USA

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico sued the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday over concerns that the federal agency hasn’t done enough to vet plans for a multibillion-dollar facility to store spent nuclear fuel in the state, arguing that the project would endanger residents, the environment and the economy.

ATLANTA (AP) — Critics of Georgia’s new Republican-backed election law issued fresh calls Monday to boycott some of the state’s largest businesses for not speaking out more forcefully against the law, a day after advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging it.

In a letter to more than 90,000 parishioners, Bishop Reginald Jackson, who presides over more than 400 African Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia, said the law is “racist and seeks to return us to the days of Jim Crow.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A man who was among onlookers shouting at a Minneapolis police officer to get off George Floyd last May was to continue testifying Tuesday, a day after he described seeing Floyd struggle for air and his eyes rolling back into his head, saying he saw Floyd “slowly fade away ... like a fish in a bag.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and a top health official warned Monday that too many Americans are declaring virus victory too quickly, appealing for mask requirements and other restrictions to be maintained or restored to stave off a “fourth surge” of COVID-19. The head of the CDC said she had a feeling of “impending doom” if people keep easing off.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for ‘decisive action’ to provide debt relief to developing countries that have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic as he said the steps taken so far to prevent debt crises across the world have not been sufficient to restore economic stability.

(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson has agreed to supply up to 400 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the African Union (AU) from the third quarter of 2021, the drugmaker said on Monday, as the continent struggles to get shots into arms and tame infections.

J&J unit Janssen Pharmaceutica NV has entered into a deal with the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) to deliver 220 million doses of its single-dose shot. AVAT could order an additional 180 million doses through 2022.(refini.tv/3cyeFiB)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will lay out the first part of his multitrillion-dollar economic recovery package this week, focusing on rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructure, followed by a separate plan later in April addressing child and health care.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed on Sunday the administration’s plans to split the package into two legislative proposals, part of an effort to get support from congressional Republicans. But she adds that “we’ll work with the Senate and House to see how it should move forward.”

(AP) --- Torrential rains across Tennessee flooded homes and at least one church and left roads impassable, prompting dozens of people to be rescued in the Nashville area. Authorities said four bodies were found Sunday in the flood’s aftermath.

Nashville received more than 7 inches of rain, the second-highest two-day rainfall total ever recorded, Mayor John Cooper said at a news conference Sunday.

LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) — An avowed anti-Semite who shot three people to death at two suburban Kansas City Jewish sites in 2014 is asking the Kansas Supreme Court to overturn his death sentence, saying he should not have been allowed to represent himself at trial.

The appeal from Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. is scheduled to go before the state Supreme Court on Monday. He was convicted of one count of capital murder, three counts of attempted murder, and assault and weapons charges in August 2015.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A former Minneapolis police officer goes on trial Monday in George Floyd’s death, and jurors may not wait long to see parts of the bystander video that caught Derek Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, sparking waves of outrage and activism across the U.S. and beyond.

Prosecutors have not said when they will play the video, but legal experts expect it to be early — maybe even in the prosecution’s opening statement — as they seek to remind jurors of what is at the heart of their case.