North America

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday said his administration is writing new rules that will require airlines to compensate passengers with cash for significant flight delays or cancellations when the carriers are responsible.

"Our top priority has been to get American air travelers a better deal," Biden said.

It is the latest in a series of moves by the Biden administration to crack down on airlines and bolster passenger consumer protections for domestic U.S. flights and international flights involving an American destination or origin.

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee threatened Secretary of State Antony Blinken with contempt of Congress if he does not comply with a subpoena seeking a classified cable related to the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In a letter to Blinken dated Friday and released on Monday, Representative Michael McCaul said information that has been provided about a "dissent channel" cable sent in July 2021 and the department's response to the cable were insufficient to satisfy the committee.

NEW YORK, May 8 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's lawyer on Monday called a rape and defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll against the former U.S. president an affront to the justice system.

During closing arguments in a civil trial in Manhattan federal court, the lawyer Joseph Tacopina urged jurors to set aside any opinions they might have about Trump and reject what the lawyer called Carroll's effort to "profit" from what he called a false story.

NEW YORK, May 7 (Xinhua) -- On May 1, a 24-year-old white veteran of the Marine Corps named Daniel Penny choked black man Jordan Neely to death on a New York City subway train. Penny wasn't charged, resulting in protests to demand justice for the victim. Political voices have surfaced, calling for more protections for those socially sidelined.

Neely's brutal death has become a wedge dividing the city, even the country, along long-simmering fault lines between people of different races and political views.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, plan to welcome the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball champions to the White House later this month.

The University of Connecticut Huskies men’s team beat San Diego State 76-59 in April to secure its fifth national title. The Louisiana State University Tigers women’s team won its first championship by beating the University of Iowa 102-85.

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Fire crews battled wildfires threatening communities in western Canada on Sunday as cooler temperatures and a bit of rain brought some relief, but officials warned the reprieve came only in some areas.

Officials in Alberta said there were 108 active fires in the province and the number of evacuees grew to about 29,000, up from approximately 24,000 Saturday, when a provincewide state of emergency was declared.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States’ top international development chief, Samantha Power, is heading to Serbia and Kosovo this week to meet with leaders there, as U.S. and European leaders work to stabilize relations between those two former wartime enemies at a time of heightened tensions.

Power becomes the first head of the U.S. Agency for International Development to travel to Serbia, which maintains close historical and cultural ties with Russia.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — As schools across the country struggle to find teachers to hire, more governors are pushing for pay increases, bonuses and other perks for the beleaguered profession — with some vowing to beat out other states competing for educators.

Already in 2023, governors in Georgia and Arkansas have pushed through teacher pay increases. Ahead of Monday’s start of national Teacher Appreciation Week, others — both Republican and Democratic — have proposed doing the same to attract and retain educators.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Police are preparing to arrest the hospitalized driver of an SUV that slammed into a crowd, killing eight people waiting for a bus Sunday outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas. At least 10 others were injured, authorities said.

ALLEN, Texas (AP) — Federal officials are looking into whether the gunman who killed eight people at a Dallas-area mall expressed an interest in white supremacist ideology Sunday as they work to discern a motive for the attack, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official cautioned the investigation is in its early stages.