There are some obvious, long-standing problems with renewables: what happens when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow? Some argue in favour of nuclear energy, others for using biomass (which basically means burning wood pellets and planting new trees to soak up the CO2 eventually), while some hope that energy storage using batteries will save the day. Whatever the solution, the problem of low-carbon electricity is going to keep getting bigger as we demand the phasing out of fossil fuels – including a shift to electric cars and banning gas boilers.

Discover magazine last year warned that “it is often cheaper to discard them in landfills or send them to developing countries. As solar panels sit in dumps, the toxic metals they contain can leach out into the environment and possibly pose a public health hazard if they get into the groundwater supply.” The metals in solar panels include lead, which can impair brain development in children, and cadmium, which is a carcinogen.

If we don't take the problems of ‘net zero’ seriously, the real result will be economic hardship, unreliable power networks, and limitations imposed on our lives, whether it is demands to stop eating meat or restrictions on our ability to travel. All of this as China, India, and other developing countries rightly power their way out of poverty with coal, gas, and oil, while producing far more emissions than we could ever save. Impoverishing ourselves to achieve nothing is the epitome of irrationality.

The government has taken these actions as a precursor to a much broader push to rein in the independence of mosques and other religious organizations across France. Mr. Macron has submitted a bill to Parliament, called the Law Reinforcing Respect of the Principles of the Republic, that would empower the government to permanently close houses of worship and dissolve religious organizations, without court order, if it finds that any of their members are provoking violence or inciting hatred.

In addition, the bill would allow temporary closure of any religious group that spreads ideas that incite hatred or violence. Religious organizations would have to obtain government permits every five years to continue operating, and have their accounts certified annually if they receive foreign funding.

The bill will be debated next week in the National Assembly, where Mr Macron’s majority is expected to pass it by the end of the year. It applies to all houses of worship, including churches and synagogues, but the government’s actions are aimed at mosques and Islamic organizations.

Bridges was among 153 Houston Methodist employees who either resigned or were terminated this week, after a judge dismissed an employee lawsuit earlier this month over the vaccine requirement. She was the lead plaintiff in the suit, which she filed along with 117 of her fellow colleagues, and in which they likened their situation to medical experiments performed on unwilling victims in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Bridges, 39, who had worked at the hospital for 6-and-a-half years, argued in the suit that the vaccines were unsafe because they do not have full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. The vaccines currently have emergency authorization from the FDA.

Jared Woodfill the attorney who filed the suit on Bridges and her colleagues' behalf, reiterated that point Wednesday. 'For the first time in the history of our country, we have an employer saying to their employees as a condition of employment, you have to participate in a vaccine trial, you have to take an experimental vaccine,' he said. 'We think this is a completely inconsistent with the law, both federal statutes and the Code of Federal Regulations.'

The hospital system's president and CEO, Marc Boom, has said nearly 25,000 of its more than 26,000 workers have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. 'You did the right thing. You protected our patients, your colleagues, your families and our community. The science proves that the vaccines are not only safe but necessary if we are going to turn the corner against COVID-19,' Boom said in a statement to employees.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron of France are privately calling for a summit meeting of European leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to steer the European Union toward "closer engagement with Russia," the Financial Times reports, citing people said to be familiar with the diplomatic discussions. Diplomats told the business newspaper on Wednesday that the summit proposal is being spearheaded by Merkel, with Macron expressing support for the idea.

The "summit" idea comes amid efforts by the United States and its allies to isolate China in the Pacific and to form an Asian-Pacific analogue to NATO involving Japan, India, and Australia. Officials, military commanders, and diplomats in both and Moscow and Beijing have spoken repeatedly about the importance of the strategic partnership between the two countries, and rejected efforts by the US and its allies to try to sully the historically strong relations between Moscow and Beijing. At the same time, the two countries have shied away from the creation of a formal military alliance, pointing to their support for the principles of non-alignment and non-confrontation.

As well as summoning the British defence attaché in Moscow, the Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has slammed the British for sailing in disputed waters Russia claims as its own.Peskov accused the British of staging a “deliberate and prepared provocation”, reports Interfax. He even claimed, contrary perhaps to the expectations of some, that it was “at odds with international law”.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was even more forthright in his comments, reported by the Associated Press, that Britain’s HMS Defender should be renamed HMS Attacker and that by testing Russia, the UK was “taking high risks”. Russia would be more violent in response to ships entering the water it claims as its own, he said, commenting: “we may drop bombs and not just in the path but right on target”.

The United Kingdom, like most nations worldwide, recognises Crimea as rightfully Ukrainian territory, and consequently the waters surrounding it as Ukrainian. Furthermore, it asserts that the route it took was the shortest between two points and that it acted within international law. Russia, on the other hand, claims Crimea as its territory. It has militarily occupied Crimea since 2014 and is in the process of colonising the area, but the international community sees Russia’s annexation as illegal. Consequently, Russia insists that the British ship actually entered their waters on Wednesday.

