Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BANGKOK/PHNOM PENH, July 24 (Xinhua) — The Thai military said on Thursday that a clash broke out on the border with Cambodia after the Cambodian side opened fire.
In turn, a spokesman for the Cambodian Defense Ministry said that Cambodian soldiers clashed with Thai soldiers in a disputed border area on Thursday. –0–
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
The world’s highest court says countries are legally obliged to prevent harms caused by climate change, in a ruling that repudiates Australia’s claims it is not legally responsible for emissions from our fossil fuel exports.
The landmark ruling overnight by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will reverberate in courts, parliaments and boardrooms the world over.
In a closely watched case at The Hague, the judges were asked to clarify the legal obligations countries have to protect the Earth’s climate system for current and future generations. They were also asked to clarify the legal consequences for nations that fail to do this.
But the court disagreed. It found countries have additional obligations to protect the climate and take action to prevent climate harm inside and outside their boundaries. These obligations arise in human rights law, the law of the sea, and general principles of international law.
This clear statement will have groundbreaking consequences. It means Australia must set a 2035 emissions reduction target in line with the best available science, as required under the Paris Agreement. But it must also go further, by regulating the fossil fuel industry to prevent further harm.
While weighing up the obligations of countries to address the climate crisis, the court heard legal arguments from almost 100 countries, making it the largest case ever heard by the ICJ.
The case threatened major implications for fossil-fuel producers such as Australia, which is heavily reliant on coal and gas exports.
In his oral presentation to the ICJ, Australian Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue told the court only the Paris Agreement should apply when it comes to mitigating climate change. Under the Paris rules, countries must set targets to cut domestic emissions, but they are not required to report emissions created when their fossil fuel exports are burned overseas.
Donaghue and the Australian delegation also suggested responsibility for harms caused by climate change could not be pinned on individual states. Australia also argued protecting human rights does not extend to obligations to tackle climate change.
The ICJ largely rejected these arguments.
The ICJ judges largely rejected Australia’s arguments. Pictured: ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa (third from right) and members issuing their advisory opinion. JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images
Fossil fuel era is over
The court found Australia, and other fossil fuel producers, are obliged under international law to prevent fossil fuel companies in their territory from causing significant climate harm.
This will essentially require a managed phase out of fossil fuel production. As the ICJ ruling says:
Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from [greenhouse gas] emissions – including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies – may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State.
Australia has approved hundreds of oil, gas and coal projects in recent decades. Dozens more are in the approvals pipeline. Final federal approval is still pending for Woodside’s massive Northwest Shelf gas project – which is set to add millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year, for decades.
The Australian government must heed the message from the Hague. The days of impunity for the fossil fuel industry are coming to an end.
Woodside’s massive Northwest Shelf gas project is set to add millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year. GREG WOOD/AFP via Getty Images
A spark of hope from the Pacific
Today’s ruling is remarkable for where it originated.
In 2019, 27 law students at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu were given a challenge: find the most ambitious legal pathways towards climate justice.
Each year, Vanuatu faces the prospect of cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding rain and drought. Climate change compounds the risk to island communities – people who have done the least to contribute to the problem.
The students decided to file a case with the world court. And so began a legal campaign that travelled from Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, through the halls of the United Nations in New York and to the world court in the Hague.
In 2023 Vanuatu and other island nations succeeded in passing a UN General Assembly resolution. It asked the ICJ to give an advisory opinion on countries’ obligations to protect the climate system and legal consequences for states causing “significant harm” to Earth’s climate.
This week’s ruling delivers poetic justice to Vanuatu and other vulnerable island states.
The ruling delivers poetic justice to Vanuatu and other vulnerable island states. Pictured: representatives of Pacific states outside the International Court of Justice in December 2024. Michel Porro/Getty Images
A new era for climate justice
The court’s findings are likely to influence a wave of climate litigation worldwide. It could shape legal reasoning in Australia, too.
Last week, a Federal Court judge found the Australian government has no legal duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change. If that case is appealed, a superior court may revisit the government’s obligations – and have regard to the ICJ ruling in doing so.
The ICJ decision will also be relevant for the Queensland Land Court, which this week began hearing a challenge to stop a greenfield mine proposed by Whitehaven Coal – citing environmental and human rights impacts of the project’s emissions.
Clarified international law obligations should also guide policymakers in the Australian parliament. With a huge majority in the House of Representatives and a climate-friendly Senate crossbench, the Albanese government has a mandate to implement policy in line with Australia’s international law obligations.
Wesley Morgan is a fellow with the Climate Council of Australia
Gillian Moon is a regular donor to the Australian Conservation Foundation, which is a party in the Whitehaven Coal case.
On July 7, Typhoon Danas passed through southern Taiwan leaving a trail of devastation. To reduce the burden on farmers and help them get through these difficult times, Taisugar is offering to waive rent for one to three months depending on the severity of the damage and proof of typhoon-related losses.
According to Taisugar, tenants in areas eligible for agricultural national disaster financial assistance and low-interest rates as announced by the Ministry of Agriculture should report their disaster-related losses to their local town hall/district office and submit proof to the Taisugar land management unit. Taisugar will then issue rent waivers based on the extent of crop damage. Those that suffered between 20% to 40% damage will have their rent waived for 1 month. Those with over 40% but less than 60% damage will have their rent waived for 2 months. Those with over 60% damage will have their rent waived for 3 months. Additional extensions may be negotiated in special circumstances. Rent paid in advance can be rolled over to the following year or used to extend their lease.
Taisugar added that if the tenant wishes to terminate their lease due to the impact of the disaster, any rent or bond paid in advance can be refunded without interest once both parties have agreed on a termination date. Taisugar is willing to do everything possible to stand with farmers and help them get through these difficult times.
TSC News Contact Person: Chang Mu-Jung Public Relations, Department of Secretariat, TSC Contact Number: 886-6-337-8819 / 886-920-636-951 Email:a63449@taisugar.com.tw
Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
Pierre-Louis had recently been discharged from prison for carjacking.
Romario Pierre-Louis, age 30, from Sioux City, was sentenced July 18, 2025, to more than 5 years in federal prison, after a March 6, 2025, guilty plea to possession of a firearm by a felon.
Evidence in the case revealed just after midnight on October 15, 2024, law enforcement was called to a domestic assault disturbance. Law enforcement was informed that Pierre-Louis was armed and was pointing a gun at people in the area. When officers arrived on scene, a witness stated that after the dispute Pierre-Louis was seen carrying a rifle wrapped in a blanket along with a couple of pistols to a nearby residence. The weapons were recovered from the neighbor’s house, where Pierre-Louis tried to hide them. Pierre-Louis admitted to law enforcement he knew he was not able to have firearms due to being a felon. Pierre-Louis was convicted in 2019 of armed carjacking in Cook County, Illinois for which he served six years in state prison. He had recently been released from that sentence.
Pierre-Louis was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand to 63 months’ imprisonment. He must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN). PSN is the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.
Pierre-Louis is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was investigated by Sioux City Police department and the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol Tabaco Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Forde Fairchild
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Aerial photo taken on March 24, 2020 shows the scenery along the Yarlung Zangbo River after a snowfall in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. [Photo/Xinhua]
The construction of a hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River in southwest China is conducive to disaster prevention and mitigation across the entire basin and will not have adverse impact on downstream areas, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in Beijing on Wednesday.
Guo told a daily press briefing that the project is a matter within China’s sovereign jurisdiction, and is aimed at accelerating the development of clean energy, significantly improving local people’s wellbeing, and actively addressing climate change.
China has always adhered to a highly responsible attitude in the development of transboundary rivers and has rich experience in hydropower project development, Guo said, adding that the planning, design and construction of this project strictly follow China’s highest industry standards.
As comprehensive project construction is carried out, ecological and environmental protection measures will be taken, such as avoiding multiple key ecologically sensitive regions while retaining the original ecosystem to the greatest extent possible, he added.
The spokesperson also said that China has carried out cooperation with relevant downstream countries in areas such as hydrological information sharing, flood control and disaster mitigation, and conducted necessary communications regarding the hydropower project.
China will continue to step up cooperation with downstream countries for the benefit of the people by the river, Guo said.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
A telecom fraud suspect is escorted by Chinese police officers at the Kunming Changshui International Airport in Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Jan. 30, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]
China’s public security organs have helped facilitate the nation’s high-quality development by resolutely safeguarding public safety during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), a senior Chinese public security official said on Wednesday.
“China is widely recognized as one of the safest countries in the world,” Qi Yanjun, vice minister of public security, said at a press conference on public security during the 2021-2025 period.
“China has maintained one of the lowest incidence rates of fatal criminal cases, the lowest rate of criminal offenses, and the fewest cases involving firearms and explosives in the world,” Qi noted.
World’s safest country
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, public security authorities have focused on safeguarding the safety and well-being of the public, continuously intensifying efforts to combat criminal offenses, leading to a steady decline in the overall number of criminal cases nationwide, senior police officer Jiang Guoli said at the press conference.
China has consistently ranked among the countries with the lowest homicide rates globally, with a rate of 0.44 per 100,000 people in 2024, said Jiang, who is the political commissar of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) criminal investigation bureau.
China has maintained a hard stance on gang-related crime. Chinese police have dismantled over 590 mafia-style organizations and over 8,900 other criminal gangs to date during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, according to Jiang.
More than 105,000 gang-related criminal cases have been solved nationwide since 2021, he said, stressing that law enforcement agencies have maintained a zero-tolerance policy on organized crime — particularly for complex, high-profile cases.
He noted that law enforcement authorities have also focused on the root causes of organized crime, utilizing long-term crime prevention and social governance mechanisms.
“By disrupting the cycle in which disorder fosters crime and crime evolves into organized gangs, authorities aim to eliminate the conditions that allow such groups to thrive,” Jiang said.
In the field of transportation, the number of major traffic accidents resulting in three or more deaths during the 14th Five-Year Plan period declined significantly — 34 percent — compared to the 2016-2020 period, Qi said.
He highlighted that public security organs across the country have since 2021 intensified their identification and rectification of safety loopholes in sectors such as road traffic, railways and civil aviation, aiming to protect the people’s safety and property to the greatest possible extent.
Telecom fraud crackdowns
China launched harsh crackdowns on telecom and online fraud during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, effectively protecting the people’s lawful interests.
Chinese police resolved 1.739 million such cases and arrested 366,000 related individuals, including 3,442 major financiers and core members of criminal groups, Jiang said.
Police and relevant government departments intercepted 12.41 billion scam calls and 10.93 billion fraudulent text messages over the past five years, he noted.
