April 2022

BEIJING (AP) — China is promoting coal-fired power as the ruling Communist Party tries to revive a sluggish economy, prompting warnings Beijing is setting back efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions from the biggest global source.

So much of our sensitive personal data is being tracked and sold that trying to protect our privacy can seem like a pointless exercise. We can disable the location tracking on phone apps only to find new apps stalking us the next time we check.

Anticipating a giant blackberry crop this year (since three new plants have been added to the one brought from my mother’s house), I decided to take inventory. The main primocane on my mother’s plant (the oldest) and the youngest addition had swollen stems, as if the blackberries had swallowed large marbles. Galls? Looking up the list of ailments blackberries suffer from, I discovered the Rednecked Cane Borer (Agrilus ruficollis). It fit the bill. Such an appropriate name for a bug from this area.

BEIJING (AP) — Beijing will conduct mass testing of most of its 21 million people, authorities announced Monday, as a new COVID-19 outbreak sparked stockpiling of food by residents worried about the possibility of a Shanghai-style lockdown.

PARIS (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen gathered her party’s troops on Monday, not to mourn her loss a day earlier in the French presidential election but to plot out how to orchestrate a victory in June’s parliamentary vote and capture a majority of seats in the National Assembly.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed a string of attacks against Ukrainian rail and fuel installations Monday, striking crucial infrastructure far from the front line of its eastern offensive. Meanwhile, two fires were reported at oil facilities in western Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border.

Sales at Coca-Cola surged 16% during the first quarter as crowds returned to movie theaters, music venues and sport stadiums, offsetting rising input costs for the company and the suspension of operations in Russia.

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian archaeologists unearthed the ruins of a temple for the ancient Greek god Zeus in the Sinai Peninsula, antiquities authorities said Monday. The Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said in a statement the temple ruins were found in the Tell el-Farma archaeological site in northwestern Sinai.