Author: admin@primenews

Four cabinet ministers in Japan quit on Thursday over a fundraising scandal involving the ruling party’s most powerful faction. More than 500m yen (£2.8m; $3.4m) is alleged to have ended up in slush funds over a five-year period through 2022. Tokyo prosecutors have also launched a corruption probe, Nikkei reported. It is the latest blow to Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s increasingly unpopular government, whose approval ratings have plunged. Public support for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power almost continuously since 1955, fell below 30% for the first time since 2012, an NHK survey on…

Poison control centers across the US say they are seeing a steep increase in calls related to semaglutide, an injected medication used for diabetes and weight loss, with some people reporting symptoms related to accidental overdoses. Some have even needed to be hospitalized for severe nausea, vomiting and stomach pain, but their cases seem to have resolved after they were given intravenous fluids and medications to control nausea. From January through November, the America’s Poison Centers reports nearly 3,000 calls involving semaglutide, an increase of more than 15-fold since 2019. In 94% of calls, this medication was the only substance reported. In…

When ChatGPT launched late last year, some high schools quickly developed strict policies to prohibit students from using the powerful AI chatbot tool over fears of cheating on assignments. But now a new study from researchers at Stanford reveals the percentage of high school students who cheat remains statistically unchanged compared to previous years without ChatGPT. The university, which conducted an anonymous survey among students at 40 US high schools, found about 60% to 70% of students have engaged in cheating behavior in the last month, a number that is the same or even decreased slightly since the debut of ChatGPT, according…

Inflation slowed down again in November, with prices across all goods and services rising at a weaker pace of 3.1% on an annual basis, according to the latest Consumer Price Index. That’s a big improvement from November 2022 when prices rose at a pace of 7.1% compared to November 2021. But do the numbers really make any difference if you’re still struggling to afford so many of your needs and wants? Suppose the temperature at the start of one month was 50 degrees and by the end of the month it reached 90 degrees. The next month is still hotter, but the…

Stanford University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and Rutgers University have been added to a growing list of schools that face federal discrimination investigations by the US Department of Education, according to a DOE site. In the past week, the department opened investigations into six additional schools for alleged incidents of discrimination against students on campus for their race, color or national origin. The probes were launched under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which says universities and K-12 schools are responsible for providing all students with an environment free from discrimination. At the conclusion of the investigations, the department…

Once the gavel came down in Dubai, the warm words flowed – but will it really have an impact on climate change? The agreement reached in this glitzy metropolis for the first time nails the role of fossil fuel emissions in driving up temperatures and outlines a future decline for coal, oil and gas. In UN terms that is historic, and the biggest step forward on climate since the Paris agreement in 2015. But by itself, will this deal be enough to save the “north star” of this COP – keeping temperatures under 1.5C this century? Most likely not. The…

A stone’s throw from the US border and around the corner from Tijuana’s seedy red-light district, Afghan families say they feel safe inside a first of its kind Muslim-only shelter. But they are afraid to wander far outside, traumatised by their journey across 11 countries to get here. Desperate to make it to the US after the Taliban takeover more than two years ago, they say they had no future in Afghanistan – their work alongside US allies made them targets. So they fled, enduring months of waiting in Iran and Pakistan. They flew to Brazil and then crossed the…

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) head, Thomas Bach, has defended a decision to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics as neutrals. “Individual athletes cannot be punished for the acts of their governments,” he said at a forum in Geneva, Switzerland. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. This was, he said, “one war among 28 wars and conflicts going on this world and all the other athletes are competing peacefully with each other”. Last week, the IOC said individual athletes from Russia and and its ally Belarus who had qualified for the Paris summer games would…

India’s parliament witnessed chaotic scenes after at least two men intruded into the chamber, shouting slogans and spraying coloured gas. Images show MPs and security officials trying to catch one of the intruders, who is seen jumping from table to table. Reports say the men were overpowered by security officials and taken away. The security breach occurred on the 22nd anniversary of a deadly militant attack on India’s parliament. Lawmakers said the two men jumped into the well of the house from the visitors’ gallery. Their motive is not clear. The incident occurred while lawmakers were in session in the…

Forced to leave her home and job, Budhini Manjhiyain, a tribal woman from the Indian state of Jharkhand, spent her entire life in exile. Manjhiyain, who died last month, was just 15 when she was ostracised by her tribe – the Santhals – for garlanding India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru 63 years ago. Under Santhal customs, exchanging garlands is akin to marriage. Manjhiyain – and the hardships she endured – remained unknown to most, but her death has sparked renewed interest in the woman described by some as “Nehru’s first tribal wife”. Many in Jharkhand are now demanding a memorial…