REUTERS WORLD NEWS: Riots in Kazakhstan, Record Virus Cases in US, N. Korea Missile, More

• Protesters stormed public buildings in Kazakhstan’s biggest city as security forces struggled to impose control after the government resigned in response to popular anger over a fuel price increase.
• North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile off its east coast, just hours before South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a rail line he hopes will eventually connect the divided Korean peninsula.
• The European Union’s top diplomat visited the frontline of Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed forces, in what Kyiv welcomed as a show of solidarity against the threat of a major new military confrontation with Moscow.
• Taiwan air force jets screamed into the sky in a drill simulating a war scenario, showing its combat readiness amid heightened military tensions with China, which claims the island as its own.
• French prosecutors said they had opened a terrorism investigation into an explosion that went off under a French vehicle involved in the Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia. The blast seriously injured one of the rally competitors.

  U.S.

• The U.S. House of Representatives panel probing the deadly attack on the Capitol in January 2021 wants to question Fox News host Sean Hannity about his text messages with former President Donald Trump, his aides and lawyers from that time.
• President Joe Biden will mark the one-year anniversary of the Capitol assault with a speech tomorrow warning of the threats to democracy, while Trump abandoned plans for a news conference that day as he reprised his attacks on Democrats and the media.
• Democrats’ efforts to pass voting rights legislation in Congress appeared in jeopardy, as centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin said he had little interest in a strategy that would allow the party to bypass Republican opposition.
• A U.S. judge appeared skeptical of a bid by Britain’s Prince Andrew to dismiss Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit accusing the Duke of York of sexually abusing her when she was 17 and being trafficked by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
• Rescue crews in Virginia finished freeing the last of the travelers stranded overnight on a snowed-in highway, ending a crisis that had trapped thousands of people including U.S. Senator Tim Kaine.

BUSINESS

• China Evergrande Group will seek a six-month delay in the redemption and coupon payments of a $157 million bond in a meeting with bond holders this weekend, underscoring the pressure on the debt-laden property developer.
• Walmart said it plans to hire more than 3,000 U.S. delivery drivers and build out a fleet of all-electric delivery vans to support its “in-home” grocery delivery service, its latest investment in its last-mile fulfillment network.
• Allegiant Air is poised to order 50 Boeing 737 MAX jets worth $5 billion at list prices, people familiar with the matter said, rejecting offers by traditional supplier Airbus as the no-frills carrier seeks to capture a boom in post-pandemic U.S. tourism.
• Japan’s Sony plans to launch a company this spring to examine entering the electric vehicle market, looking to harness its strengths in entertainment and sensors to play a bigger role in next-generation mobility.
• John Deere & Co said it will start commercial delivery this year of technology that enables a tractor to till a field without an operator in the cab, a first for the top North American tractor manufacturer after years of effort to automate farm work.