USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — When a group of Republican doctors in Congress released a video selling the safety of the coronavirus vaccine, their message wasn’t explicitly aimed at their conservative constituents, but nonetheless had a clear political bent.

Getting the shot is the best way to “end the government’s restrictions on our freedoms,” Rep. Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican and heart surgeon who donned a white lab coat and stethoscope when he spoke into the camera.

WASHINGTON, Apr 30 (NNN-XINHUA) – The White House said yesterday that, the U.S. military will send additional forces to Afghanistan, to protect U.S. and coalition forces during the withdrawal.

White House Deputy Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters aboard Air Force One that, “a drawdown is underway,” saying that, the U.S. military would deploy additional military assets to Afghanistan and the region to cover the withdrawal.

(Reuters) --- AstraZeneca (AZN.L) is working as fast as possible to compile data on its COVID-19 vaccine to apply for U.S. approval but the dataset is very big, executives said on Friday as the drugmaker faces delays to its submission.

"There's a lot more data than just a Phase III study and so we're working as fast as we can to pull it all together and submit," said Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca.

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 cases worldwide exceeded 150 million on Friday, according to a tally of global infections by Johns Hopkins University.

The exact number stood at 150,530,783 as of 0600 GMT on Friday. More than 3.16 million people have died of the disease. 

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Biden administration appears to be picking up where former President Donald Trump left off as the federal agency that oversees U.S. nuclear research and bomb-making has approved the conceptual design and cost range for infrastructure investments for a multibillion-dollar project to manufacture key components for the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

The National Nuclear Security Administration in a decision announced Wednesday stated that planning and construction could cost upwards of $4 billion initially.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Kingdom said Thursday it is temporarily reducing its international aid from 14.5 billion pounds (about $20 billion) last year to 10 billion pounds this year ($14 billion) because of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and two U.N. agencies announced huge funding cuts of more than 80 percent.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — In his first public address since the end of the Trump administration, former Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday put down a marker for a potential return to elected office, telling an audience in early-voting South Carolina that he will use the coming months “pushing back on the liberal agenda” he says is wrong for the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden couldn’t get everything he wanted into his own $1.8 trillion families plan.

His proposed child tax credit is set to expire after 2025. It would provide parents with $300 a month for each child under 6 and $250 a month for older children. Democratic lawmakers are pushing hard to make the credit a permanent policy, but the administration told them that the annual costs of roughly $100 billion were too high.

DENVER (AP) — More than two-thirds of all U.S. citizens of the voting age population participated in the 2020 presidential election, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report, and 69% of those cast ballots by mail or early in-person voting — methods that Republicans in some states are curtailing.

That’s an explosion in the use of mail and early voting compared to four years earlier, when just 40% of voters cast ballots that way. The change was in part a result of the pandemic, which prompted health officials to urge voters to stay away from crowded in-person polling places.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is preparing for possible Taliban attacks on U.S. and coalition forces as they withdraw from Afghanistan, a prospect that complicates the outlook for winding down America’s longest war.