Poland’s president has signed into law one of three contested bills that organises the judiciary in a way that critics say limits their independence. President Andrzej Duda announced on Monday after days of protests that he would veto two of the bills. On Tuesday, his office said he had signed the third bill, despite demonstrations late on Monday in several cities urging him to also block that one. The law allows the justice minister, who is also the prosecutor general, to name the heads of all lower courts.

Critics say it is unconstitutional, but welcomed the president’s rejection of the other bills. One of them would have allowed the justice minister to immediately fire all supreme court justices and choose their replacements. Duda said the law on the supreme court gave excessive powers to the prosecutor general. Commentators were shocked at the move, interpreting it as a major setback for the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), which has made a big issue out of controlling Poland’s independent institutions, particularly the judiciary, since it came into power in 2015, and hailing it as a victory for demonstrators.(theguardian)…[+]

The New York Times has asked the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends to apologize for a “malicious and inaccurate segment” about the newspaper, intelligence leaks and Islamic State that aired on Saturday, apparently prompting a critical tweet from Donald Trump.

The Times published a story on Sunday that said Trump was in error when he tweeted on Saturday morning that the “failing” New York Times “foiled” a government attempt to kill Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Trump’s full tweet read: “The Failing New York Times foiled US attempt to kill the single most wanted terrorist, Al-Baghdadi. Their sick agenda over national security.” The Times noted that the Department of Defense issued a news release more than three weeks before the Times article that could have tipped off al-Baghdadi. The paper also said the Pentagon “raised no objections” with it before the 2015 article on the intelligence gleaned from the raid was published. Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said she had requested an “on-air apology and tweet” from Fox & Friends.(theguardian)…[+]

Five people have been injured, two of them seriously, when a man carrying a chainsaw stormed an office building in the Swiss town of Schaffhausen on Monday morning.

The old town of Switzerland’s northernmost city has been sealed off as police continue to search for the perpetrator. Officials told the Swiss news portal 20 Minuten that the incident was not being treated as a terrorist attack. According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, the male suspect was described as approximately 1.9m tall male, bald and of “unkempt appearance”, driving a white Volkswagen Caddy vehicle with a number plate from the canton of Graubünden. Earlier in the day the owner of a shop in the area told Blick that a man with a chainsaw was walking the streets, and that pedestrians and residents had been asked to leave shops and apartments.(theguardian)…[+]

Barbados – The Board of Directors of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has approved funding of USD25 million (mn) to replace existing streetlights in Jamaica with high efficiency light-emitting diode (LED) lamps. The funds are being provided to the Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPSCo), and will facilitate the replacement of approximately 105,000 high pressure sodium and mercury vapour streetlights.

Jamaica is on track to achieve its renewable energy target of 30 percent by 2030. However, to do it, the country must reduce its expenditure on imported petroleum products. In 2016, spending on street lighting was USD20 mn per year.

The lamps in existing street lights have an approximate lifespan of six years, and a failure rate of 20 percent per year. The Streetlight Retrofitting Project will include the supply and installation of the high-efficiency LED streetlights and related smart controllers. The controllers will allow JPSCo to be aware of, and respond to, street light failures in a timely manner. In addition, a climate risk assessment will be done during implementation, which will assess any vulnerabilities to climate change impacts, and provide recommendations to address them. The Project aligns to the Bank’s Strategic Plan 2015-2019 and Energy Sector Policy and Strategy, in which it highlights energy efficiency and renewable energy as priority investment areas for CDB. This is the fifth street lighting retrofitting project approved by CDB for its Borrowing Member Countries.(CDB)…[+]

The EU and UK Brexit teams working on the future rights of EU citizens in the UK and Britons in Europe have failed to reach agreement on 22 of the 44 issues under negotiation, a joint working paper has revealed. A detailed colour-coded document reveals there is agreement on 22 “green areas” but fundamental disagreements on 14 “red” issues and a further eight “amber” areas that need further clarification.