He said that during the same period, Chinese police deepened law enforcement cooperation with their international counterparts, dispatching work groups to countries such as Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia to boost joint operations targeting telecom fraud.
“These efforts led to the dismantling of over 2,000 overseas fraud centers and the capture of more than 80,000 individuals,” he added.
Enhancing autonomous driving regulation
Responding to a question on autonomous driving, Wang Qiang, director of the MPS traffic management bureau, said that China will tighten its regulation and management of intelligent driving, as the intelligent driving systems currently installed in vehicles have not yet achieved true autonomous driving.
“The driver remains the ultimate party responsible for operating the vehicle,” Wang said.
He stressed that if a driver takes their hands off the wheel or their eyes off the road while the vehicle is in motion, they pose a serious risk to traffic safety and their actions could result in civil liability, administrative penalties and criminal prosecution.
To strengthen the regulation and management of intelligent driving, police will support the refining of laws and regulations to clarify manual control in vehicle autonomy from Level 0, which indicates no driving automation, to Level 2, which indicates partial driving automation, Wang said.
China will also encourage vehicle manufacturers to continuously improve the reliability of assisted driving systems, and to establish relevant safety technology standards, he added.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Palestinians wait to receive food in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of central Gaza City, on July 20, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
Access to supplies for distribution to hungry Gazans and security risks for aid workers are putting relief operations under severe strain, UN humanitarians said on Wednesday.
Relief workers face significant security risks. Supply crossings remain unreliable and critical supplies are routinely delayed or blocked. The amount of aid that has been entering Gaza is a trickle compared to the immense needs, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Israel must enable safe and unimpeded aid delivery, allow the entry of critical equipment and fuel, open all crossings, and restore movement along key supply routes,” OCHA said. “Humanitarian staff must be able to operate safely, people must be allowed to move freely, and supplies, including from the private sector, must reach all parts of Gaza.”
The office said if the conditions are met, the United Nations will urgently prioritize providing food, water, shelter, medical care and protection to the civilians of Gaza who have faced unimaginable hardships for far too long. The world body stands ready to seize the opportunity of a ceasefire to significantly scale up humanitarian operations across Gaza, as it did during previous pauses in hostilities, the office said.
OCHA warned that the hunger crisis in Gaza has never been so dire, with aid organizations reporting that as mass starvation spreads across the strip, aid workers and those they serve are wasting away.
The office said its partners report aid workers are fainting from hunger and exhaustion. Despite catastrophic conditions, aid workers continue to deliver life-saving assistance, wherever and whenever possible.
However, the office said that to sustain operations, including nutrition programs, the Israeli authorities must facilitate the delivery of much more aid into and across all areas of the Gaza Strip without delay.
The humanitarians said that hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed and cannot cope with the influx of patients, including those injured by hostilities, due to a lack of supplies and fuel.
OCHA said that local health authorities reported that in the past few days, several of their health facilities were shut down due to lack of fuel. More hospitals, including Al Shifa, are at risk of shutting down within the next few days.
Humanitarian partners reported that people with disabilities have no food, no assistive devices and no health care. Measures must be taken to protect civilians, including the tens of thousands of people who are older or are living with disabilities.
UN humanitarians said the Israeli authorities are the sole decision-makers on who, how and what enters the strip, adding that logistical challenges are immense.
To collect supplies that have reached any of the fenced-off and heavily guarded Israeli crossings around Gaza, drivers need multiple access approvals, and a pause in bombing for the iron gates to open, said OCHA.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher told the Security Council last week that movement requires navigating an obstacle course of coordination with Israeli forces, through active hostilities, traveling on damaged roads, and often being forced to wait at holding points or pass through areas controlled by criminal gangs.
“All too often, civilians approaching UN trucks are shot at,” OCHA said. “Collecting supplies safely requires reliable assurances that troops would not engage or be present along convoy routes.”
Israeli UN ambassador Danny Danon, speaking at the Security Council, announced restrictive measures against OCHA staff.
Israel will no longer grant automatic visas to OCHA’s international staff. Visas will now be limited to one-month terms, said Danon.
Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that any punitive measures will only add to the obstacles preventing humanitarians from reaching people facing hunger, displacement and deprivation.
Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren
July 23, 2025
“The Paramount payoff is part of a corrupt pattern of Trump exploiting the power of the presidency both to profit personally and to punish his perceived enemies.”
“The moment we turn a blind eye to these deals is the moment we start to lose our democracy.”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) published an op-ed in Variety making the case that the Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s cancellation may be another one of Donald Trump’s attempts to get big corporations to buy his favor and bow down before him.
Senator Warren has been leading the charge to determine if Paramount is bribing President Trump in exchange for approval of its multi-billion-dollar megamerger with Skydance, and has fought relentlessly across the board against President Trump’s corruption.
Read the full op-ed here and below:
Variety – Elizabeth Warren on Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Cancellation: Is the Paramount Trump Payoff a Bribe?July 23, 2025
President Donald Trump and CBS parent company Paramount want you to think that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was canceled for “purely financial” reasons. Really?
During the 2024 election, Donald Trump sued CBS, making claims CBS called “meritless.” Legal experts could see from a mile away that Trump’s claims were bogus. Paramount seemed ready to fight the allegations, and it looked like they’d win that fight handily. Then Trump took office in January 2025.
From the first moments of his presidency, Trump quickly made it clear that he was happy to use his executive power to enrich himself. He was eager to hand out favors — for the right price — and threaten punishment for those who pushed back. There’s a reason that billionaire CEOs paid millions of dollars to get front-row access to his inauguration.
This is where questions about a Paramount payout to Trump come in. Right now, Paramount is trying to merge with Skydance, another huge media company. This deal is worth $8 billion – and, by the way, it could raise prices for millions of viewers. But here’s the kicker: this merger can only go through if it’s approved by the Trump administration.
Instead of fighting Trump on his “meritless” lawsuit, Paramount settled, handing $16 million to Trump’s presidential library. This looks like bribery in plain sight, and that’s exactly what Stephen Colbert said on his show: “This kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: it’s ‘big, fat bribe.’” Three days later, Paramount-owned CBS canceled Colbert’s show. And Trump didn’t waste a moment before celebrating the news.
Was it a coincidence that CBS canceled Colbert just three days after he spoke out? Are we sure that this wasn’t part of a wink-wink deal between the president and a giant corporation that needed something from his administration? If CBS made this decision for “purely financial” reasons, why the timing? And why did Trump say “I hope I played a major part in” getting Colbert fired? These are fair questions, and ones that I have asked Paramount and Skydance.
The Paramount payoff is part of a corrupt pattern of Trump exploiting the power of the presidency both to profit personally and to punish his perceived enemies.
ABC News handed over $15 million to Trump’s presidential library in a settlement for another questionable defamation lawsuit. Trump was even more direct with Mark Zuckerberg, reportedly telling him that the price for being “brought in the tent” of the new Trump administration was to settle another doubtful lawsuit. Zuckerberg immediately bowed down, ending Meta’s fact-checking program and dumping $22 million into the Trump library. And Trump is running the same play again: immediately after Paramount folded, Trump sued the Wall Street Journal over an article that exposed details about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
As Trump works to dampen any criticism in the media, he has also launched attacks on other independent institutions. In his first few months in office, Trump has aggressively threatened both universities and law firms in an effort to force them to bend to his will. The pattern is the same: Trump threatens to bring down the weight of the federal government on a single institution, and, too often, the targets feel they have no option but to bow down to an all-powerful Trump.
And for everyone in the free press, the academic world and the legal system, Trump has delivered his message with ruthless bluntness: If you criticize him, you could be forced to pay dearly.
The wealthy and well-connected have long had outsized influence in Washington, but Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in American history. He is using that corruption to gain control over independent organizations and people who might hold him to account. Every threat, use of intimidation, and potential bribe undermines our democracy as it moves Trump closer to absolute control.
I recently introduced my Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act to close at least one bribery loophole. This bill would block anyone from dumping tens of millions of dollars into a president’s library slush fund while that president still sits in the Oval Office. It would mean Paramount couldn’t funnel nearly $16 million to Trump’s library while it seeks favors from his administration. It would mean Qatar couldn’t “gift” Trump a $400 million private jet destined for some future library. This is a basic, common-sense reform that would help ensure that the government works for the American public, not just for people willing to pay for presidential favors. But that’s just Step One.
Trump and his billionaire friends may think they can turn the power of the federal government into a tool they can deploy to make themselves richer while the rest of us stand quietly by. But we understand that the moment we turn a blind eye to these deals is the moment we start to lose our democracy.
In the coming weeks, months, and years, all of us must show Trump that we see his march toward authoritarianism and we will not be silenced. Democrats need to embrace the fight against corruption as a top priority. Republicans need to grow a spine and get behind common-sense anti-corruption measures. All Americans need to speak up. Because yes, it’s a shame that CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but it is a threat to all of us that the top late-night show in the country may have been canceled in order to curry favor with a wannabe king.
Source: People’s Republic of China – Ministry of National Defense
BEIJING, July 22 — On Monday, the theme day event on unmanned and counter-unmanned land combat systems in the military trade market held by the China North Industries Group (Norinco Group) kicked off in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The latest equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), loitering munitions, and counter-UAVs were all showcased.
The theme day event was divided into dynamic performance and static display. The dynamic part displayed aerial “offensive and defensive” operations such as reconnaissance, informed planning, penetration and attack, etc.The exhibition area displayed unmanned and counter-unmanned equipment including UAVs, airborne munitions, loitering munitions. In addition, the wheeled gunnery with an unmanned turret that can automatically load and fire, the tank with an onboard UAV system and a radio jamming system, were also showcased.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Pope, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Macquarie University
The day before my thesis examination, my friend and radio astronomer Joe Callingham showed me an image we’d been awaiting for five long years – an infrared photo of two dying stars we’d requested from the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
I gasped – the stars were wreathed in a huge spiral of dust, like a snake eating its own tail.
The coils of Apep as captured by the European Space Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. ESO/Callingham et al., CC BY
We named it Apep, for the Egyptian serpent god of destruction. Now, our team has finally been lucky to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look at Apep.
If anything could top the first shock of seeing its beautiful spiral nebula, it’s this breathtaking new image, with the JWST data now analysed in twopapers on arXiv.
Violent star deaths
Right before they die as supernovae, the universe’s most massive stars violently shed their outer hydrogen layers, leaving their heavy cores exposed.
These are called Wolf-Rayet stars after their discoverers, who noticed powerful streams of gas blasting out from these objects, much stronger than the stellar wind from our Sun. The Wolf-Rayet stage lasts only millennia – a blink of the eye in cosmic time scales – before they violently explode.
