North America

HAVANA, Dec 21 (NNN-ACN) — During the Second Ordinary Session of Parliament and with Army General Raúl Castro Ruz and President Miguel Díaz-Canel present, Alejandro Gil Fernandez, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, remarked that the 3% GDP growth for 2023 proved to be an impossible target due to the lack of foreign currency and fuel.

MEXICO CITY, Dec 21 (NNN-XINHUA) — Hurricane Otis has killed 52 and left 32 missing in Mexico, Governor of Guerrero state, Evelyn Salgado, said.

The category 5 hurricane hit Mexico’s southern Pacific coast on Oct. 25, inflicting severe damage to hotels and housing infrastructure of Acapulco and Coyuca de Benitez.

Salgado said during a press conference from Acapulco that the tourist reactivation of the well-known seaside resort is fundamental after almost two months.

WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — According to a report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released Tuesday, Brazil is now the ninth-largest economy in the world, thus displacing Canada from that position.

 “They don’t know the work you have to do to be so lucky,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva posted on social networks after receiving the news. In 2020, under then-President Jair Bolsonaro, the South American country had fallen to 12th place.

WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he senses a change in India's tone with Ottawa after the United States warned New Delhi about its involvement in a thwarted plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader on U.S. soil, the CBC reported on Wednesday.

"I think there is a beginning of an understanding that they can't bluster their way through this and there is an openness to collaborating in a way that perhaps they were less open before," Trudeau said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Dec 21 (Reuters) - Social media platform X and X Pro suffered outages globally early Thursday, according to Downdetector.com.

Users on X, formerly known as Twitter, were unable to view posts on the social media site with a message that said "Welcome to X!"

Users encountered loading issues on X Pro, formerly TweetDeck, with a message that said "Waiting for posts."

Over 47,000 U.S. users faced access issues with X and X Pro, according to Downdetector data.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources including users.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States, key allies and Arab nations engaged in high-level diplomacy in hopes of avoiding another U.S. veto of a new U.N. resolution on desperately needed aid to Gaza ahead of a long-delayed vote now scheduled for Thursday morning.

The U.S. has been struggling to change the text’s references to a cessation of hostilities in the Israel-Hamas war. Another sticking point is the inspection of aid trucks into Gaza to ensure they are only carrying humanitarian goods. The current draft proposes a U.N. role, an idea Israel is likely to oppose.

BOSTON (AP) — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu issued a formal apology Wednesday to two Black men who were wrongly accused in a 1989 murder of a white woman, a case that coarsened divisions in a city long split along racial lines and renewed suspicion and anger directed at the police department by the city’s Black community.

“I am so sorry for what you endured,” the mayor said during a news conference. “I am so sorry for the pain that you have carried for so many years.”

MILWAUKEE (AP) — President Joe Biden touted his administration’s support for minority-owned businesses and the replacement of lead pipes during a visit here on Wednesday while also swiping at Donald Trump’s rhetoric toward migrants and his ongoing lies about his election loss.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Returning convicted defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis to U.S. custody as part of the Venezuelan prisoner swap on Wednesday is the latest twist in a decade-long salacious saga and bribery scheme that swept up dozens of American Navy officers.

MIAMI (AP) — The United States freed a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for the release of 10 Americans imprisoned in the South American country and the return of a fugitive defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard” who is at the center of a massive Pentagon bribery scandal, the Biden administration announced Wednesday.

The American detainees were back on U.S. soil late Wednesday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. Six of them arrived at Kelly Airfield Annex in San Antonio.