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The quintessential ice cream flavour is under threat, and many other dessert staples along with it, according to climate change researchers at the University of Costa Rica and Belgium's KU Leuven university. Increasing climate extremes are changing the habitats of wild vanilla species — primarily found in the tropical regions of Central America — and their mainly animal pollinators, the researchers say. This, in turn, is putting global production of vanilla at risk. In some regions, the plants may find more favourable conditions, but the insects that pollinate them may no longer find suitable habitats, according to the study published...

In recent decades, academia has created or implemented a truly jaw-dropping array of programs and ideas. And not in a good way. Whether “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) policies or Annual Sex Week, these new notions all seem aimed at chipping away at the foundations of a society based on common-sense, truth, fairness, and morality. One such idea is the “land acknowledgment.” It is a statement that a particular event or organization is located on land that once belonged to specific indigenous tribes. Land acknowledgments first appeared in Australia in the late 1970s. They were adopted in Canada before coming...

The Founding Fathers who gathered in Philadelphia to adopt the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 picked a nice day to do their work. It was a Thursday, and the temperature at 6:00 a.m. was 68°F, going up to a warmish but still pleasant 76°F at 1:00 p.m., according to daily records kept by Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson. The planetary metabolism at the time was set more for such balmy days than it was for the increasingly suffocating summers we experience in the 21st century. It was in 1867 that scientists would first define the epoch that includes the late...

A new rite published by the Vatican on Thursday will allow priests to celebrate a Mass to exhort Catholics to exercise care for the Earth, in the latest push by the 1.4-billion-member global Church to address global climate change. For centuries, Catholic priests have been able to celebrate special Masses to pray for their country, give thanks after a harvest or ask God to end a natural disaster. The new "Mass for the care of creation," prepared by two Vatican offices, allows priests to pray that Catholics will "lovingly care" for creation and "learn to live in harmony with all...

A group of Environmental Protection Agency employees on Monday published a declaration of dissent from the agency’s policies under the Trump administration, saying they “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.” More than 170 EPA employees put their names to the document, with about 100 more signing anonymously out of fear of retaliation, according to Jeremy Berg, a former editor-in-chief of Science magazine who was among non-EPA scientists or academics to also sign. The latter figure includes 20 Nobel laureates. The letter represents rare public criticism from agency employees who could face blowback for speaking out...

Tel Aviv — The head of the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees has condemned a controversial U.S. and Israeli-backed humanitarian organization operating in Gaza, calling it "an abomination" and "a death trap costing more lives than it saves." The statement from Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general for UNRWA, criticizing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) came as the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said 79 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory over the previous 24 hours, 51 of whom it said had died near GHF sites. "There is no food. The people have starved to death, and nobody gives...

Southern Europeans braced Saturday for the first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world's fastest-warming continent increasingly into the red. Temperatures are set to rise to 37 degrees Celsius (99 Fahrenheit) in Rome, driving the Eternal City's many tourists and Catholic pilgrims to the Vatican alike towards the Italian capital's 2,500 public fountains for refreshment. Scientists have long warned that humanity's burning of fossil fuels is heating up the world with disastrous consequences for the environment, with Europe's ever-hotter and increasingly common blistering summer heatwaves a direct result of that warming.

The mainstream media tried to destroy Trump—but in the end, they destroyed themselves. This is the story of anchors who lost their minds, reporters who lost their careers, and a media machine that couldn’t handle President Trump.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, slipped quietly into the depths of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), embodies the insidious nature of modern propaganda. This Act, a malignant offshoot of the original Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, dismantles the barriers that once stood between American citizens and the persuasive machinery of U.S. government-sponsored propaganda. With the stroke of a legislative pen, the distinction between truth and state-sanctioned narrative was rendered ambiguous, blurring the line between informed citizenry and manipulated populace.The original Smith-Mundt Act, birthed in the aftermath of World War II, sought to wield the power of information as a...

