Author: Fast News World

KINMEN COUNTY, Taiwan — The San Jiao Fort cafe on Kinmen Island may well be the best place in Taiwan to watch for the threat of invasion by China. Boasting a direct view of the Chinese city of Xiamen just six miles away, it is built atop an old military bunker, festooned with camouflage netting, and serves hot and cold beverages.With Chinese warships now lingering off Taiwan’s coast and missiles falling into its seas, the divided loyalties of the cafe’s two proprietors say much about a generational shift in Taiwan that has transformed the island democracy’s relationship with China.If China…

AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas jury ordered the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Friday to pay the fogeys of a kid killed within the 2012 Sandy Hook college capturing $45.2 million in punitive damages for spreading the lie that they helped level the bloodbath.The jury introduced its resolution an afternoon after awarding the fogeys greater than $4 million in compensatory damages and after testimony on Friday that Mr. Jones and Free Speech Systems, the guardian corporate of his misinformation-peddling media outlet, Infowars, had been value $135 million to $270 million.Mr. Jones used to be discovered liable closing yr for defaming…

WASHINGTON — For a long time, as prescription drug prices have soared, Democrats have battled with the pharmaceutical business in pursuit of an elusive function: law that would force down costs by way of permitting Medicare to barter immediately with drug makers.Now they’re at the verge of passing a large funds invoice that may just do that, and within the procedure ship President Biden a political victory that he and his birthday celebration can take to citizens in November.Empowering Medicare to barter costs for as much as 10 medicine to start with — and extra in a while — at…

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email.CANBERRA, Australia — For as long as I’ve been in Australia, climate change policy has stymied governments, leading to division, inaction and embarrassment, most recently as the country became a global laggard at last year’s international climate conference in Copenhagen.That now stands poised to change with the lower house of Parliament passing a bill this week that will finally put Australia on a path toward reducing carbon emissions by a significant amount — 43 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.The bill is expected…

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has accused Tesla of falsely advertising its driver-assistance technology in two complaints that could affect the company’s ability to sell cars in the state.The agency said Tesla had misled customers by claiming in advertisements that vehicles equipped with its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability programs were autonomous. If the agency’s complaints to the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings succeed, Tesla’s licenses to make and sell vehicles in California could be suspended or revoked.Tesla “made or disseminated statements that are untrue or misleading, and not based on facts, in advertising vehicles as equipped, or potentially equipped,…

Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington, one among 10 House Republicans who voted to question President Donald J. Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol assault, will advance to the November normal election to hunt a 5th time period after completing within the most sensible two in a crowded number one, in line with The Associated Press. He will face Doug White, a Democratic businessman, who narrowly trailed him as of Friday evening.Under Washington election regulations, the highest two applicants in the principle, without reference to birthday celebration, advance to the overall election. The race in Washington’s Fourth Congressional District featured…

WASHINGTON — With enactment of a big piece of Democrats’ home schedule in sight inside of days, progressives in Congress are rallying, grudgingly however decisively, round a local weather, well being and tax bundle that could be a shadow of the bold cradle-to-grave social coverage overhaul they as soon as demanded.Bowing to the realities in their birthday party’s skinny majorities within the House and Senate, liberals seem poised to embody a bundle that has been written, slashed and rewritten once more to fit the centrists of their ranks — then introduced to them as the best choice to succeed in…

The W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner’s friends and colleagues expressed support and sadness for her after a Russian court found her guilty of attempting to smuggle illegal narcotics into Russia and sentenced her to nine years in a penal colony.“Just really feeling sad and feeling sick for Brittney and hoping that she gets home as soon as possible,” said Breanna Stewart, a four-time W.N.B.A. All-Star who had played with Griner on the Russian team UMMC Yekaterinburg since 2020. “Now that the trial is done and the sentencing happened, I know she’s got to be in a very emotional state and just…

On the day after Brittney Griner used to be sentenced to a Russian penal colony, the highest diplomats of the United States and Russia stated on Friday that their governments have been able to barter for the discharge of each the American basketball celebrity and Paul N. Whelan, who may be imprisoned through Russia.The diplomats, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, stated in separate information meetings that the negotiations could be performed via a channel established previous through their two presidents.But in a conceivable indication of the way disturbing the members of the…

Of the more or less 3 dozen states that experience held number one elections this yr, Arizona is the place Donald Trump’s conspiratorial fantasies concerning the 2020 election appear to have received probably the most acquire.This week, Arizona Republicans nominated applicants up and down the poll who targeted their campaigns on stoking baseless conspiracy theories about 2020, when Democrats gained the state’s presidential election for most effective the second one time for the reason that Nineteen Forties.Joe Biden defeated Trump in Arizona via fewer than 11,000 votes — a whisker-thin margin that has spawned endless efforts to scrutinize and overturn…