Up to 12,000 substances could fall within the scope of the new ‘restrictions roadmap’
Thousands of potentially harmful chemicals could soon be prohibited in Europe under new restrictions, which campaigners have hailed as the strongest yet.
Earlier this year, scientists said chemical pollution had crossed a “planetary boundary” beyond which lies the breakdown of global ecosystems.
Continue reading...Moscow complains about US military aid as Washington promises more support, including advanced weapons
Russia should be “weakened to the point where it can’t invade Ukraine”, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said after he and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, visited Kyiv and pledged a further $713m to help Ukraine in its war effort.
The direct comment came a few hours after the two senior US figures met with with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy – and was followed by Russia making an official diplomatic complaint about American arms supplies.
Continue reading...President is touring Brazil in bid to win back voters before October election – and appears to be making headway
He came on horseback and wore a scowl as he spoke, telling thousands of yellow-clad believers they faced a momentous battle of good versus evil.
“Good has always triumphed – and this time it will be no different. Good will prevail!” the outsider bellowed as his followers encircled the stage that had been erected to welcome him to this sweltering satellite town in north-east Brazil.
Continue reading...About 1,500 eligible workers at LDJ5 sorting center on Staten Island vote in union ballot, after recent success at JFK8 warehouse
Amazon workers in New York will go to the polls again as labor activists push to unionize a second facility in the US following their surprise recent victory over the tech giant.
About 1,500 eligible workers at an LDJ5 Amazon sorting center in Staten Island, New York, begin voting in a union election on Monday, in a process that will continue through 29 April. Ballot-counting starts on 2 May.
Continue reading...Residents hope to avoid Shanghai-style shortages as Chinese authorities rush to stamp out outbreak in the capital
Beijingers were flooding supermarkets to stock up on food on Monday, hoping to avoid Shanghai-style shortages in the case of a city-wide lockdown as the capital records a growing number of Covid infections.
Authorities in Beijing have ordered 3.5 million residents and workers in the biggest district of Chaoyang to report for three coronavirus tests this week, after the area recorded 26 of Beijing’s 47 symptomatic cases since Friday.
Continue reading...Fears death toll from Sunday’s clashes could rise after armed tribesmen attacked villages of non-Arab Massalit minority
Clashes between rival groups in Sudan’s Darfur killed at least 168 people on Sunday, an aid group has said, in the latest bout of deadly violence to hit the restive region.
Darfur, which was ravaged by civil war that erupted in 2003, has seen a spike in deadly conflict since October last year triggered by disputes mainly over land, livestock and access to water and grazing.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron has beaten Marine Le Pen in the presidential runoff and will serve another term as president of France. Reliable projections put Macron on course for 58% to Le Pen’s 41%. Find out how the race is unfolding live department by department.
The election on Sunday 24 April is a runoff to decide between the first two candidates from the first round of voting on 10 April. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen topped that earlier poll.
Continue reading...President’s victory against Le Pen was significantly narrower than five years ago, scoring an estimated 58.8% of the vote
Both candidates are now back in Paris from their northern constituencies, French media report.
Macron is ensconced in the Élysée Palace on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and will later join his campaign team near the Eiffel Tower. Le Pen is at her campaign headquarters in the west of Paris.
Continue reading...As Russia and Ukraine mark Orthodox Easter, Russia continues assault with Zelenskiy set to request more weapons from US
Russian forces continued heavy shelling of Ukrainian cities on Sunday as people in both countries observed Orthodox Easter and the US secretaries of state and defence made their first visit to Kyiv since the invasion.
Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv and were holding talks with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskiy, said on Sunday in a social media video.
Continue reading...Democratic congresswoman joins Bernie Sanders in Staten Island and says workers’ successful effort was ‘first domino to fall’
The progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Amazon’s first unionized workers in New York on Sunday that their victory was “the first domino to fall” in what she expected to be a wave of similar votes for representation across the country.
The leftwing Democrat joined Vermont senator Bernie Sanders on stage in Staten Island to celebrate the historic achievement and to call for workers in more Amazon facilities in the US to follow their example.
