USA

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued a new statewide mask order on Thursday, an hour after the Republican-controlled Legislature voted to repeal his previous mandate saying he didn’t have authority to make such a decree.

Evers and the Legislature have been at odds throughout the pandemic but the latest moves created an unprecedented level of whiplash. Republican lawmakers last year persuaded the state Supreme Court to scrap Evers’ stay-at-home order and a state appeals court halted the limits he placed on indoor gatherings.

(AP) --- President Joe Biden announced Thursday the United States was ending support for a grinding five-year Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen that has deepened suffering in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, calling the move part of restoring a U.S. emphasis on diplomacy, democracy and human rights.

“This war has to end,” Biden told diplomats in his first visit to the State Department as president, saying the conflict had created a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”

(AP) --- Coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed 450,000 on Thursday, and daily deaths remain stubbornly high at more than 3,000 a day, despite falling infections and the arrival of multiple vaccines.

Infectious disease specialists expect deaths to start dropping soon, after new cases hit a peak right around the beginning of the year. New COVID-19 deaths could ebb as early as next week, said the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday said the days of the U.S. “rolling over” to Russian President Vladimir Putin are gone as he called for the immediate release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

During his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden issued his strongest condemnation of Putin as large protests have broken out throughout Russia following the jailing of Navalny. Thousands of protesters have been arrested.

(AP) --- Johnson & Johnson asked U.S. regulators Thursday to clear the world’s first single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, an easier-to-use option that could boost scarce supplies.

J&J’s vaccine was safe and offered strong protection against moderate to severe COVID-19, according to preliminary results from a massive international study.

It didn’t appear quite as strong as two-dose competitors made by Pfizer and Moderna -- a finding that may be more perception than reality, given differences in how each was tested.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Thursday asked Donald Trump to testify under oath for his Senate impeachment trial, challenging him to respond to their charge that he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol. A Trump adviser said the former president won’t testify.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A fiercely divided House tossed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene off both her committees Thursday, an unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she’d earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.

Underscoring the political vise her inflammatory commentary has clamped her party into, nearly all Republicans voted against the Democratic move but none defended her lengthy history of outrageous social media posts.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 03 (APP): “Torture and ill-treatment” of detainees persist in Afghan prisons, with nearly a third of those accused of security and terrorism-related allegations subjected to abuse, a new United Nations report said Wednesday.

The report, released jointly by UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Geneva-headquartered UN Human Rights Office, concluded that the percentage of detainees who had been tortured had fallen slightly over the 15 months to March 2020 to 30.3% from 31.9% in the previous two years, but remained “alarming”.

WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Joe Biden’s administration said it had no plans to open direct contacts with Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who has called for improved relations after Donald Trump’s efforts to topple him.

“We certainly don’t expect any contact with Maduro anytime soon,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, calling the leftist leader a “dictator.”

Price said that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris would continue Trump’s policy of recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president.

04 Feb 2021; MEMO: International rights groups and several US lawmakers have called on the Biden administration to cancel Donald Trump's easing of sanctions against Israeli mining magnate Dan Gertler, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

In a joint letter, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and 28 other groups urged US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel the relief of sanctions imposed on the Israeli businessman.