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A bike rider who decapitated a dead sea lion over Christmas and rode off with the animal’s head in a clear plastic bag was being hunted in the US on Thursday.Officials were offering $20,000 for information leading to the conviction of the man who sliced the creature’s head off on a California beach.A notice from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the intact body of a dead sea lion was spotted at Doran Regional Park, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of San Francisco, on December 25.But a short time later the pinniped’s corpse was horrifically mutilated.”An eyewitness described the suspect as a tan-complexioned male, approximately 30–40 years old, dressed in all black and riding a black fat-tire e-bike,” NOAA said.”The suspect was seen using a black 8-inch (20-centimeter) knife to remove the sea lion’s head, placing it in a clear plastic bag, and riding away.”Under federal law it is illegal to harass, hunt, capture or kill sea lions and other marine life in the US.California sea lions are one of six known species and a common sight along the western coast of North America, including around Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, where their distinctive barking can frequently be heard.Known for their intelligence, they are sometimes trained to perform tricks in circuses and aquariums, and have been used by the US Navy to carry out military operations.

As the Trump administration prepares for its next wave of federal layoffs, the former head of a key US climate agency spoke with AFP about its role in public safety, scientific research, and protecting the American economy.Rick Spinrad, an oceanographer turned government official, capped his career as director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the Biden administration.Q: What has been the impact of so far losing more than 1,200 of the 12,000 strong workforce?A: Many of NOAA’s support functions, including those essential for deploying ships and aircraft, have been cut, preventing the agency from conducting critical stock assessments needed to manage fisheries effectively.Commercial fishing seasons must soon be established, but without data from stock assessments, setting meaningful seasons will be impossible. That’s a $320 billion industry supporting over two million jobs.- Hurricane season -We’re now entering tornado season in the central and southeastern US. As we lose technicians, maintaining and operating satellites and radars becomes more difficult. Several of the country’s 120 plus weather forecast offices can no longer conduct their regular upper-air profiles, where they launch balloons twice a day to collect essential data for accurate forecasts. I’m very concerned about hurricane season. If we can’t deploy hurricane hunter planes or sustain the observational systems that feed forecasting models, the consequences could be severe.”Q: What have you heard about the next cuts, which would slash the agency’s staffing by almost 20 percent?A: The agency is submitting to the Department of Commerce, its parent department, a list of 1,029 candidate positions for its “reduction in force.”It’s not unusual for governments to look for cuttings and cost savings, but every other exercise that I went through of that nature during my nearly 40-year experience with the government included some statement of mission priority or strategy or even an ideology. Nothing of that nature, not even a geographic priority, has been provided.When I left, NOAA had 12,000 federal employees and nearly as many contractors working alongside them. The need for that contractor support shows the agency would have been better served by a larger workforce, not a smaller one, because, quite honestly, contractors are expensive.Q: The conservative Project 2025 plan, which the administration appears to be following, calls to privatize the National Weather Service. Your thoughts?A: The costs would go up simply because the capital expenditures and the operations and maintenance. Think about the private sector having to operate 122 weather radars, 16 satellites, ten airplanes… not to mention the ships.By law, the federal agencies are indemnified. If the private sector puts out a forecast that is bad or wrong, they are liable for loss. That has happened in the past.- Government for the people? -At the end of the day, what it really means is that weather forecasts would kind of be like streaming video. If you can afford it, and you want it, you buy it. So how does this comport with the idea that the government is there for all of the people all of the time?Q: How will curbing NOAA’s climate work harm US interests?A: It will mean we won’t have a seat at the table, which will be a terrible loss. We’ve worked so hard to work collaboratively with our partners through the World Meteorological Organization. The vast majority of the American public understands climate impacts are real and they are being felt right now. Our ability to contribute to the understanding of how climate change will impact our society will be compromised. I worry a lot about our ability to build the workforce for the future.Scientists are demoralized. They are very concerned, because the paradigm that we have operated under for almost 60 years is being shattered, and we don’t know what the new paradigm will look like.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to impose 200 percent tariffs on wine, champagne and other alcoholic beverages from European Union countries, in retaliation against the bloc’s planned levies on American-made whiskey.Trump has launched trade wars against competitors and partners alike since taking office, wielding tariffs as a tool to pressure countries on commerce and other policy issues.His latest salvo was a response to the European Union’s unveiling of tariffs on $28 billion in US goods, to be imposed in stages starting in April.The EU measures — including a 50 percent tariff on American whiskey — were a tit-for-tat measure against Trump’s levies on steel and aluminum imports that took effect Wednesday.”If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.Criticism of the move was swift from European spirit makers.French wine and champagne company Taittinger said that a 200 percent tariff could bring the cost of some bottles from about $60 to more than $180.France’s federation of wine and spirit exporters, known by the acronym FEVS, put the blame on the European Commission for placing its members “directly into the crosshairs of the US president.””We are fed up with being systematically sacrificed for issues unrelated to our own,” said the group’s director general Nicolas Ozanam.