North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. inflation likely slowed again last month in the latest sign that consumer price increases are becoming less of a burden on America’s households. But Tuesday’s report from the government may also suggest that further progress in taming inflation could be slow and “bumpy,” as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has described it.

Consumer prices are expected to have risen 6.2% in January from 12 months earlier, down from a 6.5% year-over-year surge in December. It would amount to the seventh straight slowdown.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico appeared to have backed down Monday on plans to ban imports of U.S. genetically modified corn for animal feed.

Mexico’s Economy Department said a new decree on the issue was published Monday that drops any date for substituting imports of GM feed corn. Some imported corn is also ground into meal for use in corn chips or other snacks.

After a previous decree, some U.S. growers worried a GM feed corn ban could happen as soon as 2024 or 2025. Mexico argued that GM corn could represent a health risk, but has presented no evidence so far.

13 Feb 2023; MEMO: Gulf countries have provided Arab states with $54 billion over the past five years to support them in facing challenges, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, said yesterday.

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A gunman who opened fire at Michigan State University killed three people and wounded five, setting off an hourslong manhunt as frightened students hid in classrooms and cars. The shooter eventually killed himself, police announced early Tuesday.

Officials do not know why the 43-year-old man, whose name was not immediately released, targeted the campus. He was not a student or employee and had no affiliation with the university, according to campus police.

13 Feb 2023; MEMO: Israel has "legalised" nine colonial outposts in the occupied West Bank, turning them into official settlements. The decision, which is said to be the first legalisation of such outposts by the Israeli government since 2012, has caused further irritation in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Monday defended the shootdowns of three unidentified objects in as many days even as it acknowledged that officials had no indication the objects were intended for surveillance in the same manner as the high-altitude Chinese balloon that traversed American airspace earlier this month.

14 Feb 2023; MEMO: The US Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem yesterday condemned the killing of a Palestinian by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank, calling for a "thorough and transparent investigation" into the incident.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 (APP): The World Health Organization (WHO), a Geneva-based UN agency, has launched a $43 million appeal to support earthquake response in Syria and Turkiye where the death toll has reportedly climbed to more than 33,000 people Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced.

The amount is set to increase as the magnitude of the disaster becomes clearer, he said, speaking during a press conference from the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to a UN press release issued at UN Headquarters in New York on Sunday afternoon.

WASHINGTON, February 13. /TASS/: Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg believes that the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine marked the expulsion of European nations from ‘the Garden of Eden’.

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - U.S. military fighter jets on Sunday shot down an octagonal object over Lake Huron, the Pentagon said, the latest incident since a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon put North American security forces on high alert.

It was the fourth flying object to be shot down over North America by a U.S. missile in a little more than a week. China's foreign ministry said it had no information on the latest three flying objects shot down by the United States.