Continue reading...National guard soldier Bishop Evans, 22, attempted to save two people he believed were drowning but did not resurface
Search crews combed the Rio Grande for a third day Sunday looking for signs of a Texas national guard soldier who went missing in the water amid an attempt to save two people he believed were drowning.
For the first time Sunday, Texas officials publicly identified the missing soldier as Bishop E Evans, a 22-year-old specialist and field artilleryman.
Continue reading...Freedom Movement predicted to have won 35.8% of parliamentary election vote over populist PM Janez Janša
Exit polls in Slovenia’s parliamentary election suggest an opposition liberal party won by a landslide, dealing a major defeat to the populist prime minister, Janez Janša, who has been accused of pushing the small EU country to the right while in office.
The Sunday polls showed that Freedom Movement won 35.8% support, compared with 22.5% for the ruling conservative Slovenian Democratic party.
Warren gives party stark warning in CNN interview, and condemns House minority leader Kevin McCarthy as ‘liar and a traitor’
Democrats need to “get up off our rear ends” and work to bring down prices and runaway inflation, or face wipeout in November’s midterm elections, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren warns.
In a forthright interview Sunday morning on CNN’s State of the Union, the former candidate for her party’s presidential nomination also lambasted the Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy as “a liar and a traitor” after he was caught on tape lying about his support for Donald Trump after the 6 January insurrection.
Continue reading...Macron faces a second term at least as challenging as his first, if not more so
Assured of another five years in the Élysée after beating his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, on Sunday, Emmanuel Macron faces a second term at least as challenging as his first, if not more so. Here we look at some of the key challenges and priorities of the re-elected president:
Continue reading...Crash comes after authorities in March reported arresting 210,000 migrants attempting to cross southern border without permission
Sixteen people – most of whom were trying to enter the US without permission – were injured when their pickup truck crashed while being chased at high speeds by Texas police, according to authorities.
Two of those hurt were critically wounded and flown to hospitals in San Antonio by helicopter, said the sheriff of Medina county, Randy Brown, whose deputies pursued the truck at the center of the wreck.
Continue reading...Bear League describes how family in Lake Tahoe heard ‘odd snoring-like noises’ but dismissed them before eventual discovery
A California family spent the winter dismissing odd noises that sounded a little like snoring, only to discover that five bears had spent the cold season hibernating under their house.
The Bear League group, which works to preserve bear habitat and help bears in distress largely around the Lake Tahoe basin region in the state, recounted the family’s astonishing episode last week.
Continue reading...Ashish Jha says spreading variant unlikely to have much effect on the nation’s pandemic recovery
The White House Covid response coordinator Ashish Jha appeared to undercut the Biden administration’s efforts to reinstate the federal mask mandate on Sunday, stating that the spreading BA.2 variant in the US was unlikely to have much effect on the nation’s pandemic recovery.
The justice department announced last week it would appeal the decision of a federal judge in Florida to prematurely lift the mandate on air, rail and bus travel in the US, based on the assertion by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that “an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health”.
Continue reading...Eric Bourne and Stephen Carpenter, who work on RRS Sir David Attenborough, hope to tie the knot on Monday
Two polar research ship crew members are to become the first same-sex couple to get married in the British Antarctic Territory.
Eric Bourne and Stephen Carpenter hope to tie the knot on Monday, although it may be pushed back because of the weather.
Continue reading...Luke Symons was captured by Houthi rebels and accused of being a spy but was never put on trial
A British man who was held captive in Yemen without charge or trial for five years has been released from jail.
In 2017, Luke Symons, 30, was detained by Houthi rebels at a security checkpoint on suspicion of espionage.
Continue reading...Fifteen remain missing as questions grow as to why the Kazu I sailed in rough weather off the hazardous Shiretoko peninsula
Rescuers searching since a tour boat carrying 26 people apparently sank off far north-eastern Japan have found the body of an 11th victim – a child – as questions intensify about why the vessel sailed in rough weather at a known hazardous location.
The child was found late Sunday and later confirmed dead, the coast guard said Monday. The bodies of 10 victims – seven men and three women – were found earlier Sunday.
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