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8 UN peacekeepers killed in Congo helicopter crash

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8 UN peacekeepers killed in Congo helicopter crash

The helicopter was on a reconnaissance mission when it went down over the province of North Kivu, the place there have been clashes this week between Congolese army and the insurgent group often called M23.

Six of the crew members have been from Pakistan, and two have been army employees from Russia and Serbia, the UN peacekeeping mission stated in an announcement. There have been no survivors.

A search and rescue operation recovered the our bodies and introduced them to Goma, North Kivu’s capital.

In a condolence message Tuesday, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram confirmed the identities of the six Pakistanis killed.

“They made this final sacrifice whereas serving in Democratic Republic of Congo as a part of the UN contingent. My coronary heart goes out to the households of the martyrs,” Akram stated.

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In a information launch, Congo’s armed forces (FARDC) accused M23 of taking pictures down the helicopter. FARDC had beforehand accused Rwanda of supporting the insurgent group, which the Rwandan military denied in an announcement on Monday.

The UN mission didn’t establish the reason for the crash and stated an investigation is underway.

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‘No signs of slowing’: US egg prices soar as avian flu rips across farms

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‘No signs of slowing’: US egg prices soar as avian flu rips across farms

US egg prices are soaring to record highs as farmers are forced to slaughter millions of chickens in an attempt to halt the spread of bird flu, which has ripped through the nation’s poultry barns in recent months.

A dozen eggs reached more than $8 in wholesale markets this week, more than double the price of a year ago and the highest ever recorded, according to Expana, a commodity price information service. Grocers including Walmart and Kroger have begun to ration purchases in certain cases. The Waffle House chain — a staple in the US south and Midwest — has tacked a surcharge of 50 cents an egg on to its dishes.

Supplies of fresh eggs are falling short as farmers cull millions of hens to control a variant of avian influenza that first emerged in a US commercial flock three years ago.

Like petrol prices, eggs are a visible, if volatile, signpost of inflation to consumers. The consumer price index increased by 3 per cent year on year in January, with an index for eggs climbing more than 50 per cent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday. The average US resident will eat about 270 eggs this year, the US Department of Agriculture forecasts.

Egg prices also have political resonance and were an attack line in last year’s campaign for the White House. Then US vice-presidential candidate JD Vance in September stood before a supermarket egg case to criticise the economic policies of his predecessor Kamala Harris, when the US city average price of large Grade A eggs was $3.82 a dozen, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The price was $4.95 in January. 

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Democrats have now seized on the issue. “We went to get some eggs, and we can see the prices of these eggs had now jumped to about $8. But there were no eggs,” Ted Lieu, a Democratic representative from California, said this week of a recent trip to the grocery store.

A menu in a Waffle House restaurant displays a sticker advising customers of a 50 cent price rise per egg ‘due to the nationwide rise in cost of eggs’ in Houston, Texas on February 6 2025
Waffle House, a popular US breakfast chain, has implemented a 50 cent surcharge per egg © AFP/Getty Images

The top egg retailers are Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Albertsons and Aldi, according to Numerator. A majority — 55 per cent — of consumers have noticed shortages or out-of-stock eggs local retailers, the market research firm said. 

Chains including Kroger, Aldi and Walmart have imposed restrictions on purchases, at certain locations or in certain package sizes.

“Although supply is very tight, we’re working with suppliers to try and help meet customer demand, while striving to keep prices as low as possible,” said Walmart, which is limiting purchases of 60-count cartons to two per visit.

Cal-Maine Foods, the largest US producer and distributor of fresh shell eggs, said demand was outpacing supply as it reported quarterly gross profit of $356mn, a fourfold increase from a year before.

“Without question, we have recently faced significant challenges within our company and the entire egg industry due to the ongoing outbreaks” of avian influenza, Sherman Miller, chief executive, said last month. 

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Farmers have lost about 46mn laying hens in the past four months, or 15 per cent of a national flock of 304mn, said Karyn Rispoli, managing editor at Expana. “While bird flu has come and gone in waves over the past few years, this current outbreak is the most severe yet, with no signs of slowing,” she said. 

Gino Lorenzoni, associate professor of poultry sciences and avian health at Penn State University, said the virus is typically spread from farm to farm by wild birds. Workers coming into contact with their droppings can carry it into a chicken barn on their boots.

Once a single case is detected, an entire flock must be culled.  

“The virus is very deadly,” Lorenzoni said, but the industry tries “to get there very fast and kill the animals before the virus has a chance to spread to other facilities”. 

A woman sells eggs at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City on February 10 2025
A woman sells eggs at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York on February 10 2025 © Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Egg prices have risen not only because the flock of laying hens had declined, but because enhanced biosecurity measures such as disposable coveralls, booties and hairnets and enhanced disinfection protocols were driving up operating costs on farms, he said. 

As well, market demand for cage-free eggs had been increasing costs, as each barn contains fewer animals, Lorenzoni said. 

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The USDA this week raised its forecast for the average wholesale price of Grade A eggs to $4.44 a dozen for 2025, up by more than half from its projection in January. The department projected US hens will lay 8.96bn dozen eggs this year, cutting its outlook from last month.

