Ursula von der Leyen's European Commission was drawn as a geopolitical Commission, but also green. Now, reality and pragmatism seem to have taken over a dynamic that seemed destined to accelerate the ecological transition.. but now he has had to stop it. The Community Executive, in any case, has to pay attention to the two EU co-legislators. And the Council has already told Brussels that “little by little”, at least as regards Euro 7, the policy on car and truck emissions, now qualified by the 27. Waiting for what the European Parliament says, what has happened?

What does the change proposed by the 27 mean?

The Member States have agreed to defend the delay from 2025 to 2027 of the entry into force of the Euro 7 regulations, which aims to reduce polluting emissions from cars, and until 2029 the requirements for trucks. The new regulation, which for the first time covers passenger cars, vans and heavy vehicles in a single legal act, aims to establish more appropriate standards for vehicle emissions and further reduce air polluting emissions from road transport, collects the Council. The 27 say they do not want measures that are “too ambitious or even unrealistic.”

The Council's position establishes “a balance between strict requirements for vehicle emissions and additional investments for the industry, at a time when European car manufacturers are undergoing a transformation towards the production of zero-emission cars.”

The general approach maintains the current emissions limits and test conditions for light vehicles. For heavy duty vehicles, the emission limits are lower and the test conditions are slightly adjusted. Euro 7 also contains a special provision on city buses to ensure consistency with the proposed new 2030 zero emissions target for these vehicles. The Council suggests a series of “pragmatic” changes to the Commission's proposal, without losing sight of environmental and health objectives.

What does Euro 7 imply?

The Commission's proposal covers different points, which are still waiting to be clarified precisely by the Council and the European Parliament.. Brussels calls for better control of air pollutant emissions from all new vehicles: expanding the range of driving conditions covered by road emissions tests. “These will better reflect the range of conditions that vehicles may experience across Europe, including temperatures of up to 45 degrees or short journeys typical of daily commutes,” they explain.

On the other hand, the Commission talks about an update and tightening of the polluting emission limits: the limits will be made stricter for trucks and buses, while the lower existing limits for cars and vans will now apply regardless of the fuel used by the vehicle. The new rules also set emission limits for hitherto unregulated pollutants, such as nitrous oxide emissions from heavy vehicles.. This is in fact one of the elements that least convince the Member States.

Brussels also wants to regulate emissions from brakes and tires. In this sense, the Euro 7 standards will be the first global emissions standards that will go beyond the regulation of tailpipe emissions and will establish additional limits for particulate emissions from brakes and standards for microplastic emissions from the tires. These rules will apply to all vehicles, including electric ones.

Finally, Brussels' idea is – or was – to ensure that new cars stay cleaner for longer. Thus, compliance with the regulations by passenger cars and vans would be checked until these vehicles reach 200,000 kilometers and are 10 years old.. This doubles the existing durability requirements with Euro 6/VI standards (100,000 kilometers and 5 years old). In this framework, Brussels asks to “make the most of digital possibilities” for the development of electric vehicles.

What is the opinion of the parties involved?

But all of the above will have to slow down.. There will not be as drastic a green shift as Brussels would like. The directors of the car brands have warned that a “hasty” application of these measures could lead to the closure of factories and precisely the 27 assure that these delays agreed in their position are intended to “protect the European industry” in a moment of maximum competitiveness against China and the United States.

From the point of view of consumers, Brussels said that adaptation to the new standard would have an average cost of about 300 euros per car.. But Acea, the builders' association, is not so optimistic and raised the amount to 2,000 euros for the smallest models.. These calculations also have to be calibrated in the negotiation between the Council and Parliament. The environmental associations were much harsher, and accused the Commission of being lukewarm in its proposal: “They will help whitewash up to 100 million polluting cars that will be sold in the coming years.”

How does it affect Spain?

Spain's role is relevant as it holds the rotating presidency of the Council, and has also promoted the agreement between the 27. “Europe is known around the world for manufacturing high-quality, low-emission cars.. We want to continue pursuing the goal of improving air quality. Our position is to continue on the path of leading the mobility of the future and adopting realistic emissions levels for the vehicles of the next decade, while helping our industry make the definitive leap towards clean cars in 2035,” summarized the Minister of Transport, Héctor Gómez.

