At least one person was killed and several others injured Saturday morning following a tornado in the Rio Grande Valley near Laguna Heights, Texas, the National Weather Service said.

In a statement on Facebook, the Port Isabel Police Department confirmed there were injuries on the ground and several structures were destroyed. No traffic is allowed through Laguna Heights.

“Crews are engaged in clearing sinkholes and downed power lines,” the statement said. “At 4:00 a.m., a tornado touched down in the Laguna Heights area. Several structures were destroyed and injuries confirmed. The Port Isabel Event Center is open for shelter.”

Drivers on Highway 100 will be detoured onto Highway 48, police said.

The storms could bring damaging winds, large hail and scattered tornadoes to South Texas, and there is a high risk of flooding. A flood watch is in effect A large area stretching from the southern tip of Brownsville, Texas, to central Oklahoma through Sunday afternoon, the NWS said.

Chances for showers and thunderstorms will increase across Deep South Texas Saturday and into the weekend. Heavy rain is expected from Saturday to Sunday.

This is a growing story. Check back for updates.

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations are to discuss concerns about China’s use of “economic coercion” abroad as part of a major joint statement to be released next week, a U.S. official said. Well versed in debates.

The statement, part of an overall statement to be released by leaders during their May 19-21 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, is expected to be accompanied by a detailed written plan on how the seven advanced economies will work together. Economic coercion” from any country.

The key G7 report is set to include “a section specific to China” with a list of concerns covering “economic coercion and other behaviour”. [People’s Republic of China],” the official said Friday.

A separate “economic security report will talk more about the tools” used to counter coercive efforts from any responsible countries, including planning and coordination, the person said. In each case, the statements are expected to be higher than previous statements from the G7.

US President Joe Biden has made China the centerpiece of his foreign policy, working to keep a tense and competitive relationship, including with self-ruled Taiwan, from escalating into open conflict.

The G7, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, is closely tied economically to China, the world’s largest exporter and a key market for many of the seven nations’ companies.

Last month, China called for a G7 foreign ministers’ report that touched on similar topics of “arrogance, prejudice against China” and made complaints to this year’s G7 host, Japan.

Under Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump, G7 statements often referred only superficially to issues involving China. The Biden administration has pushed for more direct reports.

The joint statement issued each year by all G7 leaders is intended to signal that powerful countries are aligned on a range of political and economic issues.

G7 members will also have the opportunity to further cooperate with China in areas such as climate.

“We’re not for decoupling the US and Chinese economies, we’re for de-risking, we’re for diversification,” the US official said. “That principle is very unifying.”

Negotiations on the precise language of the leaders’ joint declarations are subject to diplomacy and fine-tuning before they are released during the summit.

China Tests G7 Alliance

The G7 meeting will be a test of how far members, all rich democracies, can agree to a common approach with China, the world’s second-largest economy.

China’s terms are a key issue in ongoing talks by G7 finance leaders in Niigata, Japan, where they have focused on reducing the “over-reliance” of their countries’ supply chains on Chinese manufacturing, including low- and middle-income countries through partnerships.

“The U.S. wants to get something hard on paper in terms of the deal and other countries are interested, but they’re not interested in putting the details on paper about these various tools and instruments of economic statecraft,” senior Josh Lipsky said. Director of the Atlantic Council’s Center for Geoeconomics.

In particular, some G7 members are skeptical about signing on to restrictions on outbound investment in China.

The policies are being drafted to help deny China’s military access to tools it could use to gain technological superiority, and many in the Biden administration see them as complementary to export controls that limit access to certain semiconductors that have the same goal.

“Of course, each member of the G7 is going to carve their own path in China to some extent, but there are also some sort of principles that unite the G7 in a common approach to China,” the US official said.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is traveling to the G7 finance meeting in Japan, said on Thursday that China had clearly used economic coercion with Australia and Lithuania.

A lack of progress on resolving the US debt ceiling impasse hung over the meeting. A meeting scheduled for Friday between Biden and top lawmakers has been postponed until early next week, as Biden’s Democrats and Republicans seek a compromise to avoid a catastrophic default.

Nevertheless, US officials expect the president to attend the two-day summit as planned, followed by trips to Papua New Guinea and Australia aimed at improving Washington’s approach to the China-dominated Asia-Pacific region.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Edited by Heather Timmons

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Republican Govs. Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are already preparing to move immigrants north before the policy change, a political stunt by the Texas governor last summer to send immigrants to Democratic-led cities like New York and Washington.

