Shelling holds up U.N. inspection of Ukraine nuclear plant

Thursday, September 1, 2022

by Linda Noakes

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Here's what you need to know.

Democrat Mary Peltola beats Sarah Palin in Alaska, Taiwan shoots down a drone off the Chinese coast, and could it be last orders for thousands of British pubs?

Today's biggest stories

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and fellow officials try to negotiate access to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, in this handout image released September 1, 2022

WORLD

Shelling near Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant complex delayed a planned visit by U.N. experts to the site by several hours, but the team leader said they remained determined to reach the plant to assess the risk of a disaster. Here's what you need to know about the Russia-Ukraine conflict right now.

Southern Pakistan braced for more flooding as a surge of water flowed down the Indus river, compounding the devastation in a country a third of which is already inundated by a disaster blamed on climate change. We report from Jacobabad, the world's hottest city, which is now under water.

Taiwan's military for the first time shot down an unidentified civilian drone that entered its airspace near an islet off the Chinese coast, after the government vowed to take tough measures to deal with an increase in such intrusions.

Dozens of U.S. NATO peacekeepers patrolled northern Kosovo to preserve calm after Pristina announced that around 50,000 ethnic Serbs in the region would have to switch their car license plates to local ones within two months. Here's why ethnic tensions are flaring again in the Balkan nation.

A Malaysian court sentenced Rosmah Mansor, the wife of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, to a decade in prison for seeking and receiving bribes in exchange for government contracts, just days after her husband was jailed for corruption.

Democrat Mary Peltola is pictured at a temporary office space in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, August 31, 2022. REUTERS/Kerry Tasker

U.S.

Mary Peltola, a Democratic former state lawmaker, won a special election to fill Alaska's sole U.S. House of Representatives seat, becoming the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress. She defeated Republican former Governor Sarah Palin by 51.47% to 48.53%. Palin is widely known for her unsuccessful vice presidential run with John McCain in 2008.

Former President Donald Trump's legal team will square off against the U.S. Justice Department in federal court today, in a bid to convince a judge to appoint a special master to review the materials the FBI seized from Trump's Florida estate. Trump's lawyers sought to downplay the federal government's discovery of highly classified records, telling a judge that presidential records by their very nature are sensitive.

The state of Texas bused a group of about 60 newly arrived migrants to Chicago, as Republican Governor Greg Abbott expands his effort to push responsibility for border crossers to his Democratic political opponents.

New Mexico's governor earmarked $10 million in public funds for a reproductive healthcare clinic to meet an expected rise in demand for abortions from women traveling from neighboring states that have banned the procedure.

President Joe Biden pledged aid to Jackson, Mississippi, as the majority-Black state capital endured its third day without drinking water after a long-troubled water treatment plant failed.

BUSINESS


Global factory activity slumped in August as Russia's war in Ukraine and China's zero-COVID curbs continued to hurt businesses, surveys showed, although there were indications cost pressures were starting to ease.. China said it will publish detailed steps for newly announced economic policy measures early this month, suggesting an urgency for policymakers to revive the sluggish economy.

A U.S. order to ban exports of some advanced chips to China is likely to hit almost any major tech company running public clouds or advanced artificial intelligence training modules in the country, experts said. Chip designer Nvidia said that U.S. officials told it to stop exporting two top computing chips for AI work to China. Advanced Micro Devices also said it had received new license requirements that will stop its advanced AI chip called MI250 from being exported to China.

Thousands of pubs across Britain fear financial ruin this winter as energy costs surge, just as business was starting to recover from the fallow years of the COVID pandemic. Small businesses negotiating new energy contracts for the winter face on average a four- or five-fold price increase compared with deals made two years ago.

The owner of McDonald's former restaurants in Russia has offered up to $151 million to buy Finnish packaging firm Huhtamaki's local business, adding to his burgeoning empire, documents seen by Reuters showed. The deal by Siberian businessman Alexander Govor enhances his status as one of the major corporate winners to emerge from the sanctions-inflicted turmoil that followed Russia's military intervention in Ukraine.

Germany's Lufthansa said it will have to cancel 800 flights, likely affecting 130,000 passengers, after the pilots' union announced a one-day strike. The Vereinigung Cockpit union is demanding a 5.5% pay rise this year for its more than 5,000 pilots and automatic inflation compensation thereafter.

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Video of the day

Spain's Tomatina festival returns

More than 20,000 revelers hurled tomatoes at each other at Spain´s most famous food fight, which returned after a two-year hiatus.

And finally…

Century-old family photo studio preserves Ghana's history in black and white

A generation before the Gold Coast became Ghana, a photographer opened a small studio in the then-colonial capital Accra, where his family would become the de facto visual historians of a nation that had not yet been born.

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