North America

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 06 (APP): The United Nations Thursday denounced as “despicable” the gun-and-grenade attack on a police van guarding polio workers in Dera Ismail Khan, a district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in which five policemen were reportedly injured.

WASHINGTON, January 6. /TASS/: The "defensive nature" of weapons handed over to Kiev by Washington has not been at issue long since, Russian Ambassador in the US Anatoly Antonov said.

The decision of the US administration to transfer Bradley fighting vehicles to Ukraine is "a confirmation that our interlocutors in the United States have not even tried to listen to our numerous calls to take into account possible consequences of such a dangerous course by Washington," the Ambassador noted, cited by the press service of the Russian diplomatic mission.

Jan 5 (Reuters) - The Kilauea  volcano in Hawaii began erupting on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Service's volcanic activity notice said, after detecting a glow in the summit producing smog that is confined within the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

The  volcano alert level was raised to 'Red' after an evaluation of the eruption and associated hazards, the notice said.

USGS said the volcanic gas, which consists of sulphur dioxide and other gases, could produce a visible haze of volcanic smog, known as 'vog', which has been observed in the downwind of Kilauea.

LONDON/WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - A Russian hacking team known as Cold River targeted three nuclear research laboratories in the United States this past summer, according to internet records reviewed by Reuters and five cyber security experts.

Jan 6 (Reuters) - TikTok has put on hold a hiring process for consultants that would help it implement a potential security agreement with the United States, two people familiar with the matter said, as opposition to such a deal among U.S. officials grows.

The short-video app, which is owned by Chinese technology conglomerate ByteDance, has been seeking to assure Washington for the last three years that the personal data of U.S. citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China's Communist Party or any other entity under Beijing's influence.

WASHINGTON, Jan 5 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden said on Thursday the U.S. economy was seeing "really bright spots" after a rough few years, and was headed to a "new plateau," a new term for the stable, slower growth White House officials see ahead.

While investors, many economists and some CEOs have warned recently that a U.S. recession is due in 2023, the Biden administration considers it unlikely, in part because of federal spending.

MEXICO CITY, Jan 5 (Reuters) - "That's an attack plane, Dad," said one of David Tellez's young children as they spotted Mexican military aircraft touching down alongside their Aeromexico passenger plane early on Thursday.

Then the gunfire began.

"As we were accelerating for take-off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane, and that's when we all threw ourselves to the floor," Tellez said after the incident in the northern city of Culiacan.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted to adjourn until noon on Friday with no speaker elected on Thursday after 11 rounds of voting.

U.S. Congressman Kevin McCarthy from California, the House Republican leader, fell short of the necessary votes to take the gavel in five more rounds of voting Thursday afternoon.

The House has voted 11 times since the 118th Congress convened on Tuesday, making it the longest speaker contest in 164 years.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- There is no alternative to dialogue and negotiation in resolving the Syrian chemical weapons issue, said a Chinese envoy on Thursday.

The Syrian government and the Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should strengthen engagement and communication, and meet each other half-way to settle outstanding issues promptly, said Minister-Counselor Sun Zhiqiang of the Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are opening mostly higher on Wall Street and Treasury yields are falling on hopes that the nation’s high inflation will keep cooling after a mixed report on the job market showed that gains for workers’ pay unexpectedly slowed last month. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% early Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq slipped 0.2%. The government reported wages for workers across the country rose 4.6% in December from a year earlier, the smallest increase since two summers ago.