USA

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John McAfee, the antivirus software pioneer whose former company still bears his name, has been indicted on fraud and money-laundering conspiracy charges stemming from two cryptocurrency schemes, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.

Authorities accused McAfee and his bodyguard, Jimmy Gale Watson Jr., of exploiting McAfee’s large Twitter following to artificially inflate prices of “altcoins” through a so-called pump-and-dump scheme, and concealing payments McAfee received from startup businesses to promote initial coin offerings.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia has long proclaimed itself “Almost Heaven,” a nod to a song and soaring mountaintop vistas. Now some joke the state name-checked in “Take Me Home, Country Roads” could take things up a notch as Democratic U.S. Sen Joe Manchin bargains his way through Congress.

“Maybe we’ll get to heaven status,” said longtime Democratic Party official Nick Casey.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Friday ordered a judge to reconsider adding a third-degree murder charge against a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death, handing a potential victory to prosecutors, but setting up a possible delay to a trial set to start next week.

NEW YORK (AP) — With Merrick Garland poised to be confirmed as attorney general as early as next week, one of the first major questions he is likely to encounter is what to do about Rudy Giuliani.

A federal probe into the overseas and business dealings of the former New York City mayor and close ally of former President Donald Trump stalled last year over a dispute over investigative tactics as Trump unsuccessfully sought reelection and amid Giuliani’s prominent role in subsequently disputing the results of the contest on Trump’s behalf.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Friday that despite the strong job gains last month, Congress still needs to “go big” by passing President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package to get millions of people back to work sooner.

In an interview with the PBS NewsHour on Friday, Yellen said Biden’s package should not be trimmed just because the February jobs report showed 379,000 new jobs had been created, the best showing since October.

HOUSTON (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities will no longer use a small Pennsylvania detention center to hold parents and children seeking asylum, part of a broader shift by President Joe Biden’s administration to reduce the use of family detention.

In a court filing Friday, the U.S. government said it had released all families detained at the 96-bed Berks County family detention center in Leesport, Pennsylvania. The detention center will instead be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold adults, the government said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 21 feet on the odometer in its first test drive.

The Perseverance rover ventured from its landing position Thursday, two weeks after setting down on the red planet to seek signs of past life.

The roundabout, back and forth drive lasted just 33 minutes and went so well that more driving was on tap Friday and Saturday for the the six-wheeled rover.

WASHINGTON (AP) — No news conference. No Oval Office address. No primetime speech to a joint session of Congress.

President Joe Biden is the first executive in four decades to reach this point in his term without holding a formal question and answer session. It reflects a White House media strategy meant both to reserve major media set-pieces for the celebration of a legislative victory and to limit unforced errors from a historically gaffe-prone politician.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders and moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin struck a deal late Friday over emergency jobless benefits, breaking a nine-hour logjam that had stalled the party’s showpiece $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

The compromise, announced by the West Virginia lawmaker and a Democratic aide, seemed to clear the way for the Senate to begin a climactic, marathon series of votes and, eventually, approval of the sweeping legislation.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 05 (APP): The Food Waste Index Report 2021, conducted by U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with WRAP, a British nonprofit that works to reduce global waste, found that 931 million metric tons (1.03 billion tons) of food were wasted by households, retailers and restaurants throughout the year.

Approximately 17% of food produced and sold around the globe in 2019 ended up in waste bins, according to a new United Nations report.