North America

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - It was huge, expensive and top secret.

In the early 1970s the CIA built a gigantic ship called the Hughes Glomar Explorer to lift a sunken Soviet submarine from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, according to a declassified history by the U.S. intelligence agency.

But the elaborately woven CIA cover story - that the ship was built by Howard Hughes to mine manganese nodules from the ocean depths - began to unravel with a February 1975 Los Angeles Times story, eventually forcing the agency to abandon the project.

OTTAWA, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Canada's Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 4.3 percent year over year in March, following a 5.2 percent increase in February. This was the smallest increase since August 2021, Statistics Canada said Tuesday.

As a result of the steep monthly increase in prices in March 2022, base-year effects, notably gasoline prices, continued to have a strong downward impact on consumer inflation, contributing to the year-over-year deceleration in March 2023, the national statistical agency said.

UNITED NATIONS, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations has officially expressed to the United States the world body's concern over reported surveillance on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

"UN officially expressed to the host country its concern regarding recent reports that the communications of the secretary-general and other senior UN officials have been the subject of surveillance and interference by the U.S. government," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Guterres.

NEW YORK (AP) — A parking garage collapsed Tuesday in lower Manhattan’s Financial District, killing one worker, injuring five and crushing cars as concrete floors fell on top of each other like a stack of pancakes, officials said.

Vehicles tumbled into what looked like a frozen stream of sedans and SUVs. People nearby described a fearsome rumbling, followed by screams.

Ahmed Scott arrived to collect his car after work and found a disaster in the making.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Black teen Ralph Yarl was shot twice, in the head and arm, after going to the wrong home in Kansas City, Missouri, to pick up his younger brothers.

Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old white man, told police he fired at honors student Yarl, 16, out of fear last week. But whether Lester will ultimately claim self-defense in court has yet to be seen. The case raises anew questions about race relations in the United States.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election.

The stunning settlement emerged just as opening statements were supposed to begin, abruptly ending a case that had embarrassed Fox News over several months and raised the possibility that network founder Rupert Murdoch and stars such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity would have to testify publicly.

18 Apr 2023; MEMO: The US State Department has notified Congress of its approval of the sale to Turkiye of Link-16 tactical data link modernisation kits for F-16 jets, sources familiar with the matter said Monday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service declared on Tuesday that it is completing its first "normal" tax filing season since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, with a backlog of millions of unprocessed returns from previous years fully cleared.

New IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told reporters that the initial spending of $80 billion in new IRS funding helped purchase new scanning technology that has allowed paper returns to be digitized and quickly processed.

WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden, facing congressional resistance to his proposals, will announce more than 50 executive actions on Tuesday aimed at advancing free preschool and expanding care for children, older Americans and those with disabilities.

Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice said Biden would continue to press lawmakers to approve $750 billion in funding for those areas over 10 years as outlined in his 2024 budget.

NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) - U.S. federal agents arrested two New York residents for allegedly operating a Chinese "secret police station" in the Chinatown district of Manhattan on Monday in what prosecutors said was part of a crackdown on Beijing's alleged targeting of dissidents.

Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, face charges of conspiring to act as agents of China's government without informing U.S. authorities and obstruction of justice. They were released on bond following an initial appearance in Brooklyn federal court.