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UNITED NATIONS, Jun 09 (APP): The United Nations General Assembly elected Japan, Ecuador, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday for two-year term starting on Jan. 1, 2023.

Japan, which will replace India on the Asian seat, received 184 votes in the 193-member Assembly. Ecuador received 190 votes, Malta 185, Mozambique 192 and Switzerland 187.

They will replace Mexico, Ireland, Kenya and Norway, whose 2-year terms on the
15-member Council are expiring at the end of this year.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — China and Russia defended their vetoes of a strongly backed U.S. resolution that would have imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea, speaking at a first of its kind General Assembly meeting Wednesday.

The debate was held under new rules requiring the General Assembly to examine any veto wielded in the Security Council by one of its five permanent members.

NEW YORK (AP) — Millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses have been ordered for small children in anticipation of possible federal authorization next week, White House officials say.

The government allowed pharmacies and states to start placing orders last week, with 5 million doses initially available — half of them shots made by Pfizer and the other half the vaccine produced by Moderna, senior administration officials said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell broadly on Wall Street in afternooon trading Tuesday, weighed down by a pullback in big technology companies, amid mounting worries that persistently high inflation will dim corporate profits.

The S&P 500 index fell 1.4% as of 1:58 p.m. Eastern, wiping out most of its gains from a rally a day earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 150 points, or 0.5%, to 31,736 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.6%.

UNITED NATIONS, May 23 (APP): The Ukraine war and other conflicts, including Afghanistan, pushed the number of people forced to flee conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution over the staggering milestone of 100 million for the first time on record, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said Sunday.

“One hundred million is a stark figure — sobering and alarming in equal measure. It’s a record that should never have been set,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in a statement.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City has agreed to pay $7 million to a man who spent 23 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit, Comptroller Brad Lander said Monday.

Grant Williams was exonerated last July in the 1996 shooting of Shdell Lewis outside a Staten Island public housing complex.

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials remain perplexed by mysterious cases of severe liver damage in hundreds of young children around the world.

The best available evidence points to a fairly common stomach bug that isn’t known to cause liver problems in otherwise healthy kids. That virus was detected in the the blood of stricken children but — oddly — it has not been found in their diseased livers.

“There’s a lot of things that don’t make sense,” said Eric Kremer, a virus researcher at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of Montpellier, in France.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Katherine “Kat” Massey is scheduled to be laid to rest Monday as funerals continue for the victims of the racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket.

Massey, 72, has been described by her friends as a civil rights and education advocate. Last year she wrote a letter to her hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News, addressing “escalating gun violence in Buffalo and many major U.S. cities” and calling for “extensive” federal action and legislation.

NEW YORK, May 22. /TASS/: Russia’s flagship air carrier Aeroflot will soon face parts shortages and may start disassembling some of its planes for spare parts, Bloomberg said on Sunday, citing expert estimates.

"The vast majority of the group’s more than 350 planes are Airbus or Boeing models, and it is facing a looming parts deficit. Aviation data specialists IBA estimate Russian airlines have supplies to last three months and then may start cannibalizing aircraft for parts," it said.

UNITED NATIONS, May 22 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday called on the international community to "build a shared future for all life."

"Biodiversity is essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, ending the existential threat of climate change, halting land degradation, building food security and supporting advances in human health," Guterres said in a statement for International Day for Biological Diversity, which falls on May 22 annually.