Author: Kerry Wilkins

US President Joe Biden on Sunday issued an emergency declaration for the state of Mississippi after the destruction wreaked by deadly tornadoes and severe storms. At least 25 people were killed and dozens more injured as powerful tornadoes and storms ripped through Mississippi on Friday night. One more person was killed in the neighboring state of Alabama. A White House statement said Biden’s decision will make “federal funding available to affected individuals in the counties of Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe, and Sharkey.” The four counties were the worst-hit areas and account for all of the fatalities reported, according to the Mississippi…

US President Joe Biden will visit Rolling Fork, Mississippi on Friday after multiple tornadoes hit the southern state and killed at least 26 people, the White House said. First lady Jill Biden will join the president, said the statement. They will meet state and local officials and visit communities impacted by the devastation, it said. They will also assess recovery efforts and ”reaffirm their commitment to supporting the people of Mississippi as long as it takes,” it added. Powerful storms and multiple tornadoes ripped through Mississippi on March 24, causing casualties and devastation across the state. Source : aa

Tornadoes that ravaged the US have killed at least 26 people, injuring dozens across southern and midwestern parts of the country, according to officials on Sunday. The National Weather Service (NWS) said over 60 tornadoes have been reported in the past 24 hours in a wide area covering eight states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Tennessee, Illinois, and Wisconsin. While the tornadoes claimed nine lives in Tennessee, five in Arkansas, three in Indiana, and four in Illinois, other deaths from the storms were reported in Alabama and Mississippi. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency amid severe storm…

The death toll from tornadoes that ravaged the US over the weekend rose to 33, according to local media. More than 60 tornadoes hit eight states from Arkansas to Delaware on Friday night. At least 15 weather-related casualties were reported in Tennessee county. Other deaths were reported in Alabama, Illinois, and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, Arkansas, where the mayor said more than 2,000 buildings were in a tornado’s path. At least 52 people have died since March 25 in tornadoes across eight states. According to the National Weather Service, the tornado was a high-end EF3 twister with…

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held separate phone calls on Monday with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to discuss efforts to reach a peace agreement between the two countries. According to a readout of the phone call between Blinken and Aliyev, the Secretary welcomed Aliyev’s commitment to “conclude a durable and dignified peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.” “The Secretary recognized the suffering that this long-standing conflict has caused Azerbaijanis and Armenians alike and underscored the benefits that peace would bring to everyone in the region,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a…

A shortage of teachers in US schools is not caused by instructors retiring or being fired but they are voluntarily leaving the profession, according to surveys. Nearly half of the public education employees who left their jobs in primary education institutions in March left voluntarily, according to a survey by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trends demonstrate that the number of primary, secondary and high school teachers are diminishing rapidly due to resignations. In addition, salaries have not surpassed increased inflation in the last 20 years and have remained below compared to alternative occupational groups that require similar education…

The Pacific Northwest states of Oregon and Washington are in the midst of a scorching heat wave Wednesday with temperatures reaching between 105 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit (40-43 degrees Celsius). That prompted the National Weather Service (NWS) to send out high alerts Wednesday. “Today is the final day of excessive heat across NW Oregon & SW Washington,” National Weather Service Portland said in an X post. “While temperatures won’t be quite as hot as the past two days, most locations in the Willamette Valley are expected to reach 100-103°. It is important to continue practicing heat safety!” This is the…

Oil prices decreased on Tuesday over the rising value of the US dollar, despite supply woes ahead of a highly anticipated meeting of OPEC-producing countries on Wednesday. International benchmark crude Brent traded at $90.25 per barrel at 10.26 a.m. local time (0726 GMT), a 0.51% loss from the closing price of $90.71 a barrel in the previous trading session on Monday. The American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at the same time at $88.22 per barrel, down 0.67% from Monday’s close of $88.82 per barrel. The dollar strengthened earlier on Monday as a result of the US government’s decision…

As key UN climate talks set to kick off Thursday, 197 nations, along with international organizations and civil society, are gearing up to address mounting environmental concerns at a global level. Hosted in the emirate of Dubai, the event, known as the 28th edition of the Conference of the Parties (COP28), will have hotly debated issues on the agenda, from financing the sustainability transition to commitments on meeting previous emissions reduction goals. COP meetings, held annually since 1995, are convened under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as the convention’s decision-making body. The past 27 conferences have…

Dexter Wade, who was run over by a police car and buried in a pauper’s grave in Mississippi, will also be given a “proper funeral,” said Crump, the family’s lawyer. The lawyer representing a Mississippi mother whose adult son was run over by an off-duty police officer and was later buried in a pauper’s grave without her knowing will ask the Department of Justice to investigate why she wasn’t told what happened. The lawyer, Ben Crump, also said in a news conference Monday that he will help arrange for Dexter Wade’s body to be exhumed from where he was buried on the…