USA

NEW YORK (AP) — Acquitted by the Senate of inciting last month’s U.S. Capitol insurrection, former President Donald Trump faces more fallout from the unrest, including a lawsuit from a congressman Tuesday. But his biggest legal problems might be the ones that go much further back.

In one of what is expected to be many lawsuits over the deadly riot, Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson accused Trump of conspiring with far-right extremist groups that were involved in storming the Capitol.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration faces a conundrum as it rethinks the positioning of military forces around the world: How to focus more on China and Russia without retreating from longstanding Mideast threats — and to make this shift with potentially leaner Pentagon budgets.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a monthslong “global posture” review just days after taking office. It will assess how the United States can best arrange and support its far-flung network of troops, weapons, bases and alliances to buttress President Joe Biden’s foreign policy.

WASHINGTON (AP) — ATTN DESK: CAN BE ILLUSTRATED WITH FILE ART OF WHITE HOUSE COVID COORDINATOR JEFF ZIENTS.

U.S. scientists would gain vastly expanded capabilities to identify potentially deadlier mutations of the coronavirus under COVID-19 relief legislation advancing in Congress.

The U.S. now maps only the genetic makeup of a minuscule fraction of positive virus samples, a situation some experts liken to flying blind. It means the true domestic spread of problematic mutations first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa remains a matter of guesswork.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — President Joe Biden is promising a majority of elementary schools will be open five days a week by the end of his first 100 days in office, restating his goal after his administration came under fire when aides said schools would be considered open if they held in-person learning just one day a week.

OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. (AP) — A winter storm that left millions without power in record-breaking cold weather claimed more lives, including three people found dead after a tornado hit a seaside town in North Carolina and four family members who perished in a Houston-area house fire while using a fireplace to stay warm.

The storm that overwhelmed power grids and immobilized the Southern Plains on Tuesday carried heavy snow and freezing rain into New England and the Deep South and left behind painfully low temperatures. Wind-chill warnings extended from Canada into Mexico.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 15 (APP): Sixty-five journalists, media professionals and human rights defenders were killed in Afghanistan between January 1, 2018 and January 31, 2021, with 11 losing their lives since the start of peace negotiations last September, the United Nations Mission in Kabul said Monday.

“This trend, combined with the absence of claims of responsibility, has generated a climate of fear among the population”, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in statement, announcing the findings from its latest report.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 16 (APP): Noting that UN peacekeeping operations are currently not in a position to resolve conflicts, insurgencies and cross-border attacks, Pakistan Monday underscored the need for the Security Council to utilize its mechanisms to promote political solutions for establishing peace in troubled regions.

WASHINGTON, Feb 16 (NNN-TELESUR) — The US National Security Council Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Gonzalez stated that President Joe Biden pledges to lift the limit on remittances to Cuba and resume direct flights between the two countries.

One of Biden’s campaign promises was to transform Donald Trump’s foreign policy towards Cuba, which only made families’ lives more difficult amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Reuters) - Accused by the Trump administration of being a front for the Chinese government, TikTok’s ad business looked bleak last July.

Big brands backed off on spending even as TikTok executives offered refunds to advertisers in the event the hot social media platform were to be banned from operating in the United States.

But after it became clear Joe Biden had won November’s U.S presidential election, that all changed.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday announced plans for establishing an independent "9/11-type commission" to investigate the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, two days after former President Donald Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial by the evenly split Senate.