North America

WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. military on Tuesday called on Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation of allegations in a Reuters report that the Nigerian army killed children in its fight against insurgents.

"The Department of Defense is concerned by the allegations reported in the Reuters article, and we join our colleagues from the State Department in urging the Government of Nigeria to conduct an independent investigation," a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With dozens of African leaders descending on Washington this week, the Biden administration is offering a not-so-subtle pitch in its economic competition with China on the continent: The U.S. offers a better option to African partners.

Ahead of Tuesday’s start of the three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves acknowledged that the U.S. has fallen behind as China has surged past American foreign direct investment in Africa but argued that the U.S. remains the “partner of choice” in Africa.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Much of the central United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Midwest was braced Tuesday for blizzard-like conditions, while states farther to the south were warned of the risk of flash flooding and tornadoes from a massive storm blowing across the country.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — They would have been 16 or 17 this year. High school juniors.

The children killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012 should have spent this year thinking about college, taking their SATs and getting their driver’s licenses. Maybe attending their first prom.

Instead, the families of the 20 students and six educators slain in the mass shooting will mark a decade without them Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was set to announce a “major scientific breakthrough” Tuesday in the decades-long quest to harness fusion, the energy that powers the sun and stars.

NEW YORK (AP) — The former CEO of failed cryptocurrency firm FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has been arrested in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government, U.S. and Bahamian authorities said Monday.

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress faces a Friday deadline to fund the federal government, as Democrats and Republicans bicker over the details of an expected roughly $1.5 trillion funding bill in the final weeks that Democrats control both the House and Senate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The body and possessions of soccer journalist Grant Wahl were repatriated to the United States on Monday after his death last week while covering the World Cup in Qatar, a senior State Department official said.

The official said Wahl’s remains and his belongings arrived at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport around 8:30 a.m. ET. They were accompanied by a consular official from the U.S. Embassy in Doha who had had custody of Wahl’s remains since shortly after he collapsed during Friday’s match between Argentina and the Netherlands and later died.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Libyan intelligence official accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 in an international act of terrorism has been taken into U.S. custody and will face federal charges in Washington, the Justice Department said Sunday.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador loves big projects and hates to leave them unfinished, but that is likely what he will do when he leaves office late in 2024.

The president pledges his big construction projects will be done by then. But one — a tourist train line in the Yucatan peninsula — will have to be jacked up on stilts for 50 miles to run over some of the most fragile and environmentally sensitive geography in the world.