- ‘Hostile and abusive’ -Trump called the EU’s planned levy on US whiskey as “nasty” and dubbed the bloc “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World.”The Republican billionaire president has also said the European Union — which for decades has been at the heart of a US-led Western alliance — was formed to take advantage of the United States.He told reporters he would not bend on his aggressive tariffs policy, while European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc is ready to negotiate over escalating duties, though she insisted that tariffs are “bad for business.”French Foreign Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin said his country would “not give in to threats” and was “determined to retaliate,’ while Spanish agriculture minister said he hopes to negotiate.US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg Television he had plans to speak with his European counterparts, while an EU spokesperson said its trade chief has reached out to Washington.EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis meanwhile held an introductory call with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in which he expressed concern over US tariffs and their negative economic impact on both sides.- ‘Devastating’ -The European spirits trade group, Spirits Europe, called on both sides to stop using the sector as a “bargaining chip” in their tariffs fight.US wine merchants and restaurant owners also eyed Trump’s threats with trepidation.A 200 percent tariff would send business costs “through the roof,” said Francis Schott, a restaurant owner based in New Jersey who serves European and American wines.”It’s just business that will go away. It’s devastating,” he told AFP. “If I lose half of the profit I make on alcoholic beverages, my business is no longer viable.”Europe exported nearly $5.2 billion worth of wine and champagne to the United States in 2023, according to the World Trade Organization.- EU levy ‘disappointing’ -US distillers have called the EU’s levy on American whiskey “deeply disappointing.”A 2018 imposition of similar tariffs led to a 20 percent drop in American whiskey exports to the European Union.Trump’s tariff wars have taken aim at Canada, Mexico and China over allegations they are not doing enough to curtail fentanyl smuggling or illegal immigration into the United States — even if in the case of Canada, the border sees negligible smuggling.He has also taken aim at commodities including steel, aluminum and copper.Some countries like China and Canada have already imposed retaliatory tariffs, while uncertainty over Trump’s trade plans and worries that they could trigger a recession have roiled financial markets.

A US judge on Thursday ordered six federal agencies to rehire thousands of probationary workers fired as part of Donald Trump’s push to slash the size and scope of government.The ruling is the latest judicial setback for the administration, coming on the heels of a string of legal defeats that nevertheless seem not to have slowed the pace of change. Judge William Alsup said the justification of “poor performance” for mass lay-offs last month was “a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements,” the New York Times reported.Ruling on a lawsuit brought by employee unions, Alsup ordered the departments of the Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy and Interior to reinstate anyone on probation who was improperly fired.”It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” said Alsup at a hearing at the US District Court in San Francisco.Since returning to the Oval Office in January, Trump has taken an ax to the US government, cutting spending programs and firing tens of thousands of the more-than 2 million employees on the federal payroll.Thursday’s ruling prompted immediate condemnation from the White House, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt vowing the administration would “fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order.””The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch –- singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda,” she said.”If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves.”The statement mirrors previous reactions to legal rulings going against the administration, which have seen the White House characterize the courts as obstacles to unbridled presidential power.- ‘Reduction in force’ -The judgement comes after the same court last month ordered the federal government to rescind directives that resulted in thousands of staff being let go.On Thursday, Alsup said the government was within its rights to reduce staffing, but that it had to be done properly and with justification — he cited “reduction in force” orders issued by several agencies as legal routes.”If it’s done right, there can be a reduction in force within an agency, that has to be true,” he said.”Congress itself has said you can have an agency do a reduction in force, if it’s done correctly under the law.”But that was not the case with the orders issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — the government’s human resources body — whose actions amounted to overreach.Attorneys from the Justice Department, representing the Trump administration, had insisted that OPM never issued any orders, only guidance, the Washington Post reported.But, the paper said, court records showed officials from agencies including the IRS, the Department of Defense, and Veterans Affairs, had disputed this, claiming the order to cut probationary workers came directly from the OPM.Trump — supported by a chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk — has set about fundamentally reshaping the US government in a way that he says will make it leaner and more efficient, but which opponents say amounts to a bid to undermine its very purpose.That effort found its latest expression this week when the Education Department moved to halve its staffing levels.Despite the high stakes, Trump faces few obstacles from the Washington political establishment.The Democratic Party is still in disarray after the electoral drubbing and his Republican Party, with control of both chambers of Congress, is racing to bolster his efforts through legislation.

