 90-minute shooting spree across eight cities Thursday that killed one person and injured 12 others, authorities said.

Ashin Tricarico, of Surprise, is charged with first-degree murder and endangerment, three counts of aggravated assault and drive-by shooting, according to Maricopa County Sheriff’s online booking records.

Bail was set at $1 million for Tricarico, KNXV reported. Police arrested Tricarico on Thursday afternoon and released his name Friday afternoon in a tweet.