“Cities are now facing federal government responsibility,” said Evan Dreyer, Denver’s deputy mayor. “We’re doing what we can, but we need more help than we’re getting right now.”

At midnight, the Biden administration scrapped a Trump-authored policy known as Title 42 that had allowed officials to turn people back at the border for years on public health grounds. Biden has faced criticism from the right and the left over his immigration approach: Republicans have blasted the president for being too weak at the border and Democrats have accused the administration of making it too difficult for people fleeing violent countries in Latin America to apply for asylum. .

Biden officials have said they are prepared for the expected surge. But on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas He cautioned that a change in policy does not mean the border is open. He blamed Congress for failing to act on the current situation and for allowing a “broken and outdated immigration system” to remain in place for two decades.

“Our overall approach is to create legal pathways for people to come to the United States and to impose severe consequences on those who choose not to use those pathways,” Mayorkas told a news conference.

He added that the coming days and weeks “will be very difficult”.

But outside Washington’s infighting, a more pressing concern for local leaders is where to put the new funding, with some cities taking drastic measures such as replacing police stations, churches and schools, and emergency shelters are already full.

In Philadelphia, the most recent busload of migrants arrived early Wednesday morning. The city has been preparing for months by adding shelter capacity and case management support through contracted providers. Since November, Philadelphia has received 800 asylum seekers and 26 buses.

“The situation remains stable, but we are preparing for the possibility of new arrivals and plan to continue to welcome people with dignity and respect,” said Sarah Peterson, director of communications for the city. “We are a proudly welcoming city; our diversity is our strength.

Denver has already seen an uptick in arrivals over the past several days. To prepare for what is expected to be a much larger and more sustained increase, city officials have reduced who is eligible to sleep in shelters. Denver limits asylum seekers to a 30-day stay in city facilities. Now, Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration will grant shelter only to asylum seekers with an Alien Registration Number, an identification tag issued by the federal government to non-citizens.

The end of Title 42 marks a major policy shift in how the Biden administration processes immigrants at the border, including the path to asylum. Under the new rules, immigrants seeking asylum who must first seek asylum and be denied asylum in another country before coming to the U.S. must use an app to schedule an appointment at the point of entry into the U.S.

To ease the strain on this side of the border, Biden officials are setting up processing centers in Guatemala and Colombia where people can apply before coming to the United States.

More than 1,500 US National Guard troops are deployed to the border to serve in administrative roles, not law enforcement.

Many mayors are frustrated by the lack of guidance from the Biden administration. In New York, Adams said his city “has been left without the support it needs to manage the crisis.”

“With a leadership vacuum, we are now forced to undertake our own decompression strategy,” he said in a statement last week.

That strategy involves sending more than 300 migrants to neighboring counties, which leaders have allayed concerns about their own ability to absorb them.

In El Paso, Mayor Oscar Leiser called for more guidance from the federal government, warning the city was facing “unknowns.” But he defended the White House as a good partner and said his team was working very closely with the administration.

Leiser, a Democrat, said between 10,000 and 12,000 migrants are waiting to enter the city in Juárez. El Paso is rehabilitating vacant schools to temporarily house asylum seekers.

Last year, it used charter buses to transport immigrants to major cities like Chicago and New York, reducing overcrowding throughout its shelter system. The city is poised to resume the process as thousands of migrants are expected to enter the country in the coming weeks, but has not said when it will resume.

“If we start getting 5 to 10,000 people a day, they’re not all coming to El Paso. They’re coming to the U.S.,” Leiser said. “Our job is to continue to help our asylum seekers get to their next destination.”

Joe Anuta and Danielle Muoio Dunn contributed reporting.

May 11 (Reuters) – Ukraine is burning until Western armored vehicles arrive before launching a long-awaited counteroffensive to retake Russian-occupied territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on Thursday.

“We need a little more time,” Zelensky said in an interview with European broadcasters, according to Britain’s BBC.

Ukrainian forces had already received enough equipment for the campaign from Western allies, but some of the promised armored vehicles were still arriving. Waiting a little longer for them would reduce casualties, he said.

“With [what we have] We can go forward and win,” he said. “But we will lose a lot of people. I think this is unacceptable.”

The war in Ukraine is at a turning point, with Kyiv poised to unleash its new counteroffensive after six months on the defensive, while Russia launches a major winter offensive that has failed to capture significant territory.

