Fri, Dec 10, 2021 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  UNITED STATES

  Race case raises concern

  President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to decline to hear a case against Harvard University challenging the ability of it and other schools to consider race as a factor in student admissions to boost diversity. The justices in June asked the administration for its views on the case, which could give the court’s 6-3 conservative majority a chance to end affirmative action policies used to increase the number of black and Hispanic students on campuses. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued in a brief that it would be an “extraordinary step” for the court to reconsider its past rulings, and called the case a “poor vehicle” to do so.

  NORTH AMERICA

  Temperatures reach highs

  A spell of unseasonably warm weather last week affected southern and western parts of the US and southwestern Canada, with temperatures 15°C to 20°C above average in some places. December temperature records were broken in multiple locations. Penticton, British Columbia, had its highest-ever December on Wednesday last week, as the temperature reached 22.5°C. In the US, Montana, North Dakota, Washington and Wyoming all equaled or broke state temperature records for the month.

  UNITED STATES

  Officials to feed manatees

  Florida’s manatees — which are increasingly facing starvation, largely as a result of pollution — are going to be fed directly by wildlife officials, in what they called an “unprecedented” step to prevent further die-off. The pilot program is to start with Indian River Lagoon, on the state’s east coast, southeast of Orlando, federal and state authorities said on Wednesday. Many manatees migrate to the area in winter, to bask in the warm water discharged by a nearby power plant and to graze on seagrass. Over the past decade, heavy runoff from nearby farms and urban areas has caused algae blooms to explode, which increasingly threaten the sea mammals’ main food source. At least 1,017 manatees have died so far this year.

  UNITED STATES

  Fox News tree set ablaze

  Police in New York on Wednesday arrested a man suspected of deliberately torching a giant Christmas tree in front of the Fox News headquarters. The 49-year-old man faces charges of arson after he was found at about midnight climbing the structure supporting the 15m tree in the heart of Manhattan. The tree then went up in flames. The man had a lighter on him, but police are uncertain whether he used any propellant to help start the blaze. The fire was quickly brought under control and no one was hurt. Police have not yet ascribed a motive to the incident.

  UNITED STATES

  Gig work popularity growing

  Sixteen percent of Americans have earned money doing household chores and running errands for other people through online apps and Web sites, a Pew Research Center survey showed. If people are younger, non-white and poorer, they are more likely to have worked online gigs, such as giving rides, delivering groceries and cleaning homes, according to a survey of 10,348 adults conducted from Aug. 23 to 29. More than half of the online gig workers said they wanted to save extra money or cover gaps in their incomes, while about six in 10 said the money they earned was essential or important for meeting their basic needs.

  INDIA

  Full honors for top general

  The bodies of former first chief of defense staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others who died in a helicopter crash were yesterday to be taken to New Delhi, where the top general would be laid to rest with full military honors, Minister of Defense Rajnath Singh said. Rawat, his wife and 12 defense personnel were on Wednesday en route to a military staff college in the south when the air force helicopter they were traveling in came down near the town of Coonoor. The lone survivor of the crash, an air force group captain, is on life support at a military hospital. The cause of the crash is being investigated. Rawat, 63, was appointed as the nation’s first chief of defense staff by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in late 2019. The position was set up with the aim of integrating the army, navy and air force.

  SOUTH KOREA

  Fertility rate to fall further

  The nation’s fertility rate, already the world’s lowest, is expected to drop even further, as the COVID-19 pandemic puts downward pressure on the number of births, statements by the Ministry of Finance and statistics office said. By 2031, the government sees the fertility rate edging back up to 1.0, as the large cohort of people born in the 1990s to a second baby boomer generation enter their 30s and start forming families, they said. A fertility rate of about two children per woman, the so-called replacement rate, is needed to keep population from falling. The national population of about 52 million would decline gradually until 2030, then shrink at a more rapid pace to about 38 million by 2070, the same size it was in 1979, the statements said.

  CAMEROON

  People flee to Chad border

  Clashes between fishing and herding communities in the far north region on Wednesday killed two people, wounded several others and sent many residents fleeing over the nearby border into Chad, local sources said. Musgum fishers attacked “from all sides” areas mostly populated by Choa Arab herders in the town of Kousseri, the region’s prefect, Jean-Lazare Ndongo Ndongo, said on the CRTV news channel. “We have two deaths,” as well as wounded, he added, without saying what sparked the clashes. “Despite the efforts of the forces deployed to hold the town, they set fire to some houses, particularly in the predominantly Arab neighborhoods,” he said. The attackers were then repelled and reinforcements have since arrived in the town, he added. Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said it was a “worrying situation.”

  PHILIPPINES

  Terror law ‘unconstitutional’

  The Supreme Court yesterday said that parts of an anti-terrorism law passed last year were unconstitutional, in a decision hailed by one of its opponents as a “partial victory.” The controversial law, signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in July last year, has alarmed some lawyers and human rights advocates who fear it could be used to suppress free speech and harass government opponents. The law grants police and military sweeping powers to tackle security threats, but legal experts had said that its overly broad articles could open the door to discriminatory enforcement, privacy infringements and suppression of peaceful dissent. The court struck down a part of the law “for being overbroad and violative of freedom of expression,” it said in a statement. A detailed breakdown of the court’s ruling was not immediately available. The government had no immediate response to the decision.
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