The Supreme Court is putting the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution-fighting “good neighbor” plan on hold while legal challenges continue, the conservative-led court’s latest blow to federal regulations. The justices in a 5-4 vote on Thursday rejected arguments by the Biden administration and Democratic-controlled states that the plan was cutting air pollution and saving lives in 11 states where it was being enforced and that the high court’s intervention was unwarranted. The rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will soon begin compensating dairy farmers for the loss of milk supply due to bird flu-infected cows, the agency said on Thursday. Bird flu has infected 132 dairy herds in 12 states since March. Farmers with infected cows can suffer financial losses from reduced milk production and the cost of veterinary care.
The Republican lawmaker who leads the House Armed Services Committee has written to the Biden administration formally demanding it shut down its aid pier off the coast Gaza, calling the operation ineffective, risky and a waste of money. The offshore floating pier, announced by Biden in March as a response to the threat of famine in the Gaza Strip, was constructed off the coast of the enclave by the U.S. military as a way to bring in food and other aid supplies. The U.S. military has been authorized to operate it until the end of July, but a U.S. Agency for International Development official said this week that the administration could seek to extend it for at least another month.
Nearly 2 million people go to the polls on Saturday in Mauritania, a vast desert nation in West Africa which positions itself as a strategic ally of the West in a region swept by coups and violence, but has been denounced for rights abuses. President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, widely expected to win a second term, is a former army chief who came to power in 2019 following the first democratic transition in the country’s history. Ghazouni faces seven opponents, among them Biram Dah Abeid, an anti-slavery activist who is a candidate for the third consecutive time, leaders of several opposition parties and a neurosurgeon.
There is little Gaza's doctors can do to alleviate the pain that three-year-old Suhaib Khuzaiq still feels from a shrapnel injury that caused his leg to be amputated above the knee in December.As a result, amputations have become a key way of handling injuries that in other circumstances might have been treated differently, causing their number to soar further.
Defense chiefs of West Africa on Thursday proposed an ambitious plan to deploy a 5,000-strong “standby force” to fight the region’s worsening security crises, a measure that analysts say might not work due to challenges of funding and division within the regional bloc. The plan, which will cost $2.6 billion annually, was proposed to heads of state at a meeting of defense officials in Nigeria's capital of Abuja. The plan was also aimed at preventing further coups following a string of military takeovers that have destabilized the region, Nigeria’s Defense Minister Mohammed Badaru said.
Iranians will elect a new president after their last was killed in a plane crash. Here's why many say they won't even bother to vote.
Vienna is still the world's most liveable city for a third year in a row, while the rating of Tel Aviv in Israel slumped, according to a new survey published Thursday.Vienna was already the world's most liveable city between 2018-20 and again since 2022. jza/jj
Twenty-one critically ill children were set to exit Gaza on Thursday in the first medical evacuation since the territory's sole travel crossing was shut down in early May, Palestinian officials said. Health officials say thousands of people need medical treatment abroad, including hundreds of urgent cases. Family members bid a tearful goodbye to the children as they and their escorts left the Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis bound for the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing with Israel.
A sell-off in Micron put a dent in the AI bullishness that has fueled the tech-driven rally, as investors eye fresh economic data.
People applying for naturalization in Germany will now be required to affirm Israel’s right to exist, under changes to the country’s citizenship law.
Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has been hosting executives and entrepreneurs in London this week to boost investment in cutting-edge technologies promising big breakthroughs in tackling climate change. - Is there growing investor appetite for climate technology?
About 12% of children are clinically addicted to food, predominantly ultraprocessed food, according to research. Here is what their lives are like.
A growing body of research reveals that in the U.K., young people have many justified grievances stemming from austerity.
Rather than face crowds and high prices, many people are choosing to avoid peak travel seasons. But as global tourist numbers continue to rise, traditional low seasons are getting busier than ever too.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday called for a fairer distribution of Ukrainian refugees in Europe, stressing how countries contributing less to the effort should receive help from the EU. "If the other countries participate less in the reception of refugees, it means that Europe will provide these countries with special financial support for the financing of livelihoods, vocational training, language courses and all the things that play a role," said Scholz at an EU Council summit in Brussels. He said that Germany, Czech, Poland and a few other countries have borne the brunt of taking in people fleeing from Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion.
A top Bolivian general has been arrested and accused of mounting a coup against the government, after attempting to storm the presidential palace on Wednesday, before swiftly retreating and being taken into custody on live television.
European Union lawmakers have split over whether to delay the bloc's upcoming ban on imports of goods linked to deforestation, adding pressure to Ursula von der Leyen as she seeks their backing for a second term as European Commission president. The EU's deforestation law will, from Dec. 30, require companies and traders placing soy, beef, coffee, palm oil and other products on the EU market to provide proof their supply chains do not contribute to the destruction of forests. In a statement published on Thursday, EU lawmaker Peter Liese - environment spokesperson for the European People's Party (EPP) lawmaker group, which is von der Leyen's political group - urged the European Commission to delay and then scale back the law, which he called a "bureaucratic monster".
Tensions soared on Thursday between supporters of Emmanuel Macron and the French far-right after its longtime leader Marine Le Pen cast doubt on the president's ability to act as head of the armed forces after legislative elections.Le Pen told the Telegramme daily that the president's title as commander-in-chief of the armed forces was "honorific, because it's the prime minister who holds the purse strings".
Zimbabwean police beat dozens of opposition supporters and arrested several outside a court in the capital Harare on Thursday, after Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party members were denied bail following their arrests two weeks ago. A Harare magistrate denied bail to the party's interim leader Jameson Timba and 78 activists arrested on June 16 for holding a political gathering which authorities said was unauthorised. Timba took over as interim leader of the CCC after former leader Nelson Chamisa quit the party in January, alleging it had been hijacked by the ruling ZANU-PF party.