Is it a brake on the EU's green agenda?

Yes it is. The Commission knows that there are only a few months left until the European elections and that is why it wants to close chapters. The Green Deal has seen how the pandemic first and the war in Ukraine later have left it in the background, almost completely changing the order of the EU's priorities. The reform of the electricity market, the biodiversity law or emissions limits are still on the table. Euro 7 is one more leg, and it seems to be less firm today than yesterday in the eyes of Brussels.

The former president of the United States, Donald Trump (2017-2019) has been in the spotlight with his latest electoral strategy. This Monday, in order to recruit new votes, he decided to go to a gun store in South Carolina to purchase a Glock model semi-automatic pistol.

However, this movement could play with the rights of the presidential candidate since, in his case, the possession of weapons is a crime when he is on parole.

Therefore, minutes after his campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) in which Trump is seen contemplating the gun and declaring that he wanted to buy it, the publication was deleted. It also stated that the candidate had acquired the weapon.

The spokesperson later made statements to CNN in which he assured that, in the end, the former president had not purchased the weapon, as The Post Courier reporter Caitlyn Byrd clarified in another X post, where she makes it clear that “Trump *NOT * bought a gun. He looked at them. There is a difference”.

Byrd then republished a post clarifying: “I did not see Trump purchase this gun, or any other, during his stop at the Palmetto State Armory, but he did ask questions and look at three different firearms.”

Alayna Tenne, a CNN reporter, shortly after attached another publication in which she expressed a message similar to that of her colleague.

Could I go to jail?

Currently, the former president is out on bail after being indicted on 13 counts by the Georgia jury last August for attempting to manipulate the results of the 2020 elections in the state.

In 1968, after the assassinations of US President John Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Dr.. Martin Luther King, the country enacted the Gun Control Act, which established a new license and stricter regulation, which includes, among other things, a category of “unauthorized persons.”

This category details in its first section that “any person who “has been convicted in court of a crime sentenced to imprisonment for a period of more than one year” cannot legally receive or possess firearms or ammunition, a condition that meets the former president Donald Trump.

Therefore, if the candidate had purchased the Glock pistol with which he sparked the controversy, he could face new legal problems with the justice system, since he would have acted against the law.

Australian zoologist Adam Corden Britton has pleaded guilty to torturing and killing dozens of dogs, as well as accessing and sharing material of sexual abuse of minors, as confirmed on Tuesday by judicial sources.

Britton appeared before the Northern Territory Supreme Court last Monday, where he was charged with a total of 56 counts of abuse, including 37 counts of animal cruelty causing serious harm or death, 10 counts of rape or attempted dog rape and 4 counts of possession or transmission of child abuse material, local media NT News reports.

A search of the zoologist's laptop uncovered 15 files of child abuse material he had obtained from the internet, including content involving young children being subjected to “horrific acts”.

“The facts contain material depicting acts that can only be described as grotesque perversity and cruelty, which are both distressing and which, in my assessment, have the potential to cause nervous shock,” said Chief Justice Michael Grant. , in statements collected by the News.com.au portal.

Sadistic sexual interest in animals

For his part, Crown prosecutor Marty Aust revealed in court that Britton had a sadistic sexual interest in animals, particularly dogs, dating back to at least 2014, when he began engaging in sexual activities with his Swiss shepherd dogs, Ursa and Bolt.

Between November 17, 2020 and April 22, 2022, Britton obtained 42 dogs of various breeds and ages through an internet portal, of which he “tortured and sexually exploited for his pleasure, and finally killed” 39. of them, as stated in the report. So that there would be no suspicion of his actions, the academic previously sent photos to the owners who, for reasons of travel or work, had sold him their pets, assuring them that the animals were fine.

The well-known crocodile expert was also in an encrypted Telegram group – under different pseudonyms – where he shared these images with different people who also had inclinations towards abuse and sexual activities with animals.

