North America

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Beyond the beating, kicking, cursing and pepper spraying, the video of Tyre Nichols’ deadly arrest at the hands of young Memphis police officers is just as notable for what’s missing — any experienced supervisors showing up to stop them.

That points to a dangerous confluence of trends that Memphis’ police chief acknowledged have dogged the department as the city became one of the nation’s murder hotspots: a chronic shortage of officers, especially supervisors, increasing numbers of police quitting and a struggle to bring in qualified recruits.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Monday that improvements ordered by President Joe Biden to strengthen defenses against Chinese espionage helped to identify last week’s spy balloon — and to determine that similar flights were conducted at multiple points during the Trump administration.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that after Biden took office, the U.S. “enhanced our surveillance of our territorial airspace, we enhanced our capacity to be able to detect things that the Trump administration was unable to detect.”

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (AP) — Crews released toxic chemicals into the air from five derailed tanker cars that were in danger of exploding Monday and began burning it after warning residents near the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line to leave immediately or face the possibility of death.

Flames and black smoke billowed high into the sky from the derailment site late in the afternoon, about an hour after authorities said the controlled release would begin.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, once a White House press secretary for President Donald Trump, is set to return to the national stage when she delivers the GOP response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

Sanders, 40, is giving the speech Tuesday night less than a month after being sworn in as the first female governor of Arkansas. The daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, she is also the first Arkansan to deliver the response to a president’s State of the Union since Bill Clinton as governor in 1985.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ready to offer a reassuring assessment of the nation’s condition rather than roll out flashy policy proposals as he delivers his second State of the Union address seeking to overcome pessimism in the country and concerns about his own leadership.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 6 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and US congressmen discussed security cooperation issues in Mexico City, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed.    

A press release indicates that the meeting with the legislators of the neighboring country was held at the Foreign Ministry headquarters where they also discussed border situation, reduction of arms and fentanyl trafficking, as well as the current migratory flows in the region.

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called on Democratic President Joe Biden to agree to compromises and spending cuts, as the two remain deadlocked over raising the nation's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling.

McCarthy spoke on Monday before Biden is set to give the annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, aiming to get ahead of the president and reinforce his role as the leading congressional negotiator.

Feb 6 (Reuters) - Crews in eastern Ohio conducted operations on Monday to drain and burn off an "unstable" toxic chemical cargo from five rail cars of a freight train that derailed in a fiery wreck three days earlier, prompting mass evacuations, authorities said.

The "controlled release" of pressurized vinyl chloride, a highly flammable and carcinogenic gas, began with a scheduled explosion, followed by continuous burning of the substance, said Sandy Mackey, a spokesperson for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday imposed a temporary security zone in waters off South Carolina during the military's search and recovery of debris from a suspected Chinese spy balloon that a U.S. fighter jet shot down.

The White House said the balloon's flight over the United States had done nothing to improve already tense relations with China and its national security spokesperson dismissed Beijing's contention that the balloon was for meteorological purposes as straining credulity.

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday said she saw a path for avoiding a U.S. recession, with inflation coming down significantly and the economy remaining strong, given the strength of the U.S. labor market.

"You don't have a recession when you have 500,000 jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years," Yellen told ABC's Good Morning America program.

"What I see is a path in which inflation is declining significantly and the economy is remaining strong."