New Delhi shuts power plant in fight against Diwali smog

This photo taken on October 31, 2016 shows an Indian cyclist riding along a street as smog envelops a monument in New Delhi. India’s environmental watchdog shut down a coal-fired power plant and banned the use of diesel generators in New Delhi. (AFP)
Updated 18 October 2017
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New Delhi shuts power plant in fight against Diwali smog

NEW DELHI: India’s environmental watchdog shut down a coal-fired power plant and banned the use of diesel generators in New Delhi as air quality plummeted in the world’s most polluted capital on Wednesday, the start of the Diwali festival.
New Delhi experiences suffocating smog every year around Diwali, when farmers in north India burn the stubble left behind after the harvest and revelers let off smoke-spewing firecrackers.
The onset of winter aggravates the problem as the cooler air traps the pollutants, a phenomenon known as inversion.
The Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Board, a statutory body, made the ruling as levels of PM2.5 pollutants in the air reached around 200 micrograms per cubic meter — eight times the World Health Organization safe limit of 25.
“Difficult situations demand tough responses and solutions and Delhi is faced with a really difficult situation each winter when air pollution levels spiral out of control,” said its chairman Bhure Lal in a statement.
The Board said the city’s Badarpur power plant, which has a capacity of around 700 megawatts, would be closed until March. The plant is due to shut down for good next July as India seeks to move away from heavily-polluting fossil fuels.
It also banned the use of the privately-owned diesel generators that many rich households rely on during India’s frequent power cuts.
The measures follow a temporary ban on the sale of firecrackers in Delhi introduced earlier this month by the Supreme Court to ease the pollution levels.
Last year, levels of PM2.5 — the fine particles linked to higher rates of chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and heart disease — soared to 778 in the days that followed Diwali, prompting the Supreme Court to warn of a public health emergency.
Levels of PM2.5 between 301 and 500 are classified as “hazardous,” while anything over 500 is beyond the official index.
The Delhi government then shut schools for three days, banned all construction work for five days to curb dust levels and temporarily closed the Badarpur plant.
A 2014 World Health Organization survey of more than 1,600 cities ranked Delhi as the most polluted.
India’s notoriously poor air quality causes over a million premature deaths every year, according to a joint report by two US-based health research institutes earlier this year.


Samsung launches slimmest smartphone as races against rival Apple

Updated 16 min 10 sec ago
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Samsung launches slimmest smartphone as races against rival Apple

  • The S25 Edge has Samsung’s latest built-in AI functions
  • Analysts said the launch was strategically timed to pre-empt Apple, which is expected to launch a thinner iPhone in the second half of this year

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics made public on Tuesday its slimmest flagship model to date, complete with enhanced artificial intelligence features, as it seeks to get ahead of rival Apple on the premium market.
The S25 Edge launch is designed to appeal to increasing demand, especially from consumers in their 20s and 30s, for more portable smartphones.
“The feedback was clear – users wanted something slimmer and easier to carry without sacrificing performance,” said Samsung, which made structural changes to reduce the thickness of internal components, including the printed circuit board and thermal systems.
Analysts said the launch was strategically timed to pre-empt Apple, which is expected to launch a thinner iPhone in the second half of this year.
“By releasing the product a few months ahead, Samsung could inflict some impact on Apple and attract consumers looking for thinner smartphones. It appears to be a calculated decision to capture that segment of demand,” Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said.
The S25 Edge will go on sale in South Korea on May 23 and in the United States on May 30, Samsung said, adding it will roll it out to about 30 countries, including China and in Europe.
Starting at $1,099, the model has a 6.7-inch  screen and a 5.8 millimeter-thick body, making it larger than the basic S25 model but only fractionally heavier.
The S25 Edge has Samsung’s latest built-in AI functions, including multimodal AI that allows users to interact with the device in real time through vision and voice, using the camera to ask questions.
Samsung did not disclose the production site for the new model.
It became the world’s leading smartphone vendor in the first quarter of 2025, capturing 20 percent of the global market and narrowly surpassing Apple, which held an 19 percent share, data from Counterpoint Research showed.
Samsung last month, however, said second-quarter shipments could be affected if tariff risks weaken demand.


Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was ‘coercive and criminal,’ jury hears

Updated 22 min 10 sec ago
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was ‘coercive and criminal,’ jury hears

NEW YORK: Sean “Diddy” Combs used violence and threats of reputational ruin to control women he abused for years, New York jurors heard Monday during opening statements of the federal sex trafficking trial that was followed by the case’s intitial graphic testimonies.
The panel of 12 jurors and six alternates responsible for determining Combs’s fate heard of the famed artist’s explosive outbursts and an attempt to preserve his own reputation and power of celebrity through bribery.
But the 55-year-old music mogul’s defense team insisted that while some of his behavior was questionable — and at times constituted domestic abuse — it did not amount to evidence of the racketeering and sex trafficking he’s charged with.
Combs has pleaded not guilty on all counts, including the racketeering charge that the hip-hop pioneer led a sex crime ring that included drug-fueled sex parties by use of force, threats and violence.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson alleged Combs “brutally” beat his former girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, threatening to release videos of her participating in elaborate sexual “freak-offs” if she defied him.
Ventura’s testimony is core to the case, and she is expected to take the witness stand as soon as Tuesday.
Johnson also told jurors Combs had set a man’s car ablaze and dangled a woman from a balcony, and made impossible demands of his lovers and employees alike.
“Let me be clear,” US attorney Johnson said, “this case is not about a celebrity’s private sexual preferences.”
“It’s coercive and criminal.”
But Combs’s defense lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors the “case is about love, jealousy and infidelity and money.”
Combs, appearing aged with his once jet-black hair now gray, dramatically stood up and looked at the jury box when Geragos introduced him, his hands clasped.
Geragos called Combs’s accusers “capable, strong adult women,” and said his situation with Ventura was a “toxic relationship” but “between two people who loved each other.”
“Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking,” she said, adding that the defense would admit there was domestic violence — but that Combs is not charged with such crimes.
Combs was joined at the courthouse by his children, including 18-year-old twin daughters, as well as his mother Janice.
The case’s first witness was Israel Florez, a Los Angeles police officer who “at the time” was a security officer — and who responded to a call of “a woman in distress” on March 5, 2016 at the Los Angeles-area InterContinental Hotel.
Florez’s testimony provided the foundation for the prosecution to introduce evidence of now-infamous security footage — published by CNN last year — of Combs in a towel chasing Ventura throughout the hotel hallways, at times striking her.
The jury was repeatedly shown the video on Monday, including a cell phone-recorded version that Florez filmed himself of the original footage.
Florez detailed his interaction with Combs and Ventura in painstaking detail, including saying that after the officer escorted the rapper back to his room, Combs offered him a wad of cash.
The officer understood this was intended as a bribe: “He was telling me, ‘Don’t tell nobody,’” Florez said.
Florez’s testimony was followed by a male dancer who engaged in a sexual relationship, often in exchange for money, with Combs and Ventura from 2012 to approximately the end of 2013.
In lurid detail, Daniel Phillip described his encounters with the pair, which generally involved sex with Ventura while Combs watched.
But eventually, Phillip said, Combs physically abused Ventura in front of him.
“Why is she doing this, why is she staying with this guy?” Phillip recalled thinking.
“I tried to explain to her that she was in real danger if she stayed with him.”
Day one of testimony in the blockbuster trial saw hoards of journalists, influencers and members of the public descend on the downtown Manhattan courthouse.
If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in bringing hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison.
The selected jurors will remain anonymous, but not sequestered — meaning they must individually ensure they stay away from media coverage and social media commentary about the high-profile case.
The proceedings are expected to last eight to 10 weeks.


US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program

Updated 27 min 51 sec ago
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US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program

  • The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs

WASHINGTON: Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Monday proposed killing the electric vehicle tax credit and repealing fuel efficiency rules designed to prod automakers into building more zero-emission vehicles as part of a broad-based tax reform bill.
The proposal, which is set for a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, would repeal a $7,500 new-vehicle tax credit and a $4,000 used-vehicle credit on Dec. 31, although it would maintain the new-vehicle credit for an additional year for automakers that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs.
The president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, Genevieve Cullen, criticized the proposal, saying that plans “to abandon US leadership in energy innovation by gutting federal investment in electrification are catastrophically short-sighted.”
The proposal, she said, would deliver “an enormous market advantage” to competitors like China and threaten US manufacturing and jobs.
The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs.
The proposal leaves in place a key battery production tax credit for automakers and battery makers, but a new provision would bar the credit for vehicles produced with components made by some Chinese companies or under a license agreement with Chinese firms.
The provision, which would take effect in 2027, could bar credits for cars powered by Chinese battery technology licensed by American companies such as Ford Motor or Tesla .
House Republicans also propose to kill a loan program that supports the manufacture of certain advanced technology vehicles. It would rescind any unobligated funding and rescind corporate average fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas emission rules for 2027 and beyond. That portion will be taken up by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Among outstanding loans finalized in President Joe Biden’s last weeks in office are $9.63 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor and South Korean battery maker SK On for construction of three battery manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Kentucky; $7.54 billion to a joint venture of Chrysler-parent Stellantis and Samsung SDI for two EV lithium-ion battery plants in Indiana; and $6.57 billion to Rivian for a plant in Georgia to begin building smaller, less expensive EVs in 2028.


