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HOUSTON, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- At least three people were killed and two others injured after a "very chaotic" shooting early Sunday morning at a short-term rental home in the Huston area, U.S. state Texas, authorities said.

There was a gathering with about 10 to 20 people in their 20s at the rental home in Katy, a suburban city of Houston. A quarrel broke out and led to the shooting, leaving at least five people shot, said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

A man and a woman died at the scene, and one died in hospital, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama is preparing to use a new method of execution: nitrogen gas.

Kenneth Eugene Smith, who survived the state’s previous attempt to put him to death by lethal injection in 2022, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday by nitrogen hypoxia. If carried out, it would the first new method of execution since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.

The state maintains that nitrogen gas will cause unconsciousness quickly but critics have likened the never-used method of execution to human experimentation.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street returned to record heights Friday to cap a punishing, two-year round trip dogged by high inflation and worries about a recession that seemed inevitable but hasn’t arrived.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) —The day after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century destroyed a seaside community on Maui, the barrage of 911 calls didn’t stop: Reports of missing people, stranded family members and confused tourists trapped without food or water lit up the emergency lines every few minutes, interspersed with reports of new fires starting and older ones flaring back up.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (AP) — Donald Trump surrounded himself with leaders from Nikki Haley’s home state in a show of strength ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.

Trump was joined at a rally at the NHU Arena in Manchester Saturday night by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, the state’s lieutenant governor and a slew of other senior officials, including the state’s attorney general, treasurer and House speaker. The statewide officials, along with U.S. Reps. Joe Wilson, William Timmons and Russell Fry appeared on stage with Trump.

LAST CHANCE, Colo. (AP) — Fleeing a tough reelection bid in the district where she lives, Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is moving from the mountains to the plains, in the hopes of finding conservative pastures green enough to salvage her place in Congress.

To win, she’ll have to convince a new swath of voters that her brand of white-hot, far-right political activism — built on divisive one-liners and partisan ferocity in the U.S. House — is more needed in Washington than the home-grown Republicans she now faces in the primary.

APPLETON, Wis. (AP) — The decades fall away as you open the front doors.

It’s the late 1950s in the cramped little offices — or maybe the pre-hippie 1960s. It’s a place where army-style buzz cuts are still in fashion, communism remains the primary enemy and the decor is dominated by American flags and portraits of once-famous Cold Warriors.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Nikki Haley on Saturday questioned whether Donald Trump is mentally capable of serving as president again after he repeatedly seemed to confuse her with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a campaign speech.

As she campaigned in Keene, New Hampshire, Haley referenced Trump’s speech the night before, in which he mistakenly asserted that Haley was in charge of Capitol security on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building seeking to stop the certification of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

WASHINGTON (AP) —

President Joe Biden on Friday signed a short-term spending bill that keeps the federal government operating until early March.

The bill averts what would’ve been a partial government shutdown starting Saturday. It does not address additional aid for Ukraine, which remains in limbo as key legislators continue to negotiate a border security measure that would go in tandem with more support for Kyiv.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally spoke Friday after a glaring, nearly four-week gap in direct communication during which fundamental differences have come into focus over a possible pathway to Palestinian statehood once the fighting in Gaza ends.