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Facebook Tweet Email Link Paris AP  —  French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Friday that no effort will be spared to track down and prosecute unknown attackers who chopped down an olive tree planted in homage to a French Jew murdered in 2006. The commemorative tree for Ilan Halimi, planted 14 years ago in the northern Paris suburb of Épinay-sur-Seine, was felled on Wednesday night, seemingly with a chainsaw. The town posted a photo on its Facebook page showing the tree’s leafy, bushy top completely severed from its base, leaving just the stump poking from the ground. “Cutting down the tree…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Talks to finalize the world’s first treaty on plastic pollution in Geneva, Switzerland collapsed in failure Friday as countries remained bitterly divided how to tackle the crisis. The summit, held at the United Nations headquarters and attended by delegates from more than 180 countries, was supposed to end Thursday after 10 days of contentious talks, but slipped into overtime as nations were unable to break their deadlock. More than 100 countries had called for legally binding caps on plastic production. Many also demanded action to tackle toxic chemicals in plastics. But powerful oil and gas producing…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Reuters  —  The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organizations of the 16th-century Mercator map of the world in favor of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size. Created by cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, the projection distorts continent sizes, enlarging areas near the poles like North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America. “It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not,” AU Commission deputy chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters, saying the Mercator fostered a false impression that Africa…

Facebook Tweet Email Link The once-thriving Roman city of Pompeii resembles an eerie time capsule, seemingly unoccupied since a catastrophic volcanic eruption in AD 79, with the remains of its inhabitants forever frozen under a blanket of ash. But a closer look may reveal another bleak chapter in the tragedy’s aftermath, according to new research. Recently unearthed clues suggest that a number of people, including survivors of the disaster as well as transients, returned to live among the ruins after the eruption, based on discoveries made during ongoing excavations of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in southern Italy. But it’s…

Facebook Tweet Email Link The US military is deploying more than 4,000 Marines and sailors to the waters around Latin America and the Caribbean as part of a ramped-up effort to combat drug cartels, two US defense officials told CNN — a dramatic show of force that will give the president a broad range of military options should he want to target drug cartels. The deployment of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit to US Southern Command, which has not been previously reported, is part of a broader repositioning of military assets to…

Facebook Tweet Email Link A man yelled for help as a group of men – one of whom said he was with Immigration and Customs Enforcement – picked him up and pushed him into a car outside a Los Angeles courthouse Wednesday, video shows. The detention has been condemned by the county’s top judge and the man’s lawyers, who said such operations will deter people from showing up to court. Video obtained by the Los Angeles Times shows the man being carried away with his hands bound behind his back. Those detaining him are in plainclothes, and some are wearing…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Hong Kong  —  On a sweltering summer afternoon in Hong Kong, Yeung Fong-yan’s flat felt like an oven. Her air conditioner ran at full blast, but the tiny, tin-roofed room still baked in the heat, with a thermometer inside reading 36°C (96.8°F). “Sometimes it’s so hot we can’t even sleep,” Yeung said, seated on the small bed that doubles as her couch, dining table and sleeping quarters. Her 13-year-old grandson had just returned home from school, exhausted and drenched in sweat after climbing nine floors to reach their apartment. The two live together in a rooftop…

Facebook Tweet Email Link AP  —  Tristan Rogers, who played legacy character Robert Scorpio on ABC’s “General Hospital,” died Friday, less than one month after he made a special appearance on the soap opera. He was 79. “The entire ‘General Hospital’ family is heartbroken to hear of Tristan Rogers’ passing,” said Frank Valentini, the show’s executive producer, in a statement. “Tristan has captivated our fans for 45 years and Port Charles will not be the same without him (or Robert Scorpio).” Born in Melbourne, Australia, Rogers’ first foray into performing was in his early twenties and playing drums in a…

Facebook Tweet Email Link On October 12, 1977, banking giant Citicorp opened the tallest new skyscraper in New York City since the early 1930s. From afar, the 915-foot tower’s distinctive sloped roof cut through the Midtown skyline like a scalpel. Close up, at ground level, its 59 floors appeared to levitate above a sunken public plaza, a generous architectural gesture to passersby. Citicorp Center’s design was not universally loved. But the scale and ambition of its engineering were undeniable. In a review, the Times’ architecture critic Paul Goldberger concluded that the bank’s new office, despite lacking in originality, would “probably…

Facebook Tweet Email Link EDITOR’S NOTE:  Delving into the archives of pop culture history, “Remember When?” is a CNN Style series offering a nostalgic look at the celebrity outfits that defined their eras. Watch the three-part CNN Original Series “American Prince: JFK Jr.” premiering August 9 at 9 p.m, ET/PT and running the following two Saturday nights. In 1996, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. got married outside a peeling white log cabin chapel on Cumberland Island, Georgia. With no paparazzi and no media present, it offered the pair a brief moment of normality before they re-emerged into the…