USA

13 May 2021; MEMO: Twenty-five Democratic members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, calling on him to pressure Israel to halt the planned forced eviction of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, Anadolu Agency reported.

(Reuters) --- The United States and Russia are lowering expectations for big breakthroughs at a superpower summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the adversaries in no mood to make concessions on their bitter disagreements.

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday expected the ongoing clashes between Israelis and Palestinians would be "closing down sooner than later," while urging for restoring a sustainable calm.

"My expectation and hope is that this will be closing down sooner than later, but Israel has a right to defend itself when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory," Biden told reporters at the White House.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Collier says that during the seven years he worked as an operating room aide at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, white nurses called him and other Black employees “boy.” Management ignored two large swastikas painted on a storage room wall. And for six months, he regularly rode an elevator with the N-word carved into a wall.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Attorneys for three former Minneapolis officers awaiting trial in George Floyd’s death will be in court Thursday to argue pretrial motions, including a request that prosecutors be sanctioned after media reports that Derek Chauvin had planned to plead guilty a year ago, and allegations that they haven’t disclosed information about the alleged coercion of a witness.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — For pro-Trump Republicans, removing Rep. Liz Cheney from House GOP leadership was relatively easy. Booting her from office will be another matter.

The rush to punish Cheney for her criticism of former President Donald Trump and his loyalists is drawing a cast of Wyoming primary challengers so big it could ultimately help her win again next year. Another boost for Cheney is a pile of campaign money and a family legacy that has helped her before.

CLEMMONS, N.C. (AP) — A run on gas following a computer hack of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline had North Carolina tow-truck driver Jonathan King worried about whether he could do his job.

“I drive all over the place,” King said at a packed gas station outside Winston-Salem on Wednesday. “It gets really busy. And yeah, with the fuel going the way it’s going, it’s going to be very hard for us. Hopefully we’ll be able to get through it.”

LA JOYA, Texas (AP) — Parents emerge from the brush into a baseball field, carrying exhausted children. Border Patrol agents dictate orders: Families with young children in one line and unaccompanied children in another. The smallest of three lines is for single adults.

UNITED NATIONS, May 12 (APP): Israel and Palestine are heading towards a full-scale war, the UN Special Envoy to the Middle East Peace Process has warned.

“Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full-scale war. Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of de-escalation,” Tor Wennesland, the UN envoy said in a post on Twitter late Tuesday.

“The cost of war in Gaza is devastating & is being paid by ordinary people. UN is working w/ all sides to restore calm. Stop the violence now,” he said.

UNITED NATIONS, May 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 155 million people faced crisis levels of food insecurity in 2020 because of conflict, extreme weather events and economic shocks linked in part to COVID-19, an UN-partnered flagship report said on Wednesday.

It’s been five years since hunger levels were this bad across 55 countries under review, according to the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC), which noted that 20 million more people went hungry last year than in 2019.

Countries in Africa remained “disproportionally affected”, it said in a release.