Vice President Mike Pence stopped the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from extending a ban on cruise-ship journeys until 2021, according to an Axios report.
U.S. electrical systems are not expanding fast enough to meet rapidly growing power needs of technology like Generative AI, prompting data center businesses to sometimes bypass utilities, executives said at an energy conference this week. Layers of regulations, citing and permitting processes, and frequent legal fights brought by environmental and community groups, have slowed new power projects from connecting to the grid, and posed a threat to profits by traditional power companies like regulated electric utilities. "Regulation and permitting within the United States is abysmal," Brad Stansberry, who leads the financial management practice for the power and utility industry at services firm KPMG, said at the AI: Powering the New Energy Era summit in Washington on Wednesday.
France should repay billions of dollars in reparations to Haiti to cover a debt formerly enslaved people were forced to pay in return for recognising the island's independence, a coalition of civil society groups said on Thursday. The group of around 20 non-governmental organisations currently in Geneva for a U.N. Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) are seeking a new independent commission to oversee the restitution of the debt, which they refer to as a ransom. They say the money should go to public works in Haiti where a transition council was installed this month in an effort to restore security after a period of devastating violence by armed groups.
Investigators have arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of spying for Russia and planning attacks in Germany -- including on US army targets -- to undermine military support for Ukraine, prosecutors said Thursday."The actions were intended, in particular, to undermine the military support provided from Germany to Ukraine against the Russian aggression," prosecutors said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday painted a dark picture of the situation in the Middle East, warning that spiraling tensions over the war in Gaza and Iran's attack on Israel could devolve into a "full-scale regional conflict.""One miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable -- a full-scale regional conflict that would be devastating for all involved," he said, calling on all parties to exercise "maximum restraint."
International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday drew attention to the suffering in Yemen and Sudan, both plagued by civil wars and often overshadowed by the plight of other countries."When we have these highly visible wars like the one in Ukraine, like the one in Gaza... they overshadow the pain and suffering that is happening in other places," Georgieva said during a press conference.
The World Health Organization has approved a version of a widely used cholera vaccine that could help address a surge in cases that has depleted the global vaccine stockpile and left poorer countries scrambling to contain epidemics. The vaccine was shown to be help preventing the diarrheal disease in late stage research conducted in Nepal. WHO’s approval means donor agencies like the vaccines alliance Gavi and UNICEF can now buy it for poorer countries.
Suspected Iranian spy ship MV Behshad is sailing home — a move that comes as the world awaits Israel’s response to Tehran’s retaliatory attack.
A quarter of a million Afghan children need education, food and homes after being forcibly returned from Pakistan, a nongovernmental organization said Thursday. Pakistan is cracking down on foreigners it alleges are in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans. More than 520,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since last October.
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa granted clemency to more than 4,000 prisoners, including some who were on death row, in an independence day amnesty on Thursday. Zimbabwe marked 44 years of independence from white minority rule, which ended in 1980 after a bloody bush war. The country’s name was changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe.
The parliament of Bosnia´s autonomous Serb Republic adopted a report on Thursday stating that the killing of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war did not constitute genocide, contravening the rulings of international courts. The massacre in 1995, which happened in the week after the U.N. safe zone of Srebrenica was attacked by the Bosnian Serb forces, was seen as Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two. The parliamentary step came as Serbia and the Serb Republic campaign against a resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide that is being debated in the United Nations and should be voted on in the General Assembly in early May.
For the families pressing relentlessly for the release of their loved ones taken hostage, moving forward is a contradiction.
She has been banned from taking part in the July presidential election, but Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado keeps campaigning, refusing to settle for a backup plan.She has ruled out the idea of a boycott, as used by opposition politicians in the 2018 election, the results of which many countries refused to accept.
Indian drugmaker Biocon, looking to grab a piece of the exploding weight-loss drug market as early as possible, is developing its own version of Novo Nordisk's wildly popular Wegovy and is prepared to conduct a clinical trial next year if needed, the CEO told Reuters. Wall Street has forecast the market for this new generation of obesity treatments reaching at least $100 billion by the end of the decade, and Biocon is taking steps to be a part of that windfall. "We're going to develop semaglutide for India even if it requires a clinical trial," Chief Executive Officer Siddharth Mittal said in an interview of the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic.
Health officials are warning consumers not to consume the Infinite Herbs basil sold at Trader Joe's after 12 people were sickened.
Two sons of the world's richest man Bernard Arnault on Thursday joined the board of LVMH after a shareholder vote, further cementing the family's control on the French luxury goods giant.The Forbes magazine currently lists Bernard Arnault, and his family, as the world's richest person with a fortune of $214 billion, ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who heads Tesla and X. Each son got more than 93 percent at the shareholder meeting, with the results coming as no surprise.
The U.S. is further restricting Iran's access to "low-level technology," in response to Iran's April 13 attack on Israel and its military support for Russia, according to a posting Thursday by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The U.S. is adding to the list of items that require a license for export or re-export to Iran, including items made abroad with U.S. technology, the posting said. The new restrictions build on the Commerce Department's February 2023 action targeting Iran's involvement in supplying drones to support Russia's war on Ukraine.
Despite its attack on Israel, Iran doesn't want an all out war with Israel and the U.S.
The outage of 911 systems in several states Wednesday evening was caused by the installation of a light pole, according to Lumen, a company that supports some of those systems.
It’s been nearly two months since 3-year-old Elijah Vue was reported missing in Wisconsin while in the care of a man who was in a relationship with his mother.
Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs, remained in disarray Thursday after unprecedented heavy rain led to airliners having to negotiate flooded runways.
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