Unlike our Sun, many stars in the universe exist in pairs known as binaries. This is especially true of the most massive stars, such as Wolf-Rayets.
When the fierce gales from a Wolf-Rayet star clash with their weaker companion’s wind, they compress each other. In the eye of this storm forms a dense, cool environment in which the carbon-rich winds can condense into dust. The earliest carbon dust in the cosmos – the first of the material making up our own bodies – was made this way.
The dust from the Wolf-Rayet is blown out in almost a straight line, and the orbital motion of the stars wraps it into a spiral-shaped nebula, appearing exactly like water from a sprinkler when viewed from above.
We expected Apep to look like one of these elegant pinwheel nebulas, discovered by our colleague and co-author Peter Tuthill. To our surprise, it did not.
The ‘pinwheel’ nebula of the triple Wolf-Rayet star system WR104. Peter Tuthill
Equal rivals
The new image was taken using JWST’s infrared camera, like the thermal cameras used by hunters or the military. It represents hot material as blue, and colder material in green through to red.
It turns out Apep isn’t just one powerful star blasting a weaker companion, but two Wolf-Rayet stars. The rivals have near-equal strength winds, and the dust is spread out in a very wide cone and wrapped into a wind-sock shape.
When we originally described Apep in 2018, we noted a third, more distant star, speculating whether it was also part of the system or a chance interloper along the line of sight.
The dust appeared to be moving much slower than the winds, which was hard to explain. We suggested the dust might be carried on a slow, thick wind from the equator of a fast-spinning star, rare today but common in the early universe.
The new, much more detailed data from JWST reveals three more dust shells zooming farther out, each cooler and fainter than the last and spaced perfectly evenly, against a background of swirling dust.
The Apep nebula in false colour, displaying infrared data from JWST’s MIRI camera. Han et al./White et al./Dholakia; NASA/ESA
Han’s paper reveals how the nebula’s dust cools, links the background dust to the foreground stars, and suggests the stars are farther away from Earth than we thought. This implies they are extraordinarily bright, but weakens our original claim about the slow winds and rapid rotation.
In White’s paper, he develops a fast computer model for the shape of the nebula, and uses this to decode the orbit of the inner stars very precisely.
He also noticed there’s a “bite” taken out out of the dust shells, exactly where the wind of the third star would be chewing into them. This proves the Apep family isn’t just a pair of twins – they have a third sibling.
An illustration of the cavity carved by the third star companion in the Apep system. White et al. (2025)
Understanding systems like Apep tells us more about star deaths and the origins of carbon dust, but these systems also have a fascinating beauty that emerges from their seemingly simple geometry.
The violence of stellar death carves puzzles that would make sense to Newton and Archimedes, and it is a scientific joy to solve them and share them.
Benjamin Pope receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Big Questions Institute.
Australian farmers could benefit from burn trials conducted in paddocks of canola stubble, which indicate current fire behaviour models are overestimating the spread and behaviour of fire in the crop under mild weather conditions.
The aim of the collaborative project is to enhance Australia’s current understanding of fire behaviour in non-cereal crop stubbles, particularly canola and legume stubble, to address significant gaps in current fire behaviour models.
SACFS Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) Manager, Simeon Telfer said this collaborative project demonstrates our proactive approach to refining AFDRS, enhancing the accuracy of our fire simulators, and improving the quality and reliability of public warnings.
‘This project is a critical national partnership to address significant gaps in knowledge, as existing models are currently overestimating the fire spread risks in these fuel types under mild weather conditions,’ Mr Telfer said.
‘We are listening to communities and firefighters who have told us that canola burns differently; sometimes it will just stop spreading and other times it travels quickly, so we need to test the model.’
He said a large portion of data still needs to be collected before changes are made but initial indications show changes could be made to refine Fire Danger Rating thresholds for canola.
‘One of the main advantages of the AFDRS is its ability to adopt new research as it comes along, once it is peer reviewed, we will be able to adopt this research straight into AFDRS, which will help across the nation,’ he said.
‘We know farmers are doing it tough in South Australia as they continue to grapple with drought conditions, so we want to do our part to support them by ensuring our data provides the best available information to protect their crops and properties.’
A small delegation of fire scientists from SACFS, CFA and CSIRO have conducted stubble burns near Ungarra on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, in conjunction with local landowners and SACFS volunteers.
CFA Senior Research Officer, Rachel Bessell, said the project helps to foster collaboration and gets more agencies involved in fire research, all while helping the community.
‘It’s not very often that volunteers get to stop and watch fire, so it’s a great learning experience for them to be involved in these burns.’
‘There’s a lot of complexities with getting these burns up and running, so we’re really appreciative of all the support from the suppression crews and the local community.’
CSIRO Researcher Richard Hurley said the groundbreaking research will significantly enhance fire behavior predictions in cropping regions.
‘Currently throughout Australia, croplands are largely misunderstood and often misclassified as grasslands, which have different fuel characteristics. This highlights the need to better quantify fire propagation in these fuel types,’ Mr Hurley said.
‘From a scientific perspective, this type of research has never been done before at this scale. The next step is to conduct burns under much hotter and drier conditions to test fire behavior at the upper end of the fire behavior index.
The second stage of the project is planned for summer 2025/26, as soon as practicable after harvest is complete. In this stage, fires will be lit under increased temperatures and wind speeds to measure crop stubble fires in more typical wildfire conditions. Safety measures will be increased for the next stage of the project to ensure containment of these hotter and drier stubble fires, including additional SACFS suppression resources, burn buffers surrounding the experimental area and mineral earth breaks.
Media information For media enquiries call the CFS Media Line on 08 8115 3531.
The day before my thesis examination, my friend and radio astronomer Joe Callingham showed me an image we’d been awaiting for five long years – an infrared photo of two dying stars we’d requested from the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
I gasped – the stars were wreathed in a huge spiral of dust, like a snake eating its own tail.
The coils of Apep as captured by the European Space Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. ESO/Callingham et al., CC BY
We named it Apep, for the Egyptian serpent god of destruction. Now, our team has finally been lucky to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look at Apep.
If anything could top the first shock of seeing its beautiful spiral nebula, it’s this breathtaking new image, with the JWST data now analysed in twopapers on arXiv.
Violent star deaths
Right before they die as supernovae, the universe’s most massive stars violently shed their outer hydrogen layers, leaving their heavy cores exposed.
These are called Wolf-Rayet stars after their discoverers, who noticed powerful streams of gas blasting out from these objects, much stronger than the stellar wind from our Sun. The Wolf-Rayet stage lasts only millennia – a blink of the eye in cosmic time scales – before they violently explode.
Unlike our Sun, many stars in the universe exist in pairs known as binaries. This is especially true of the most massive stars, such as Wolf-Rayets.
When the fierce gales from a Wolf-Rayet star clash with their weaker companion’s wind, they compress each other. In the eye of this storm forms a dense, cool environment in which the carbon-rich winds can condense into dust. The earliest carbon dust in the cosmos – the first of the material making up our own bodies – was made this way.
The dust from the Wolf-Rayet is blown out in almost a straight line, and the orbital motion of the stars wraps it into a spiral-shaped nebula, appearing exactly like water from a sprinkler when viewed from above.
We expected Apep to look like one of these elegant pinwheel nebulas, discovered by our colleague and co-author Peter Tuthill. To our surprise, it did not.
The ‘pinwheel’ nebula of the triple Wolf-Rayet star system WR104. Peter Tuthill
Equal rivals
The new image was taken using JWST’s infrared camera, like the thermal cameras used by hunters or the military. It represents hot material as blue, and colder material in green through to red.
It turns out Apep isn’t just one powerful star blasting a weaker companion, but two Wolf-Rayet stars. The rivals have near-equal strength winds, and the dust is spread out in a very wide cone and wrapped into a wind-sock shape.
When we originally described Apep in 2018, we noted a third, more distant star, speculating whether it was also part of the system or a chance interloper along the line of sight.
The dust appeared to be moving much slower than the winds, which was hard to explain. We suggested the dust might be carried on a slow, thick wind from the equator of a fast-spinning star, rare today but common in the early universe.
The new, much more detailed data from JWST reveals three more dust shells zooming farther out, each cooler and fainter than the last and spaced perfectly evenly, against a background of swirling dust.
The Apep nebula in false colour, displaying infrared data from JWST’s MIRI camera. Han et al./White et al./Dholakia; NASA/ESA
Han’s paper reveals how the nebula’s dust cools, links the background dust to the foreground stars, and suggests the stars are farther away from Earth than we thought. This implies they are extraordinarily bright, but weakens our original claim about the slow winds and rapid rotation.
In White’s paper, he develops a fast computer model for the shape of the nebula, and uses this to decode the orbit of the inner stars very precisely.
He also noticed there’s a “bite” taken out out of the dust shells, exactly where the wind of the third star would be chewing into them. This proves the Apep family isn’t just a pair of twins – they have a third sibling.
An illustration of the cavity carved by the third star companion in the Apep system. White et al. (2025)
Understanding systems like Apep tells us more about star deaths and the origins of carbon dust, but these systems also have a fascinating beauty that emerges from their seemingly simple geometry.
The violence of stellar death carves puzzles that would make sense to Newton and Archimedes, and it is a scientific joy to solve them and share them.
Benjamin Pope receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Big Questions Institute.
July 23, 2025 – Ottawa (Ontario) – Today, the Honourable Eleanor Olszewski, Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience and Minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada, issued the following statement:
“The wildfires currently burning across the province of Saskatchewan continue to pose a significant risk to many communities, some of which have been ordered to evacuate.
Today, in my capacity as Minister of Emergency Management, I approved a Request for Federal Assistance from the Government of Saskatchewan. We will be providing Saskatchewan with additional firefighters to mitigate the wildfires, and helicopters to transport critical personnel.
The Government Operations Centre is working with the Canadian Armed Forces, and other federal and provincial partners, to deploy all necessary resources, and ensure the province of Saskatchewan has the support needed.
I am truly grateful to the firefighters, first responders, emergency management officials, and local volunteers for their unwavering dedication in helping those affected by the wildfires.
I remain in close contact with my counterpart in Saskatchewan. During these difficult times, we are here and ready to support.”
Source: United States Senator for Texas John Cornyn
July 23, 2025
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) met today with members of a Corpus Christi-based U.S. Coast Guard Flight Crew to thank them for their bravery and heroic efforts in rescuing more than 160 individuals during the devastating July 4th flood in Texas. The crew included Petty Officer 3rd Class Seth Reeves, Lt. Ian Hopper, Lt. Blair Ogujiofor, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Scott Ruskan, listed from left to right in the photo attached and below.