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Israel has urged the United States over the past two days to join its newly launched military campaign against Iran, but the US is currently not considering such a move, reports Axios, citing Israeli and American officials. In the past 48 hours, Israel asked US President Donald Trump’s administration to join its attack against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and military sites, two Israeli officials told the news site. A US official confirmed Israel’s request and said the Trump administration is not currently considering joining the conflict, the report reads. ...

It was the easiest thing in the world to predict: The media’s moment of half-hearted contrition for “missing” President Joe Biden’s obvious physical and cognitive decline has given way already to a fixation on President Trump’s health. The journalists have no choice, you see. They’re humbled now. Their renewed zeal for the truth compels them to correct for the reporting mistakes of the Biden era. Therefore, they must now be unrelentingly suspicious of Trump’s mental and physical health. They learned their lesson! The mea culpas seem awfully hollow now — more like a thin cover for a public relations reset,...

“60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley spoke out about President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against CBS and its parent company on Saturday, arguing that a settlement would be “very damaging.” “Well, it’d be very damaging to CBS, to Paramount, to the reputation of those companies,” Pelley said during a conversation with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Saturday, who asked how harmful a settlement and potential apology would be to the network. Trump filed a lawsuit against Paramount Global, CBS News’ parent company, over a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2024. Fox News Digital confirmed that Trump rejected...

Nearly one million Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the country’s war against Ukraine, according to a new study, a staggering toll as Russia’s three-year assault on its neighbor grinds on. The study, published on Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that close to 400,000 Ukrainian troops have also been killed or wounded since the war began. That would put the overall casualty figure, for Russian and Ukrainian troops combined, at almost 1.4 million. Officials cautioned that casualty figures were difficult to estimate because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war...

WASHINGTON (AP) — With predictions for a busy hurricane season beginning Sunday, experts in storms and disasters are worried about something potentially as chaotic as the swirling winds: Massive cuts to the federal system that forecasts, tracks and responds to hurricanes. Experts are alarmed over the large-scale staff reductions, travel and training restrictions and grant cut-offs since President Donald Trump took office at both the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which prepares for and responds to hurricanes, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which tracks and forecasts them. “My nightmare is a major catastrophic storm hitting an area that is...

New Delhi (AFP) – The airline industry's flagship goal of decarbonising by 2050 is now "in peril" due to climate-sceptic policies, including those of US President Donald Trump, the leading airline association IATA warned on Sunday. The emergence of leaders favouring fossil fuels and recent regulatory rollbacks are "obviously a setback... it does imperil success on the 2050 horizon", Marie Owens Thomsen, the International Air Transport Association's senior vice president for sustainability, told reporters. "But I don't think it's going to halt or reverse progress. I think it will just slow progress," she said at the IATA annual industry conference...

"The White House and some Republicans in Congress have accused NPR of promoting a liberal bias. How do you respond?" NPR CEO Katherine Maher: "We're a nonpartisan news organization. We do not seek to favor any political party at all." Does anyone actually believe this???

If you think the price of tariffs is high, consider the cost of no tariffs.Liberal and libertarian opponents of President Trump’s tariffs argue that Americans pay for tariffs and that those tariffs are a form of taxation. Tariffs were how the American government was funded before Democrats were able to successfully implement the otherwise unconstitutional income tax through the Sixteenth Amendment. Democrats preferred tariffs to taxes. Why? Because they believed tariffs were regressive while taxes were progressive. Tariffs kept the poor from buying the cheapest products while taxes were weighed against the wealthy. That’s still the thrust of their current...

The United Nations warned Wednesday there is a 70 percent chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 will exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius international benchmark. The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to an annual climate report published by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN's weather and climate agency. "We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record," said the WMO's deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett. "Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means...

The developments come after a whirlwind weekend of diplomacy from Trump where he told reporters on Saturday that he was 'absolutely' considering imposing new sanctions on Russia. The next day, Trump launched into a blistering attack on Putin where he said the Russian leader has gone 'absolutely crazy.' Trump condemned the Russians for escalating their strikes on Ukraine while negotiations were ongoing, which he said was resulting in the 'needless killing of a lot of people.' In a chilling warning about the future of the former Soviet nation if the bloodshed continues, Trump said Putin's war 'will lead to the...