North America

UNITED NATIONS, June 30 (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council on Friday unanimously voted to end a decade-long peacekeeping mission in Mali after the West African country's military junta abruptly asked the 13,000-strong force to leave - a move the United States said was engineered by Russia's Wagner mercenary group.

NEW YORK, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The United States has witnessed five mass shootings each Independence Day on average over the past decade - more than on any other day of the year, reported USA Today on Thursday.

In that time, there have been more than 50 shootings in which four or more people were hit by gunfire on July Fourth, according to an analysis of Gun Violence Archive data by researcher James Alan Fox of Northeastern University in Boston.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United Nations’ scientific, educational and cultural organization has agreed to readmit the United States as a member.

UNESCO’s governing board voted 132-10 on Friday to accept the U.S. proposal to rejoin the Paris-based agency. America’s membership will become official once Secretary of State Antony Blinken or a designee formally accepts the invitation, according to Biden administration officials.

HAVANA (AP) — Elián González has the same big, expressive eyes he did 23 years ago when an international custody battle transformed him into the face of the long-strained relations between Cuba and the United States.

Now 29, González is stepping into Cuban politics. He recently entered his country’s congress with hopes of helping his people at a time of record emigration and heightened tension between the two seaside neighbors.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation index that is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve tumbled last month to its lowest level since April 2021, pulled down by lower gas prices and slower-rising food costs.

At the same time, consumers barely increased their spending last month, boosting it just 0.1%, after a solid 0.6% gain in April.

The inflation index showed that prices rose 3.8% in May from 12 months earlier, down sharply from a 4.4% year-over-year surge in April. And from April to May, prices ticked up just 0.1%.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, are scheduled to speak Friday at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a group that has fiercely opposed instruction related to race and gender identity in the nation’s classroom.

UNITED NATIONS, June 29. /TASS/: The funds that the UN has raised so far this year to help the people in need across the globe make up just 20% of the amount that the US and its allies spent on weapons for Ukraine, Russia’s envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said on Thursday.

OTTAWA, June 29 (Reuters) - Google will remove links to Canadian news from search results and other products in Canada when a law requiring internet giants to pay news publishers comes into effect, the Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O) company said on Thursday.

Google joins Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) in announcing an end to news access for Canadian users of their platforms after Bill C-18, or the Online News Act, was passed into law last week. The law is expected to come into effect in six months.

CHICAGO, June 29 (Reuters) - Murky, dull skies loomed over tens of millions of Americans on Thursday as smoke from prolonged Canadian wildfires drifted across the Midwest and East, causing unhealthy and, in some spots, dangerous conditions.

Air-quality alerts were in effect until midnight for a swath of the United States that extended from Wisconsin and northern Illinois stretching through Michigan and Ohio and extending into New York, Washington and the East Coast, the National Weather Service said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A U.N. human rights expert said Wednesday that a specialized international force is needed to help fight gang violence in Haiti and that a weapons embargo should be implemented immediately.

William O’Neill, who was appointed expert on human rights in Haiti in April, spoke at the end of a 10-day trip during which he met with civil society leaders, government officials and victims of gang violence.