North America

HONOLULU (AP) — Scientists lowered the alert level for the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island from a warning to a watch on Saturday and said the mountain’s first eruption in nearly 40 years may soon end.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a bulletin that the eruption on the mountain’s northeast rift zone was continuing, but lava output and volcanic gas emissions were “greatly reduced.”

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its own private lander Sunday, blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket with the United Arab Emirates’ first lunar rover and a toylike robot from Japan that’s designed to roll around up there in the gray dust.

It will take nearly five months for the lander and its experiments to reach the moon.

New York, Dec 10 (PTI) Nihar Malaviya, an Indian-origin publishing executive, has been named interim CEO of New York-based international publishing group Penguin Random House after its current chief executive officer Markus Dohle announced he is stepping down from the role.

10 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkish media disclosed that the defence spending draft bill, which includes the budget of the US Department of Defence, witnessed $18,368 million worth of cuts from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia allocations.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — In response to rising hate speech and discrimination worldwide, UN Secretary-General (UNSG) António Guterres has urged countries to take concrete steps to protect minorities and other communities at risk of genocide.    

Guterres made the appeal in his message to mark the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, observed on Friday.

LONDON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Three people were killed and around a dozen others remain missing after an explosion early on Saturday morning at a block of flats on the island of Jersey, off the coast of northern France.

"We now have, I regret to say, three fatalities," Robin Smith, Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police, told a news conference.

The explosion occurred just before 0400 GMT and the fire has since been extinguished. Emergency services will continue to search for survivors through the night, Smith said.

WASHINGTON, Kan., Dec 10 (Reuters) - Residents near the site of the worst U.S. oil pipeline leak in a decade took the commotion and smell in stride as emergency crews labored to clean up in near-freezing temperatures, and investigators searched for clues to what caused the spill.

A heavy odor of oil hung in the air as tractor trailers ferried generators, lighting and ground mats to a muddy site on the outskirts of this farming community.

MONTREAL, Canada, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- A program calling for Asian cases of "nature-based solutions" was launched here on Friday at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

It was jointly launched by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development of China's Tsinghua University.

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- More than 25,000 people were hospitalized due to flu in the United States in the week ending Dec. 3, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Seasonal influenza activity remains high across the country, said the CDC.

There have been at least 13 million illnesses, 120,000 hospitalizations, and 7,300 deaths from flu so far this season in the United States, according to the CDC.

HOUSTON (AP) — Fourteen years after Hurricane Ike ripped through thousands of homes and businesses near Galveston, Texas — but mostly spared the region’s oil refineries and chemical plants — the U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to authorize the most expensive project ever recommended by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect against the next raging storm.