
Just days before President Biden kicks off a climate summit with world leaders, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization released a report Monday warning that “time is fast running out” to keep global temperatures in check. Titled “State of the Global Climate 2020,” the report finds that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continued to climb in 2020 despite lockdowns imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19. A key goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change is to keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the U.N. report warns that doing so will require a massive effort from the governments of the world.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has threatened the West with a “swift and tough” response for crossing unspecified “red lines” as supporters of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny are poised to take to the streets to demand the release of the jailed opposition leader. Mr Putin's speech comes amid heightened tensions between Russia and the West and a massive Russian military build-up on the border with Ukraine, which has sparked fears of a new war in eastern Ukraine. “Anyone who threatens the core interests of our security will come to regret it like they never regretted anything,” President Putin said at the end of his 90-minute speech in Moscow.

Chad's President Idriss Déby has died of his injuries following clashes with rebels in the north of the country at the weekend, the army has said. Experts have told the BBC and other broadcasters that the move is unconstitutional, and that the speaker of parliament should take over when a sitting president dies before organising elections.
Dutch police arrested two people after a tractor pushed a photojournalist's car — with the photographer and his girlfriend seated inside — onto its roof and into a roadside ditch. The attack — captured in dashcam footage — happened Monday night as photographers shot pictures of a car fire in the central Dutch town of Lunteren, about 70 kilometers (around 45 miles) southeast of Amsterdam. Police said in a statement Tuesday that they arrested the driver of the tractor and another man suspected of threatening and attacking photographers.

Eight months after a popular uprising nearly toppled Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president of 26 years, authorities are rounding up hundreds of people and slapping them with short prison sentences for the most minor infractions, sowing fear in a country in the centre of Europe that is quickly turning into a totalitarian state. Mrs Suboch's relatives are all being kept at the same infamous detention centre. Her sister is serving 25 days, her mother five and brother six days in custody.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on Tuesday of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, but there is still another trial on the horizon — this time for the three other officers who were part of Floyd's arrest last May. As it stands now, the trial for former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, 27, Thomas Lane, 38, and Tou Thao, 35, is set to start on Aug. 23, with the men facing charges of aiding and abetting in the second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter of Floyd. A hearing is scheduled for May 20 at the Minnesota Court of Appeals, with the state attorney general's office seeking to add a third-degree murder charge against Kueng, Lane, and Thao.

Newly obtained body camera video captured an Arizona sheriff's deputy using a racial slur and pleading to be let off the hook after an officer pulled him over in December on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. Pinal County Sheriff's Deputy Julian Navarrette was stopped after an Arizona State University police officer observed him speeding and swerving about 2 a.m. Dec. 5 in Tempe, according to an ASU police report. Navarrette was out with friends at the time of the arrest, the report said.

German lawmakers voted Wednesday on a proposal by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government to mandate uniform restrictions in areas where the coronavirus is spreading too quickly, while thousands of protesters gathered a on a nearby street. The legislation to apply an “emergency brake” consistently in areas with high infection rates is intended to end the patchwork of measures that has often characterized the pandemic response across highly decentralized Germany's 16 states. “As hard as it is, as sick of it as we are, reducing contacts helps,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told lawmakers.

Darnella Frazier, the teenager who used her cellphone to record George Floyd's arrest last May outside of Cup Foods in Minneapolis, wrote on Facebook that she "cried so hard" on Tuesday when it was announced that former police officer Derek Chauvin had been found guilty of murdering Floyd, an unarmed Black man. Frazier, then 17, had gone to the market with her younger cousin to buy a snack. The footage she captured, which showed Chauvin with his knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, has been seen around the world; without it, there's widespread speculation Chauvin would have never been prosecuted.

Republican senators questioned Stacey Abrams during a Senate hearing Tuesday about voting rights, quizzing her over whether state laws in Democratic-controlled states are “racist” and whether her own 2018 gubernatorial race was “stolen. Abrams became a voting rights advocate since her failed run for Georgia governor and was credited with helping organize voters in her state to help propel President Joe Biden to the White House. She was testifying to advocate for passage of a sweeping federal overhaul of the U.S. voting system that is being pushed for by Democrats.

We're getting outdoorsy on Clever this week Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

At least 22 Covid patients have died in a hospital in India after they lost oxygen supply due to a leak. The incident occurred on Wednesday while an oxygen tanker was refilling a storage tank at the Zakir Hussain hospital in Nashik city. "We will enquire into the matter and take action," the city's municipal commissioner Kailash Jadhav said.