This image is in the public domain, but those wishing to do so may credit the Office of U.S. Senator John Cornyn.
Source: United States Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn)
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) released the following statement after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove three Democratic Consumer Product Safety Commissioners while challenges to their firings continue.
“For over 50 years, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been free from politics so it can remain focused on its core mission of keeping Americans safe—from banning lead paint, to ensuring electronics aren’t fire hazards, to making swimming pools safe for kids. Last year alone, the Commission recalled 153 million unsafe items.”
“By firing the three Democratic commissioners, the President has undermined the independent structure of the Commission and its critical work—and the Supreme Court is letting it happen.”
Prescribed burning is threatening the survival of skinks, ecologists say.
As Australia and the world grapple with global warming and increased bushfire risks, University of South Australia ecologists are turning their attention to the impact of prescribed burning on native animals.
In a new study published in The International Journal of Wildland Fire, researchers investigated the maximum temperatures that lizards could experience during prescribed (controlled) fires in the Mount Lofty Ranges and compared them to their maximum survivable temperatures.
Widespread prescribed burning is undertaken in spring and autumn each year in the Mount Lofty Ranges, a biodiversity hotspot and fire-prone region. Researchers measured surface and shelter temperatures during four prescribed fires and analysed their results alongside the lab-collected ‘critical thermal limits’ of three different species of skinks.
The findings demonstrated that the average temperatures under common shelters like logs and rocks during these fires were 108°C and 53°C respectively, which exceeded the survivable temperature range (37.5°C – 43.0°C) of each type of skink.
While only reptiles were studied, lead researcher and UniSA PhD candidate Shawn Scott says that these temperatures would also threaten the survival of other native animals and that the results can therefore be applied more broadly.
“These conditions dramatically exceed the 60°C threshold for most terrestrial vertebrates,” Scott says.
“Logs and rocks were the most effective shelters for buffering extreme temperatures during prescribed fire in our study.
“However, the maximum temperatures and duration of these conditions may still prove lethal for small vertebrates if prescribed burning is undertaken during conditions that exacerbate fire severity.”
Researchers also discovered that when ambient temperatures on days of prescribed burnings were higher, maximum temperatures beneath the shelters – and the duration at which they stayed lethally hot – also increased.
“Our analysis showed that the temperatures of the fires increased by up to 700°C as ambient temperatures increased from 17°C to 22°C,” Scott says.
“The hotter the fire, the hotter it’s going to be inside or beneath the shelters sought out by small animals during prescribed burnings, making it more difficult for them to survive, especially over an extended period.”
“In terms of shelter quality, rocks and logs maintained the coolest temperatures, showing that they are critical to small animals,” says co-researcher and UniSA wildlife ecologist Associate Professor Sophie (Topa) Petit.
“However, many of those sites still reached temperatures far above what reptiles can withstand. Not all rocks and logs are good enough.”
As climate change increases the risk of bushfires, prescribed burnings are also expected to increase, especially in fire-prone, Mediterranean climates like the Mount Lofty Ranges, other parts of Australia, and also Greece, Italy, Spain and California.
Scott says that animal survival and biodiversity conservation should be prioritised in burning processes, and that his team’s research can help inform relevant strategies not only on the home front but also abroad.
”If lower intensity fires are to be achieved during prescribed burns, they should be undertaken on mild days when ambient temperatures are below 17°C,” he says.
“In Australia, burning does occur on days that are considered mild – between 17°C to 22°C – but our research demonstrates that even in these conditions the maximum temperatures and their duration are high enough to threaten small animals relying on shelters like rocks and logs for protection.
“Second, pre-fire surveys should be conducted to establish the availability and density of shelter sites that may increase the likelihood of animal survival during fire.”
The researchers suggest that larger shelters and below-surface shelters like soil, hollows, and burrows should be examined next, as well as animal movement and mortality during and after fires.
The study, titled ‘Between a rock and a hot place: do surface shelters facilitate survivable conditions for small vertebrates during prescribed fire?’ is availableonline. DOI:10.1071/WF24184
New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services Commissioner Rossana Rosado said, “Thanks to Governor Hochul’s unwavering commitment to public safety, New York continues to see record reductions in gun violence. This funding ensures that our local law enforcement agencies and community organizations can build on the strategies that are working, saving lives, strengthening communities, and restoring trust. I am so proud of my DCJS team members who provide our partners across the state with the tools, training, and resources that allow them to sustain this progress.”
New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James said, “The GIVE initiative continues to produce results that matter. Thanks to Governor Hochul’s ongoing commitment and the leadership of the Division of Criminal Justice Services, law enforcement agencies across the state are better equipped to target and reduce gun violence. This funding supports the critical work being done on the ground, providing local agencies with the tools, training, and resources they need to keep their communities safe. The New York State Police is proud to support our partners in this effort and remains committed to doing everything we can to protect the people of New York.”
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said, “This funding is a vital investment in the safety and well-being of New Yorkers. By directing this funding to local law enforcement and public safety partners through the GIVE initiative, we are reinforcing evidence-based strategies that are driving down gun violence and saving lives. Our communities throughout the state have made tremendous progress, and this continued investment ensures that momentum continues. I was proud to work with Governor Hochul, Speaker Heastie, and my Senate Majority colleagues to deliver $347 million in this year’s budget to support GIVE and other gun violence prevention efforts across the state.”
State Senator Monica Martinez said, “When it comes to protecting our streets from gun violence, we must ‘GIVE’ law enforcement agencies the funding they need to succeed. These grants help make Suffolk County and other recipient communities safer, as proven by the double-digit declines in shooting-related incidents with injury and shooting deaths. I thank Governor Hochul and the Division of Criminal Justice Services for prioritizing this investment in safer neighborhoods across New York.”
State Senator Siela Bynoe said, “Gun violence is a public health crisis in New York State, and I am grateful to Governor Hochul for taking action to reduce the number of individuals injured or killed in this epidemic. Community-based solutions like the GIVE initiative, which supports Nassau’s law enforcement in their mission to combat gun violence in our neighborhoods, are critical to maintaining statewide progress in reducing shooting incidents. While Nassau County has an extraordinary safety record, there is more work to be done, and this initiative proves to be an invaluable resource.”
Assembly Deputy Speaker Phil Ramos said, “New York continues to lead the nation with bold, innovative strategies that combine precision policing with community-driven public safety. This record-level investment of $36 million underscores our state’s unwavering commitment to real solutions to reduce gun violence. This investment builds on the progress New York has made in saving lives, curbing illegal firearms, and empowering the communities we serve. As a former Detective and Police Officer, I’ve seen firsthand how funds like these provide the necessary resources, focused training, modern technology, and data-driven strategies that produce tangible, measurable results. The numbers speak for themselves: fewer shootings, fewer victims, and safer communities. I commend Governor Hochul for her continued partnership and leadership in ensuring that Long Island and New York State continue to be a safe and prosperous places to live, work, and visit.”
Assemblymember Charles Lavine said, “Since being sworn-in, Governor Hochul has remained laser-focused on fighting crime through all means at her disposal. This includes providing financial support for local law enforcement to ensure it has the necessary resources to do its job and enacting legislation, like my ghost guns bill, designed to keep dangerous firearms off the streets. I am proud of the great progress made so far and look forward to continuing to work with her to prevent senseless violence from occurring and keeping our communities as safe as possible.”
Public safety is my top priority, and since taking office, my administration has been laser focused on working with local law enforcement to drive down gun violence across New York.”
Governor Hochul
Assemblymember Judy Griffin said, “Reducing gun violence is directly linked to public safety. I am proud to live in a state where our constituents know this and demand that we continue to take action. This vital funding will ensure that our local police departments have the equipment and technical assistance needed to continue their fight. Public safety is a top priority for my constituents, and I thank the Governor for designating a portion of this funding to police agencies that serve Nassau County residents.”
Assemblymember Rebecca Kassay said, “Thank you to Governor Hochul for these funds that will provide essential support to our local law enforcement as they work to reduce gun violence, and strengthen safety in our neighborhood. State investments like the GIVE initiative help ensure officers have the training and tools they need to stay safe, protect the public, and build trust within the community.”
Assemblymember Tommy John Schiavoni said, “I would like to thank Governor Hochul for her leadership and steadfast commitment to keeping our communities safe. Governor Hochul’s continued investment in the GIVE initiative is saving lives and making our communities safer. This targeted support for law enforcement and evidence-based violence prevention strategies has produced real, measurable results. I am especially grateful for the funding directed to Long Island, where local agencies are working tirelessly to reduce gun violence and improve public safety for all residents.”
Assemblymember Kwani O’Pharrow said, “Together, we invest in safer streets and stronger communities as we tackle gun violence head on with unwavering support and commitment from our Governor.”
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said, “Thank you to Governor Hochul for providing Suffolk County with vital resources to address gun violence and domestic abuse in our communities. These grants help ensure that our law enforcement officers have the tools they need to protect our families, support survivors, and build safer neighborhoods for everyone who calls Suffolk home.”
Suffolk County Police Department Commissioner Kevin Catalina said, “The grant money builds upon our success in fighting gun violence, providing funds to focus on enforcement and community outreach efforts. The SCPD extends our gratitude to Governor Hochul for the GIVE grant funding which enhances our public safety efforts in Suffolk County.”
Embedded Flickr Album
Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon, Jr. said, “The GIVE grant has been a critical tool in our efforts to reduce gun violence by funding key personnel and supporting programs that reach at-risk youth before trouble does. This is what real collaboration looks like, and we’re proud to continue this vital work together. I want to thank Governor Hochul for her investment in this initiative to help keep Suffolk County and our communities safe.”
Suffolk County Legislator Rebecca Sanin said, “It is devastating and unacceptable that gun violence is still the leading cause of death for children in the United States. I deeply commend the Governor for taking action—investing in law enforcement and delivering the tools our county needs to safeguard our children. Today marks a significant step forward in our fight to keep our kids safer in Suffolk County, ensuring that their future is not defined by the fear of violence but rather the promise of hope and possibility.”
Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund Founder Linda Beigel Schulman said, “I thank Governor Hochul for her visit to Suffolk County and her steadfast support to prevent gun violence. I worked closely with her to make red flag laws in New York a reality. Her commitment to better funding for community policing is crucial to deterring crime. We must always do more, and I know the governor is committed to progress.”
