“A 2023 Iowa law banning LGBTQ books and topics from being discussed in public school classrooms is taking effect after an appeals court lifted an injunction against it on Tuesday. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth U.S. Circuit ruled against the injunction after a lower court judge blocked the law last year. The law also requires school administrators to inform parents if a student requests accommodations to affirm their gender identity, such as preferred pronouns.” (04/07/26)
“Iran has allowed two French former detainees, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, to leave the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday. They had been holed up in French diplomatic premises there since their release from prison in November. ‘Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris are free and on route toward French territory, after three and a half years of detention in Iran,’ Macron posted on X. The green light for them to leave Iran, long sought by France, signaled how Iran is differentiating between nations, treating some favorably and others as foes, in the context of the Iran war. Macron has distanced France from the conflict, saying his country wasn’t consulted in advance about the U.S-Israel strikes and didn’t want the war. He thanked Oman for playing a mediation role in the release of Kohler and Paris.” (04/07/26)
“A massive explosion under the Bridge of the Americas has killed one person and injured two, temporarily closing the vital crossing over the Panama Canal. Smoke and flames engulfed part of the bridge, footage on social media showed, after a fuel tanker truck exploded in the area of La Boca, under the 5,400ft-long bridge. Cars and buses sped up in order to move past the explosion. … The Bridge of Americas spans the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, a vital waterway for commodities connecting the Panama Sea with the Pacific Ocean.” (04/07/26)
“A former Australian soldier was charged on Tuesday with war crimes on allegations that he killed five unarmed Afghans while serving in Afghanistan from 2009 and 2012, police said. Police have not confirmed the 47-year-old man’s name. He is expected to appear in a Sydney court later Tuesday. The soldier is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime. … The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence that elite Australian SAS and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants.” (04/07/26)
“Ukrainian forces are operating in western Libya under a covert deal endorsed by the West, and they used the Northern African country’s territory to strike a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean last month, two Libyan officials said Tuesday. The Russian-flagged Arctic Metagaz, carrying 61,000 tons of liquefied natural gas, was badly damaged in a suspected sea drone attack near Maltese waters early in March. It has since drifted off Libya. All 30 crew members were rescued and put on another vessel heading to the Libyan city of Benghazi, the Libyan Maritime Authority said. The tanker is part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet transporting oil in violation of international sanctions over Moscow’s more than 4-year-old invasion of Ukraine. A recent temporary U.S. waiver on those sanctions is aimed at easing supply shortages amid the Iran war.” (04/07/26)
“A simple and cost-effective blood test might be able to help detect multiple cancers and other diseases, a new study says. The test works by analyzing DNA fragments in a person’s bloodstream and could offer a powerful and affordable approach to screening for cancer and other health problems, researchers reported April 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. … The test, called MethylScan, analyzed DNA that cells from every organ naturally shed into the bloodstream. This genetic material carries signals that reflects what is happening in the body.” (04/07/26)
“France’s ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy at an appeals trial Tuesday said he was ‘innocent,’ rejecting charges he had sought Libyan financing for his 2007 election in exchange for helping improve Tripoli’s image after deadly bombings. A lower court in September found the right-wing politician, who was president from 2007 to 2012, guilty of seeking to acquire funding from Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya for the campaign that saw him elected and sentenced him to five years behind bars. The case saw Sarkozy, who has always denied any wrongdoing, become modern France’s first president to have gone to prison. He served 20 days before he was released pending the appeal.” (04/07/26)
“A French high-speed train driver was killed on Tuesday and 16 people were injured when his locomotive slammed into a truck carrying military equipment at a railway crossing in northern France, local authorities said. The driver of the truck was detained, and an aggravated manslaughter investigation was opened, but it is too early to determine the exact cause of the crash, Prosecutor Etienne Thieffry told reporters. Jean Castex, the head of the national railway authority SNCF, said the railroad crossing gates were functioning correctly. The train was traveling at 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph) when it hit the truck, the local prefect said. Rescue crews rushed to the scene after the crash in the town of Bully-les-Mines on a train route leading from Dunkirk to Paris, the regional administration said in a statement, adding that two of those wounded were seriously injured and that more than 200 train passengers were evacuated.” (04/07/26)
“Earlier this year, Amazon threatened to cut US Postal Service deliveries by as much as two thirds. Now, the parties have reached tentative a deal that will see USPS deliveries reduced by 20 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported. While not as drastic as first menaced, the reduced volume will still deal a financial blow to the USPS. … Amazon is the USPS’s largest customer, accounting for 15 percent of its volume and $6 billion in revenue.” (04/06/26)
“Wandering down the unlit corridors of a six-storey building behind the Royal Hill casino, each door opens onto a different world. In one there is a perfect replica of a Vietnamese bank. In another, you’re in an Australian police station. A Chinese police officer’s shirt hangs in one corner. Motivational messages have been painted on the walls. ‘Money Coming From Everywhere,’ read the Chinese characters on one sign. Discarded fake hundred dollar bills are lying all over the floor. This was a massive scam compound, just inside Cambodia in a border town called O Smach. Thousands of people from different countries worked here, under a harsh regime which strictly regimented their lives, defrauding thousands of others across the world of their savings.” (04/07/26)
