#governments

#governments

As the Covid inquiry kicks off oral hearings today, we will once again debate what exactly happened in 2020 and 2021, and who is ultimately responsible for the decisions made.The government has already started to close in on scientists and point the finger at them for the poor response in the early stages of the pandemic.

Guest Post by Samuel F. Ernst[1] As Dennis reported, the Supreme Court has granted certiorari in the case of Vidal v. Elster to determine if the PTO violated Steve Elster's First Amendment right to free speech when it declined to federally register his trademark TRUMP TOO SMALL in connection with T-shirts.

Scotland's First Minister has warned devolution is becoming unworkable, as he blasted the actions of an interfering Conservative Government at Westminster.Humza Yousaf said recent events had highlighted the grim reality that even the limited measure of self-government that devolution provides is no longer guaranteed.

(Suhaimi Abdullah / Getty Images)

Sometimes sports isn't just about sports.For decades, athletic events have been used to launder the images and reputations in a tactic called "sportswashing." Whether embraced by a company or a nation with a regressive policies, sportswashing has particular allure, experts say, because it works.

Over the past year, artificial intelligence has advanced so rapidly that it feels dizzying, and a growing chorus of industry insiders, academics and politicians are sounding the alarm about risks to society.The effects have already been wide-ranging colleges are struggling to weed out A.I.-generated essays, disinformation researchers are contending with a whole new category of deepfakes, and the threat of A.I. screenwriting is central to the current Hollywood writers' strike.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and African leaders on a peace mission to Kyiv had testy exchanges on Friday on how to end the war with Russia, hours after Russian forces fired missiles at the capital while the African heads of government were there.The African leaders spoke of hope and dialogue after talking with Mr. Zelensky, but the Ukrainian leader ruled out peace talks until Moscow withdraws its troops from occupied territory, and he called for Russia to be frozen out diplomatically.

Senior military officials from the United States and China used a conference in Singapore to push competing visions of Asia's future security: a U.S.-led safety net of well-armed partnerships versus a region where China is the center of a new international order.The U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and officials from allied countries argued implicitly or explicitly that Russia's invasion of Ukraine showed that Asia should urgently embrace a network of U.S.-led alliances to tame the growing might of China.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Tuesday urged the world to be very skeptical about claims from oil and gas producers that emerging technology soon will allow people to adequately capture the climate-wrecking fumes emitted by their cars, planes and businesses.It's one big question mark, Kerry told The Associated Press of the future viability of carbon-capture technology, a debate at the heart of global negotiations on cutting emissions to stave off the most disastrous scenarios of global warming.

CLIMATEWIRE | HELENA, Mont.Young people suing Montana for embracing fossil fuels will wrap up their case Friday, closing out a week of bashing officials for ignoring climate effects they say are warming the state's famed fishing rivers, melting its iconic glaciers and harming its youngest residents.

This week, the head of the United Nations atomic watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi, was so concerned about a new risk at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that he flew to Ukraine and crossed the front line in the country's war with Russia to see the situation for himself.Mr. Grossi had been to the plant before and had also expressed grave concerns about the potential for nuclear catastrophe, but this threat was different: the recent destruction of a dam on the Dnipro River deprived the plant of the main source of water used for the critical task of cooling its six reactors and spent fuel rods.

Rescuers remove rubble at the maternity ward of the Vilniansk Multidisciplinary Hospital in Ukraine, one of the countries experiencing an increase in violence against health-care workers.Dmytro Smolienko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images In conflict zones around the world, violence and threats against hospitals, health-care facilities and their personnel reached a grim milestone in 2022, according to a new report from the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC).

A Canadian public relations manager for a Chinese-founded development bank announced his resignation Wednesday in a statement that accused it of being dominated by Communist Party hacks and said Canada's interests weren't served by being a member.The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank confirmed in an email that Bob Pickard resigned as its director general of global communications and rejected his criticism as unfounded.

Public art in Altoona, Penn., one of many cities hit hard by the opioid epidemic.Marianne Sinisi organized the installation after her son died of an overdose.State and local governments have received about $3 billion so far out of $50 billion total in settlements from national lawsuits.Nancy Andrews/KFF Health News Thousands of local governments nationwide are receiving settlement money from companies that made, distributed, or sold opioid painkillers, like Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, and Walmart.

Toronto's troubled CafeTO initiative became a byelection topic on Thursday as some mayoral candidates pledged to make changes to the program, following complaints by some restaurateurs that they were denied permits to expand their curbside patios this year.Olivia Chow, former NDP MP and city councillor, former councillor Ana Bailao, and former police chief Mark Saunders all proposed changes to the program if elected mayor.

The Democratic governor's proposal would raise the federal minimum age to buy a firearm to 21 from 18; mandate universal background checks; institute a "reasonable" waiting period for all gun purchases and ban assault rifles nationally.Newsom acknowledged the seemingly unimaginable hurdles to creating a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Louisiana's Republican-led legislature Tuesday passed a ban on gender-affirming care for most minors in the state, sending the bill to a Democratic governor who has signaled opposition to the legislation but faces a GOP supermajority with the numbers to override his veto power.House Bill 648 would bar those under 18 in Louisiana from receiving gender-affirming surgeries, puberty blocking medications and hormone treatments, and would punish health care professionals that provide such care to minors with the revocation of their license for a minimum of two years.