GIVE data for each of the 28 police departments and an interactive dashboard featuring current year and annual historical data are available on the Statistics page of the state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) website.
View the breakdown of funding awarded to GIVE police departments, and district attorneys’ offices, probation departments, and sheriffs’ offices in 21 counties outside of New York City for the contract period July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026: Albany, Broome, Cayuga, Chautauqua, Chemung, Dutchess, Erie, Jefferson, Monroe, Nassau, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Orange, Rensselaer, Rockland, Schenectady, Suffolk, Tompkins, Ulster, and Westchester. DCJS administers GIVE grants and provides training and technical assistance to partner agencies through the program, which requires agencies to use evidence-based strategies to reduce shootings, save lives and combat violent crime.
The FY26 Enacted Budget sustained unprecedented funding secured by Governor Hochul, including $347 million for GIVE and other gun violence prevention programs, as well as additional initiatives to improve public safety, expand support for victims and survivors of crime, and strengthen communities.
The Division of Criminal Justice Services provides critical support to all facets of the state’s criminal justice system, including, but not limited to: training law enforcement and other criminal justice professionals; overseeing a law enforcement accreditation program; ensuring Breathalyzer and speed enforcement equipment used by local law enforcement operate correctly; managing criminal justice grant funding; analyzing statewide crime and program data; providing research support; overseeing county probation departments and alternatives to incarceration programs; and coordinating youth justice policy. Follow DCJS on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).
The United Nations’ highest court has found that countries can be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions, in a ruling highly anticipated by Pacific countries long frustrated with the pace of global action to address climate change.
In a landmark opinion delivered yesterday in The Hague, the president of the International Court of Justice, Yuji Iwasawa, said climate change was an “urgent and existential threat” that was “unequivocally” caused by human activity with consequences and effects that crossed borders.
They were frustrated at what they saw was a lack of action to address the climate crisis, and saw current mechanisms to address it as woefully inadequate.
Their idea was backed by the government of Vanuatu, which convinced the UN General Assembly to seek the court’s advisory opinion on what countries’ obligations are under international law.
The court’s 15 judges were asked to provide an opinion on two questions: What are countries obliged to do under existing international law to protect the climate and environment, and, second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts — or lack of action — have significantly harmed the climate and environment?
The International Court of Justice in The Hague yesterday . . . landmark non-binding rulings on the climate crisis. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ
Overnight, reading a summary that took nearly two hours to deliver, Iwasawa said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions.
Iwasawa said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change.
‘Precondition for human rights’ “The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.
To reach its conclusion, judges waded through tens of thousands of pages of written submissions and heard two weeks of oral arguments in what the court said was the ICJ’s largest-ever case, with more than 100 countries and international organisations providing testimony.
They also examined the entire corpus of international law — including human rights conventions, the law of the sea, the Paris climate agreement and many others — to determine whether countries have a human rights obligation to address climate change.
The president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Yuji Iwasawa, delivering the landmark rulings on climate change. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ
Major powers and emitters, like the United States and China, had argued in their testimonies that existing UN agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, were sufficient to address climate change.
But the court found that states’ obligations extended beyond climate treaties, instead to many other areas of international law, such as human rights law, environmental law, and laws around restricting cross-border harm.
Significantly for many Pacific countries, the court also provided an opinion on what would happen if sea levels rose to such a level that some states were lost altogether.
“Once a state is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood.”
Significant legal weight The ICJ’s opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, advocates say it carries significant legal and political weight that cannot be ignored, potentially opening the floodgates for climate litigation and claims for compensation or reparations for climate-related loss and damage.
Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the International Court of Justice to hold each other to account.
The opinion would also be a powerful precedent for legislators and judges to call on as they tackle questions related to the climate crisis, and give small countries greater weight in negotiations over future COP agreements and other climate mechanisms.
Outside the court, several dozen climate activists, from both the Netherlands and abroad, had gathered on a square as cyclists and trams rumbled by on the summer afternoon. Among them was Siaosi Vaikune, a Tongan who was among those original students to hatch the idea for the challenge.
“Everyone has been waiting for this moment,” he said. “It’s been six years of campaigning.
“Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again,” Vaikune said. “And this is another step towards that justice.”
Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu (cenbtre) speaks to the media after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings on climate change in The Hague yesterday. Image: X/CIJ_ICJ
‘It gives hope’ Vanuatu’s Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the ruling was better than he expected and he was emotional about the result.
“The most pleasing aspect is [the ruling] was so strong in the current context where climate action and policy seems to be going backwards,” Regenvanu told RNZ Pacific.
“It gives such hope to the youth, because they were the ones who pushed this.
“I think it will regenerate an entire new generation of youth activists to push their governments for a better future for themselves.”
Regenvanu said the result showed the power of multilateralism.
“There was a point in time where everyone could compromise to agree to have this case heard here, and then here again, we see the court with the judges from all different countries of the world all unanimously agreeing on such a strong opinion, it gives you hope for multilateralism.”
He said the Pacific now has more leverage in climate negotiations.
“Communities on the ground, who are suffering from sea level rise, losing territory and so on, they know what they want, and we have to provide that,” Regenvanu said.
“Now we know that we can rely on international cooperation because of the obligations that have been declared here to assist them.”
The director of climate change at the Pacific Community (SPC), Coral Pasisi, also said the decision was a strong outcome for Pacific Island nations.
“The acknowledgement that the science is very clear, there is a direct clause between greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and the harm that is causing, particularly the most vulnerable countries.”
She said the health of the environment is closely linked to the health of people, which was acknowledged by the court.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Russian and Ukrainian delegations held a third round of peace talks on Wednesday evening at the Ciragan Palace, during which the two sides agreed on another prisoner exchange but clashed on ceasefire terms and a potential presidential meeting.
Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky and Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov led the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, respectively. The closed-door talks were chaired by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
Following the talks, which lasted for less than one hour, Umerov said at a press conference that Ukraine continues to insist on a full and unconditional ceasefire as the essential foundation for effective diplomacy.
“We are ready for a ceasefire now and to start substantive peace negotiations, and it is up to the other side to accept this basic step towards peace,” Umerov said.
“We emphasize that the ceasefire must be genuine. It must include a complete cessation of strikes on civilian and critical infrastructure,” he said.
Prior to the talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Moscow and Kiev are “diametrically opposed” in their positions on how to end the conflict, noting that “much work” still needs to be done.
The Ukrainian side has proposed to Russia to hold a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “by the end of August,” where the participation of U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be “especially valuable,” he said.
During a separate press conference after the talks, Medinsky said Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange 1,200 prisoners of war each, including a proposal from Moscow to swap about 30 civilians held by Ukraine in the Kursk region.
Russia has returned the bodies of 7,000 fallen Ukrainian soldiers and is ready to return 3,000 more, he said, requesting the return of any number of deceased Russian soldiers from Ukraine.
He also said that the Russian side proposed establishing three online working groups with Ukraine to address political, humanitarian, and military issues, and asked Ukraine to consider declaring short ceasefires of 24-48 hours along the contact line to evacuate the wounded soldiers and recover the bodies of fallen troops.
As to the Putin-Zelensky meeting Ukraine proposed, Medinsky said such a meeting is not being considered until certain processes are completed.
Meanwhile, Zelensky wrote on social media platform X after the talks that the ninth stage of prisoner exchange took place “today,” which involved more than 1,000 people from the Ukrainian side, including those “seriously ill and severely wounded.”
“It is important that the exchanges are ongoing,” he wrote.
In his opening remarks to the talks, Fidan urged the two delegations to engage in result-oriented negotiations aimed at achieving a ceasefire and ultimately ending the war.
“Our goal is to end this bloody war, which has come at a heavy cost, as soon as possible,” Fidan said.
While the previous two rounds of talks in Istanbul — held on May 16 and June 2 — led to the exchange of thousands of war prisoners and the bodies of fallen soldiers, they produced little progress toward a ceasefire.
This criminal illegally entered the country three times since 2021
WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an arrest detainer against Gildardo Amandor-Martinez, a criminal illegal alien accused of murdering a 15-year-old boy and assaulting a minor female with a firearm after he attempted to rape their mother in Morehead, Kentucky.
ICE detainers are legal requests to state or local law enforcement to hold illegal aliens in custody until they can be turned over to immigration authorities.
According to local reports, on July 20, Amandor-Martinez arrived at an apartment shared with his girlfriend, Aleida Lopez, early in the morning and attempted to rape her. After she fended him off, Amandor-Martinez assaulted her by biting her left hand, right armpit, and injured her arm. Her 15-year-old-son, Luis Lopez, tried to intervene and was shot byAmandor-Martinezthree times and murdered. The criminal illegal alien then assaulted Lopez’s daughter with a firearm.
15-year-old Luis Lopez who was tragically killed the criminal illegal alien was greatly admired and called a “sweet student” by Rowan County Senior High School. He would have been a sophomore this fall.
Amandor-Martinez a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, attempted to enter the country THREE times under the Biden administration in 2021, at the southern border. He successfully illegally entered the country on his third try at an unknown date and location and without inspection by an immigration officer.
“15-year-old Luis Lopez died trying to save his mother from this criminal illegal alien who was attempting to rape her. Gildardo Amandor-Martinez is a rapist and cold-blooded killer who should have never been in this country,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “The Biden administration’s open-border policies allowed this monster to walk American streets and commit these evil crimes, including murder, assault, and attempted rape, against a mother and her children. ICE has placed an arrest detainer to ensure Amandor-Martinez will not be released onto America’s streets and allowed to terrorize American families again.”
Secretary Noem relaunched the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office. The VOICE office was shuttered by the previous administration, which left victims of alien crime without access to many key support services and resources. The office was first launched in 2017 by the Trump administration as a dedicated resource for those who have been victimized by crime with a nexus to immigration.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Jack Bergman (MI-1)
Today, Rep. Jack Bergman joined Governor Gretchen Whitmer announcing that President Donald Trump has approved Michigan’s request for a disaster declaration to help communities impacted by the historic ice storm in Northern Michigan earlier this year. The devastating storm knocked out power and communications and left hundreds of miles of roads blocked by fallen trees and debris.
“President Trump’s approval of a Major Disaster Declaration for the counties impacted by March’s devastating ice storm is welcome news,”said U.S. Representative Jack Bergman. “I’m grateful to his Administration for working to get this done. This long-awaited decision unlocks critical resources to help our communities recover and rebuild as quickly as possible. It’s been a true team effort – from local agencies to state and federal partners. Northern Michigan is no stranger to tough times – but it’s in moments like these, when our communities rally and move forward together, that the true spirit of Northern Michigan shines brightest.”
