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While a handful of events have already gotten underway at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Friday evening's Opening Ceremony will mark the official start of the Summer Games. The Games will take place over the next 16 days until August 11, yet somehow organizers are already running out of food for athletes in the Olympic Village. Whether it's transportation nightmares, inadequate beds for the most elite athletes on the planet, or general infrastructure issues, some things always go wrong during the Olympics. Running out of food before the Games are even officially underway is a new one, and we're not talking...

Europe’s largest economy, Germany, is expected to become a net importer of electricity in 2023 for the first time since 2002 due to retiring coal plants and the nuclear phase-out, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday. Germany plans to switch off all its remaining nuclear power generators by the end of 2022, while it will also retire a large portion of its coal-fired capacity fleet between 2022 and 2024. Recently, the country has said it would aim to phase out coal by 2030 – eight years ahead of earlier plans. The coal exit for Germany could be more...

Republicans have begun cutting Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s "Green the Capitol" program and they’re starting with the garbage. House Administration Chairman Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) is moving to suspend the House composting program after a review showed the program was actually increasing the House’s overall energy consumption, the House Administration Committee announced Monday. The House composting plan was part of Pelosi’s initiative to make the Capitol more environmentally friendly, and that included installing low-flow toilets in House office buildings, bringing organic foods into the House cafeterias and incorporating recyclable utensils and composting programs throughout the Capitol complex. But the estimated $475,000 program...

As San Francisco goes, so goes Boise. That's not something you hear too often, but you will, if Corey Godfrey and his fellow anti-plastic shopping bag crusaders - newly christened "B.Y.O.B.B.," or "Bring Your Own Bags, Boise" - have their way. The small grassroots group met for the first time Sunday afternoon at Veterans Park to strategize ways to make Boise disposable shopping bag-free. San Francisco was among the first cities to adopt such a ban in 2007. Some countries have banned the bags, which have earned ignominious nicknames around the world, like "white pollution" in China. Dressed in Bronco...

Deal: Moderate Republicans try to bridge chasm 09/12/02 HARRY ESTEVE SALEM -- They were everywhere. They were nowhere. Try Our Classifieds One evening, the breakaway group of House Republicans crammed into a car speeding to a meeting in Portland, on the next, members crowded around a table at a brewpub a few blocks from the state Capitol. On Tuesday, they couldn't be found. That's because they had wangled a key to the hidden staircase that leads to the golden pioneer above the Capitol dome. With the city spread beneath them, they plotted how to bring the latest legislative gripefest to...