USA

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas officials on Thursday raised the death toll from February’s winter storm and blackouts to at least 111 people — nearly doubling the state’s initial tally following one of the worst power outages in U.S. history.

The frigid weather also was blamed for dozens of more deaths across other Southern states including Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama.

(AP) --- A string of deadly tornadoes roared through Alabama on Thursday, toppling trees, demolishing homes and knocking out power to thousands, part of a broad swath of violent weather sweeping across the Deep South. At least five fatalities and an unknown number of injuries were reported.

The confirmed deaths were in Calhoun County, in the eastern part of the state, where one of multiple twisters sprang from a “super cell” of storms that later moved into Georgia, said John De Block, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp drew protests Thursday as he signed into law a sweeping Republican-sponsored overhaul of state elections that includes new restrictions on voting by mail and greater legislative control over how elections are run.

Democrats and voting rights groups say the law will disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color. It is one of a wave of GOP-backed election bills introduced in states around the country after former President Donald Trump stoked false claims that fraud led to his 2020 election defeat.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden at his first news conference Thursday left the door open to backing fundamental changes in Senate procedure to muscle key parts of his agenda like immigration and voting rights past Republican opposition “if there’s complete lockdown and chaos.”

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 (APP): A UN human rights expert has called on the international community to hold an “emergency” summit of all the stakeholders in Myanmar, including the parliamentarians, who were democratically elected prior to February’s military coup.

Tom Andrews, the Special Rapporteur investigating human rights in Myanmar, in a statement on Thursday warned that the “pace and scope” of the international response to the military coup in the southeast Asian nation “is falling short of what is required to head off a deepening crisis”.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any changes to current Federal Reserve policy will come “gradually and with great transparency” and only after the economy has more fully healed, Fed chair Jerome Powell said on Thursday.

“As we make substantial further progress towards our goals we will gradually roll back,” the $120 billion monthly bond purchases the Fed currently makes, Powell said in an interview on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Rate increases would only be considered “when the economy is all but fully recovered.”

(Reuters) - Crude oil producers from Europe, Africa and the United States faced difficulties selling to Asia, especially China, as buyers took cheaper oil from storage while refinery maintenance has reduced demand, industry sources said on Thursday.

Chinese independent refiners, which account for a fifth of the country’s imports, have slowed imports in the second quarter because of refinery maintenance, strong Brent prices and a large influx of supplies, including Iranian oil, in first quarter.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Wednesday announced new efforts to advance public safety in the city and provide targeted support to members of San Francisco's Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community.

The first effort is an expanded community safety teams program that will provide outreach, support, and engagement in key neighborhood corridors throughout the city. The second is the extension of a program to accompany seniors to medical and personal appointments, the announcement said.

NEW YORK, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 30 million on Wednesday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

U.S. COVID-19 case count rose to 30,001,245, with a total of 545,053 deaths, as of 6:27 p.m. local time (2227 GMT), according to the CSSE tally.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is warning that the country’s infrastructure needs exceed $1 trillion and that other countries, namely China, are pulling ahead of the U.S. with their public works investments, a scenario he describes as “a threat to our collective future.”