USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Sunday warned Yemen’s Houthi rebels against ongoing attacks against civilians just 48 hours after moving to strike the group from a terrorism blacklist.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is set to announce this week that it will reengage with the much-maligned U.N. Human Rights Council that former President Donald Trump withdrew from almost three years ago, U.S. officials said. The decision reverses another Trump-era move away from multilateral organizations and agreements.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Time was running out when Secretary of State George P. Shultz returned home in April 1988 after flying 16,000 miles in a failed mission to persuade Arabs and Israelis to negotiate their differences. Shultz said he would keep trying.

“Who’s afraid to struggle against odds?” he asked.

And so he did, in futility, until the Reagan administration ended in January 1989 without putting the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel on a course to a settlement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s defenders in the Senate on Sunday rallied around the former president before his impeachment trial, dismissing it as a waste of time and arguing that the former president’s fiery speech before the U.S. Capitol insurrection does not make him responsible for the violence of Jan. 6.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 (NNN-Xinhua) — The United Nations welcomed the announcement of US intention to revoke the designation of the Houthi movement in Yemen as a terrorist organization.

The revocation will provide profound relief to millions of Yemenis who rely on humanitarian assistance and commercial imports to meet their basic survival needs. It will help ensure that much-needed essential goods reach them without significant delays, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a note to correspondents.

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- An avalanche in Millcreek Canyon of the U.S. state of Utah on Saturday killed four skiers and injured another four, the Utah Avalanche Center (UAC) said.

The fatal accident, first reported around local time 11:40 a.m. (1840 GMT), was "unintentionally triggered" at 9,300 feet (2,834.7 meters), the UAC said.

All eight involved, aged 23-38, wore beacons, and the survivors were able to dig out the victims, it said.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- More than 100,000 people in the United States have died of COVID-19 since Jan. 1 this year as the country are ramping up vaccine rollout, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU) data.

The United States has more COVID-19 deaths than any other country in the world. The country has recorded nearly 26.9 million cases with over 461,700 related deaths as of Saturday afternoon, according to the real-time count kept by JHU.

An influential coronavirus model has predicted an estimated 631,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by June 1.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is withdrawing the U.S. from agreements with three Central American countries that restricted the ability of people to seek asylum at the southwest border, part of a broad effort to undo the the immigration policies of President Donald Trump

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday the administration had notified El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that it had started the formal process of terminating agreements that had been part of Trump’s effort to restrict asylum.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden gave a pep talk to a California woman who was laid off because of the coronavirus pandemic, during a conversation the White House said is part of an effort to help him engage more consistently with regular Americans.

The White House on Saturday released a two-and-a-half-minute video of Biden’s long-distance telephone conversation with Michele Voelkert, identifying her only as Michele.

After losing her job at a startup clothing company in July, she wrote Biden a letter. He read it, then called her.

RAWLINS, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Republican Party voted overwhelmingly Saturday to censure U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney for voting to impeach President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Only eight of the 74-member state GOP’s central committee stood to oppose censure in a vote that didn’t proceed to a formal count. The censure document accused Cheney of voting to impeach even though the U.S. House didn’t offer Trump “formal hearing or due process.”