North America

SAYREVILLE, N.J. (AP) — Nicole Teliano used to play games on her phone in the mayor’s office while her mother worked down the hall several evenings a month, tending to the tedious, often acrimonious task of serving in local government.

The 11-year-old girl didn’t mind sharing her mother, Sayreville Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour, with the nearly 50,000 residents of the central New Jersey town, the young people she nurtured as a pastor of a prosperity gospel church in Newark or the Nigerian church colleague she married in a festive ceremony in Abuja in November.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence testified Thursday before a federal grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to a person familiar with the matter.

27 Apr 2023; MEMO: Kuwait on Tuesday called on the international community, including the UN Security Council, to condemn the Israeli occupation and the increasing attacks against Palestinian civilians.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 27 (APP):Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, handed over the chairmanship of the OIC Group in New York to his Mauritanian counterpart, Sidi Mohamed Laghdaf, at a simple ceremony on Thursday.

In brief remarks, Ambassador Munir congratulated Mauritania on the very successful 49th Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers held in Nouakchott, Mauritania, in March 2023.

HAVANA, April 27 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Cuban authorities had to cancel the traditional May 1 Labor Day Revolution Square parade due to the shortage of fuel, it was announced Tuesday.

Smaller events will be staged instead in “communities, labor, and student centers for several days and parades in the country’s municipalities,” it was explained. The main event will take place in Havana’s Malecon.

This is the first time since the 1959 revolution that the May 1 parade is suspended for economic reasons. In 2020 and 2021 the celebration was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

April 27 (Reuters) - Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman in international waters on Thursday, the U.S. Navy said, the latest in a series of seizures or attacks on commercial vessels in sensitive Gulf waters since 2019.

Iran's army said it had seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman after it collided with an Iranian boat, injuring several crewmen, Iranian state media reported.

WASHINGTON, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate slowed down to 1.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, the U.S. Department of Commerce said in a statement on Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Gap is laying off 1,800 corporate workers, roughly three time the number of headquarters jobs it cut last fall, as the struggling chain cuts costs in a bid to become more nimble.

More layoffs at the struggling chain follow similar cuts at large U.S. corporations this year, such as Amazon and McDonald’s, with white collar workers taking the brunt of the head count reductions as economy slows.

NEW YORK (AP) — Tucker Carlson emerged Wednesday, two days after Fox News fired him, with a two-minute, campaign-style monologue that didn’t address why he suddenly became unemployed.

He posted a video on Twitter shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern, the time his Fox show used to begin, that talked about a lack of honest political debate in the media.

Carlson said one of the things he noticed, “when you step away from the noise for a few days,” is how nice some people are, and how hilarious some are.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. cigarette smoking dropped to another all-time low last year, with 1 in 9 adults saying they were current smokers, according to government survey data released Thursday. Meanwhile, electronic cigarette use rose, to about 1 in 17 adults.

The preliminary findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are based on survey responses from more than 27,000 adults.

Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and it’s long been considered the leading cause of preventable death.