Eric Schmieman worked for 15 years on the modern engineering equivalent of the Great Pyramid — building a giant protective shield for a damaged reactor at Chernobyl that would protect the world from further fallout from the worst ever nuclear disaster. The steel shell, slid into place over Reactor No. 4 on railroad tracks in … Read more
China has released five employees of an American corporate investigations firm, the Mintz Group, two years after they were detained as part of a crackdown by Beijing on foreign business consultancies. “We understand that the Mintz Group Beijing employees who were detained, all Chinese nationals, have now all been released,” the firm said in a … Read more
Kristine Carroll plopped herself down in the only shade on the beach — a triangle cast by the makeshift lifeguard station — and slathered sunscreen all over her freckled skin. Squinting at the scorching midday sun, she glanced over at her 8-year-old daughter, Zoe, who had already plunged into the blue-green water without hesitation. “She’s … Read more
The United Nations announced on Monday that it would reduce its presence in Gaza by withdrawing about a one-third of its international workers there, following repeated strikes of its facilities by Israel. Secretary General António Guterres said in a statement that the decision to reduce the organization’s footprint in Gaza was “difficult” at a time … Read more
When the nation’s intelligence chiefs go before Congress on Tuesday to provide their first public “Worldwide Threat Assessment” of President Trump’s second term, they’ll face an extraordinary choice. Do they stick with their long-running conclusion about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that his goal is to crush the Ukrainian government and “undermine the United … Read more
A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” was beaten bloody near his home by Israeli settlers and detained by the Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening, witnesses said. The director, Hamdan Ballal, was set upon in Susya, his home village, by at least 20 masked people, mostly teenagers … Read more
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal in a landmark climate case brought by 21 young people against the federal government, ending its 10-year journey through the courts. But the case provided a blueprint for numerous other climate-related lawsuits that have had greater success. Juliana v. United States argued that the government … Read more
Trump targets Venezuela with new tariffs President Trump said yesterday that countries that bought oil or gas from Venezuela would be forced to pay a tariff of 25 percent on their exports to the U.S., starting April 2. He claimed that Venezuela had “purposefully and deceitfully” sent criminals and murderers into the U.S. Later in … Read more
The United States has lifted multimillion-dollar bounties on three senior Taliban officials, according to Afghan authorities and a senior American official, a significant shift by the Trump administration toward some of the most blood-soaked jihadists from the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. The move comes days after a U.S. hostage envoy, Adam Boehler, made the first … Read more
