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President Biden on Tuesday announced his nominees for ambassadors to Israel, Mexico and NATO as he moves to strengthen U.S. alliances in tough regions. Among a slate of names announced by the White House on Tuesday were Thomas Nides, a Morgan Stanley vice chairman who served as deputy secretary of state under former President Barack Obama. He will serve as the ambassador to Israel. Biden also picked Ken Salazar, a former U.S. senator from Colorado and interior secretary, as his ambassador to Mexico and security expert Julianne Smith has been nominated to be the ambassador to NATO, a key Western bulwark against Russia.
The European Union concluded Tuesday a meeting that included the United States by agreeing to address climate change, combat the coronavirus pandemic and strive for a more peaceful world. The leaders of the countries representing more than seven hundred eighty million people released a statement Tuesday after sessions with U.S. President Joe Biden. Biden started his trip in Britain where he attended a G7 meeting and in his meetings he's striven to show European nations that the United States is fully re-engaged as their ally.
The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is more infectious and more virulence than the Alpha variant first identified in the United Kingdom. This is according to new research. The good news is the vaccines still work against it though somewhat less well. The Delta variant was first identified in India. It's likely responsible for that country's exclusive outbreak, which has set grim world records for the most deaths per day of any country. When it spread to the UK, it overtook the fast spreading Alpha variant in a matter of weeks. The Delta now causes 90 percent of new infections in the UK. The variant also causes more serious cases of COVID-19 in a study published Monday in The Lancet medical journal. Scientists found the patients infected with Delta for 85 percent more likely to be hospitalized than they would have been if infected with Alpha.
Iraq announced over the weekend that it had excavated a mass grave containing the remains of more than 100 people killed by the Islamic State terrorists in the Badoush prison located in the northwest of Iraq's second largest city, Mosul. Officials believe the remains belong to Shiite prisoners executed by the group in 2014. The Sunni extremists massacred more than 600 people in that facility. You can find more on this and all the stories that we're covering at our website voanews.com. You can also download our app to your mobile device. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton, VOA News.
