USA

HOUSTON, Apr 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) – U.S. state of Texas reported its first hospitalisation case related to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, the state’s health experts announced yesterday.

An adult female has been hospitalised, after receiving the J&J vaccine. She has symptoms similar to the six blood clotting cases across the United States. However, experts said, they did not know for sure that the symptoms were caused by the vaccine.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit Friday using a recycled rocket and capsule, the third crew flight in less than a year for Elon Musk’s rapidly expanding company.

The astronauts from the U.S., Japan and France should reach the International Space Station early Saturday morning, following a 23-hour ride in the same Dragon capsule used by SpaceX’s debut crew last May. They’ll spend six months at the orbiting lab.

Washington, Apr 23 (PTI) The US has advised its citizens to avoid travelling to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Maldives due to the sudden surge in COVID-19 cases in the region.

In a series of travel advisories on Thursday, the authorities also urged Americans to reconsider travel to China and Nepal; exercise increased caution while travelling to Sri Lanka and exercise normal travel precaution to Bhutan, which has been given Level 1, the safest level for travelling overseas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill that would help combat the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a bipartisan denunciation of such violence during the coronavirus pandemic and a modest step toward legislating in a chamber where most of President Joe Biden’s agenda has stalled.

The measure would expedite the review of hate crimes at the Justice Department and provide support for local law enforcement in response to thousands of reported violent incidents in the past year.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A white sheriff’s deputy in the San Francisco Bay Area shot and killed a Black man in the middle of a busy intersection about a minute after trying to stop him on suspicion of throwing rocks at cars last month, newly released video showed.

Graphic body camera footage showing Deputy Andrew Hall shooting Tyrell Wilson, 33, within seconds of asking him to drop a knife was released Wednesday, the same day prosecutors charged Hall with manslaughter and assault in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Filipino man more than two years ago.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats were on a roll. The House voted along party lines to make the nation’s capital the 51st state, and two hours later, the Senate overwhelmingly approved bipartisan legislation to address violence against Asian Americans.

Thursday’s twin victories let Democrats display momentum just six days before President Joe Biden’s maiden speech to Congress. Yet they also shined a spotlight on his party’s limitations in enacting his agenda.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Moments after former officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death, copies of the original Minneapolis police statement began recirculating on social media. It attributed Floyd’s death to “medical distress” and made no mention that the Black man had been pinned to the ground at the neck by Chauvin, or that he’d cried out that he couldn’t breathe.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Louisiana has stopped asking the federal government for its full allotment of COVID-19 vaccine. About three-quarters of Kansas counties have turned down new shipments of the vaccine at least once over the past month. And in Mississippi, officials asked the federal government to ship vials in smaller packages so they don’t go to waste.

As the supply of coronavirus vaccine doses in the U.S. outpaces demand, some places around the country are finding there’s such little interest in the shots, they need to turn down shipments.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is bringing out the billionaires, the CEOs and the union executives Friday to help sell President Joe Biden’s climate-friendly transformation of the U.S. economy at a virtual summit of world leaders.

The closing day of the two-day summit on climate change is to feature Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg, steelworker and electrical union leaders and executives for solar and other renewable energy.

NEW YORK, Apr 22 (APP): A prominent Kashmiri leader has appealed to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to take urgent steps to enable Kashmiri people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, as pledged to them in the 1948 UN Security Council resolution, in a bid to resolve the Kashmir dispute.