Former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said he has “high confidence” in an assessment published by the State Department in January linking the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology to the Chinese military.
The Group of Seven (G7) nations have agreed to participate in a worldwide vaccination plan “to halt the coronavirus pandemic.” It comes amid concerns among G7 leaders that impoverished countries are being left out in the global jab drive. They also want a global tax as they seek to raise their contributions to meet an overdue spending pledge of 100 billion dollars a year by rich countries to help poorer ones cut carbon emissions. And, the leaders made clear they will be seeking to rival China in reaching out to lower and middle-income countries.
An increasingly severe drought across the Southwestern United States has resulted in Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, reaching its lowest level of water since the 1930s on Wednesday, Axios reports. The Southwest is currently suffering the most severe and widespread drought of this century.
Israeli scientists are developing an oral COVID-19 vaccine that may be ready as a booster shot for humans within nine months, the Times of Israel reports. The vaccine has so far worked well on rats, whose antibody levels increased with no side effects.
The UK’s High Court of Justice ruled Thursday in favor of Maya Forstater, a British woman who was fired from her job at the Center for Global Development after she posted on social media her belief that men cannot become women, the Christian Post reports. Intervening in the case on behalf of Forstater, the Equality and Human Rights Commission asserted that religious and philosophical beliefs should be protected.
Delivering a victory to private and religious schools, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that, while the state’s Department of Health does have legislated power to shut schools in emergency situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, local health authorities do not have that power, Fox6 reports. The conservative majority court gave the ruling in a 4-3 decision.
China is expanding its nuclear arsenal as tensions with the United States escalate, according to a report.
The Supreme Court on Monday found that certain low-level crack cocaine offenders are not eligible for sentencing reductions, a repudiation of the Biden administration’s late case change in opinion.
Israel’s brand new government may already be tested less than two days after being sworn into office. Hamas and other Palestinian groups are calling for a ‘Day of Rage’ on Tuesday if the planned ‘Flag March’ takes place through Jerusalem’s Old City.
Thousands of missile troops are holding drills with Russia’s latest mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system and other “special hardware.”
President Biden arrived in Brussels on Sunday night for his second of three major intergovernmental summits where rallying democracies to counter China’s global agenda is emerging as a central theme.
Countries should also avoid giving the Astrazeneca coronavirus vaccine to people over 60, the head of the EU drug regulator’s COVID-19 task force was quoted on Sunday as saying, amid fears over rare blood clotting and as more vaccines become available.
A federal judge on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit brought by some employees of a Texas hospital over its requirement that workers be vaccinated against COVID-19, CBS affiliate KHOU-TV reports. Nearly 200 employees at Houston Methodist were suspended without pay last week for their failure to get fully vaccinated, per the hospital system’s requirements.
Saudi Arabia has reportedly imposed a hefty fine on a Christian man for allegedly evangelizing among Muslims and helping his Christian sister to escape the Islamic nation.
A Christian man who defended his sister against sexual violence has been killed by “militant Muslims” in Pakistan’s Punjab province, according to Christians familiar with the situation.
Israel’s longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ousted from power Sunday by parliament, the Knesset, which approved a new coalition government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with US broadcaster NBC ahead of his first meeting with US President Joe Biden, said relations between Moscow and Washington were at their lowest point in years.
European Union negotiators said international talks that resumed Saturday on the Iran nuclear agreement were on track to revive the deal, which crumbled after the United States withdrew in 2018.
A Wisconsin federal judge ordered a temporary halt to a $4 billion race-based federal relief program for farmers on Thursday.
When the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was hacked in 2018, it took a mere six hours. Early this year, an intruder lurked in hundreds of computers related to water systems across the U.S. In Portland, Oregon, burglars installed malicious computers onto a grid providing power to a chunk of the Northwest.