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NEW YORK (AP) — Exxon Mobil reported $5.48 billion in profits during the first quarter as oil and gas prices rose steadily, more than doubling its profits compared with the same quarter last year.

But the oil giant took a huge hit as it abandoned its Russian operations due to the war, writing down $3.4 billion.

Including that loss, the oil giant reported profits of $1.28 per share Friday, which was well below expectations of analysts polled by Factset, who were looking for $2.23 per share.

NEW YORK, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The head of the FBI is sounding alarm bells about the escalation of murders across the United States, which he says include more violent crimes committed by juveniles, more gun trafficking and another dangerous trend, the Seattle-based radio station KOMO News has reported.

"We're seeing an alarming frequency of some of the worst of the worst getting back on the streets," KOMO News reported Monday, quoting FBI Director Christopher Wray in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes that aired Sunday.

NEW YORK, April 27 (Xinhua) -- More than half of Americans show signs of a previous COVID-19 infection, including three in four children, a new report released on Tuesday showed.

The estimated proportion of people in the United States with detectable, infection-induced antibodies jumped from 33.5 percent in December 2021 to 57.7 percent by February 2022, according to the report of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 27 (APP): Climate change, the global coronavirus pandemic and political destabilization are putting the world on a course toward more than one disaster a day, a new United Nations report warns.

The report by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDRR, predicts that the number of disaster events will reach 560 per year — or 1.5 each day, statistically speaking – by 2030 occurring somewhere around the world.

NEW YORK, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve may scramble in finding where to stop at a "neutral" rate, which is neither accommodative nor restrictive to economic activities, in this round of monetary tightening, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.

Even in normal times, no one knows where this theoretical rate is and the neutral rate may be higher than Fed officials' recent estimate, taking into account elevated inflation, said the report.

UNITED NATIONS, April 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday reaffirmed their commitment to ending the conflict in Ukraine and to creating conditions to end the suffering of civilians, said a UN spokesman.

Guterres met Erdogan in the Turkish capital Ankara on Monday. The UN chief expressed his support for Turkey's ongoing diplomatic efforts in relation to the conflict in Ukraine, Farhan Haq, Guterres' deputy spokesman, told reporters in New York.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 (APP): Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the past year has seen “significant breakthroughs in malaria prevention and control”, a senior official of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday, marking World Malaria Day.

(AP) --- Twitter’s board is negotiating with CEO Elon Musk over his bid to buy the social media platform and a deal could be announced as early as Monday, according to media reports.

Twitter and Musk negotiated into the early hours Monday over his bid to buy the social media platform, The New York Times reported, less than two weeks after the billionaire first revealed a massive stake.

Musk said last week that he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing to buy Twitter, putting pressure on the company’s board to negotiate a deal.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 (APP): United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to respect the status quo of Jerusalem’s holy sites during a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, according to a statement issued by UN spokesman’s office.

The UN chief held telephonic conversations with the Palestinians and the Israeli government on Sunday during which he reiterated his commitment to support both sides in resolving the conflict, on the basis of United Nations resolutions, international law, and bilateral agreements.

NEW YORK (AP) — In the aftermath of their hard-won labor victory, Amazon workers in the New York City borough of Staten Island popped Champagne, cheered their victory and danced in celebration. But their jovial attitude will be tested by a company that seems likely to drag its feet to the bargaining table.

Among other things, the nascent Amazon Labor Union, or ALU, has said it wants longer breaks for warehouse employees, more time off and a dramatically higher minimum hourly wage of $30, up from just over $18 an hour now at the Staten Island facility.