USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Monday confirmed New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as interior secretary, making her the first Native American to lead a Cabinet department and the first to lead the federal agency that has wielded influence over the nation’s tribes for nearly two centuries.

Haaland was confirmed by a 51-40 vote, the narrowest margin yet for a Cabinet nomination by President Joe Biden. Four Republicans voted yes: Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials have arrested and charged two men with assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick with bear spray during the Jan. 6 riot, but they do not know yet whether it caused the officer’s death.

FRONT ROYAL, Va. (AP) — In this rural swath of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, former President Donald Trump remains deeply admired, with lawn signs and campaign flags still dotting the landscape. The vaccines aimed at taming the coronavirus, however, aren’t so popular.

Laura Biggs, a 56-year-old who has already recovered from the virus, is wary of taking the vaccine. Reassurances from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have done little to ease her alarm that the vaccine could lead to death.

DALLAS (AP) — The U.S. government plans to house up to 3,000 immigrant teenagers at a convention center in downtown Dallas as it struggles to find space for a surge of migrant children at the border who have strained the immigration system just two months into the Biden administration.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Joe Biden is joining top messengers already crisscrossing the country to highlight the benefits of his massive COVID-19 rescue plan, in his case by promoting aid for small businesses.

Biden is set to visit a small business in suburban Philadelphia on Tuesday, his initial trip outside Washington for the “Help is here” tour that got underway Monday. Vice President Kamala Harris dropped in on a COVID-19 vaccination site and a culinary academy in Las Vegas while first lady Jill Biden toured a New Jersey elementary school.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After President Joe Biden’s giant COVID-19 relief bill passed Congress, he made a prime-time address to the nation and presided over a Rose Garden ceremony.

But there wasn’t so much as a statement from the White House after the House passed legislation that would require background checks for gun purchases, a signature Democratic issue for decades.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After Amir Hekmati was released from Iranian custody in a 2016 deal trumpeted as a diplomatic breakthrough, he was declared eligible for $20 million in compensation from a special U.S. government fund.

But payday never arrived, leaving Hekmati to wonder why.

(Reuters) - Federal Reserve policymakers are expected this week to forecast that the U.S. economy will grow in 2021 at the fastest rate in decades, with unemployment falling and inflation rising, as the COVID-19 vaccination campaign gathers pace and a $1.9 trillion relief package washes through to households.

But investors who expect rosier projections to translate to any change in monetary policy when the U.S. central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee ends its two-day meeting on Wednesday will likely be disappointed.

WASHINGTON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States, and continues to deepen health disparities in the country, according to data of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Long-standing inequalities have increased the risk for severe COVID-19 illnesses and death for many Americans, causing disparities between racial and ethnic minority groups and non-Hispanic white people, according to the CDC.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — The highest ranking female firefighter in Asheville, North Carolina, says she was repeatedly discriminated against because of her sex and fought to keep her job while battling breast cancer. The first female chief of a municipal fire department in the state says she briefly pondered suicide after years of sexual harassment.

Joy Ponder and Susanna Schmitt Williams are among numerous female fighters in the United States who have filed lawsuits against their employers alleging they were subjected to demeaning behavior that helped end their careers.