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PARIS (AP) — France’s new government has unveiled its 2025 belt-tightening budget bill, with plans for major tax hikes and spending cuts aimed at tackling the country’s giant deficit. Prime Minister Michel Barnier, a conservative, described the massive hole in the public finances as a “ sword of Damocles ” that could bring the euro zone’s second-biggest economy “to the edge of the precipice.” Still, his budget plans have angered […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden-Harris administration announced plans Tuesday to provide up to $750 million in direct funding to Wolfspeed, with the money supporting its new silicon carbide factory in North Carolina that makes the wafers used in advanced computer chips and its factory in Marcy, New York. Wolfspeed’s use of silicon carbide enables the computer chips used in electric vehicles and other advanced technologies to be more efficient. The […]

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Lawyers representing 100 survivors and family members of victims of the deadliest shooting in Maine history have begun the formal process of suing the Army and an Army hospital for failing to act to stop the reservist responsible for the tragedy, attorneys announced Tuesday. The individual notices of claim say the Army was aware of the reservist’s mental health decline that left him paranoid, delusional and […]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California and Nevada voters will decide in November whether to ban forced prison labor by removing language from their state constitutions rooted in the legacy of chattel slavery. The measures aim to protect incarcerated people from being forced to work under the threat of punishment in the states, where it is not uncommon for prisoners to be paid less than $1 an hour to fight fires, […]

By Adam Smith LONDON – When floods ripped through parts of Europe in September, the scale of the destruction took people by surprise. The intense rains should not have, because those had been predicted by sophisticated forecasting systems enhanced with artificial intelligence. But forewarned did not mean forearmed. Though the rains were accurately predicted, the effects in the deluged areas were not – a fact that highlights the difficulties of […]

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s incoming president Prabowo Subianto met candidates for senior government posts for a second day on Tuesday, as he seeks to bring the country’s biggest political party into his already dominant parliamentary coalition. If Prabowo can reach a deal with Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) there would be no opposition parties in parliament, an unprecedented situation since Indonesia began holding direct presidential elections in 2004. Prabowo, who […]

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Kyrgyz Prime Minister Akylbek Zhaparov landed in Islamabad on Tuesday to attend a heads-of-government gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Pakistani government said, with the city under tight security lockdown. The meeting of the SCO, a Eurasian security and political group formed in 2001 by Russia and China, is the highest profile event hosted by the troubled South Asian nation in years. Chinese Premiere Li […]

ROME (Reuters) – Italy is working to implement an agreement on a loan to Ukraine backed by Russian assets held in the European Union, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday. In June the G7 agreed during their annual summit in southern Italy to provide Ukraine with loans which will be underpinned by interest accrued from the blocked Russian funds. “We will keep working to implement the agreement on the […]

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis will meet his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Athens on Nov. 8 to discuss bilateral issues including the demarcation of an exclusive economic zone, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday. Greece and Turkey, NATO allies but historic foes, have been at odds for decades over matters ranging from airspace to maritime jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean, energy resources and ethnically split Cyprus. Turkish […]