Hollywood studios and unions call on Trump to offer tax breaks

Updated 32 min 46 sec ago
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Hollywood studios and unions call on Trump to offer tax breaks

  • The letter thanks Trump “for the support you have shown our industry,” and for drawing attention to production fleeing overseas

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood studios and unions representing movie workers joined forces Monday to urge US President Donald Trump to give tax breaks to US-made films.
The joint letter, which was also signed by Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone — two of Trump’s “ambassadors” to Hollywood — comes days after the Republican president said he wanted to impose 100 percent tariffs on foreign films in a bid to help the domestic industry.
The letter thanks Trump “for the support you have shown our industry,” and for drawing attention to production fleeing overseas.
But it makes no mention of Trump’s tariff plan, a proposal that was met with bafflement across the industry, with observers saying they had no idea how such a tax might work.
“Currently, more than 80 countries offer production tax incentives and as a result, numerous productions that could have been shot in America have instead located elsewhere,” says the letter.
“Returning more production to the United States will require a national approach and broad-based policy solutions, including... longer term initiatives such as implementing a federal film and television tax incentive.”
The idea of a federal tax credit scheme was also suggested last week by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The letter, from the Motion Picture Association — an umbrella grouping for major studios and streamers — and unions representing directors, actors and writers, suggests a number of tax deductions that would make movie-making cheaper.
“A domestic production incentive would make the US market more competitive and able to retain and return high-paying jobs tied to film and television productions — and the use of this deduction has historically promoted significant economic and job growth,” it says.
America’s movie industry has gradually moved away from its traditional home in and around Hollywood as production has shifted to cheaper locations.
The number of shooting days in Los Angeles reached an all-time low last year — lower even than during the Covid-19 pandemic, when filming shut down completely.
Fewer than one in five film or TV series broadcast in the United States was produced in California, according to FilmLA, an organization that tracks the movie industry.
The loss of that production has a significant economic impact.
According to the letter to Trump, each day a film shoots on location it spends more than $670,000, and employs nearly 1,500 people.
On May 4, Trump declared on social media that “the Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death.”
He said he had told the Department of Commerce and the Office of the US Trade Representative to levy a 100 percent tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”
 


US military replaces B-2 bombers that were sent amid Middle East tensions

Updated 13 May 2025
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US military replaces B-2 bombers that were sent amid Middle East tensions

  • Experts say that this had put the B-2s in a position to operate in the Middle East

WASHINGTON: The US military is replacing its B-2 bombers with another type of bomber at a base in the Indo-Pacific that was seen as being in an ideal location to operate in the Middle East, US officials told Reuters on Monday. The Pentagon deployed as many as six B-2 bombers in March to a US-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, amid a US bombing campaign in Yemen and mounting tensions with Iran.
Experts say that this had put the B-2s, which have stealth technology and are equipped to carry the heaviest US bombs and nuclear weapons, in a position to operate in the Middle East.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the B-2 bombers were being replaced by B-52 bombers.
The Pentagon said it did not comment on force posture adjustments as a matter of policy.
Fresh talks between Iranian and US negotiators to resolve disputes over Tehran’s nuclear program ended in Oman on Sunday, with further negotiations planned. The fourth round of talks took place ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned visit to the Middle East. Trump, who has threatened military action against Iran if diplomacy fails, has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since returning to the White House in January.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among what the officials have called “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks. Additionally, Trump announced last week that a deal had been reached to stop bombing Yemen’s Houthi group. The B-2 bombers had been used to carry out strikes against the Iran-backed group.