US bumblebee put on endangered list
MIAMI • US officials for the first time have placed a bee found in the continental United States on the endangered species list.
The move was taken after a precipitous decline in the rusty patched bumblebee population, due to pesticides, disease and climate change.
The bees pollinate economically important crops across the central and northern US, as well as parts of Canada.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Fist fight over Turks' Constitution reform
ANKARA • Turkish lawmakers came to blows in a brawl in Parliament overnight, during a debate on a constitutional reform package to expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
MPs from the ruling AKP and main opposition CHP threw punches and shoved one another.
The AKP, backed by the nationalist MHP, is pushing through legislation that Mr Erdogan says will bring the leadership needed to prevent a return of fragile coalition governments. The CHP and pro-Kurdish HDP fear the reform will fuel authoritarianism.
REUTERS
Netanyahu blasts Paris peace talks
JERUSALEM • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Middle East peace process talks in Paris on Sunday would be "rigged" against Israel, which has announced it will not participate.
He said the talks would adopt more "anti-Israel stances" that push peace "backwards" and called the meeting "a relic of the past... a last gasp of the past before the future sets in".
REUTERS