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Year: 2025

New Jersey’s medically assisted suicide law only covers state residents, appeals court rules

New Jersey’s medically assisted suicide law only covers state residents, appeals court rules

A federal appeals court ruled that New Jersey’s medical aid-in-dying law applies only to state residents, rejecting efforts by out-of-state patients and physicians to challenge the restriction. The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the state’s residency requirement, finding that New Jersey is not required to make assisted suicide available to non-residents. In an opinion written by Judge Stephanos Bibas, the court acknowledged the difficult decisions facing terminally ill patients but said the option remains limited under state law. “Death brings good things to an end, but rarely neatly,” U.S. Circuit Court Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in the opinion issued last week. “Many terminally ill patients face a grim reality: imminent, painful death. Some may want to avert that suffering by enlisting a doctor’s help to end their own lives. New Jersey lets its residents make that choice—but only its residents.” New Jersey is one of 11 states, along with Washington, D.C., that allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill adults. Most states restrict the practice to residents, though Oregon and Vermont allow access regardless of residency. LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST KANSAS LAW NULLIFYING END-OF-LIFE CHOICES FOR PREGNANT WOMEN The case began when a Delaware woman with stage four lymphoma sought to use New Jersey’s law but was blocked by the residency rule. She died after arguments in the case. A New Jersey doctor who wanted to treat patients from nearby states also joined the challenge, as did other plaintiffs who have since passed away or retired. One of the plaintiffs, Dr. Paul Bryman, said he was disappointed by the ruling. “Terminal patients outside New Jersey should have the option of medical aid in dying without having to travel long distances,” he said. DELAWARE’S ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL SIGNED INTO LAW, MAKING IT THE 11TH STATE WITH SUCH A STATUTE New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed the measure into law in 2019, saying at the time that while his Catholic faith might prevent him from choosing assisted suicide for himself, he supported the right of others to make that decision. Under the law, a patient must be an adult New Jersey resident with a terminal diagnosis and a prognosis of six months or fewer to live. Two physicians must confirm the diagnosis and the patient’s capacity to decide. Patients must make two requests — at least one of them in writing with two witnesses — and must be given the opportunity to rescind. At least one witness cannot be a family member, heir, attending physician or an employee of the facility where the patient receives care. Patients must self-administer the medication, and doctors are required to offer alternatives such as palliative care. ‘LOVE YOU FOREVER’ AUTHOR MAY SOON DIE BY ASSISTED SUICIDE, PRO-LIFE GROUPS CALL DECISION ‘HEARTBREAKING’ A lower court previously dismissed the challenge, finding that physician-assisted suicide is not a fundamental right states must extend to non-residents. The appeals court agreed. “In our federal system, states are free to experiment with policies as grave as letting doctors assist suicide. Other states are free to keep it a crime,” the appeals court ruling said. “This novel option does not appear to be a fundamental privilege, let alone a fundamental right, that states must accord visitors.” Delaware’s own aid-in-dying law goes into effect on Jan. 1. Several other countries, including Canada, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia and Colombia, have also legalized physician-assisted suicide. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Environmental group sues Trump for replacing national park pass photo with his own image

Environmental group sues Trump for replacing national park pass photo with his own image

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Wednesday to prevent President Donald Trump‘s face from appearing on next year’s National Parks Pass. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., argues the Trump administration violated the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act by substituting the winning picture from the National Parks Foundation’s annual public lands photo contest with an image of President Trump. “Blotting out the majesty of America’s national parks with a closeup of his own face is Trump’s crassest, most ego-driven action yet,” Kierán Suckling, the center’s executive director, said in a statement. “The national parks are treasured by Americans of every stripe. Their timeless power and magnificence rise above even the most bitter political differences to quietly bring all Americans together.” Suckling continued, “It’s disgusting of Trump to politicize America’s most sacred refuge by pasting his face over the national parks in the same way he slaps his corporate name on buildings, restaurants, and golf courses.” TOP TRUMP DEPARTMENT ROLLS OUT CHRISTMAS TREE SAVINGS PLAN: ‘MAKING THIS SEASON BRIGHTER’ The executive director added that national parks “are not a personal branding opportunity.” “They’re the pride and joy of the American people,” he asserted. According to the lawsuit, the 2026 America the Beautiful Pass was supposed to feature an image of Glacier National Park, the winner of the photo contest. “Instead the Department of the Interior (DOI) replaced it with a closeup of President Trump’s face,” the center said, adding that the Glacier National Park photo was “illegally relegated” to the new “Nonresident” pass. BURGUM CALLS CALIFORNIA A ‘NATIONAL SECURITY RISK’ AS ENERGY CHIEF WARNS BLUE STATES ARE SKEWING COST AVERAGES The center argued that the Trump administration broke the law by using a photo that was “not taken on federal land and was not entered in the public contest, and by creating new Resident and Nonresident passes expressly prohibited by the law.” “America the Beautiful means wild rivers and majestic mountains, not a headshot of a bloated, fragile, attention-seeking ego,” Suckling stated. “There’s nothing beautiful about that.” On Nov. 25, the DOI announced the launch of “America the Beautiful passes” intended to put “American families first” by implementing a new resident-focused fee beginning Jan. 1, 2026. The passes include photos of animals, parks, Trump with George Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt, the president most associated with the creation of America’s national parks. The Trump administration also added President Donald Trump’s birthday as a fee-free day for Americans visiting national parks, while eliminating Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the list. Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and the Department of the Interior for comment. Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