“Yesterday, I spoke to President Trump who confirmed that communities in Northern Michigan impacted by the historic ice storm damage earlier thisnyear will start to receive federal disaster funding,”said Governor Whitmer.“With this initial support, we can help communities recover costs associated with cleanup efforts. I want to thank the president and our congressional delegation for supporting our request, and I look forward to collaborating further on much-needed additional resources. Michiganders across the state stepped up to help our neighbors, and while other parts of our request remain under review, we will continue advocating together to help Northern Michigan recover and rebuild.”
“Many Northern Michigan individuals, families, and small businesses are still recovering from the historic ice storms that hit our state earlier this year,” said Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist II. “This federal emergency declaration will help local leaders, communities, and Northern Michigan families get back on their feet and move forward with their lives. While this storm was devastating, Michiganders are strong, and we will Stand Tall together.”
“I’m pleased that funding is coming to Northern Michigan to bolster the ongoing recovery efforts following the ice storm this March,”said U.S. Senator Gary Peters. “The State of Michigan and local emergency managers continue to work hard because this job is not finished, and I’ll keep fighting to help our communities get the resources they need to bounce back stronger.”
“The Michigan State Police has supported response efforts from the moment this storm began, coordinating statewide resources through the State Emergency Operations Center to assist local communities impacted by the storm,” said Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP.“This federal declaration is a crucial next step. It allows us to continue supporting our partners through long-term recovery.”
Federal Disaster Declaration
The declaration opens the path to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance in Alcona, Alpena, Antrim, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Crawford, Emmet, Kalkaska, Mackinac, Montmorency, Oscoda, Otsego, and Presque Isle Counties and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. The administration continues to review the request for Individual Assistance and Public Assistance under Schedule F.
Advocating for Northern Michigan
On June 25th, Rep. Jack Bergman led a letter with the entire Michigan Congressional Delegation, urging President Donald J. Trump in the strongest possible terms,to approve Governor Whitmer’s May 16 request for a Major Disaster Declaration.
On May 30th, Rep. Jack Bergman joined Michigan USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) Director Joel Johnson to announce that assistance through the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) and Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP) is on the way for Northern Michigan. Both programs are designed to help landowners recover from severe storm damage and restore their operations.
On May 19th, Rep. Jack Bergman expressed his full support for Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s request for a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration in response to the ice storm that struck Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula in March.
On April 5th, Rep. Bergman visited the affected counties and met with local emergency leaders, linemen, and first responders to discuss the needs across the region.
State Actions
On March 31, Governor Whitmer declared a state of emergency to respond to the storm’s impact. The declaration initially covered 10 counties and was expanded to include 12 counties: Alcona, Alpena, Antrim, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Crawford, Emmet, Mackinac, Montmorency, Oscoda, Otsego, and Presque Isle counties. Governor Whitmer also deployed the Michigan National Guard to provide more personnel and specialized equipment to help with ice storm recovery efforts in northern Michigan. Lastly, the Governor Whitmer declared an energy emergency in the Upper Peninsula to help expedite delivery of fuel and other critical supplies to impacted areas.
On May 16, Governor Whitmer submitted a formal request for a major disaster declaration to help Northern Michigan recover and rebuild from the historic ice storms that hit the region hard in late March. The governor also traveled to the White House to meet with President Trump, advocating for federal assistance for Northern Michigan. The governor previously asked for an Emergency Declaration, which would authorize up to $5 million in immediate public assistance to support emergency efforts, including debris management needs.
She will continue working with the administration to pursue further relief from FEMA, and her request for individual assistance (IA) remains under review by the federal administration. IA can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster. She will also seek resources for hazard mitigation measures statewide.
Resources
Residents and business owners who sustained losses in the designated areas can begin applying for assistance at www.DisasterAssistance.gov, by calling 800-621-FEMA (3362), or by using the FEMA App. Anyone using a relay service, such as video relay service (VRS), captioned telephone service or others, can give FEMA the number for that service.
On June 11, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) separately granted an administrative disaster declaration for Cheboygan County and the contiguous counties of Charlevoix, Emmet, Mackinac, Montmorency, Otsego, and Presque Isle. SBA established two Disaster Loan Outreach Centers for one-on-one assistance, open now through July 26 at 2:00pm:
229 Court St.
Cheboygan, MI 49721
8288 S. Pleasantview Rd.
Harbor Springs, MI 49740
Loan applications are also available online or by mail. For additional information on low-interest SBA loans or the application process, visit the MySBA Loan Portal or call 1-800-659-2955. The physical loan application deadline is Aug. 8. Small businesses and non-profits have until March 9, 2026, to apply for EIDLs (working capital loans). So far SBA has disbursed $572,322 in loans for this disaster.
Woman charged with arson in relation to fire which destroyed unit at Ravenswood
Thursday, 24 July 2025 – 8:48 am.
Police have charged a 61-year-old woman from Ravenswood with arson in relation to a fire at Ravenswood yesterday. Around 10.30am, emergency services responded to reports of a unit on fire on Warring Street. Tasmania Fire Service extinguished the fire; however the unit was destroyed. Fire Investigators determined the fire was deliberately lit. The woman was bailed to appear before the Launceston Magistrates Court on 3 September 2025.
Corbies Creek, Canterbury, showing the exclusion barrier (left) and a DOC team removing weeds to improve longjaw habitat. Photo: Sjaan Bowie/DOC.
About this time last year, a group of DOC rangers and scientists set out from Twizel for a regular check of a population of threatened fish in nearby Corbies Creek. It was a beautiful day. Soon after getting their gear in the water, they realised something was very wrong. Where were all the fish? Only a year ago they’d found more than 100 in a 25m stretch, but there were hardly any there now.
Corbies Creek, along with just a few other small streams in Canterbury, is a refuge for native lowland longjaw galaxias. If we lost them from here, they’d be gone from everywhere. Sleek, pencil-thin and exquisitely camouflaged, their pale-yellow skin is dusted with brown and silver flecks. Adults rarely grow longer than 80 mm.
Lowland longjaw galaxias. Photo: P Ravenscroft/DOC.
Longjaws are one of New Zealand’s river-resident galaxiid species that live their entire lives in a single waterway. All river-resident galaxiids are vulnerable to being eaten or displaced by larger fish. Some, including longjaws, can’t share habitat with any bigger fish. To safeguard this population, an exclusion barrier has been built to stop predatory trout and kōaro from swimming up into their habitat.
So how had two brown trout – the cause of the drastic decline at Corbies Creek – got up there? Sjaan Bowie, DOC senior freshwater technical advisor, thinks the trout were carried across a paddock from a nearby waterway, in a particularly high flood event a few months earlier.
Rest assured the trout were quicky removed and the longjaws are bouncing back.
“We’re pleased to report that monitoring in March this year found numbers had risen from just 12 to more than 50 fish, and no more trout have been seen upstream of the barrier.”
Limited tools available – innovations welcome
Sjaan says this near-miss extinction of longjaws in Corbies Creek shows that more management tools will be needed to protect our freshwater fish in the future.
“What we’re doing generally works fine for small streams under current climatic conditions. But with increasing temperatures, we’re seeing trout head further inland looking for cooler water. More severe weather is also causing bigger floods and longer droughts. This combination increases the risk of trout making it past barriers or accidentally getting into threatened fish habitat, as we saw in Corbies Creek.”
Flooding can overtop fish barriers and put native species at risk. Photo: Dean Nelson/DOC.
She highlights the need for better technology – both for remote monitoring of populations and to protect larger areas.
“We’re looking at remote water level monitoring, so we’d get a warning ‘ping’ and could go and check if a barrier had been breached or there was an overland flow. There’s also a need to protect more and larger areas to prevent individual populations becoming genetically isolated.
“A fish exclusion barrier that works in larger rivers or low gradient streams without backing up the flow and creating a pool, would also make a big difference to the ongoing survival of these species. If anyone has bright ideas about how to build something like that, we’d really love to hear from you.”
Sjaan says the same issues are faced in fish conservation around the world, so any solutions we created here could be used internationally.
Regardless, future work to secure our river-resident galaxiids is likely to include building exclusion barriers in new streams and moving current barriers downstream. Other tools like captive breeding and translocations into protected areas are also likely to be necessary.
An exclusion barrier in Omarama Spring protects an important population of non-migratory galaxiids. Photo: Sjaan Bowie/DOC.
Let them through – migratory fish need to move
Managing the other group of New Zealand’s native fish couldn’t be more different. It’s vital for these species to be able to move up and down waterways and get to and from the sea to complete their lifecycles. In this group of migratory species are eels, bullies and the fish we collectively known as whitebait – the juveniles of īnanga, kōaro and banded, giant and shortjaw kōkopu.
The strongest swimmers of the group move the furthest inland. Kōaro stand out as best in class as they can climb near-vertical walls. Īnanga are the most challenged by inclines, jumps, rapids and fast flows, and tend to stay in flatter areas near the coast.
Human-built structures in waterways can present swimming challenges. Conservation work for migratory species therefore includes identifying, fixing or removing barriers like poorly designed or unmaintained culverts, fords, dams and weirs.
As part of her role, Sjaan advocates for better fish passage. She’s helped develop and update fish passage guidelines and resources, given dozens of seminars about best practice, offered advice and support to others, and coordinated the New Zealand Fish Passage Advisory Group.
“We can make a real difference for migratory fish by removing barriers. Yes, we can plant trees and improve habitat but if we can take out something that’s stopping migration, the benefit is immediate. It means the fish aren’t slowed down or stopped in their migration and allows them to get to natural habitat upstream to grow and mature.”
Researching ways to fix impassable culverts
Sjaan Bowie setting up a net to capture and count fish that made it up a ramp and through the culvert. Photo: Nixie Boddy/DOC.
Culverts are a big issue. There are hundreds of thousands of them around the country and some hinder or block fish passage by creating overhangs or impassably fast flows.
Sjaan and her colleagues have been testing different retrofitted baffles and ramps to see how well they help fish move up and through culverts.
“We couldn’t find a lab that was big enough, so we chose some barriers in waterways on the South Island’s West Coast. It has high rainfall, lots of culverts and an abundance of fish.
“It looks like these fixes can be used to improve passage for some species under certain conditions, but not for all species. They may be best considered as a temporary solution. Final results will indicate when they improved passage, and allow us to offer better guidance on installation, monitoring and maintenance of these fixes.”
Brittany Earl, freshwater ranger (left) and Nixie Boddy measuring post-trial fish before releasing them back into Hodson Stream. Photo: Sjaan Bowie/DOC.