During the investigation, police found Britton had computers, phones, cameras, external hard drives, weapons and sex toys inside his rural property in Darwin, where the remains of injured animals, decomposing puppy carcasses and dog heads were also found. .

The accused is currently in preventive detention and will appear again before the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory in Darwin, where his sentence will be deliberated in a phase that could last several days, the judicial source said.

The Italian Carabinieri arrested nine boys on Monday night, 7 of them minors, for the rape of two girls aged 10 and 12 in Caivano (southern Italy), a town with serious problems of crime, mafia and abandonment and that after the events the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, visited.

The arrest warrants were issued by the investigating judge of the Naples Juvenile Court after the request of investigators who are reconstructing the acts of violence that occurred on several occasions in the municipality, they reported in a note.

According to the media, these arrests were made due to some videos that reached the phone of a relative of one of the victims.. After the event, the Police have carried out two raids in the area against drug trafficking and crime.

Meloni, tough hand against juvenile delinquency

The prime minister, the far-right Giorgia Meloni, visited the area after the event, which caused great commotion in the country, after being invited by the local priest, Maurizio Patriciello, and assured that “the fruits of this visit will soon be seen.” after recognizing that “in Caivano the failure of the State has been consummated”.

After the group rape, the Government also approved a decree law against juvenile crime which will make it easier for minors to end up in prison, although other more controversial measures have been left out, such as lowering the age of criminal responsibility or prohibit minors' access to pornographic websites.

The “Caivano decree”, which took its name from this town where the rape of the two girls occurred, also punishes parents who do not send their children to school with prison sentences.

At least 20 people have been killed and almost 300 injured in a powerful explosion at a fuel tank in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, inhabited by Armenians but belonging to Azerbaijan.

Local Armenian authorities have reported that 290 people have been hospitalized; dozens of them “remain in critical condition” after the explosion at the facility near the regional capital, Stepanakert (Jankendi for Azerbaijanis), last Monday afternoon. The cause of the explosion remains unknown, as reported by The Guardian.

When the explosion occurred, in the vicinity of the fuel depot there were a large number of cars with Karabakhs who wanted to leave the enclave after the military defeat last week against the Azeri army.

According to the Government, some 6,650 people who were displaced by the recent Azerbaijani military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh have arrived in Armenia since the evacuation began on Sunday.

The Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinián, assured that Yerevan is willing to welcome all Karabakhis who want to leave said territory.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, offered humanitarian assistance to Pashinián this Monday in a telegram sent to him by Samantha Power, the head of the US Development Agency.

Inclement weather takes its toll on the most disadvantaged. This time it is a settlement in Guatemala, called Dios es Fiel, where at least six people have died and another 18 are missing after flooding caused by the overflowing of the Naranjo River in the capital of Guatemala.

Guatemalan authorities have deployed three teams of 94 people to search for the eight adults and ten minors missing around the Dios es Fiel settlement, according to the Guatemalan radio station Emisoras Unidas.

“Given the tragedy in the Dios Es Fiel settlement due to the flooding of the river, I express my deep concern and solidarity with the affected families. Preliminarily there are deaths, missing people and damage to homes,” the outgoing president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, has published on his account on the social network X, formerly Twitter.

In addition, the president has reported on the deployment of the three teams composed of 94 members of the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction, the Guatemalan Army and the National Civil Police.

“Let us remain united in this difficult time. This tragedy painfully reminds us of the reality of climate change. It is imperative to act for vulnerable countries like Guatemala, all nations must act for a more sustainable future,” added Giamattei.

Hitmen shot dead Mexican reporter Jesús Gutiérrez Vergara, the sixth journalist murdered in Mexico in 2023, and a police officer in an attack in the northern state of Sonora, on the border with the United States, local authorities revealed this Monday.

Gutiérrez Vergara, a crime journalist, died riddled with bullets when the group of hitmen with assault rifles directly attacked four police officers in San Luis Río Colorado, on the border with Arizona.