Ukraine reports large Russian mechanised assault in battle for Pokrovsk

Ukraine reports large Russian mechanised assault in battle for Pokrovsk

Russia has claimed to be in full control of Pokrovsk, but Ukrainian forces say they still control the northern part of the strategic city in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have reported an unusually large Russian mechanised attack inside the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, where Russia has reportedly massed a force of some 156,000 troops to take the beleaguered and now destroyed former logistics hub. “The Russians used armoured vehicles, cars, and motorcycles. The convoys attempted to break through from the south to the northern part of the city,” Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps said in a statement on Wednesday regarding an assault earlier in the day. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list A source in the 7th Rapid Response Corps told the Reuters news agency that Russia had deployed about 30 vehicles in convoy, making it the largest such attack yet inside the city. The source added that previously, Russia had deployed just one or two vehicles to aid troop advances. While Russia has claimed full control of Pokrovsk, Kyiv maintains that its troops still hold the northern part of the city, where fierce urban battles continue to rage. Russian troops have pushed into the city for months in small infantry groups, looking to capture the former logistics hub as a critical part of Moscow’s campaign to seize the entire industrial Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Video clips shared by the 7th Rapid Response Corps showed heavy vehicles in snow and mud, as well as drone attacks on Russian troops and explosions and burning wreckage. Russian forces were attempting to exploit poor weather conditions but had been pushed back, the unit said on Facebook. Capturing Pokrovsk would be Russia’s biggest prize in Ukraine in nearly two years, and the city’s weakening defence amid Moscow’s onslaught has added to pressure on Kyiv, which is attempting to improve terms in a United States-backed proposal for a peace deal that is widely seen as favourable to Moscow. Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, told journalists earlier this week that the situation around Pokrovsk remained difficult as Russia massed a force of some 156,000 around the beleaguered city. Advertisement Syrskii said Russian troops were staging the military buildup in the area under the cover of rain and fog. George Barros, Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War – a US-based think tank – said Moscow is “hyping” the importance of the fall of Pokrovsk “in order to portray Russia’s battlefield advances as inevitable”. “That sense of inevitability is being echoed by some members of President Donald Trump’s negotiating team trying to pull together a peace proposal for the Ukraine war,” Barros wrote in an opinion piece shared online. But Russia has paid a huge price in its push to take the city with “more than 1,000 armoured vehicles and over 500 tanks” lost in the Pokrovsk area alone since the beginning of Russia’s offensive operations in October 2023 to seize nearby Avdiivka, which fell to Russian forces in early 2024 in one of the bloodiest battles of the war so far. NEW: The Kremlin is significantly intensifying its cognitive warfare effort to present the Russian military and economy as able to inevitably win a war of attrition against Ukraine. ⬇️ The Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort aims to achieve several of Putin’s original war aims… pic.twitter.com/zXxCKrI06x — Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) December 10, 2025 On Wednesday, President Trump said he had exchanged “pretty strong words” with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany on Ukraine, telling them their plan to hold new talks on a proposed US peace plan this weekend risked “wasting time”. “We discussed Ukraine in pretty strong words,” Trump told reporters when asked about the phone call with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with. We don’t want to be wasting time,” Trump said. The initial US peace plan that involved Ukraine surrendering land that Russia has not captured was seen by Kyiv and its European allies as aligning too closely with many of Russia’s demands to end the war, and has since been revised. Trump has been pushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to the US plan while Ukrainian officials told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that Kyiv had sent an updated draft of the plan back to Washington. Adblock test (Why?)