Sjaan says if there’s a structure that’s restricting fish passage, the best option is always to remove it. “If that’s not possible we need to consider replacing or fixing it permanently.”
Spectacular success at Te Pouaruhe wetland, Wairarapa
Our work with the Wairarapa Moana Wetlands project restored fish passage to Te Pouaruhe wetland in early 2022 – using a large digger.
The area was drained for agriculture in the 1940s and separated from Lake Ōnoke by a stopbank and two culverts. One of the culverts had a flap gate that severely limited fish access to the wetland from the lake and the sea. The digger removed the culverts and made two breaks in the stopbank that now provide free passage up and downstream.
Before and after fish surveys in 2019 and 2023 found huge differences in the number and range of species present. Īnanga and common bullies were found at every sampling site in 2023 and in large numbers at most sites. At one site, the number of īnanga rose from 339 to 1563 after fish passage was restored.
Challenges to fix ford in lower Waipoua River, Northland
This ford across the Waipoua River was built to provide access for mana whenua (local residents) and commercial forestry vehicles.
It’s a significant barrier to fish passage because of a drop off downstream and culverts inside the ford that accelerate the flow. Installing four fish ramps has helped, but a permanent solution is still needed.
“Having a barrier 5 km from the sea restricts or prevents fish access to around 100 km of beautiful stream habitat in kauri forest”, says Sjaan. “Improving fish passage there would make a big difference for many species, including threatened shortjaw kōkopu.”
Fixing the ford is a priority for Te iwi o Te Roroa and DOC and options, including a fish bypass or replacement bridge, are being looked at.
This ford across Waipoua River hinders fish passage for several species despite the installation of floating fish ramps. Photo Sarah Wilcox/DOC.
Progress to celebrate and some lessons learned
Reflecting on progress in the last 10 years, Sjaan is pleased to have national guidelines, improved policy and new tools in place.
“The Fish Passage Assessment Tool is one way that anyone can record instream structures and assess the risk they pose to fish passage. The tool has contributed to a database of more than 150,000 structures nationwide that are being prioritised and ticked off.
“It’s been exciting to see councils such as Northland, Taranaki and West Coast, as well as other organisations, taking action to remove barriers and put in some good fixes to open up habitat for fish.”
Wairau Stream after work by New Plymouth District Council to remove a culvert that was hindering fish passage. Photo: New Plymouth District Council.
Sjaan says instream structures always have at least a dual purpose – to transport water and allow fish to move – and both are important to consider.
“One stand-out lesson for me though is the benefit of oversizing and embedding culverts. They will be long-lasting, stand up to floods, and provide good fish passage.”
Source: United States Senator for New Mexico Martin Heinrich
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representatives Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), and Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) released the following joint statement, welcoming President Donald Trump’s granting of a Major Disaster Declaration for Lincoln County, while renewing their call for President Trump to grant a Major Disaster Declaration for Chaves, Otero, and Valencia Counties and authorize Public Assistance Categories C-G in the wake of severe flooding that took the lives of three people and damaged homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure.
“The loss of life and devastation in Ruidoso as a result of this catastrophic flooding is horrific and heartbreaking. After seeing the destruction firsthand and hearing from families who have lost everything, our thoughts remain with those mourning loved ones and the hundreds of New Mexicans forced to flee their homes or watch their businesses be destroyed. We are deeply grateful to the first responders, local leaders, medical providers, and rescue teams working tirelessly to help their communities recover.
“This Major Disaster Declaration for Lincoln County will unlock funding needed for disaster response, and we will continue to push President Trump to grant the State’s Major Disaster Declaration request for Chaves, Otero, and Valencia Counties and authorize additional Public Assistance to make sure that all New Mexicans impacted by this disaster are provided with the federal support necessary to rebuild.”
On July 10, the N.M. Delegation welcomed an emergency declaration for Chaves, Lincoln, Otero, and Valencia Counties. The emergency declaration opened up access to specific FEMA funds for immediate disaster response, including support for search and rescue and incident management efforts. An emergency declaration does not preclude a subsequent Major Disaster Declaration. Therefore, the N.M. Delegation pushed President Trump to approve a Major Disaster Declaration request from Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Through a Major Disaster Declaration request, the State of New Mexico has requested Public Assistance, Category A through G, including Direct Federal Assistance for Lincoln County, Chaves County, Otero County, and Valencia County, as well as Individual Assistance, including Housing Assistance, Small Business Administration Disaster Assistance, Disaster Case Management, Transitional Sheltering Assistance, Serious Needs Assistance, Crisis Counseling, Disaster Legal Services, Disaster Unemployment, and Displacement Assistance for Lincoln County and Valencia County. The State also requested Hazard Mitigation statewide, as facilitated by New Mexico’s Natural Disaster Hazard Mitigation Plan.
The N.M. Delegation will continue to push President Trump to authorize Public Assistance Categories C-G and approve a Major Disaster Declaration request for Chaves, Otero, and Valencia Counties from Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Additionally, on July 15, the N.M. Delegation called on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Acting Director David Richardson to disburse critical and overdue funds that would provide immediate assistance in response to the catastrophic flash flooding in and around Ruidoso.
In a letter to OMB Director Vought and FEMA Acting Director Richardson, the Delegation urged OMB to release reimbursement funds from a project undertaken in the wake of last year’s South Fork and Salt Fires — currently stalled in “Large Project Review” — so they can be redirected to Lincoln County after recent severe flooding. The project in question was completed last year, has been fully reviewed by FEMA, and has an estimated cost of $7.7 million. These funds could be deployed immediately to assist Lincoln County and impacted residents as they continue to assess and respond to the recent severe flooding. But with no timeline provided to Lincoln County or the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM) for completing the “Large Project Review” by the Administration, the Delegations is demanding answers. Read the full letter here.
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Dick Durbin
July 23, 2025
The Senators’ bill would force Big Pharma to disclose prices when advertising prescription drugs, the UC request was blocked by a Senate Republican
WASHINGTON – Today on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked for unanimous consent (UC) to pass their bipartisan Drug-price Transparency for Consumers (DTC) Act, a bipartisan bill that would require price disclosures on advertisements for prescription drugs in order to empower patients and reduce Americans’ colossal spending on medications. The United States is one of only two industrialized countries in the world that allow drug advertising. Despite prior support for the measure from the Trump Administration, the request was blocked by a Senate Republican.
“You know the ads with the catchy jingle and flashy images of patients rock climbing, golfing, dancing, [or] parading? Big Pharma spends more than $6 billion a year to flood the airwaves with ads for the latest wonder-drug. Why? Why would they spend this much money to advertise [these drugs]? They [Big Pharma] spend such astronomical sums to promote their drugs because it increases their profit margins. Big Pharma thinks that if they hit you hard enough and often enough ad on TV, not only will you be able to pronounce but [you’ll also be able to] spell Xarelto. You’ll also [be able to] tell your doctor ‘that is my favorite blood thinner, I’ve seen that ad over and over again.’ Don’t take my word for it. The American Medical Association said ‘direct-to-consumer advertising inflates demand for new and expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate,’” Durbin said.
“When President Biden announced the 15 drugs that Medicare will negotiate for discounts, most Americans knew the names, maybe even knew the jingle: Ozempic, Trelegy, Ibrance, and Otezla. Sound familiar? Pharma spent hundreds of millions of dollars each year for you to ‘ask your doctor’ about these drugs. The result? Medicare spent $22 billion last year alone on these four heavily advertised medications,” said Durbin.
Last week, Durbin released a report about a new telehealth-advertising scheme launched by Pfizer and Eli Lilly. The report revealed relationships between drug companies seeking to sell their medications, and the telehealth companies hand-picked by these pharmaceutical giants, appear intended to steer patients toward particular medications. As the pharmaceutical industry floods the airwaves with commercials to increase demand for high-cost medications, these new telehealth platforms appear intended to churn out prescriptions to patients with just a few clicks online.
Durbin continued, “With online promotions and new websites, Pharma is urging patients to ‘click here’ to speak with a doctor. But those telehealth doctors are handpicked, they’ve been recruited, and paid for by the drug companies. Pharma is funneling patients to their chosen health care providers, to influence prescriptions for costly drugs. This raises concerns about conflicts of interest and inappropriate prescribing of drugs. All of this is a result of Pharma’s rampant advertising spree.”
Since 2017, Durbin has worked with Grassley to introduce bipartisan legislation to crack down on DTC advertisements. One-third of all commercials displayed on TV are of drugs from prescription drug companies. In 2023, Illinois company AbbVie spent $315 million on TV ads for Rinvoq, an eczema and arthritis drug. Nowhere in the commercial do they disclose it’s more than $6,100 per month.
Durbin continued, “It’s time to end Big Pharma’s secrecy. If they are going to advertise a drug, they also need to [mention] to the American public how much it costs. It’s basic. No gimmicks, no tricks. Just the truth by advertising [what]… the drug companies publish as the official price.”
Durbin continued, “Our common sense plan to require price disclosures in direct-to-consumer drug ads has already passed the Senate once before, in 2018… we knew that 88 percent of Americans support what we’re doing: disclosure of price. In fact, because of our work on this measure, Donald Trump made a statement: ‘Big announcement today: Drug companies have to come clean about their prices in TV ads. Historic transparency for American patients is here. If drug companies are ashamed of those prices—lower them!’”
“Big Pharma hates being honest with patients about the price of their drugs. They fear it’s going to cut into their profits. Patients, American citizens, and others deserve lower drug prices. The Trump Administration has called on Congress to rein in these deceptive drug advertisements. But Big Pharma is looking for one Senator to come down and object to the passage of this common sense bill. I hope we can pass it right now to deliver real relief at the pharmacy counter,” Durbin concluded.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that prescription drugs advertised directly to consumers accounted for 58 percent of Medicare’s spending on drugs between 2016 and 2018, while a 2023 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that two-thirds of advertised drugs offered “low therapeutic value.” By requiring direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements forprescription drugs to include a disclosure of the list price, patients can make informed choices when inundated with drug commercials and pharmaceutical companies may reconsider their pricing and advertising tactics. In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has sued to keep the prices of their drugs out of their TV advertisements.
Video of Durbin’sremarks on the floor is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s remarks on the floor is available here.
Footage of Durbin’s remarks on the floor is available here for TV Stations.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
ISTANBUL, July 23 (Xinhua) — Russian and Ukrainian delegations held the third round of peace talks at the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul on Wednesday, which started at 20:30 local time (17:30 GMT) and lasted for almost an hour and a half.
