News

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday sharply limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority narrowed the reach of environmental regulations. The outcome could threaten efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi River and protect the Chesapeake Bay, among […]

WASHINGTON — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared his candidacy for the 2024 U.S. Republican presidential nomination on Wednesday in a Federal Election Commission filing. DeSantis was scheduled to hold an online conversation with Twitter owner Elon Musk later Wednesday. DeSantis’ campaign had said his long-anticipated announcement would come on the Twitter Spaces social media site, where […]

Four Chinese citizens living in Florida and a real estate brokerage that operates in the state have joined together in a lawsuit challenging a new law that places severe restrictions on the ability of some non-U.S. citizens to purchase property there. The case, Shen v. Simpson, charges that Florida law SB 264, which was signed […]

OTTAWA — Wildfire smoke blanketing western Canada has triggered health warnings in several cities but was also helping to cool blazes by blocking out a hot sun across hard-hit portions of the country Sunday. The wildfires in Alberta province have displaced tens of thousands of people and scorched more than 941,000 hectares over several weeks. “It […]

SAO PAOLO — Brazil declared a state of animal health emergency for 180 days in response to the country’s first detection of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in wild birds, in a document signed Monday by Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro. Infection by the H5N1 subtype of avian flu in wild birds does not trigger trade […]

SAN FRANCISCO — TikTok on Monday filed suit in U.S. federal court to stop the northern state of Montana from implementing an overall ban on the video-sharing app. The unprecedented ban, set to start in 2024, violates the constitutionally protected right to free speech, TikTok argued in the suit. “We believe our legal challenge will prevail […]

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — Weather-related disasters have surged over the past 50 years, causing swelling economic damage even as early warning systems have meant dramatically fewer deaths, the United Nations said Monday. Extreme weather, climate and water-related events caused 11,778 reported disasters between 1970 and 2021, new figures from the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) show. Those […]

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — The World Health Organization on Monday won basic approval for a $6.83 billion budget over the next two years, including a 20% hike in mandatory membership fees. As the U.N. health agency kicked off its annual decision-making assembly, member states in a key committee approved the budget without objection. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in decades rocketed toward the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday. SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the company that arranged the trip from Kennedy Space Center. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a […]

U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are to meet Monday at the White House as they negotiate raising the government’s borrowing limit. Negotiators for the two sides met for more than two hours Sunday, while Biden and McCarthy spoke by telephone in a call that each described positively. “It went well, we’ll […]