France's top constitutional court is to rule Friday on whether to approve President Emmanuel Macron's deeply unpopular pensions overhaul after months of protests.. As well as ruling on whether the pensions legislation and the way it was passed is in line with the constitution, the council must also decide on whether to approve an opposition demand for a referendum on an alternative pensions law.
A Moroccan court has sharply increased the jail sentences handed down against three men convicted of "indecent assault" for the repeated rape of an 11-year-old girl in a case that sparked public outrage.. The girl, from a village near Rabat, was raped repeatedly over several months, the Jossour Forum of Moroccan Women said in a statement last month.
A "horrific" explosion and fire at a dairy farm in the southern US state of Texas killed about 18,000 head of cattle and injured one agricultural worker, authorities said on Thursday.. The explosion and fire ripped through the Southfork Dairy Farms near the town of Dimmitt in the Texas Panhandle on Monday night.
The US state of Montana on Thursday was on the verge of implementing a total ban on TikTok, after a proposal passed a key hurdle in the state's legislature.. "It is hard to see how the state would be able to defend it and win," Tobias told AFP. When an earlier version of the bill passed in the Montana senate, TikTok decried a "disastrous precedent" that would have "serious consequences", especially on TikTok creators and Montana businesses that use the app.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday declared "I'm home" as he was feted on a visit to his ancestral homeland Ireland, whose story he said proved the triumph of hope over despair.. But, following a testy visit to Belfast prior to Dublin, Biden also issued a pointed warning that the UK "should be working closer with Ireland" to protect a 25-year-old peace deal in Northern Ireland.
French President Emmanuel Macron's recent trip to Beijing was billed as a chance to showcase European unity and persuade Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help rein in Russian aggression.. Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis was scathing about the argument that Europe can persuade Xi to intercede with Russia's President Vladimir Putin to de-escalate Moscow's war in Ukraine.
The US Justice Department said Thursday that it will go to the Supreme Court to appeal restrictions imposed on a widely-used abortion pill in the latest round of an intensifying battle over reproductive rights.. The appeals court ruling was denounced by Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Rights and other groups seeking to maintain access to abortion.
Russia said Thursday it had cut off Ukrainian forces inside Bakhmut, while Kyiv insisted supply lines were still open into the town, scene of the most brutal battle of the war.. Kyiv has said the battle for the town is key to holding back Russian forces along the entire eastern front.
An Indian farmer whose extraordinary bond with a large bird made him a social media star has asked for his feathered friend to be set free after it was captured by wildlife authorities.. He set it free six weeks later, but the crane remained near his home in the city of Amethi, trailing the farmer when he went for bike rides and eating out of his hands.
The launch of the European Space Agency's JUICE mission, which aims to discover whether Jupiter's icy moons are capable of hosting extraterrestrial life, was postponed on Thursday for 24 hours due to bad weather.. The mission will not be able to directly detect the existence of alien life, but instead aims to establish whether the moons have the right conditions to harbour life.
