USA

UNITED NATIONS, May 20 (APP): Pakistan Thursday urged the UN General Assembly to call for a halt to the Israeli aggression in Gaza and demand concrete steps to safeguard the besieged Palestinians, including deployment of an international protection force in the occupied territories.

“We should deploy an international protection force,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi told a special session of the 193-member Assembly, pointing out such a force was called for in General Assembly Resolution ES-10/20 and demanded by the Islamic Summit Conference on 18 May 2018.

UNITED NATIONS, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations' casualty count from hostilities in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel on Wednesday showed 256 people dead - including 69 children and an Israeli soldier - and thousands of people injured.

20 May 2021; MEMO: Democrat lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and other progressive representatives including Rashida Tlaib and Marc Pocan have introduced a resolution opposing an arms sale to Israel worth $735 million.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s financial assurance requirements for oil and gas wells, pipelines and related infrastructure fall far short of what would be needed to offset closure and cleanup costs, according to the findings of an independent study released Thursday.

The research was commissioned by the state after concerns were raised last year about taxpayers being left on the hook if companies go bankrupt or abandon their operations without plugging wells, decommissioning pipelines or cleaning up.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell last week to 444,000, a new pandemic low and a sign that the job market keeps strengthening as consumers spend freely again, viral infections drop and business restrictions ease.

Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that applications declined 34,000 from a revised 478,000 a week earlier. The number of weekly jobless claims — a rough measure of the pace of layoffs — has declined steadily since the year began.

20 May 2021; MEMO: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed her "particular" concern that the Israeli police "have failed to intervene when the Palestinian citizens of Israel were subjected to violent assaults." Michelle Bachelet added that she is concerned that, "The social media accounts of the extreme right-wing groups have mobilised people to bring weapons, knives and other items" to use against Palestinian citizens.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to soon accelerate a plan that ties the further loosening of coronavirus restrictions to Michigan’s vaccination rate, her office said Wednesday, citing the federal government’s recent recommendation that fully vaccinated people can largely stop wearing masks.

An announcement will come in within days, at most a week, spokesman Bobby Leddy said.

“We feel confident that our state can begin taking even greater steps to get back to normal now that a majority of Michiganders have received their vaccine,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thirty-five House Republicans joined Democrats Wednesday in voting to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, risking the wrath of former President Donald Trump and flouting GOP leaders who condemned the proposal as unfairly partisan and unneeded.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are rebelling against the requirement that they wear a mask on the House floor, stoking tensions with majority Democrats who are refusing to change the rules following updated guidance from federal health officials.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., led an effort Wednesday to get the Office of the Attending Physician to update its guidance for mask wearing for vaccinated lawmakers and staff while they are in the House chamber and in committee hearing rooms, but Democrats defeated it along a party-line vote of 218-210.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Wednesday to create an independent commission on the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, sending the legislation to an uncertain future in the Senate as Republican leaders work to stop a bipartisan investigation that is opposed by former President Donald Trump.