Western allies are sending hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine for its counteroffensive and have trained thousands of Ukrainian troops abroad.

Moscow’s main target for months has been the small eastern Ukrainian city of Baghmut, which has come close to being captured but remains its only prize after months of Europe’s bloodiest ground war since World War II.

In recent days, Ukraine has made gains on the outskirts of the city. Both the Ukrainian division and the head of Russia’s Wagner Private Army say a Russian brigade left its positions and gave ground southwest of Pakmut on Tuesday.

The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces said on Wednesday that Russian forces had retreated up to 2 km from the front line in several places.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the reports, but overnight Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted the battle was “very difficult”.

He said he had no doubt that Bagmuth would be “caught and brought under control.”

In Brussels, NATO’s top military official said the war would increasingly be a battle between poorly trained Russian troops with outdated equipment and a small Ukrainian force with better Western weapons and training.

Admiral Rob Bauer, the Dutch officer who heads NATO’s military group, said Russia is deploying T-54 tanks – an older model designed in the post-World War II years.

Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Olena Harmash, Pavel Polityuk, David Ljunggren and Ron Popeski; Editing by Peter Graf, Alex Richardson, David Gregorio and Diane Croft

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

By Richard Deitch, Zach Rosenblatt, Charlotte Carroll, and Zach Berman

The NFL will kick off the holiday season with some divisional rivalry games, including a meeting between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins in the first Black Friday game. Here’s what you need to know:

• The Jets and quarterback Aaron Rodgers will host Miami in an AFC East showdown on Nov. 24 at 3 p.m. ET.
• The holiday action continues on Christmas Day when the Eagles and New York Giants meet for an NFC East matchup in Philadelphia at 4:30 p.m.
• To ring in 2024, the Kansas City Chiefs will host the Cincinnati Bengals on New Year’s Day at 4:25 PM ET.

athlete’Instant Analysis:

Amazon Key Matchup

The NFL’s Black Friday game has a built-in cachet because it’s a new media franchise for the league. So interest-seekers are always tuning in – especially on days off from work for many. But the NFL actually took care of its big-money partner — at least on paper — by giving the Jets and Dolphins to Amazon.

Rodgers is on a short list of the most popular players in the league – he’s polarizing and that always draws audiences. The Dolphins are expected to be playoff contenders. So you have two significant media markets and two teams with playoff potential in a divisional game that could have real meaning. The 3:00 pm and Friday opening has nothing to compare to historically viewership-wise, but I think Amazon will do better here. Don’t be surprised if the number of visitors is a wow number. — German

The Jets were no surprise on Black Friday

It’s no surprise that the Jets will feature in one of the NFL’s newest holiday games — but that’s what happens when Rodgers is your quarterback. The Jets and Dolphins should clinch the AFC East title before this game.

It was around this time last year that the Jets began their slump, which knocked them out of the playoffs, so they’ll be hoping it doesn’t happen again this time around. As an extra note: MetLife Stadium is located next to a mall, which should be packed on Black Friday. Prepare accordingly. — Rosenblatt

Section competition on Christmas

If you don’t get Giants vs. Jets this offseason, a matchup with the Eagles is the next best thing. The Eagles won all three meetings this past season — including a sweep in the divisional round — and the contests were expected rivalry games.

The NFL offers a heck of a lot to two major markets and fans. Now, it’s up to the Giants to deliver their first series win in the Brian Dabold era. — Carol

Giants-Eagles may be important

You can count on the Philadelphia crowd to be in the Christmas spirit when the Giants visit. This rivalry has tilted in Philadelphia’s direction in recent seasons; The Eagles have won 16 of their last 20 games, and the Giants haven’t won at Lincoln Financial Field since 2013.

As the defending NFC champions and one of the favorites to play in the Super Bowl again, it would be disappointing if the Eagles didn’t have a winning record at this point in the season. Fans believe this season has something in common with the last time the Eagles played a game on Christmas: when they beat the Raiders on a cold night in 2017 en route to their only Lombardi Trophy. — Berman

Backstory

A Black Friday game has been added after the NFL and Prime Video partnered to make Amazon the new home of “Thursday Night Football” for the 2022 season. Under their deal, Prime Video will carry 15 “TNF” games annually through the 2032 season.

The NFL has announced its slate of international games, including a Week 9 meeting between the Chiefs and Dolphins at Frankfurt Stadium in Germany. The full 2023 NFL schedule will be released Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.

Required reading

(Photo: Sam Navarro / USA Today)