North America

NEW YORK, July 23. /TASS/: The cost of a barrel of Russia's Urals oil has exceeded the price cap set at $60 in recent days, which indicates that Russia has won the battle for influence on the world oil markets, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing calculations of commodities-data firm Argus Media.

July 23 (Reuters) - Canada's East Coast province of Nova Scotia began cleaning up on Sunday after torrential rainfall caused devastating floods, while the search continued for four people including two children who went missing during the deluge.

The storm, which started on Friday, in some places dumped more than 25 cm (10 inches) in just 24 hours - as much as normally falls in three months. CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddon said it was the most rain to hit the provincial capital Halifax since Hurricane Beth in 1971.

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that while Ukraine has recaptured half the territory that Russia initially seized in its invasion, Kyiv faced "a very hard fight" to win back more.

"It's already taken back about 50% of what was initially seized," Blinken said in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

"These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive. It is tough," he said, adding: "It will not play out over the next week or two. We're still looking I think at several months."

HAVANA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Saturday denounced the U.S. embargo's damage to the island's economy.

Addressing legislators at Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power in Havana, he said that the U.S. embargo is an external factor that harms the economic development of the Caribbean nation.

"This huge external factor gravitates against the country's development," he said, adding that capitalism has increased inequality and exclusion worldwide.

DALLAS (AP) — As the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Fahima Sultani and her fellow university students tried for days to get into the Kabul airport, only to be turned away by gun-wielding extremists.

“No education, just go back home,” she recalled one shouting.

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk said Sunday that he plans to change the logo of Twitter to an “X” from the famous blue bird, marking what would be the latest big change since he bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year.

In a series of posts on his Twitter account starting just after 12 a.m. ET, Twitter’s owner said that he’s looking to make the change worldwide as soon as Monday.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk wrote on his account.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Republican state Sen. Jeremy England says he intentionally wore what he considers a “very embarrassing” Halloween costume to raise money for breast cancer research — a shiny pink bodysuit with a short pink skirt.

Now, England says a photo of him in the outfit has been misused, with a slur directed at him, in an increasingly divisive GOP primary as he supports Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann for reelection.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Standing at an Alabama Statehouse microphone before lawmakers voted on new congressional districts, state Rep. Chris England said that change in the Deep South state has often happened only through federal court order.

The Democratic lawmaker accused Republicans of repeating history and flouting a judicial mandate to create a second majority-Black district in the state or “something quite close to it.”

O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — In the national reckoning that followed the police killing of George Floyd three years ago, about 2,000 protesters took to the streets in a St. Louis suburb and urged the mostly white Francis Howell School District to address racial discrimination. The school board responded with a resolution promising to do better.

Now the board, led by new conservative board members elected since last year, has revoked that anti-racism resolution and copies of it will be removed from school buildings.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A deck collapsed at a Montana country club, leaving up to 25 people injured on Saturday evening, police and news reports said.

Emergency services responded to a report of a collapsed patio on the 3400 block of Briarwood Boulevard in Billings at 7:50 p.m., the Billings Police Department said in a statement posted on social media.

There were “multiple individuals with injuries” but no fatalities and a large number of people were transported to local hospitals, Billings Police Lt. Matt Lennick said in the statement.