USA

(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.

WASHINGTON, May 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Democrats on Friday denounced the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, saying it's illegal and demanding an explanation.

In a letter to U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel and Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith said that the withdrawal from the treaty without consultation with Congress violates Section 1234 of the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

NEW YORK, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States topped 95,000 on Friday, reaching 95,276 as of 12:32 p.m. (1632 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

A total of 1,588,322 cases have been reported in the country, according to the CSSE.

Hardest-hit New York state reported 28,743 fatalities among 358,154 cases. New Jersey reported 10,985 deaths, Massachusetts reported 6,148 deaths and Michigan reported 5,129 deaths, the CSSE data showed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal Bureau of Prisons will begin moving about 6,800 inmates who have been waiting in local detention centers across the U.S. to federal prisons to avoid jail overcrowding in the coronavirus pandemic, officials said Friday.

It’s not clear when it would begin. The inmates will be sent to one of three designated quarantine sites — FCC Yazoo City in Mississippi, FCC Victorville in California and FTC Oklahoma City — or to a Bureau of Prisons detention center.

NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities investigating the long-running mystery of skeletal remains strewn along a suburban New York beach highway said Friday they have identified the remains of one of the women using DNA technology.

Suffolk County police said they would soon post information about the woman, known as “Jane Doe No. 6,” to a website the department created about the case. Police officials declined to provide more specific information about when the announcement would be made.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday condemned China’s effort to take over national security legislation in Hong Kong, calling it “a death knell for the high degree of autonomy” that Beijing had promised the territory.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday warned the mayor of Los Angeles and the county’s top health officer that an extension of the coronavirus stay-at-home order may be unlawful.

The vague letter sent to Mayor Eric Garcetti and LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer did not spell out any specific violations, but noted concern about statements both had made publicly that restrictions may be prolonged without a vaccine.

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Christopher Wray has ordered an internal review into possible misconduct in the investigation of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, the bureau said Friday.

The after-action review will examine whether any current employees engaged in misconduct during the course of the investigation and evaluate whether any improvements in FBI policies and procedures need to be made.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco is joining other U.S. cities in authorizing homeless tent encampments in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a move officials have long resisted but are now reluctantly embracing to safeguard homeless people.

About 80 tents are now neatly spaced out on a wide street near San Francisco City Hall as part of a “safe sleeping village” opened last week. The area between the city’s central library and its Asian Art Museum is fenced off to outsiders, monitored around the clock and provides meals, showers, clean water and trash pickup.

(AP) --- Hertz filed for bankruptcy protection Friday, unable to withstand the coronavirus pandemic that has crippled global travel and with it, the heavily indebted 102-year-old car rental company’s business.

The Estero, Florida-based company’s lenders were unwilling to grant it another extension on its auto lease debt payments past a Friday deadline, triggering the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.