North America

05 Feb 2019; AFP: US officials are fanning out across Europe to warn about the security risks of allowing Chinese telecoms giant Huawei to help build 5G mobile networks, a US diplomat said Tuesday.

Washington considers the matter urgent as European Union countries prepare to roll out fifth-generation networks that will bring near-instantaneous connectivity, vast data capacity and futuristic technologies.

06 Feb 2019; AFP: A 12-year-old judicial battle pitting a cereal farmer against Monsanto, the biotech giant, goes to a fourth round Wednesday before the French courts.

Farmer Paul Francois won his initial case in 2012, and its appeal by Monsanto in 2015, after suing the US firm for poisoning him through inhalation of its Lasso weedkiller.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Negotiations for the exchange of prisoners in the Yemen civil war began in Jordanian capital of Amman on Tuesday and talks on demilitarizing in and around the key Red Sea port city of Hodeidah are progressing, a UN spokesman said.

Also, retired Dutch Major General Patrick Cammaert, temporary chairman of the Hodeidah talks that are being held on a ship berthed in the port was replaced Tuesday evening by Michael Lollesgaard of Denmark, said the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric.

6 Feb 2019; DW: US President Donald Trump urged unity in his second State of the Union address on Tuesday against a backdrop of deep partisan bickering over a host of issues that are set to dominate his next two years in office.

Despite repeatedly clashing with Democrats who now control the House of Representatives, Trump urged Washington to govern "not as two parties, but as one nation." 

ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey became the latest state on Monday to boost its hourly minimum wage to $15 after Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law a measure phasing in the higher rate over five years.

Murphy signed the bill alongside Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver and Democratic legislative leaders at a raucous event in Elizabeth where advocates cheered, “Ready for 15,” carried banners with their union affiliation and applauded loudly once the bill was signed.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A political death watch took shape at Virginia’s Capitol as Gov. Ralph Northam consulted with top administration officials Monday about whether to resign amid a furor over a racist photo in his 1984 yearbook.

Practically all of the state’s Democratic establishment — and Republican leaders, too — turned against the 59-year-old Democrat after the picture surfaced late last week of someone in blackface next to another person in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. The photo was on Northam’s medical school yearbook page.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Prosecutors in New York have reportedly requested documents from President Donald Trump's inauguration committee.

According to ABC News, a lawyer working with the committee received a subpoena Monday from federal prosecutors seeking documents related to the organization's donors and spending.

Prosecutors also showed interest in whether any foreigners illegally donated to the committee, The New York Times reported. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to inaugural funds.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- UN agencies and their humanitarian partners need to increase aid to Nigerian refugees in neighboring Cameroon, Stephane Dujarric, the chief UN spokesman said on Monday.

"The response needs to be scaled up significantly to cope with the influx of people, with many refugees reluctant to return to Nigeria's Rann area or any other camp in Ngala without assurances of their safety and security," he said.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- A study from Washington University showed that women's brains were about three years younger than men's, offering a clue to why women tend to stay mentally sharp longer than men.

In a study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers studied 205 people to figure out how their brains use a portion of sugar in a process called aerobic glycolysis that sustained brain development but dropped steadily with age.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- The color of the sea will become darker by the end of this century due to the climate change, according to a study published on Monday in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that by the year 2100, over half of the world's oceans will shift in color, as the algae population change.

The study has shown that blue regions such as the subtropics will become even more blue, reflecting less phytoplankton and life in general in those waters.