Leaders in Westminster and Holyrood have been urged to get round a table to sort out a growing row over Scotland's deposit return scheme, after the Scottish first minister indicated that it could be scrapped due to restrictions imposed in London.Humza Yousaf wrote to the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, saying the UK government's decision to in effect remove glass containers from the scheme under which retailers would take a 20p deposit on single-use containers, refundable on return has put the whole plan in grave danger.

Dread of the financial markets is part of the Labour party's DNA.This primal fear has been passed down the generations.Ramsay MacDonald, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan were all battle-scarred from their vain attempts to defend the pound.Even though the signs point to a big Labour victory at the next election, the mood at the top of the party remains cautious.

ROME Silvio Berlusconi, the brash media mogul who revolutionized Italian television with privately owned channels that he used to become the country's most polarizing and prosecuted prime minister over multiple stints in office and an often scandalous quarter-century of political and cultural influence, died on Monday at San Raffaele hospital in Milan.

Rishi Sunak has used a trip to Washington to push the UK as a global centre for artificial intelligence regulation, insisting its record in the sector will make others listen to this mid-sized country.Downing Street is hopeful that Joe Biden, whom Sunak was to meet at the White House on Thursday, will agree to US involvement in a UK-hosted global summit on AI safety in the autumn.

Children's doctors are calling for a complete ban on disposable vapes because they are likely to damage young lungs and are bad for the environment.But an anti-smoking campaign group says a ban would make it harder for some adults to give up smoking and increase the trade in illegal vapes.UK governments are planning steps to reduce vaping among under-18s.

The state of Illinois was among the victims of a global ransomware attack late last month that is believed to have exploited a vulnerability in a popular file transfer program, the state's information technology agency announced Friday.The FBI and the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have attributed the attack, which hit Illinois state government May 31, to a ransomware gang called CL0P, which exploited the popular MOVEit Transfer file-sharing software.

A closed off Englewood block filled with children playing among green trees under sunny skies was spotted with one essential color: orange.The shade representing gun violence awareness colored T-shirts and table cloths throughout the afternoon Peace Fest at 64th Street and Honore Street on Saturday, where dozens of community groups shared resources and celebrated with music, art and food to mark Wear Orange Weekend and honor victims of gun violence.

After four months of political wrangling, eyeball-to-eyeball negotiations and mounting anxiety in both parties about the "debt ceiling," Congress finally has found enough common ground to pay its bills.But how long will these good tidings last?First, it helps to understand just what the debt ceiling is.

A budget crisis in Northern Ireland means there needs to be a sense of urgency in restoring the powersharing institutions at Stormont, Tanaiste Micheal Martin has said.However, he refused to say whether he is optimistic about the return of the Assembly after meetings with political parties in Belfast.

The UK and Irish governments must act together to ensure the DUP does not head off on its summer holidays with Stormont powersharing still in limbo, a former Sinn Fein minister has warned.Conor Murphy was commenting after meeting with Irish deputy premier Micheal Martin in Belfast.The DUP is blocking the devolved institutions in Belfast in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangements, and the party has insisted it will not return to Stormont until it secures further legislative assurances from the UK Government around sovereignty and trade.

"The TRIPS waiver was a mistake.Expanding it will make things be worse.It won't help fight COVID, but it will hurt U.S. innovation and it will contribute to other countries realizing their industrial policy goals."- Marc Busch
The House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet today held a hearing titled "IP and Strategic Competition with China: Part II - Prioritizing U.S. Innovation Over Assisting Foreign Adversaries," which focused on the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) agreement on a waiver of IP rights for COVID-19 vaccine technologies under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) last June.

There could be bad news for anyone with a mortgage this week, as speculation is growing that the Bank of Canada is getting ready to start raising lending rates again.After hiking its benchmark interest rate repeatedly in a bid to rein in runaway inflation, the central bank hit pause on hikes in January, saying it needed time to gauge the impact on the economy.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Monday that he planned to talk to Saudi leaders and other Gulf state officials this week during a visit to Saudi Arabia about the possibility of the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel.The Biden administration supports such a move, but it should not come at the expense of progress between Israelis and Palestinians and a two-state solution, he said.

With so much going on in the city's thriving ecosystem, it is easy to miss some of the happenings in the space.We keep you abreast of the things that you may have missed in NYC Tech News for the week ending 6/5 including the NYC startup fundings, NYC startup exits, and NYC startup events featuring news for Radformation, Highlight, and much, much more.

With a broken elevator and a spotty HVAC system, the Gower Street Apartments badly needed some updates when the building's owner received a surprising call earlier this year.A city housing official suggested that perhaps Congress could fund repairs to the supportive housing development for formerly homeless people.

Thank you for the article covering the Rosehill Cemetery Memorial Day event ( "Rosehill Cemetery honors veterans during event," May 30).That is my son, Michael, photographed with two of his three sons.Running late to the ceremony, I couldn't find him beforehand.After, I realized why.I had been looking for him in his American Legion uniform - with the crisp white shirt and the colorful medals on the chest pocket.