Among the red-light issues in the document, which is dated 19 June, is the UK’s requirement for “self-sufficient” citizens such as stay-at-home parents and students to have private health insurance or comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI). Theresa May said this would no longer be required in her official proposal to the EU in June, but it remains sticking point, according to the working paper. “Some areas marked green, eg CSI … or freedom of movement for Brits in the EU are puzzling. Is this a mistake, an oversight?” asked Anne-Laure Donskoy, chair of the 3million group campaigning for the rights to EU citizens in the UK.(theguardian)…[+]

Three Palestinians have been killed in Jerusalem amid escalating protests in the city and across Palestinian territories against new Israeli security measures at a highly sensitive holy site. Two died in separate incidents in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem after tense Friday prayers during which thousands of Palestinians prayed in the streets around the Old City after refusing to enter the compound known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, which houses the al-Aqsa mosque. A third died later in Ramallah.

The compound is considered the third holiest site in Islam and the most sacred for Jews, who call it Temple Mount. Metal detectors were installed by Israeli police after a deadly shootout inside the compound last Friday in which three Israeli-Arab gunmen killed two Israeli policeman at the Lion’s Gate entrance before fleeing back inside and being killed by police.Palestinians – and the Jordanian administered religious institution, the waqf, which takes care of the site – say the new security controls on worshippers represent a breach of the status quo at the flashpoint location. (Theguardian)…[+]

Interpol has circulated a list of 173 Islamic State fighters it believes could have been trained to mount suicide attacks in Europe in revenge for the group’s military defeats in the Middle East.The global crime fighting agency’s list was drawn up by US intelligence from information captured during the assault on Isis territories in Syria and Iraq.European counter-terror networks are concerned that as the Isis “caliphate” collapses, there is an increasing risk of determined suicide bombers seeking to come to Europe, probably operating alone.There is no evidence that any of the people on the list, whose names the Guardian has obtained, have yet entered Europe, but the Interpol circulation, designed to see if EU intelligence sources have any details on the individuals, underlines the scale of the challenge facing Europe.(theguardian)…[+]

A Saudi prince has been arrested after a video emerged online purporting to show him abusing someone and pointing a rifle at another. King Salman ordered the arrest and interrogation of the prince on Wednesday, a day after short clips were published on YouTube and shared on Twitter showing what appears to be a rifle pointed towards a man bleeding from the head and pleading.

One video, viewed more than 760,000 times, shows 18 bottles of Johnnie Walker Red Label whisky on a table and a wad of cash. The sale and consumption of alcohol in Saudi Arabia is forbidden. Another shows a man sitting in a car, bleeding and being cursed at for parking in front of a house, while a further clip shows what appears to be the prince punching and slapping a man sitting on a chair. The clips went viral in Saudi Arabia under an Arabic Twitter hashtag that said “prince transgresses on citizens”.(theguardian)…[+]

A powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.7 has killed at least two people on the Greek island of Kos. The quake struck near major Turkish and Greek tourist destinations in the Aegean sea in the early hours of Friday, Turkish and Greek officials said.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors earthquakes, said it was a very shallow quake – only 10km (6.2 miles) below the seabed – off the southwestern coastal city of Marmaris in the Mugla province. The epicentre was just 10km south of the Turkish resort of Bodrum and 16km east-northeast of Kos. The Turkish towns of Bodrum and Datca, and Kos in the Dodecanese Islands archipelago are all major tourist destinations. George Kyritsis, the mayor of Kos, told Reuters that at least two people were killed in the Greek island and several were injured by the quake. “We have two dead and some people injured so far,” Kyritsis said. The island’s port was among structures that sustained damage and a ferry en route there was not docking, the coast guard said.(theguardian)…[+]

The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, insisted on Thursday that he would continue in his job “as long as that is appropriate”, despite Donald Trump’s barrage of criticism of him. Trump had said in an interview published late Wednesday that he regretted giving him the job after Sessions recused himself from investigations into links with the Trump campaign and Russia.

As he marked six months in office, the president appeared increasingly upset over Sessions stepping aside on the issue and Robert Mueller subsequently being appointed as the special counsel investigating possible ties between Trump and Russia. Amid signs of Mueller’s inquiries expanding, and just hours after Trump had publicly criticized Sessions, who was one of Trump’s earliest supporters, the attorney general had to appear at a scheduled press event, where he gave a muted defense of his continued work to further the president’s agenda. Sessions said: “I have the honor of serving as attorney general. It’s something that goes beyond any thought I would have ever had for myself. We love this job. We love this department and I plan to continue to do so, as long as that is appropriate.”(theguardian)…[+]