Vegetarian "steak" has been spared the knife in France after a court delayed a government bid to ban the use of meaty terms to describe plant-based products.. In October 2020, the European Parliament rejected a move to ban the use of terms of animal origin for plant products -- except when words like "yoghurt", "cream" or "cheese" are applied to products without animal milk.
The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday again raised the benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point in its ongoing battle to tamp down raging price pressures that are squeezing American families.. In a vote that was unanimous -- unlike the decision made in June -- the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised its benchmark lending rate to a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent, after starting the year near zero.
The United States has made a "substantial proposal" to Russia to free Americans including basketball star Brittney Griner, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, as he announced he will speak to his Moscow counterpart for the first time since the Ukraine war.. Blinken said the United States -- which has been pouring billions in military aid into Ukraine -- was "under no illusion" that Russia was ready to engage "meaningfully and constructively" to end the war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he will speak to his Russian counterpart for the first time since the Ukraine war to take up a "substantial proposal" to free detained Americans.. "We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release.
Pope Francis will travel to Quebec City Wednesday, where he will address Canada's political leaders after dedicating the first part of his journey to apologizing for the abuse of Indigenous children at Catholic-run schools.. From the late 1800s to the 1990s, Canada's government sent about 150,000 children into 139 residential schools run by the Church, where they were cut off from their families, language and culture.
France is on track to experience its driest July on record, the national weather service said Wednesday, with drought-like conditions leading to increasingly severe water restrictions around the country.. "The month of July will very likely be the driest July ever recorded since 1959," spokesman Christian Veil from Meteo-France told AFP. On average, just eight mm (0.3 inches) of rain fell across the country from July 1-25, less than the previous low of 16 mm which was clocked in 2020, he said.
Ukrainian artillery on Wednesday struck a key bridge in Moscow-controlled territory in south Ukraine, damaging an important supply route as Kyiv's forces look to wrest back the Kherson region.. Ukrainian forces in recent weeks have been clawing back territory in the Kherson region, which fell to Russian forces easily and early after their invasion launched on February 24.
Singapore has extended a short-stay visa for Sri Lanka's deposed president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, local media in the city-state reported on Wednesday. . Rajapaksa's 14-day visit pass has been extended, allowing him to stay until August 11, the Straits Times newspaper reported Wednesday, without citing a source.
Surging inflation and severe slowdowns in the United States and China prompted the IMF Tuesday to downgrade its outlook for the global economy this year and next, while warning that the situation could get much worse.. "The world's three largest economies, the United States, China and the euro area are stalling with important consequences for the global outlook," he said at a briefing.
Shazad Akbar carried his four-year-old daughter on his shoulders Tuesday as he and his wife waded through knee-high water flooding a street in Surjani, a poor part of Pakistan's port city of Karachi.. Coastal Karachi is particularly prone to flooding because the city has expanded with scant planning on a landscape ill-suited to urban development.
