News in Brief
Cyclone Freddy kills over 200 in Malawi, Mozambique
AP – The devastating tropical cyclone Freddy which has devastated southern Africa in a rare second landfall has killed at least 216 people in Malawi and Mozambique since Saturday night, with the death toll expected to rise.
Heavy rains that triggered floods and mudslides have killed 199 people in Malawi, authorities said Tuesday. Reports from Mozambique’s disaster institute on Tuesday confirmed that 17 people have died in the country and 1,900 homes have been destroyed in the coastal Zambezia Province.
Mexican president: Mexico safer than U.S.
REUTERS – Mexico’s president said on Monday his country is safer than the United States, pushing back against U.S. critics of his security record following a deadly kidnapping this month near the border that claimed the lives of two Americans.
The March 3 attack on four Americans in the Mexican city of Matamoros and their subsequent abduction was covered closely by U.S. media and sparked recriminations from politicians in the U.S., particularly Republicans.
By the time Mexican authorities found the Americans, two of them were dead. Five purported Mexican drug cartel members have since been arrested over the kidnapping.
Further U.S. involvement in Ukraine is not vital national interest: Florida governor
REUTERS – Becoming “further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not a vital U.S. national interest, said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is eying running for president, in comments released on Monday.
“The Biden administration’s virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,” he said.