Right off the bat Dr Malone told Tucker Carlson that he is concerned about the risk of these treatments.

Tucker Carlson: YouTube took it down. They did this even though Dr Malone may be the most qualified person on Planet Earth to discuss this subject. Why? Because he helped create the mRNA technology behind the COVID vaccine. We think he has a right to speak…

In a way that’s accessible to non-scientists, do you have concerns about these vaccines for people who aren’t at great risk?

Dr Robert Malone: Yes, I think my concerns are the government is not being transparent with us about what those risks are. And so I’m of the opinion that people have the right to decide whether to accept vaccine or not especially since these are experimental vaccines. This is a fundamental right having to do with clinical research ethics. So my concern is I know that there are risks but we don’t have access to the data and the data having been captured rigorously enough so that we can accurately access those risks. And therefore for folks like your audience, you and me, we don’t really have the information that we need to make a reasonable decision.

So I have a bias that the benefits probably don’t outway the risks in that cohort. But unfortunately, the risk-benefit analysis is not being done… Certainly I can say the risk-benefit of those 18 and below doesn’t justify vaccines. And there’s a pretty good chance that it doesn’t justify vaccinations in these very young adults.

General Michael Flynn: “As I said at the beginning of the show, now repeat after me, the 2020 presidential election was stolen. There is no doubt in my mind anymore. There is none… And the truth will continue to come out. Something is going to happen. I don’t think we’re going to have to wait until the end of summer. I think it’s going to happen here fairly soon… because they must create noise prior to the Arizona audit starting to really bubble out. They are gonna have to do something.”

“Under the Maastricht rules, every country is responsible for its own debts,” he says. “The basic idea is to avoid a situation where one country is liable for the debts of another and this principle still applies.” It is a plea for a return to the status quo ante, the pre-pandemic world that seems lost to many. Laschet denies he’s trying to put the corona genie back in the bottle: politics “isn’t a bottle that you put things in and take things out of”. But he sees no reason why life cannot go back to the old normal. And that means a return to the cautious, conservative policies that helped establish Germany as Europe’s leading power.

It’s not a done deal, but Laschet’s Christian Democratic Union now looks to be in pole position to win in September and retain its control of Europe’s biggest economy. It’s a historic election, one which will bring the curtain down on Merkel’s 16-year reign and potentially usher in an unprecedented coalition between the German centre-right and the Greens.

He is fully aware that his relationship with Merkel will be a major talking point during the election campaign. Though much is made of their similarities — Laschet famously backed her decision to keep Germany’s borders open during the refugee crisis — he likes to point out the differences, in particular his deep roots in the political traditions of western Germany.

His hometown is Aachen, in the heart of Europe, nestled close to the borders with France and Belgium. “I’m Catholic, from the west of Germany. I have been European since my birth,” he says. Merkel, in contrast, “grew up and lived in the former GDR, near the Polish border, the daughter of a Protestant pastor”. “These biographical differences shaped our personalities, our style of politics,” he says. “But on the fundamental issues I agree with her.”

One of the first acts of the new administration was to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which would have brought crude oil down from the oil sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Biden also ended drilling licenses in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, stopped new drilling on federal lands and promised to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030.

Price Future Group senior energy analyst Phil Flynn, in a June 14 piece for Fox Business, said Biden’s energy policies had allowed Russia to grab more of the world energy market. “Here at home, US oil production has fallen by 1.715 million barrels from a year ago, so a large part of that void is being filled by Russia,” he said.This is a change from what we saw during the last administration.

“During Trump’s term, America was competing with Russia and Saudi Arabia to be the world’s dominant oil and gas producer, yet under Biden, we are retreating from that race in the name of climate change,” Flynn wrote. “The problem is that the Biden administration’s carbon goals are unrealistic, and even the IEA admits that unless we stop investing in fossil fuels the carbon goals will not be met,” he said.

The Vatican believes that the law as currently written violates the 1929 Lateran Pacts, which established Vatican City as a sovereign state and regulates relations between it and Italy. The Vatican fears that the law as written could lead to criminalisation of the Church in Italy for refusing to conduct gay marriages, for opposing adoption by homosexual couples through Catholic institutions, or for refusing to teach gender theory in Catholic schools, according to a Vatican source.

While the Vatican has often condemned discrimination and violence against gays, it has also expressed concern about any type of gender theory that would blur or eliminate the differences between men and women. In April, Italy's Roman Catholic bishops criticised the bill, saying that "a law that intends to combat discrimination cannot seek that objective through intolerance and by questioning the reality of the difference between men and women". The bishops said the law did not significantly address the "uniqueness of the family" headed by a heterosexual couple.

Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League, applauded the Vatican's move. "We say 'yes' to loving whoever you want and 'yes' to the fight against discrimination, and 'yes' to punishing any form of violence," he said. "But we are against any censorship or trials for those who believe that mother, father and family are at the heart of our society," he said.