NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida man pleaded guilty Thursday to sending pipe bombs to CNN and prominent critics of President Donald Trump in a wave of attacks that harmed no one but spread fear of political violence across the U.S. for days leading up to last fall’s midterm elections.

Cesar Sayoc, 57, shackled at the ankles, briefly sobbed as he entered the plea before a New York federal judge.

“I’m extremely sorry,” he said, speaking so softly that sometimes he was told to repeat himself. Though he said he never meant for the devices to explode, he conceded he knew they could.

WASHINGTON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 U.S. states face an elevated risk for flooding through May, with the potential for major or moderate flooding in 25 states, according to an outlook released Thursday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The majority of the country is favored to experience above-average precipitation this spring, increasing the flood risk, said the outlook.

BRUSSELS, March 21 (Xinhua) -- European Union's (EU) 27 members unanimously agreed to Art. 50 extension until May 22 if Withdrawal Agreement is approved next week by Britain's House of Commons, President of the European Council Donald Tusk said on Twitter Thursday.

If the Withdrawal Agreement is not approved next week, then extension will go to April 12, said Tusk.

The EU27 also approved the Strasbourg Agreement on Thursday and will continue no-deal preparations, said Tusk.

22 Mar 2019; DW: Russia, Iran and Syria on Friday criticized President Donald Trump's announcement that the United States intends to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied-Golan Heights.

The move comes as Israel has been pushing the Trump administration for recognition and some members of the Republican Party are backing the idea.

Russia, Syrian and Iranian positions

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at last month’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Munich failed to present a single shred of evidence that Russia was in breach of the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, responding to Stoltenberg’s claims that NATO was certain about Moscow’s violations of the agreement.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — By the time California’s presidential primary election arrived in 2016, Bernie Sanders was a beaten man. This time around, everything has changed.

The senator from Vermont was an insurgent outsider three years ago in a head-to-head race against Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state whose grip on the Democratic nomination was effectively unshakeable by the time California’s primary was held in June that year.

KAYUNGA, Uganda, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Thursday inaugurated the Chinese-built Isimba Hydropower Plant on the Victoria Nile in the central part of the African country.

Addressing the inauguration, Museveni thanked the Chinese government for financing his country's transport and energy infrastructure projects, which are expected to put the country onto a fast track of development.

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's former President Michel Temer was arrested on Thursday in a corruption investigation, according to local media.

The arrest was ordered by Judge Marcelo Bretas, who is in charge of the Operation Car Wash investigations on corruption in the government.

Temer, the predecessor of current President Jair Bolsonaro, left office last year.

The police reportedly also seek Moreira Franco, who served as Minister of Mines and Energy in the Temer government, and Eliseu Padilha, who served as Temer's Chief of Staff.

22 Mar 2019; AFP: Around four in 10 British adults have been left feeling powerless, angry or worried by Brexit in the past year, according to a poll out Friday.

The Mental Health Foundation (MHF) charity commissioned the survey to look at the impact of Britain's impending departure from the European Union on how people feel, their sleep and their relationships.

The poll found that Brexit had made 43 percent feel powerless, 39 percent feel angry and 38 percent feel worried.

MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. The NATO airstrike on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999, could have been deliberate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview for NTV’s "U-Turn Above the Atlantic" documentary.

"I think it was an accident but I am not completely sure," Lavrov said when asked to comment on the airstrike.

LONDON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- An operations room in an underground bunker at the Ministry of Defense (MoD)'s Central London headquarters has been readied to handle a no-deal Brexit, reports said Thursday.

The nuclear bunker, said to be deep in the bowels of the MoD offices in Whitehall, will be used as a control center to coordinate efforts if Britain leaves the European Union without a deal.

22 Mar 2019; DW: On a visit to fellow EU member Croatia, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he is convinced that Europe needed to "speak with one voice" to still be relevant internationally.

In a jibe at recent nationalist tendencies across Europe, he said that "a withdrawal into the national shell that some are dreaming of cannot be the answer to Europe's past."