USA

Washington, Dec 11 (PTI) Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari, an Indian-American US Air Force colonel, is among 18 astronauts, half of them women, who have been selected by NASA for its ambitious manned mission to the Moon and beyond.

The modern lunar exploration programme will land the first woman and next man on the Moon in 2024 and establish a sustainable human lunar presence by the end of the decade, the American space agency said.

NASA on Wednesday named the 18 astronauts who will train for its Artemis moon-landing programme.

Washington, Dec 11 (AP-PTI) Joe Biden has suggested he can't go as far with executive authority as some of his most vocal supporters would like, declaring that he won't violate the Constitution in a leaked recording of his call with civil rights leaders.

Audio from the private call on Tuesday was obtained by The Intercept. Biden is urged to use executive action to promote police reform and is heard promising to use his presidential power to overturn every single damn thing that President Donald Trump did via executive action.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. House panel on the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday accused the U.S. current administration of politically meddling with the country's response to the public health crisis.

"I am deeply concerned that the Trump Administration's political meddling with the nation's coronavirus response has put American lives at greater risk," James Clyburn, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, said in a letter to the administration's top health officials.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional monitor of federal pandemic aid is raising the possibility of a link between President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and a $700 million relief loan to a struggling trucking company.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations as President Donald Trump, in his final weeks in office, announced the fourth Arab-Israeli agreement in four months on Thursday. In a related major policy shift, the United States agreed to recognize Morocco’s claim over the long-disputed Western Sahara region as part of the deal.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge Thursday cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s lawsuit that seeks to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin, declaring it “incredible” that Trump didn’t raise the issues before the election and that siding with him would be “the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s deficit in the first two months of the budget year ran 25.1% higher than the same period a year ago as spending to deal with the COVID pandemic soared while tax revenues fell.

The Treasury Department reported Thursday that with two months gone in the budget year, the deficit totaled $429.3 billion, up from $343.3 billion in last year’s October-November period.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate vote on a wide-ranging defense policy bill was delayed Thursday after Kentucky Republican Rand Paul objected to the measure, casting the next steps in doubt and raising the slim prospect of a government shutdown if a short-term spending bill caught up in the dispute is not approved by Friday.

HOUSTON (AP) — The Texas lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory has quickly become a conservative litmus test, as 106 members of Congress and multiple state attorneys general signed onto the case even as some have predicted it will fail.

(AP) --- A locked-down pandemic-struck world cut its carbon dioxide emissions this year by 7%, the biggest drop ever, new preliminary figures show.

The Global Carbon Project, an authoritative group of dozens of international scientists who track emissions, calculated that the world will have put 37 billion U.S. tons (34 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide in the air in 2020. That’s down from 40.1 billion US tons (36.4 billion metric tons) in 2019, according a study published Thursday in the journal Earth System Science Data.