USA

WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on the African Union and other international partners to help address a deepening crisis in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region as he condemned alleged atrocities in fighting there.

Blinken’s statement suggested growing frustration with the response so far from Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea to what America’s top diplomat described as a “worsening humanitarian crisis.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Myanmar’s United Nations envoy in New York vowed to fight on Saturday after the junta fired him for urging countries to use “any means necessary” to reverse a Feb. 1 coup that ousted the nation’s elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“I decided to fight back as long as I can,” Kyaw Moe Tun told Reuters on Saturday.

Myanmar state television announced on Saturday that Kyaw Moe Tun had been fired for betraying the country.

27 Feb 2021; MEMO: Following remarks that the US would continue its support for Saudi Arabia to defend itself, a group of 41 progressive lawmakers have sent a letter to US President Joe Biden asking him to clarify his pledge to halt US support for Saudi "offensive operations" in Yemen.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Saturday said his administration would make an announcement on Saudi Arabia on Monday, following a U.S. intelligence report that found Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Biden administration has faced some criticism, notably an editorial in the Washington Post, that the president should have been tougher on the crown prince, who was not sanctioned despite being blamed for approving Khashoggi’s murder.

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is expected to ask President Joe Biden to consider sharing part of the U.S. coronavirus vaccine supply with its poorer southern neighbor when the two leaders hold a virtual summit on Monday, U.S. and Mexican officials said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities are investigating a vandalism and fire at a Buddhist temple in the Little Tokyo section of downtown Los Angeles.

Surveillance video caught a man jumping the security fences at the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple on Thursday night, smashing a 12-foot-high glass window with a rock, yanking a pair of metallic lanterns off their concrete bases and lighting two wooden lantern stands on fire, the temple’s head priest told the Los Angeles Times.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Friday approved a $650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users.

U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illlinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in Illinois who submitted claims will be affected.

Donato called it one of the largest settlements ever for a privacy violation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — On a cold, gray February afternoon, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stepped out of the West Wing wrapped in a puffy black parka and clutching a folder of documents, seemingly oblivious to the Washington custom of having an aide schlep the paperwork.

Viewed as an outsider to partisan politics, she now has a place in President Joe Biden’s inner sanctum, a Ph.D. economist who does the reading, knows the numbers and treats her staff as peers rather than underlings.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — As many as 10 death row inmates in Oklahoma, more than one-fifth of the state’s prisoners condemned to die, could escape execution because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling concerning criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country.

(AP) --- The “Trump-made-me-do-it” defense is already looking like a longshot.

Facing damning evidence in the deadly Capitol siege last month — including social media posts flaunting their actions — rioters are arguing in court they were following then-President Donald Trump’s instructions on Jan. 6. But the legal strategy has already been shot down by at least one judge and experts believe the argument is not likely to get anyone off the hook for the insurrection where five people died, including a police officer.