Although the events occurred on Sunday, the Attorney General's Office in Sonora reported this Monday of the death of the journalist and the police officer, in addition to three other seriously injured agents.

The State Security Board implemented an operation with forces from the Army, National Guard, State Police and the Ministerial Criminal Investigation Agency to find those responsible, but until Monday morning the arrest of any suspect was reported.

According to witnesses, the reporter left his house and crossed the street to talk with the four agents and minutes later armed men arrived in a truck from where they were riddled with bullets.

The Attorney General's Office in Sonora assured that the 47-year-old reporter was a collateral victim and that the police officers were off duty.

Gutiérrez Vergara was director of the Notiface Prensa Digital website in San Luis, dedicated mainly to live broadcasts of police events.

The attack occurs after, last week, sailors tried to arrest several municipal police officers, but the suspects, accused of alleged crimes of kidnapping and homicide, fled and hid in the headquarters and the City Hall Palace.

So far they have not identified the murdered police officer and the three injured, since the Prosecutor's Office only confirmed the identity of the murdered journalist.

Gutiérrez Vergara is the sixth journalist murdered so far this year in Mexico, where the organization Article 19 has indicated that at least two of them died from violence related to their work.

Mexico is the most dangerous country without war for the press, with a record of at least 11 journalists murdered in 2022, according to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) organization.

81% of overdose deaths in New York City are caused by fentanyl, according to figures revealed by the city's Department of Health this Monday, which also warned that overdose deaths grew by 12% in 2022 with respect to the previous year. According to a statement from the agency, it is the highest number of deaths (3,026) since the data began to be recorded in 2000.

Data shows African Americans had the highest rate of deaths and the largest absolute increase in the rate – from 2021 to 2022 – from 52.0 to 62.0 per 100,000 residents. Latinos rank second with a rate of 53.1 per 100,000 county residents.

They also show that as in previous years, adults between 55 and 64 years old had the highest overdose rate, followed by those between 45 and 54 years old. Residents of The Bronx, the majority-Latino county and the poorest in the city, had the highest death rate in 2022, at 73.6 per 100,000 residents.

Department of Health data also indicates that the overdose rate among residents of high-poverty neighborhoods increased by 21%, going from 32.4 per 100,000 in 2021 to 39.3 per 100,000 residents in 2022.

In 2022, residents of very high-poverty neighborhoods had the highest rate of overdose deaths, at 72.8 per 100,000 compared to 21.8 per 100,000 in low-poverty neighborhoods. “Overdose deaths reached unprecedented levels in the city in 2022. Disparities in deaths by race/ethnicity, age, income, and neighborhood have widened as the magnitude of the overdose crisis has worsened,” the Health report states.

Structural racism

It also points out that unequal access to the resources necessary for health and well-being is a product of structural racism and long-term disinvestment in communities.

Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan warned that the opioid crisis is killing a New Yorker every three hours and that several measures can be taken such as carrying naloxone to reverse the overdose, receiving training to use it and recognizing the signs of overdose.

He also warned that no one should use or allow anyone to use drugs alone and if they do, they should seek care, support and treatment. He also urged New Yorkers to have an “honest and non-judgmental” conversation about drugs and their risks.

Two earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the Richter scale shook the Terceira and San Miguel islands in the Azores archipelago (Portugal) this Monday, without any damage or victims being reported.

According to the Azores Volcanic Information and Surveillance Center (CIVISA), the first earthquake occurred around 4:44 p.m. local time (same GMT time) and had as its epicenter an area 3 kilometers northeast of Santa Bárbara, on Terceira Island.

Four minutes later, the second earthquake occurred, with the epicenter 2 kilometers northeast of that same location.

The volcano of the same name is located in Santa Bárbara, which since June 2022 has been registering activity above normal values.. The last eruption was in 1761.

The earthquakes were felt with maximum intensity in areas of the western and eastern parts of Terceira Island, while they were also noted, but less intensely, in the town of Ponta Delgada, in San Miguel.

This seismic activity occurs after an earthquake with a magnitude of between 6.8 and 7 shook Morocco on September 8, leaving almost 3,000 dead.