He’s been dubbed the “Trump whisperer,” but NATO chief Mark Rutte struggled to get a word in Thursday as the US president mused about annexing Greenland and criticized allies over defense spending.The former Dutch prime minister visited the White House seeking to convince a skeptical Donald Trump to maintain US commitment to the transatlantic alliance and to Ukraine.Trump opened by praising Rutte — who has gained a reputation for being able to manage the mercurial president — for doing a “fantastic job” in the new role he took on just a few months ago.But Trump was soon on a favorite topic about allies failing to meet spending targets. He then embarked on a new one — his plan to absorb Greenland, an autonomous territory of founding NATO member Denmark.”I think it will happen,” Trump said, before gesturing towards Rutte with his thumb and adding: “I didn’t give it much thought before but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental” in the move.Trump then added: “You know Mark, we need that for international security… we have a lot of our favorite players cruising around the coast and we have to be careful,” he said, referring to rising Chinese and Russian interest in the Arctic region.The NATO chief flashed an embarrassed grin and sat back in his armchair, legs crossed, as he said that he wanted to remain “outside this discussion” of Greenland joining the United States or not.”I don’t want to drag NATO in that,” he said.But the ever diplomatic Rutte then backed up Trump’s point about Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic region. – ‘NATO is stepping up’ -A veteran of European Union politics as the bloc dealt with Trump’s first term, Rutte now faces a difficult balancing act keeping Trump onside when it comes to NATO in his second.The US president has repeatedly called into question whether Washington would defend allies who do not boost their defense spending, causing major jitters in Europe.Trump has previously called for allies to lift annual defense spending to five percent of GDP from the current two-percent target, which NATO expected only 23 of 32 members to meet last year.Trump reiterated his criticisms on Thursday but seemed more keen to talk about how, in his account, he managed to get NATO countries to pay more during his first presidency.”When I first went to NATO … I noticed that very few people were paying,” he said. “I was able to raise hundreds of billions of dollars… the money started pouring in and NATO became much stronger because of my actions.”He also praised Rutte, adding: “NATO is stepping up. This man is a man that only knows how to step up.”In 2018, the plain-speaking Rutte went viral after loudly saying “no” and contradicting Trump in the Oval Office when they were talking about an EU trade deal — but this time he was more diplomatic.He stressed how core NATO nations including Britain and Germany were now committing to increase defense spending.The NATO boss also supported Trump’s efforts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, saying: “Breaking the deadlock, it was crucial.” There was no mention however of Rutte’s own role in recent weeks after he helped resolve a blazing row in the Oval between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this month.Trump and Rutte’s next meeting could come when the Netherlands hosts the 2025 NATO summit later this year.”The Hague is my home town,” said Rutte.”I would love to host you there in the summer and work together to make sure that it will be a splash — a real success projecting American power on the world stage.”

