USA

(AP) --- Democrats have seized on new voting restrictions in Georgia to focus attention on the fight to overhaul federal election laws, setting up a slow-building standoff that carries echoes of the civil rights battles of a half-century ago.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26 (APP): US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced Thursday that Washington will send $15 million in coronavirus-related humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The package will be the first such funds transferred under the Biden administration, which has vowed to restore financial assistance to the Palestinians that was cutoff almost entirely by former president Donald Trump.

UNITED NATIONS, March 26 (NNN-Xinhua) — Washington will “re-open diplomatic channels of communication” with Palestine that has been cut off under the previous Donald Trump administration, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council.

“Since January, our diplomatic engagement has been guided by the premise that sustainable progress toward peace must be based on active consultations with both sides,” Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council video-conference briefing on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -More than 500 rape cases have been reported to five clinics in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the United Nations said on Thursday, warning that the actual numbers were likely to be much higher due to stigma and a lack of health services.

“Women say they have been raped by armed actors, they also told stories of gang rape, rape in front of family members and men being forced to rape their own family members under the threat of violence,” Wafaa Said, deputy U.N. aid coordinator in Ethiopia, said in a briefing to U.N. member states in New York.

BOULDER, the United States, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The 21-year-old lone suspect in Monday's mass shooting at a Boulder grocery store appeared in court for the first time Thursday.

A defense attorney immediately asked that the suspect, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, receive a mental health evaluation before the case proceeds, according to media reports.

Seoul, Mar 26 (AP-PTI) North Korea on Friday confirmed it had tested a new guided missile, as President Joe Biden warned of consequences if Pyongyang escalates tensions amid stalled nuclear negotiations.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the two new-type tactical guided projectiles accurately hit the target off the eastern coast on Thursday. Photos on the website of the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed a missile lifting off from a transport erector launcher amid bright flames.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri authorities say they believe that human remains first spotted by someone out walking in a state park Thursday afternoon are the body of a Chinese woman who has been missing since October 2019.

The skeletal remains, some clothing, a driver’s license and some credit cards with Mengqi Ji Elledge’s name on them were found in a remote area of Rock Bridge State Park in Boone County. Columbia Mayor Brian Treece and Columbia Police Chief Geoff Jones announced the findings Thursday evening.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will take steps to more quickly move hundreds of migrant children and teens out of cramped detention facilities along the Southwest border, President Joe Biden said Thursday. He was pushing back against suggestions that his administration’s policies are responsible for the rising number of people seeking to enter the country.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — As Texas legislators gather in person Friday to consider sweeping changes to who in the nation’s second-largest state can cast a ballot and how, some voters say the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is forcing them to choose between their health and their right to be heard by their government.

So they are staying away from the Capitol.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday defended some of his supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, saying they posed “zero threat” to the lawmakers who had assembled there to certify the Electoral College vote that confirmed Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race.

Trump complained to Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham that law enforcement was “persecuting” the Capitol rioters, while “nothing happens” to left-wing protesters.

Trump did acknowledge that those who stormed the Capitol “went in and they shouldn’t have done it.”