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Building wind power, canceling coal — it’s all drowning under borrowing costs

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Plans to push South Africa and Indonesia off coal sputtered. So have offshore wind farms on the New Jersey and British coasts, and a green hydrogen project in an Italian port city.Climate projects around the world are sinking because of high borrowing costs driven by interest rates — jeopardizing a major plank of the international effort to prevent the most catastrophic damage from warming temperatures.Many of the nations gathered at this month’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai, including the United States, have set a goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity by the end of this decade. Such a pledge could be one of a handful of substantial climate actions coming out of the talks, which are embroiled in a standoff over whether governments should commit to phasing out fossil fuels.But rising interest rates have imperiled these goals.Interest rates were one reason developers gave for canceling major offshore wind projects in recent months, including ...

Gaza health system collapsing, half the people are starving: UN

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

Gaza’s health system “is on its knees and collapsing,” the head of the World Health Organization said on Sunday, as Israel pressed ahead with its military offensive in the Palestinian enclave. With more than 46,000 injuries, over 17,000 reported deaths and 1.9 million people displaced, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip has led to “signals of epidemic diseases including bloody diarrhea and jaundice,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told WHO member countries on Sunday. The WHO is also getting reports of high levels of diarrhea-like diseases and respiratory infections. The situation is only expected to worsen as fighting continues, he said. Half of Gaza’s population is also starving, the Deputy Director of the U.N. World Food Program Carl Skau, according to the BBC. Despite the war, patients continue to need routine health care, with over 180 women giving birth every day and 2,000 patients on cancer therapy. But with just 14 hospitals ou...

Trump defends dictator comments at NYC soiree full of MAGA diehards

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

NEW YORK — The chairman of an Austrian political party founded by ex-Nazis, the conservative Twitter star behind the anti-trans Bud Light backlash and former President Donald Trump all walked into a bar.Seriously.On Saturday night in Manhattan, amid butler-delivered bellinis, sequined ball gowns and a five-course French service meal, characters from all corners of the Republican Party’s MAGA faction gathered for “a night of dinner, drinking, and love of country.”Donald Trump, the club’s 111th Annual Gala Keynote speaker, delivered.“We want to liberate America because we’re in a country that’s in a lot of pain right now, a lot of hurt,” Trump told the crowd, during his 80-minute long speech. “This campaign is on a righteous crusade to rescue our nation from a very corrupt political class.”On the heels of a reaffirmed gag order, a debate of largely deferential Republican opponents and near slam-dunk poll numbers for the Iowa caucuses just weeks away,...

Police investigating rollover crash in Waltham that left 1 dead, 2 injured

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

Waltham police are investigating a crash late Saturday night that left one person dead and two others hospitalized, officials said.Officers responding to a reported crash in the area of 211 Moody St. around midnight found the three occupants injured, according to Waltham police.One person was pronounced dead at the scene. Their name has not been released.Two other people were taken to a nearby hospital and later released.No additional information was immediately available.If you have any information about the crash you are urged to call Waltham police at 781-314-3600.https://twitter.com/WalthamMAPolice/status/1733846847347663058This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

Cleanup, power restoration continues in Tennessee after officials say six died in severe storms

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Central Tennessee residents and emergency workers cleaned up Sunday from severe weekend storms that killed six people and sent more to the hospital while damaging buildings, turning over vehicles and knocking out power to tens of thousands.Officials confirmed that three people, including a toddler, died after an apparent tornado struck Montgomery County 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Nashville near the Kentucky state line on Saturday afternoon. Some 23 people were treated for injuries at hospitals in the county, officials said in a news release.In a neighborhood just north of downtown Nashville, three people were killed Saturday as a result of the storms, the city’s Emergency Operation Center said in a social media post.Photos posted by the Clarksville fire department on social media showed damaged houses with debris strewn in the lawns, a tractor-trailer flipped on its side on a highway and insulation ripped out of building walls. Vide...

Divers recover the seventh of 8 crew members killed in crash of a US military Osprey off Japan

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Navy divers on Sunday recovered the remains of the seventh of the eight crew members from a U.S. military Osprey aircraft that crashed off southern Japan during a training mission. The Air Force CV-22 Osprey went down on Nov. 29 just off Yakushima Island in southwestern Japan while on its way to Okinawa. The bodies of six of the crew had since been recovered, including five from the sunken wreckage of the aircraft. The U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command said in a statement that the body recovered by Navy divers was one of the two crew members still missing. The identity of the airman has been determined but the information is withheld until next of kin has been notified, the command said. “Currently there is a combined effort in locating and recovering the remains of our eighth airman,” it said. A week after the crash and repeated reminders from the Japanese government about safety concerns, the U.S. military grounded all of its Osprey V-22 helicopters after a pr...

Tennessee residents clean up after severe weekend storms killed 6 people and damaged neighborhoods

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Central Tennessee residents and emergency workers cleaned up Sunday from severe weekend storms and tornadoes that killed six people and sent more to the hospital while damaging buildings, turning over vehicles and knocking out power to tens of thousands. Officials confirmed that three people, including a toddler, died after a tornado struck Montgomery County 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Nashville near the Kentucky state line on Saturday afternoon. Some 23 people were treated for injuries at hospitals in the county, officials said in a news release. In a neighborhood just north of downtown Nashville, three people were killed Saturday as a result of tornadoes, the city’s Emergency Operation Center said in a social media post. National Weather Service meteorologists said in a posting on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, said the destructive tornadoes were spawned in the Clarksville and Nashville areas.In Nashville, the roof of a church no...

Sunday Forecast: Cloudy, colder, mid 30s

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

Sunday: Cloudy & colder with some flurries. WNW 5-15, G25 mph. High: 36Sunday Night: Clearing skies and colder. WNW 5-10 mph. Low 26Monday: Mostly sunny by the afternoon & seasonal temps. High 38Chicago Weather | Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center's Forecast (wgntv.com)Extended outlook calls for a dry week ahead and temps stairstep back to 40 by Tuesday with partly sunny skies. Into the low 40s with mostly sunny skies on Wednesday. In the mid to upper 40s on Thu/Fri with some increasing clouds late Friday. A chance of showers is back in the forecast on Saturday with mostly cloudy skies and temps in the lower 40s. 

Man shot and killed in South Loop

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

CHICAGO -- A man was discovered shot dead in a parked vehicle in the city's South Loop neighborhood Saturday night, police said.According to police, the 32-year-old man was found in a parked vehicle in the 100 block of West Cermak Road around 9:16 p.m. Search underway for driver involved in deadly hit-and-run in Garfield Park The man was transported to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest where he was pronounced dead. Detectives are investigating.

Grocery clerk dies after customer impales him with a golf club: Minneapolis police

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:25:17 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minneapolis store clerk died after a customer beat him and impaled him with a golf club, police said.The 66-year-old clerk was attacked Friday at the Oak Grove Grocery, a small neighborhood store in a residential area near downtown Minneapolis. A 44-year-old suspect is jailed on suspicion of murder.Police responded to a call just before 1 p.m. and found the victim behind the counter “with a golf club impaled through his torso,” according to a news release from Minneapolis police. The clerk died at a hospital. ‘Home Alone,’ ‘Seinfeld’ actor diagnosed with cancer, family says Information from witnesses led police to an apartment building across the street. Police Chief Brian O'Hara said at a news conference late Friday that the suspect barricaded himself inside for six hours. After lengthy negotiations, officers took the man into custody without incident, O'Hara said.Police are still investigating to determine what prompted the attack. O'Hara said it appeared th...