A “Blood Moon” will bathe a large swathe of the world in red light overnight Thursday during a rare total lunar eclipse.Skygazers will be able to witness the celestial spectacle in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa.The phenomenon happens when the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite.But as the Earth’s shadow creeps across the Moon, it does not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the Moon turns a reddish colour. This is because the only sunlight that reaches the Moon is “bent and scattered” as it goes through Earth’s atmosphere, Daniel Brown, an astronomer at the UK’s Nottingham Trent University, told AFP.It is similar to how the light can become pink or red during sunrises or sunsets on Earth, he added.And the more clouds and dust there are in Earth’s atmosphere, the redder the Moon will appear.The lunar eclipse, which will last around six hours on Friday morning, “is an amazing way to see the solar system in action”, Brown said.The period when the Moon is completely in Earth’s shadow — called the totality — will be just over an hour.This particular event has been dubbed the “Blood Worm Moon”, after one of the names given to March full moons by some Native Americans.- When can you see it? -In North America, the moon will start to look like a bite is being taken out of it from 1:09 am Eastern Time (0509 GMT), then the totality will be from 2:26 am to 3:31 am, according to NASA. In France, the totality will be from 7:26 am to 8:31 am local time (0626-0731 GMT), according to the French Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation. However only the most western parts of Europe, such as France’s Brittany region, will get any chance to see the totality before the Moon sets.People in New Zealand will have the opposite problem, with the eclipse only partially visible as the Moon rises.In the United Kingdom, the weather forecast is poor but Brown said he hoped to “snatch a peak at the Moon with clouds above the horizon”.Brown dislikes the term “Blood Moon”, saying it has a negative connotation and “originates from a misinformed theory of the end of the world”.But not all societies took a negative view of these celestial shows.Some people in Africa traditionally viewed a lunar eclipse as a conflict between the Sun and Moon that could be resolved by people “demonstrating on Earth how we work together” and laying old feuds aside, Brown said.”An amazing story that should inspire us all at the moment,” he said.- Solar eclipse soon -It will be the first total lunar eclipse since 2022, but there will be another one this September.Thursday’s event will be a “Micromoon”, meaning the Moon is the farthest away it gets from Earth, making it appear about seven percent smaller than normal, according to the website Earthsky. This is the opposite of a “Supermoon”, as was seen during 2022’s lunar eclipse.Some skygazers will be in for another treat later this month — a partial solar eclipse, which is when the Moon blocks out the Sun’s light on Earth.This eclipse will be visible on March 29 in eastern Canada, parts of Europe, northern Russia and northwest Africa.Viewing even a partial solar eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous, and people advised to use special eclipse glasses or pinhole projectors.

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday announced a $3 billion deal for NBC Universal to broadcast the Olympics until 2036 in the United States.The IOC said the deal, which extends the current agreement with the US broadcaster by four years, was “a major contribution to the long-term financial stability of the entire Olympic Movement”.The extension of the rights covers the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2034 and the 2036 Summer Olympics, for which the host city is yet to be decided.The new deal elevates Comcast NBC Universal to the status of a “strategic partner” of the IOC rather than just a media rights holder, the IOC said in a statement.The Executive Board of the IOC has approved the agreement and has authorised the next IOC president, who will be elected on March 20, to sign the agreement after they take office in June 2025.NBC’s previous Olympic rights deal was signed in 2014 and was valued at $7.75 billion. It covered the Summer and Winter Games until 2032.The current IOC president Thomas Bach said the new deal with NBC “goes far beyond the traditional media rights agreement”.”Thanks to their innovative approach, serving on all platforms from linear to streaming and digital, we can now take our partnership to new heights,” Bach added.NBC’s coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics reached an average of 67 million viewers a day across its broadcast, cable and streaming platforms.Viewers streamed 23.5 billion minutes of NBC’s coverage from Paris, led by its streaming service Peacock, representing a 40 percent rise on all prior Olympic Summer and Winter Games combined.

