Tag: All Regions

Employees at the embattled US National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports fundamental research, were all set to follow the lead of workers at two other science agencies and publish a statement warning about concerning developments under the Trump administration. But that effort has been indefinitely delayed. The Alexandria Declaration, named after the agency’s headquarters in Virginia, was expected to be issued on 14 July but is on ‘indefinite hold’, according to Stand Up for Science, which is organising the effort….

Uber and China’s Baidu will partner to deploy thousands of Baidu’s Apollo Go autonomous vehicles on the Uber platform across several international markets outside the US and China, the companies said on July 15. The first roll-outs are expected in Asia and the Middle East later in 2025. The tie-up brings together Uber’s massive ride-hailing network with Baidu’s fleet of more than 1,000 fully driverless vehicles across the world. It is the latest in a series of efforts by Uber…

Black eye makeup, or kohl, used between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE in the north-west of Iran contained natural graphite and manganese oxide, according to analysis carried out at the University of Tübingen, Germany. The results provide the first material insight into cosmetic practices in the Iron Age Middle East, the researchers said. For ancient Egypt, kohl recipes have been well-studied and known to use a range of inorganic and organic materials; however, for the ancient Near East and…

By Lucia Sinatra at brownstone dot org. It was nerve wracking, to say the least; having a high school student who had gotten into his dream college in mid-December 2020 but was uncertain if he could attend the following fall due to Covid-19 vaccine mandates. Those harrowing days and nights we spent focusing on little else as we scoured college websites to eventually find what we pretty much expected would come to pass. It started in April of 2021 when…

Delta Air Lines Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, has agreed to pay $8,100,000 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by awarding compensation to certain corporate officers and employees that exceeded the compensation limits Delta agreed to as part of its participation in the Department of the Treasury’s Payroll Support Program (PSP). The PSP was established by Congress in March 2020 under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to provide payroll support to passenger and…

WASHINGTON – For many years, Netflix executives bristled at the notion that the company really had a rival. Not Hollywood powerhouses like Disney, nor tech giants like Amazon. Instead, Mr Reed Hastings, the company’s co-founder, insisted at one point that Netflix competed with people’s desire to socialise, or to go to sleep. But there’s no hiding from YouTube. Netflix and YouTube are increasingly locked in a fierce battle for control over the television set, a rivalry that even Netflix’s executives…

AUSTIN, Texas – The official tally of storm-related deaths across Texas rose to 131 on July 14 as authorities warned of yet another round of heavy rains 10 days after a Hill Country flash flood that transformed the Guadalupe River into a killer torrent. A National Weather Service flood watch forecasting heavy downpours of up to half a foot of rain was posted until July 15 morning for a wide swath of central Texas extending from the Rio Grande east…

WASHINGTON – The US Supreme Court on July 14 cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to resume dismantling the Department of Education, part of his bid to shrink the federal government’s role in education in favor of more control by the states. In the latest high court win for Mr Trump, the justices lifted a federal judge’s order that had reinstated nearly 1,400 workers affected by mass layoffs at the department and blocked the administration from transferring key…

Ekiti State Government has advised all residents to remain vigilant and adhere strictly to preventive measures against diphtheria, in light of the rising number of confirmed cases across Nigeria. The State Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr. Oyebanji Filani, in a statement made available to newsmen in Ado Ekiti, assured that Ekiti has not recorded any confirmed case of diphtheria this year. He added that the advisory was borne out of Government’s commitment to ensuring that the state remains…

TORONTO – Over two months, Canadian officials scrambled to advise and reassure Canadians wanting to travel to the U.S. after President Donald Trump’s executive order on gender, documents show. The order, issued January 20, states the U.S. only recognizes two sexes, requires the government use the term “sex” rather than “gender” and mandates identification documents issued by the government, including passports and visas, be based on what it described as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.”…

ROME – Italian anti-Mafia author Roberto Saviano wept in court on Monday as judges upheld a conviction against a notorious mob boss who was found to have threatened him. Francesco Bidognetti, a former leader of the Neapolitan Camorra mafia who was already serving life for a slew of other serious crimes, was sentenced to 18 months for intimidation. The Rome court of appeals confirmed a 2021 ruling by a lower court, as it also upheld a 14-month sentence for Bidognetti’s…

BRUSSELS – The European Commission on July 14 said it was putting forward a new list of US goods worth €72 billion (S$108 billion) that could be targeted by European Union levies if tariff talks with Washington fail. The bloc’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic announced the proposal, “accounting for some €72 billion worth of US imports”, at a meeting with EU ministers in Brussels. The move came after US President Donald Trump threw months of painstaking negotiations with the EU…

WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of Justice released Guidance to ensure compliance with President Trump’s Executive Order No. 14224, which establishes English as the official language of the United States of America. Consistent with the Executive Order, the Department of Justice will lead a coordinated effort across federal agencies to minimize non-essential multilingual services, redirect resources toward English-language education and assimilation, and ensure legal compliance with the Executive Order through targeted measures where necessary. “As President Trump has made clear,…

DUBAI – Iran will react to any reimposition of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear programme, the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on July 14, without elaborating on what actions Tehran might take. A French diplomatic source told Reuters last week that European powers would have to restore UN sanctions on Iran under the so-called “snapback mechanism” if there were no nuclear deal that guaranteed European security interests. The “snapback mechanism” is a process that would reimpose UN sanctions on…

Canada signed a defence partnership with the EU on Monday as the two sides increase their security co-operation in response to Donald Trump’s threats against his Nato allies. The US president has questioned continued American support for allies that spend insufficiently on their own armed forces, and has threatened both Canada and Europe with punitive tariffs for allegedly taking advantage of the US. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a move away from buying US weapons, and…

HELSINKI – Finnish Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen hailed plans on June 25 for six Nato member states including Britain and France to participate in land forces that are to be established in northern Finland. Finland, which has a longer border with Russia than any other Nato state, has strengthened the frontier in the two years since it joined the military alliance following a policy U-turn after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “I am very pleased that yesterday, in connection with…