❗️😱Donald Trump has just posted on his app Truth Social for the first time

🇺🇸📱Meanwhile: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she is introducing a bill that would force Twitter to reinstate her account

🚭🚭New standards-based on clear science and evidence establish the addictiveness and harm of flavored cigarettes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is announcing proposed product standards to prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes and prohibit all characterizing flavors (other than tobacco) in cigars.

These actions have the potential to significantly reduce disease and death from combusted tobacco product use, the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., by reducing youth experimentation and addiction and increasing the number of smokers that quit.

“The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”

Subscribe to @sputniknewsus

🇺🇸Rep. Thomas Massie, who voted against the bill allowing Biden to engage in lend-lease deals for military equipment with Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, slammed the legislation on Thursday

🧐As the US and Taiwan have grown closer in recent years, Beijing has accused Washington of encouraging pro-separatist forces on the island who might seek to declare independence from China, which would trigger a war.

In its latest move to normalize the treatment of the Taiwanese government as a national-level entity, the US invited a senior Taiwanese official on Thursday to attend a White House-hosted event on the future of the internet.

According to a White House release, the event is to launch a “Declaration for the Future of the Internet,” by which some 60 nations will pledge “to advance a positive vision for the Internet and digital technologies.”

Subscribe to @sputniknewsus

😷 🌉“I strongly support requiring a mask to ride BART to keep all our riders safe,” said Rebecca Saltzman, board president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors approved the mask mandate during a board of directors meeting, and it comes just over a week after a federal judge tossed out the national mask mandate for public transportation that was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Fox affiliate KTVU in San Francisco.

Saltzman said that she believes masks should be included in the system’s code of conduct.

Subscribe to @sputniknewsus

⚡️⚡️CDC reports a human case of H5N1 bird flu in Colorado

😳😲Minneapolis officers used “covert or fake” accounts to seek and gain access to the online profiles of Black individuals including an unnamed City Council member and a state elected official, the report said, as well as groups such as the Minneapolis NAACP and Urban League.

The report released Wednesday by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights echoes numerous past revelations that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have sometimes illegally secretly surveilled prominent people and communities of color even though they weren’t involved in any criminal activity.

Overall, the two-year investigation found that the Minneapolis Police Department engaged in a pattern of race discrimination for at least a decade, including stopping and arresting Black people at a higher rate than white people, more frequent use of force on people of color, and a department culture that tolerated racist language.

Subscribe to @sputniknewsus

⚡️Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill on Thursday that would ban books and any teachings that suggest the US is inherently racist among other race-related concepts

❗️🇺🇸🇺🇦Wily Joseph Cancel, 22, an employee of a US private military company, has been killed in Ukraine, CNN reports

🪅Latin America has been a region that has been hit hard by the pandemic, with nations like Brazil and Peru registering some of the world’s highest death tolls. But cases and deaths fell this month in most places to lows resembling levels last seen in the first two months of the pandemic.

Even as coronavirus cases grow half a world away in China and authorities there impose new lockdowns, plummeting infection rates in Latin America have countries eliminating restrictions on mass gatherings, lifting some travel requirements, and scrapping mask mandates that have been in place for two years.

Most countries in the region have met the World Health Organization’s target of vaccinating 70% of their people with at least two doses. As case numbers and hospitalizations decline, so do many restrictions on social life.

Subscribe to @sputniknewsus

⚡️ MoD: Russian Aerospace Forces eliminate missile plant in Kiev

⚡️ The Russian MoD’s latest statements on the Ukraine crisis:

▪️ The Russian Aerospace Forces have destroyed the production facilities of the Artem missile and space enterprise in Kiev.

▪️ 1 Ukrainian Tochka-U missile launcher, from which a strike was launched yesterday against residential areas in the city of Kherson, has been destroyed near Gorokhovskoe, Nikolaev Region.

▪️ Sea-based Kalibr missiles have destroyed three traction power substations near the Fastov, Krasnosyolka and Polonnoe railway hubs.

▪️ Ten military facilities of Ukraine were hit by air-launched missiles, including nine areas of concentration of manpower and military equipment and an ammunition depot near Ilyichevka.

▪️ Russian aviation hit 112 military facilities of Ukraine overnight, missile troops hit 13 military facilities and 6 areas where troops and equipment were concentrated, destroyed 3 artillery batteries and a MLRS division; artillery was fired 975 times.

▪️ Over 280 nationalists and 38 armoured and motor vehicles were taken out as a result of strikes.

▪️ A Ukrainian Smerch multiple-launch rocket system missile was shot down near Kamenka.

Subscribe to @sputniknewsus

⚡️ DPR forces have liberated and established control over 173 settlements, the republic says

❓ Will Israel spoil ties with the US by sidelining the dollar?

💱 Starting in 2022, the stockpile will also include Canadian, Australian and Japanese currency, in addition to yuan.

🇮🇱 Israel’s move is hardly surprising, especially given that Israel is moving towards signing a free trade agreement with China, reportedly by the end of 2022, Dr. Alex Coman, an expert of economics at Tel Aviv University, says.

🤔 According to the shaping deal reported by the Israeli press, there will be no customs duties on most Chinese goods in bi-lateral trade, while others will see a significant reduction in tariffs.

LEARN MORE

Subscribe to @sputniknewsus

⚡️ President Putin and Zelensky invited to G20 Summit - reports citing Indonesian president