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations were headed by Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Rustem Umerov, respectively. The talks were chaired by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and head of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization Ibrahim Kalin.
At the end of the negotiations, V. Medinsky told journalists that the Russian side proposed creating three Russian-Ukrainian working groups that would work online to resolve political, humanitarian and military issues.
He also noted that both sides agreed on another round of prisoner exchange.
Before the start of the negotiations, H. Fidan made an opening speech in which he called on the delegations of both countries to engage in productive negotiations aimed at achieving a truce and ultimately ending the war.
“Our goal is to put an end to this bloody war, which has cost too much, as soon as possible,” said H. Fidan.
Two previous rounds of talks in Istanbul, held on May 16 and June 2, resulted in the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war and the bodies of dead soldiers, but produced little progress on achieving a ceasefire. –0–
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union have been negotiating a collective employment agreement for career firefighters since 16 July 2024.
Deputy Chief Executive Service Delivery Operations/Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler says Fire and Emergency has offered the Union a 5.1 percent pay increase over the next three years, as well as increases to some allowances.
“We consider the offer is fair, balances cost of living pressures being faced by individuals alongside fiscal pressures faced by Fire and Emergency and is consistent with the Government Workforce Policy Statement.”
Megan Stiffler says Fire and Emergency has invested significantly in its people and its resources for the safety of communities since it was established in 2017.
“The previous collective employment agreement settlement in 2022 provided a cumulative wage increase of up to 24 percent over a three-year period for our career firefighters.”
“Fire and Emergency has also been investing in replacing our fleet, with 317 trucks replaced since 2017 and another 70 on order. We are currently spending over $20 million per year on replacement trucks. There is also a significant programme of station upgrades underway, as well as investment in training,” she says.
“In 2023/24 most career firefighters earned over $100,000 per year, including overtime and allowances. The turnover rate for our career firefighters was just 3.6 percent last year, and the average length of service was 17 years. We work constantly with our people to ensure we are an employer of choice.”
“Our firefighters are highly trained and deeply committed to serving their communities and we are investing in our people and our resources, to support them. They do an incredible job keeping New Zealanders safe.”
The historic climate change ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) today is a landmark win for child campaigners, acknowledging the adverse impacts of climate change on child rights, and offering children renewed hope, Save the Children said.
The Advisory Opinion delivered by the world’s highest court finds that states’ legal obligations to address climate change extend beyond existing climate agreements. It also found that “states must take their obligations under international human rights law into account when implementing their obligations under the climate change treaties and other relevant environmental treaties.”
While not legally binding, leading environmental lawyerssaythe ruling “could become a guiding star for climate policies at all levels of governance”, including how States are held accountable under multiple areas of international law.
The Advisory Opinion originated from an extensive campaign led by a group of law students from the Pacific Islands, with strong support from the Republic of Vanuatu [1].
In December last year, Vepaiamele, 16, a child campaigner with Save the Children Vanuatu, travelled to The Hague with the Government of Vanuatu – the only child to attend as part of a government delegation – to speak about the impacts of climate change on the Pacific island nation and call for action.
Vepaiamele said today: “This Advisory Opinion is everything I hoped for and I am so happy with this outcome as I know it will pave the way for a safer future for youth like myself and future generations, too.”
Speaking from The Haguelast year, Vepaiamele said:
“As a young Ni-Vanuatu girl, I feel the effects of climate change every day of every year. I’ve experienced many cyclones. It can be kind of terrifying sometimes, especially the really strong ones. Every cyclone, our classrooms are destroyed, our homes are flattened to the ground, and hospitals and communication towers are ripped apart. And then there’s also the mental health impacts, and we don’t really talk about it that much, but it can really cause anxiety in children and young people.”
Human-induced climate change is driving up global temperatures, with the past 10 years the warmest on record, according to theWorld Meteorological Organization. Children, particularly those affected by inequality and discrimination, bear the brunt of climate change impacts that are already forcing them from their homes, putting food out of reach, damaging schools and increasing risks like child marriage as they are forced out of education and into poverty.
Limiting warming temperatures through the rapid phase-out of the use and subsidy of fossil fuels is critical for children’s rights and lives, Save the Children said.
Earlier this year,research releasedby the child rights organisation with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) found that the difference between global temperature rise of 1.5°C and 2.7°C could see 38 million more children from the 2020 birth cohort face unprecedented lifetime exposure to extreme heatwaves. [2] Save the Children also called for increased climate finance targeted at helping children and their families, child-centred and locally led adaptation and an increase in the participation of children in shaping climate action.
Save the Children New Zealand CEO Heather Campbell says, “The ICJ’s opinion strengthens the argument that climate inaction is a form of intergenerational injustice, disproportionately borne by those least responsible and least equipped to adapt.
“At home in Aotearoa New Zealand, children and their families are experiencing the devastating impacts of extensive flooding and other climate-related emergencies, including Cyclone Gabrielle. Communities across the Nelson Tasman region are still reeling from floods that have destroyed homes and farmland, displaced families and closed schools.
“On a recent visit to Solomon Islands, children told us about the impact rising sea levels were having on their communities, including monthly flooding in homes and schools, saline infiltration into fresh water supplies, and crops being destroyed. In other parts of the Pacific, communities are having to constantly rebuild after multiple cyclones in the last few years alone. These are not future scenarios – they are current realities.
“Save the Children welcomes the finding from the ICJ, and we also urge governments and development agencies to ensure that climate finance reaches those on the frontline of this crisis.
“Currently, only 2.4% of climate finance from multilateral funding sources is child centred. Even without the Court’s opinion, we know that states must do far more to protect children from the worst impacts of this crisis, including by significantly increasing climate finance to uphold children’s rights and access to health, education and protection.”
In light of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion, Save the Children New Zealand is calling on the New Zealand Government to renew its commitment to provide climate finance to help communities recover from climate induced loss and damage as well as working to reduce the country’s carbon emissions.
As the world’s leading independent child rights organisation, Save the Children works in about 110 countries, tackling climate change across everything we do. Save the Children supports children and their communities across the Pacific and globally in preventing, preparing for, adapting to, and recovering from both sudden climate disasters and slow onset climate change. We have set up floating schools, rebuilt destroyed homes and provided cash grants to families hit by disasters.
We also work to influence governments and other key stakeholders in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world on climate policies, including at the UNFCCC COP summits, giving children a platform for their voices to be heard.
Notes:
Multimedia can be foundhereincluding Vepaiamele with other young people on Tuesday 22 July, Vepaiamele at the Hague, and general vision of Vanuatu
[1] The Advisory Opinion is in response to a Pacific-led resolution (A/RES/77/276) to the UN General Assemblyadoptedby consensus on 29 March 2023. This was the result of an extensive campaign by a group of law students from the University of the South Pacific (Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change) with strong support from the Republic of Vanuatu. Save the Children has worked closely with thePacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Changeto ensure the voices of children and young people are incorporated into countries’ written and oral submissions to the Court. As part of her campaigning work, Vepaiamele and other activists met with embassies of high emitting countriesin Vanuatu ahead of the hearing to try and influence their submissions.
[2] The report found that, for children born in 2020, if global temperature rise is limited to 1.5°C rather than reaching 2.7°C above pre-industrial levels:
– About 38 million would be spared from facing unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves; o About 8 million would avoid unprecedented lifetime exposure to crop failures; o About 5 million would be spared from unprecedented lifetime exposure to river floods; o About 5 million would avoid unprecedented lifetime exposure to tropical cyclones; o About 2 million would avoid unprecedented lifetime exposure to droughts; o About 1.5 million children would be spared unprecedented lifetime exposure to wildfires.
Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
BILLINGS – A Billings man who distributed drugs in the Billings area was sentenced today to 168 months in prison to be followed by 4 years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said.
Tirrell Lewis, 45, pleaded guilty in February 2025 to one count of possession with intent to distribute controlled substances and one count of prohibited person in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
U.S. District Judge Susan P. Watters presided.
The government alleged in court documents that on November 3, 2023, law enforcement officers received a call that there were two gunshots in the vicinity of a residential address and the caller saw a gray Mustang leave the area very quickly. Officers spoke to the Lewis’s girlfriend on scene, and she said the sounds were fireworks. She also said she and Lewis were in a relationship and he had not been present at her residence. She allowed officers to look in her backyard where they found two spent rifle casings.
The caller told police Lewis had been at the residence and he and his girlfriend were arguing before the two gunshots and then the caller saw Lewis leave in the gray Mustang.
Later that evening officers located the Mustang. They attempted to stop the vehicle, but it fled a short distance before stopping in front of Lewis’s girlfriend’s residence. Lewis got out of the car and fled on foot behind the residence. He circled the house and ran right into an officer who then arrested him. When Lewis was taken into custody, he was found to have $6,216.18 on his person.
On November 13, 2023, a search warrant was executed on the Mustang. Inside were 4 firearms, 91 rounds of assorted ammunition, 7 ounces of fentanyl, and 9 ounces of methamphetamine. The drugs were located in a backpack in the trunk. The fentanyl was in 3 bags inside. One contained 50 pills, one contained 1,003, and one contained 814. The methamphetamine was in two zip lock baggies next to a scale and 23 clean baggies. There was a paystub for Lewis and one of the handguns under the backpack.
Lewis is prohibited from possessing firearms due to a previous federal conviction.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Godfrey prosecuted the case. The investigation was conducted by the Billings Police Department, ATF, and DEA.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results. For more information about Project Safe Neighborhoods, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psn.
Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
HOT SPRINGS – A Pearcy man was sentenced yesterday to a total of 175 months in prison on one count of Possession with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine, one count of being a Felon in Possession of a Firearm, as well as violations of his term of supervised release from a previous conviction. The Honorable Chief Judge Susan O. Hickey presided over the sentencing hearing in the United States District Court in Hot Springs. According to court documents, on July 22, 2024, a Trooper with the Arkansas State Police attempted to make a traffic stop on Michael Fryar in Garland County. After the Trooper initiated his lights, Fryar fled in his vehicle and a pursuit ensued. After a short pursuit Fryar abandoned the vehicle and fled on foot into a wooded area. The Trooper pursued on foot and had to deploy his taser to get Fryar apprehended. At the time of the offense, Fryar was in possession of a loaded firearm with a round in the chamber and a distribution amount of methamphetamine. Fryar has an extensive criminal history and was on federal supervised release at the time of the offense. The Arkansas State Police, 18th East Drug Task Force, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Harris prosecuted the case for the United States. This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETFs) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN). Related court documents may be found on the Public Access to Electronic Records website @ www.pacer.gov.
