USA

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Rainstorms grew more erratic and droughts much longer across most of the U.S. West over the past half-century as climate change warmed the planet, according to a sweeping government study released Tuesday that concludes the situation is worsening.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With a powerful new tool, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has fresh options for potentially advancing President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package and other priorities past Republican obstruction in the 50-50 split Senate.

(AP) --- Nearly half of new coronavirus infections nationwide are in just five states — a situation that is putting pressure on the federal government to consider changing how it distributes vaccines by sending more doses to hot spots.

New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey together reported 44% of the nation’s new COVID-19 infections, or nearly 197,500 new cases, in the latest available seven-day period, according to state health agency data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Total U.S. infections during the same week numbered more than 452,000.

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — A Navy medic shot and wounded two U.S. sailors at a military facility Tuesday, then fled to a nearby Army base where security forces shot and killed him, police and Navy officials said.

Authorities said they had yet to determine what drove 38-year-old Fantahun Girma Woldesenbet to open fire at the facility, located in an office park in Frederick, Maryland.

“We’re still trying to sort through stacks of paper ... to figure out exactly what the motive would be,” said Frederick Police Lt. Andrew Alcorn.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis police are taught to restrain combative suspects with a knee on their back or shoulders if necessary but are told to “stay away from the neck when possible,” a department use-of-force instructor testified Tuesday at former Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.

Lt. Johnny Mercil became the latest member of the Minneapolis force to take the stand as part of an effort by prosecutors to dismantle the argument that Chauvin was doing what he was trained to do when he put his knee on George Floyd’s neck last May.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said he’s bumping up his deadline by two weeks for states to make all adults in the U.S. eligible for coronavirus vaccines. But even as he expressed optimism about the pace of vaccinations, he warned Americans that the nation is not yet out of the woods when it comes to the pandemic.

“Let me be deadly earnest with you: We aren’t at the finish line. We still have a lot of work to do. We’re still in a life and death race against this virus,” Biden said Tuesday in remarks at the White House.

WASHINGTON, April 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States is looking into reports of human rights abuses and atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the US State Department said.

Department spokesman Ned Price told a news briefing that the United States is “gravely concerned” about accounts last week by CNN and the BBC of a massacre in the region by Ethiopian forces.

“We are, of course, looking into these reports. We have taken close note of them and we’ll continue to pay close attention,” Price said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund has long favored adoption of a global minimum tax on corporate profits, the Fund’s chief economist, Gita Gopinath, told reporters on Tuesday.

Gopinath said current disparities in national corporate tax rates had triggered “a large amount” of tax shifting and tax avoidance, reducing the tax base on which governments could collect revenues to fund needed economic and social spending.

06 Apr 2021; MEMO: The Biden administration has upheld former Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi's immunity, which has drawn a wave of criticism from Democratic lawmakers and rights activists.

Washington, Apr 6 (PTI) US President Joe Biden has exuded confidence that his proposal to hike the corporate tax is unlikely to drive companies out of the country.

Biden made the comments on Monday while talking to reporters on the South lawns of the White House as he arrived from his weekend stay at Camp David.

Not at all, Biden said, asserting that there is no evidence of that.