The British government said Wednesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson did nothing wrong when he exchanged text messages with a wealthy industrialist and promised he would “fix” the tax rules for him. The BBC reported that it had seen messages between Johnson and James Dyson, the vacuum cleaner inventor and home products magnate. The texts were sent in March 2020, when the coronavirus was sweeping across Britain and the government, fearing the health service would be overwhelmed, was trying to secure more ventilators.

A runner talked his way out of a face-off with a large bear that pursued him for several minutes in Grand Teton national park in Wyoming, a showdown the runner captured in a three-minute video that went viral. Evan Matthews said he often sees bears on his runs, but none had dared to come so close. Rather than use his bear spray, which he deemed a last resort, Matthews opted to reason with his ursine inquisitor.

The eyes of the US - and the wider world - have been fixed on a courthouse in Minnesota, following the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. The former police officer kneeled on the neck of the African-American man for more than nine minutes during an arrest in the city of Minneapolis, ignoring pleas that he couldn't breathe. Mr Floyd was declared dead an hour later.

Rahul Gandhi, an opposition Congress party leader and scion of India's Nehru-Gandhi family, says he has tested positive for COVID-19 after experiencing mild symptoms. Gandhi last week called off political rallies in West Bengal state where provincial elections are being held. On Monday, another top Congress party leader and former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, also tested positive and was hospitalized as a precaution.

The claim: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris road Air Force One together, violating a rule In a recent Facebook post, an image shows both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris exiting Air Force One. "The rule is the Prez, and the Veep never travel together, for obvious reasons," said the March 20, 2021, post. "Then why the hell is this happening?
A manhunt for a former Texas sheriff's deputy suspected in the fatal shooting of three people in Austin ended Monday when authorities said he was arrested without incident about 20 miles from the scene of the weekend attack.

Columbus, Ohio, police killed a Black girl Tuesday as the nation awaited the Derek Chauvin verdict. Body-worn camera footage of the shooting was shared during a press conference Tuesday night. The Columbus Police Department killed a teenage girl Tuesday afternoon just as a jury returned a guilty verdict for ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd.

Boris Johnson has welcomed the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict and said he was “appalled” by the murder of George Floyd. On 25 May last year, 46-year-old Floyd was stopped on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner shop in Minneapolis. The police instead put him on the ground and a video recorded by a teenager showed that former police officer Chauvin, 45, placed his knee on Floyd's neck for about nine and half minutes, including for several minutes after Floyd's breathing had stopped and he had no pulse.

A sheriff said he welcomed transplants to the Sunshine State, as long as they vote the right way. "Don't register to vote and vote the stupid way you did up north," the Polk County sheriff said. Weighing in on a debate about the effect of new residents on Florida politics, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd proposed a simple solution on Monday.

With India attempting to ramp up vaccinations as Covid infections rise rapidly, India's main domestic vaccine maker is struggling to meet demand at home and globally. How can India meet its domestic needs? The Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech, the two main vaccine manufacturers, will get $400m and $210m each from the Indian government.

A former sheriff's detective accused of killing his family had been charged with sexual assault of a minor. The former sheriff's deputy who police allege killed his family in Austin, Texas, on Sunday was out on bond after he was accused of sexually assaulting his adopted daughter, court documents indicate. The police say Stephen Nicholas Broderick, 41, killed three people: his estranged wife, Amanda Broderick, 35; his adopted teenage daughter, Alyssa Broderick; and her teenage boyfriend, Willie Simmons III. The Travis County District Attorney's Office has charged Broderick with capital murder in all three deaths, KXAN reported.

Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty Tuesday on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, last year. Here are immediate reactions from around the sports world on social media after the verdict was read. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

President Joe Biden is receiving warnings from Brazilian state governors, indigenous leaders and environmental groups that the country's president Jair Bolsonaro is not to be trusted on the issue of the climate crisis. The United States is attempting to come to an agreement with Brazil on how to stop the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Delegates from the Brazilian government have been negotiating a deal with Mr Biden's climate team since February.

“High-speed rail is bold and attention-grabbing, but the scale of the project makes it near impossible.”
“While a long, slow train ride across the country can be a great thing, the US needs real high-speed rail too.”
“Liberals are right that America has a car problem — but it's commutes, not road trips, that suck.”
“Investments into a high-speed rail system wouldn’t just improve the railroads — automobile traffic could also see some relief.”
“Big cities that are reasonably close together is pretty much a prerequisite for high-speed rail.”