North America

(AP) --- It all started with the dream of growing a rose on Mars.

That vision, Elon Musk’s vision, morphed into a shake-up of the old space industry, and a fleet of new private rockets. Now, those rockets will launch NASA astronauts from Florida to the International Space Station -- the first time a for-profit company will carry astronauts into the cosmos.

It’s a milestone in the effort to commercialize space. But for Musk’s company, SpaceX, it’s also the latest milestone in a wild ride that began with epic failures and the threat of bankruptcy.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump played golf at one of his courses Saturday during the Memorial Day weekend as he urged U.S. states to reopen after coronavirus-related lockdowns. Yet many Americans remained cautious as the number of confirmed cases nationwide passed 1.6 million.

UNITED NATIONS, May 22 (APP): United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Friday voiced his sorrow over the “horrendous” crash of a Pakistan International Airlines plane near Karachi, killing and injuring a number of people.

“Our condolences to the Government of Pakistan on learning of this horrendous accident, as it also comes on the eve of the Eid holiday,” his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric said in response to a question from APP at the regular noon briefing in New York.

UNITED NATIONS, May 23 (APP): United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a virtual meeting of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states at the United Nations (UN) that countering anti-muslim hatred and Islamophobia was his “top priority”, saying he “fully agreed” with the assessment that it could pose a threat to international peace and security, according to informed sources.

(Reuters) - Unemployment rates rose and total employment fell in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia in April as efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic forced businesses to close across the country, the Labor Department said on Friday.

The department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said 43 states set record-high rates of unemployment last month, with the highest being in Nevada, the state with the greatest reliance on the hard-hit food services and hospitality industry.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it would add 33 Chinese firms and institutions to an economic blacklist for helping Beijing spy on its minority Uighur population or because of ties to weapons of mass destruction and China’s military.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House and the State Department did not provide an “adequate response” to lawmakers’ requests for documents related to the firing of the department’s inspector general, a congressional aide said on Friday.

“But pressure is building and the truth will come out,” a House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee aide said.

The White House declined to comment. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

PUENTE GRANDE, Mexico (Reuters) - A violent clash at a prison in Mexico’s central state of Jalisco on Friday left eight inmates dead and another eight prisoners hospitalized with injuries, state security officials said.

During the incident at a jail in the Puente Grande complex, three people were killed by firearms and four others died from beatings, Jalisco’s prosecutor Gerardo Octavio Solis said in a press conference.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government late on Friday accused the Chinese government of making it impossible for U.S. airlines to resume service to China and ordered four Chinese air carriers to file flight schedules with the U.S. government.

The administration of President Donald Trump stopped short of imposing restrictions on Chinese air carriers but said talks with China had failed to produce an agreement.

(Reuters) - The Trump administration discussed last week whether to conduct its first nuclear test explosion since 1992, the Washington Post reported late on Friday, citing a senior official and two former officials familiar with the matter.

The topic surfaced at a meeting of senior officials representing the top national security agencies after accusations from the administration that Russia and China are conducting low-yield nuclear tests, the Washington Post said wapo.st/2Xljjro.