North America

WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - The United States formally determined that Myanmar's army committed genocide and crimes against humanity in its violence against the Rohingya minority, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, warning that as long as a military junta was in power nobody in the country would be safe.

Announcing the decision, which was first reported by Reuters on Sunday, Blinken said the attacks against Rohingya were "widespread and systematic" and that evidence pointed to a clear intent to destroy the mainly Muslim minority. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Clarence Thomas, who remains hospitalized in Washington, does not have COVID-19, the Supreme Court said Monday.

The court provided no additional information about the infection that put Thomas in the hospital on Friday, other than to say he is responding to intravenous antibiotics.

The 73-year-old justice has been vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, along with the other eight justices, the court has said.

(AP) --- Stocks edged lower in morning trading on Wall Street Monday as major indexes come off their best week since November 2020.

The S&P 500 fell 0.2% as of 10:21 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166 points, or 0.5%, to 34,585 and the Nasdaq fell 1%.

Energy stocks made solid gains as oil prices gained ground. U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 5.8% and Exxon Mobil gained 3.5%.

Technology and communications stocks slipped and countered gains elsewhere in the market. Microsoft fell 1.5% and Facebook parent, Meta Platforms, fell 3.8%.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An elected official from New Mexico headed to trial Monday with a judge — not a jury — set to decide if he is guilty of charges that he illegally entered the U.S. Capitol grounds on the day a pro-Trump mob disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

That’s not the only unusual feature of the case against Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, whose trial in Washington, D.C., is the second among the hundreds of people charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, siege.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday gaveled open the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated for the nation’s highest court.

Jackson, 51, is set to give an opening statement later Monday and answer questions on Tuesday and Wednesday from the panel’s 11 Democratic and 11 Republican senators.

Washington, Mar 21 (AP) The Biden administration intends to declare that Myanmar's years-long repression of the Rohingya Muslim population is a genocide," U.S. officials said Sunday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to make the long-anticipated designation on Monday at an event at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the move had not yet been publicly announced.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20 (APP): Healthy forests are “essential” for people and the planet, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his message marking the International Day of Forests.

“They act as natural filters, providing clean air and water, and they are havens of biological diversity…[and] help to regulate our climate by influencing rainfall patterns, cooling urban areas and absorbing one-third of greenhouse gas emissions,” the UN chief said.

NEW-YORK, March 20. /TASS/: Moscow’s case must be heard as part of a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc, Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, said in an interview with New York Times published on Saturday.

According to him, "the Russian case must be heard, because after this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc"

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - Accounts that thousands of residents of Ukraine's besieged port city of Mariupol have been forcibly deported to Russia are "disturbing" and "unconscionable" if true, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Sunday.

Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," Thomas-Greenfield said the United States had not yet confirmed the allegations made on Saturday by the Mariupol city council via its Telegram channel. 

UNITED NATIONS, March 19 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Friday refuted U.S. attacks on China's human rights record and urged it to face up to its own human rights violations.

Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, accused U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield of abusing a commemorative meeting of the General Assembly on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.