Prices have remained robust in part because of solid demand over the winter holidays, said Amy Smith, vice-president at Advanced Economic Solutions, a food and agriculture consultancy. Severe winter storms in the south-east last month led households to stock up, while consumers who are taking popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs have been shifting their diets towards proteins.

Supermarkets have in some cases kept their retail egg price below the wholesale price as a loss leader, to attract customers to stores, said Smith and at Expana’s Rispoli. 

“While some price increases have been passed through, they haven’t been significant enough to curb consumer interest,” Rispoli said.

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Tulsi Gabbard confirmed as director of national intelligence, overcoming skepticism

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Tulsi Gabbard confirmed as director of national intelligence, overcoming skepticism

Tulsi Gabbard testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 30.

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The U.S. Senate has confirmed former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to lead the intelligence community as director of national intelligence, despite initial skepticism.

Gabbard was confirmed 52-48 on Wednesday after gaining broad support from Republicans during the confirmation process.

In addition to criticism about her lack of experience in intelligence, Gabbard fought back against concerns about her past statements about autocratic leaders, such as Syria’s ousted President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin. She deflected questions about her past defense of Edward Snowden, who leaked NSA secrets in 2013.

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Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., maintained his opposition to Gabbard and issued a statement after the vote saying that she “failed to demonstrate that she is prepared to assume this national trust.”

“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment,” he added. McConnell was the sole Republican vote against her confirmation.

Gabbard, a 43-year-old U.S. Army Reservist who unsuccessfully ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, will be responsible for leading 18 intelligence agencies and managing billions of dollars in budget.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., called Gabbard a “patriot” who is “motivated by service” on the chamber floor on Tuesday.

“The intelligence community needs to refocus on its core mission, collecting intelligence and providing unbiased analysis of that information. That’s what Tulsi Gabbard is committed to ensuring,” he said.

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Walt Disney cuts diversity category from executive pay scheme

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Walt Disney cuts diversity category from executive pay scheme

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Walt Disney has replaced diversity and inclusion as a standalone metric in setting executive pay, following volleys of criticism from conservative politicians who accused the entertainment group of pushing a “woke” agenda.

In an internal memo sent on Tuesday, the company said it was updating “how our values are embedded in our leader compensation programmes”. A new metric, “talent strategy”, was added to its executive pay scheme to replace the “diversity and inclusion” category, though it said “important concepts” from the old plan would remain in place. Its other performance categories, “storytelling and creativity” and “synergy”, were unchanged.

Disney is also removing advisories that it plays ahead of some old films, such as Dumbo and Peter Pan, which warn viewers they “include negative depictions and/or mistreatment of peoples or cultures”, said a person familiar with the matter. However, the advisories will be moved to a box along with other details about the film.

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The moves, which were first reported by Axios, come after other large corporations backed away from DEI programmes since the election of Donald Trump as president in November. Meta, McDonald’s and Target are among the groups that have scrapped their diversity and inclusion programmes. Goldman Sachs on Tuesday abandoned diversity rules for initial public offerings.

Disney, which has a large and active base of LGBT+ employees, positioned its shift as an adjustment rather than a wholesale scrapping of DEI policies. It promised to keep hiring processes “barrier-free” and vowed to “purposefully champion a culture where everyone belongs”.

In 2022, Disney came under withering attack for its response to a Florida law to restrict discussion of sexual or gender identity in primary schools — critics labelled the proposal “Don’t Say Gay”.

Disney’s LGBT+ employees initially criticised the company, which operates huge resorts and amusement parks in Florida, for not taking a stand against the bill. But when the group eventually opposed the proposal, the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, took actions to claw back Disney’s 50-year-old ability to run the property around its theme parks. The publicity around the episode made the company a target for conservative activists seeking to row back DEI initiatives.

Since his return to the company in November 2022, Disney chief executive Bob Iger has sought to tamp down impressions that the company is pushing a political or social agenda.

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“What I’ve really tried to do is return to our roots, which is to remember we have to entertain first. It’s not about messages,” Iger said at a 2023 conference.

He said Disney had “lost sight of what their number one objective needed to be . . . if you can infuse it with positive messages, have a good impact on the world, fantastic. But that should not be the objective.”

Anti-DEI campaigners and Republican politicians — including Trump — have hit out at Disney for featuring queer and minority characters in its films. The president in December told supporters that former Marvel chair Ike Perlmutter had “got out of Disney because they went woke”.

“He didn’t want woke Donald Duck, right?” Trump said. Disney ousted Perlmutter in 2023.

In 2022, the Pixar film Lightyear attracted criticism from conservatives who were angered by the inclusion of openly gay characters. Last year, Pixar removed transgender themes from a streaming series called Win or Lose.

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In a sign of the delicate line it has to walk between employee concerns and an array of complex political pressures, Disney also on Tuesday announced it was changing the name of an employee group to appear more inclusive. The “B” in the group once known as the Business Employee Resource Groups has been changed to Belonging.

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