USA

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 28 (APP): Cities all over the world switched the lights off Saturday to mark “Earth Hour,” a global movement designed to focus on nature conservation and climate change.

During the World Wildlife Fund organized event, individuals and businesses were encouraged to turn off non-esential lights for an hour.

This year’s event also highlighted the link between the destruction of nature and the increasing incidence of diseases like coronavirus.

NEW YORK, March 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. equities posted mixed results in the volatile week as investors sifted through Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's remarks and a slew of economic data.

For the week ending Friday, the Dow and the S&P 500 increased 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively, while the Nasdaq fell 0.6 percent.

The S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index, which is designed to track the performance of the 50 largest Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges by total market cap, logged a weekly loss of 11.2 percent.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Prosecutors in Seattle and San Francisco have charged men with hate crimes in separate incidents that authorities say targeted people of Asian descent amid a wave of high-profile and sometimes deadly violence against Asian Americans since the pandemic began.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday, the latest in a series of rallies in response what many said has become a troubling surge of anti-Asian sentiments.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Pence led the coronavirus task force only to be constantly overruled by the White House. Al Gore’s efforts to “reinvent government” were largely forgotten during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Dan Quayle’s revamping of space policy never got much notice to begin with.

(AP) --- Partisan takeovers of election boards. Threats to fine county election officials and overturn results. Even bans on giving water to voters while they stand in line.

In addition to their nationwide efforts to limit access to the ballot, Republican lawmakers in some states are moving to gain greater control over the local mechanics of elections, from voter registration all the way to certifying results.

(AP) --- Richard Wallace had seen it all before, and he wasn’t hopeful.

It was, he thought, the same old story: Police kill a Black person, protests erupt, politicians pledge reforms and corporations offer platitudes about supporting needed change. But Wallace, the 38-year-old founder and executive director of Equity and Transformation, a social and economic justice advocacy group in Chicago, came to realize that this time was different.

HOUSTON (AP) — The Biden administration is not requiring FBI fingerprint background checks of caregivers at its rapidly expanding network of emergency sites to hold thousands of immigrant teenagers, alarming child welfare experts who say the waiver compromises safety.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 27 (APP): Pakistan has called for enhancing the capabilities of United Nations (UN) peacekeepers deployed in hotspots around the world to enable them counter the threat posed by improvised explosive devises (IEDs) as they work to maintain global peace and security amid a recent spike in casualties among ‘blue-helmets.’

UN, March 27. /TASS/: The UN Security Council will meet on Tuesday, March 30, for an extraordinary closed consultation over Pyongyang's missile launches, a diplomatic source in the Security Council told TASS on Friday.

According to the source, the discussion was requested by France on behalf of the European members of the Council (France, Great Britain, Estonia, Ireland, Norway). It is expected that it will be held on Tuesday in a closed format, the source said.

UNITED NATIONS, March 26 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday announced the appointment of Annadif Khatir Mahamat Saleh of Chad as his new Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS).

Mahamat Saleh succeeds Mohamed Ibn Chambas of Ghana, to whom the secretary-general is grateful for his dedicated service and effective leadership at the helm of UNOWAS, according to a press note from the UN chief's office.