The White House abruptly withdrew its vaccine-skeptical nominee for director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ahead of a scheduled Senate hearing on Thursday, marking a setback for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda.Like Kennedy, internal medicine physician and former Florida congressman David Weldon has long voiced concerns about potential adverse effects from immunization and has promoted the debunked theory of a link between vaccines and autism.The withdrawal comes as measles, a once-vanquished childhood disease, has killed two people and infected more than 250 in Texas and New Mexico, the majority of whom were unvaccinated.Kennedy’s comments downplaying both the severity of the outbreak and the role of vaccination in its prevention may have contributed to eroding political support for Weldon among Republican senators, ultimately influencing the White House’s decision to pull the nomination.A Senate committee that would have voted on Weldon put out a statement just minutes before the hearing was scheduled to take place saying it had been cancelled after he pulled out.”During one of the worst measles outbreaks in years because of Trump, Weldon should NEVER have even been under consideration to lead CDC,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray wrote on X.Weldon, 71, told The New York Times that a White House official contacted him on Wednesday night to inform him that “they didn’t have the votes to confirm” his nomination.— Kennedy ‘upset’ —Speculation on holdouts centers on one Republican senator in particular — Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is also a medical doctor. Cassidy had pressed Kennedy on his history of vaccine skepticism during the health secretary’s confirmation hearings before ultimately voting to confirm him.As a Republican congressman, Weldon co-sponsored a 2007 bill, which ultimately failed, that sought to create a vaccine safety office independent of the CDC, arguing that the agency had an inherent conflict of interest.He also raised concerns about a “possible association between the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, and the childhood epidemic of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism.”Thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001. According to the CDC, “there is no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.”Under Kennedy, the CDC has been tasked with investigating this alleged link, which was first widely raised in a 1998 paper that was later found to be based on manipulated data. The scientific consensus remains that there is no causal connection between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — or any other vaccine — and autism.Weldon said Kennedy was “very upset” about the decision but noted that he would ultimately return to his private practice, where he expects to “make much more money,” according to The New York Times.

European and US policy makers are eyeing deeper ties around natural gas even as trade conflict boils and President Donald Trump challenges the long-running transatlantic alliance.EU officials appearing on public panels at the CERA Week energy gathering spoke optimistically about the potential for rising US liquefied natural gas exports to play an even bigger role after the fuel offset key supplies following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.”Hopefully by 2027, we will be down to zero (fossil fuel imports from Russia),” Jovita Neliupsiene, ambassador of the European Union Delegation to the United States, said on a panel Wednesday.Earlier this week, Dan Jorgensen, commissioner for energy and housing in the European Commission, said the bloc now gets 13 percent of its gas from Russia, down from 45 percent in February 2022.”Indirectly we have filled Putin’s war chest,” said Jorgensen, who described the goal as “100 percent free of molecules from Russia.”The statements come as supplies of US LNG exports appear poised to surge higher after Trump reversed a move by predecessor Joe Biden to freeze LNG export permitting. Trump administration officials have pointed to higher LNG exports as a way for Europe to address Trump’s focus on trade imbalances.At CERA, Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum both spoke of LNG exports as a way to bolster an ally.European officials did not comment on Trump’s friendly posture towards Russian President Vladimir Putin which has come as the White House has broadly distanced itself from traditional allies in Europe.On Wednesday, the European Union unveiled counter-tariffs on US goods after 25 percent US tariffs went into effect on steel and aluminum.- Europe’s dilemma -While EU officials set government policy, the decisions about fuel transactions are taken at the corporate level, a point alluded to Laurent Ruseckas of S&P Global, who moderated Wednesday’s panel, “Energy and the future of European Security.””It’s become sort of a cliche to say that the transatlantic relationship now has become transactional, but in the energy business, transactions are what we’re all about,” Ruseckas said.LNG is one place where the United States and Europe are still “potentially extremely well aligned,” said Ruseckas.The Trump administration’s positive stance towards fossil fuels is expected to roughly double the amount of US natural gas exported over the next five years, said Matthew Palmer, head of North American natural gas at S&P Global Commodity Insights.Much of the LNG in this growing “wave” has been through relatively short-term contracts between suppliers like Total and Shell and European utilities that may not want to lock themselves into long-term agreements, Palmer said.”We love the US because you have the cheapest gas of the planet,” TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said this week in vowing more US LNG investment.Begun in 1983 by Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize, a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry, CERAWeek is an annual Houston gathering that has expanded beyond its petroleum roots to include the power and renewable sectors.The conference also includes panels with geopolitical experts analyzing what the early days of the Trump administration portends for international alliances.Europe has realized “they have to go it on their own,” said Brookings Institution senior fellow Angela Stent.”I see now the beginning of a long term shift of the Europeans realizing that what they have had for these past nearly 80 years is really gone.”Some Europeans are privately discussing “why should I trade reliance on Vladimir Putin for reliance on Donald Trump?” said Chris Treanor, executive director of the Partnership to Address Global Emissions.But the current surge of US LNG investment means “there will be more gas available for European buyers, should they be interested in pursuing it.”