Sanitation

Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

Welcome to the last Weekend Briefing of August. Icelanders are voting on restarting EU membership talks. Sources say mutinous soldiers are attacking Niger’s capital Niamey. Iran’s leaders acknowledged the economic toll of the war, but they're not backing down. After six months, the fitful pace of the war is putting emotional pressure on American military families. And Donald Trump said the U.S. is taking control of a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves.

Bad weather hampers Nepal rescue

REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Needs: Nepal said it needs foreign technical help as well as up to $5 billion to rebuild after Wednesday’s glacier collapse sent rock, ice and debris down a narrow valley. The death toll exceeded 600 people and is expected to rise. More than 2,400 remain missing in Nepal and at least 550 are missing in Tibet. Nepali authorities said some bodies are decomposed beyond recognition. I strongly recommend reading our reconstruction of the glacier collapse that led to the flood.
Survival: An 8-year-old boy ran into a forest and climbed trees to escape the flood. Two days later, Zoyal Ghale was reunited with his mother after she contacted a Reuters journalist who had interviewed the boy. Learn more about the glacial lakes that threaten further destruction.

Judge blocks U.S. Postal Service on Trump’s mail-in voting plan

Special delivery: The legal back and forth continues. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani once again blocked Trump's attempt to restrict the use of mail-in ballots before the midterms. The Supreme Court earlier in the week lifted another order from Talwani. Expect the administration to appeal this latest ruling.
Immigration: A federal judge declined to immediately block Trump’s newest executive order to limit birthright citizenship, even as she questioned its viability.

Ex bank-executive shared information with Jeffrey Epstein

Jes Staley: The former JPMorgan executive told U.S. lawmakers he repeatedly shared confidential and market-sensitive information with the late disgraced sex offender and was at one point named a trustee of his estate.
Settlement: A federal judge said he would approve Bank of America’s $72.5 million class-action settlement with women who accused the bank of facilitating their sex abuse at Epstein's hands. Another judge rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to throw out her conviction and 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein abuse teenage girls.

Insta won’t be safer, whistleblower says

No likes: A former Meta safety engineer whose testimony helped build a child-safety case against Meta said the Facebook parent’s settlement with U.S. states does not meaningfully address the harms from social media that he described in court.
Trust: The swift rise of AI has tainted the torrential flow of photos and videos produced on smartphones and distributed through social media. Learn how Reuters’ visual-verification team sifts through these images from battlefields to border crossings so you can believe what you see.

Does Rupert Murdoch have another merger in him?

Nonagenarian dealmaker: Court documents show that the media mogul with the famously fractious family expressed his longstanding wish to put Fox Corp. and News Corp. back together and that it could yet happen. Fox said there have been no discussions since 2022.
Rough business: The son of EssilorLuxottica’s founder quit his management role at the eyewear giant after reports of a clash with the chief executive. Walmart will pay much less than the U.S. said it might to settle a government lawsuit accusing it of fueling the nationwide opioid epidemic. Volkswagen’s management wants more job cuts to turn the company around. It won’t be easy.

Before I forget…

Russian air attacks have destroyed some 90% of retailers’ food logistics in Ukraine, the agriculture minister said. A Russian strike on a warehouse near Kyiv killed at least 27 people.
Milo Yiannopoulos, the far-right commentator who called for ICE checkpoints in supermarkets and summary deportation for people who can’t immediately prove legal U.S. residency, was arrested for failing to show up to his immigration hearing.
Zambia arrested opposition leader Brian Mundubile and his running mate and police are questioning them over an allegation of treason.
‘Chuck it in the fire’: Far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon says France should just cancel its debt.
A Danish campaign of forced contraception in Greenland over several decades violated women’s human rights but did not meet the definition of genocide, two reports said.
A prominent economics professor in China described flexibility in gig work as a kind of welfare. Her comments outraged hard-working gigsters and their supporters.
The driest winter in memory wiped out many food sources for bears in the western United States. Now they’re seeking human food. Here’s what to do if you meet one.
NASA plans a Sunday launch for its next space observatory to investigate huge universal mysteries such as dark matter and dark energy.

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