Despite opposition, US House passes record $901bn defence spending bill

Despite opposition, US House passes record 1bn defence spending bill

The United States House of Representatives has passed a far-reaching defence policy bill authorising a record $901bn in annual military spending. The tally in Wednesday’s vote saw 312 lawmakers vote in favour of passing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with 112 opposing the bill. It has now been sent to the Senate for consideration and is expected to pass next week. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The $901bn in defence spending for the 2026 fiscal year is $8bn more than US President Donald Trump requested in May this year. The sweeping 3,086-page bill, which was unveiled on Sunday, includes typical NDAA provisions on defence acquisitions to compete militarily with rivals such as China and Russia. It also includes measures to improve living conditions for American troops, including an almost 4 percent pay rise and improvements in military base housing. Lawmakers also forced the inclusion of several provisions cementing Washington’s commitment to Europe’s defence in the face of Russian aggression, including $400m in military assistance to Ukraine in each of the next two years to help repel Russia’s invasion. Another measure requires the Pentagon to keep at least 76,000 troops and major equipment stationed in Europe unless NATO allies are consulted. This year’s bill, however, also cut several programmes reviled by Trump, including about $1.6bn in funding to initiatives focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as climate change. The legislation will now head to the Senate, with leaders aiming to pass the bill before lawmakers depart for a holiday break. Trump will then sign it into law once it reaches the White House. Bill puts pressure on Defense Secretary Hegseth over transparency of attacks The NDAA is one of a few major pieces of legislation to typically enjoy broad bipartisan support, having made it through Congress every year since its enactment in 1961. Advertisement This year’s process was rockier than usual, coming at a time of growing friction between the Republican-controlled Congress and the Trump administration over the management of the US military. Before the vote, members of both parties urged their lawmakers to support the vital defence legislation, even if they objected to individual provisions contained within it. Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington, DC, Mike Hanna, said that while there was “some significant dissent”, the bill still passed “very easily indeed”. Also tucked into the NDAA are several measures pushing back against the Department of Defense, notably a demand for more transparency on deadly attacks carried out by the US military on alleged drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in recent months. Hanna said a “very noticeable” part of the bill threatens to take away 25 percent of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel funding unless he discloses more information on the US attacks on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, including allowing lawmakers to review unedited video of the strikes and the orders given to carry out the attack. “This is a very strong move by the House forcing, it would appear, the defence secretary to provide full details of these attacks,” Hanna said. At least 86 people have been killed across 22 known strikes since the Trump administration announced the first attack in early September. The president has depicted them as a necessary counter-narcotics effort, even though they are widely considered illegal under both international and US law. Hardline conservative lawmakers had expressed frustration that the NDAA did not do more to cut US commitments overseas, including in Europe. Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers responded, saying “we need a ready, capable and lethal fighting force”. “The threats to our nation, especially those from China, are more complex and challenging than at any point in the last 40 years,” Rogers said. The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, said that while the bill does not do enough to rein in the Trump administration, it’s a “step in the right direction towards reasserting the authority of Congress”. “The biggest concern I have is that the Pentagon, being run by [Secretary Hegseth] and by President Trump, is simply not accountable to Congress or accountable to the law,” Smith said. Adblock test (Why?)

‘A gesture of love’: Italy’s cuisine joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list

‘A gesture of love’: Italy’s cuisine joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list

A UNESCO panel backed Italy’s bid, recognising Italian cuisine as a social ritual that binds families, communities. Italian cuisine, long cherished for its deep regional traditions, has been officially recognised by UNESCO as an “intangible cultural heritage” – a designation the country hopes will elevate its global prestige and draw more visitors. “We are the first in the world to receive this recognition, which honours who we are and our identity,” Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement on Instagram on Wednesday. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “For us Italians, cuisine is not just food, not just a collection of recipes. It is much more, it is culture, tradition, work, and wealth,” Meloni said. The vote by a cultural panel of UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – meeting in New Delhi capped a process Italy launched in 2023, with the government portraying the country’s culinary tradition as a social ritual that binds families and communities. 🔴 BREAKING New inscription on the #IntangibleHeritage List: Italian cooking, between sustainability and biocultural diversity, #Italy🇮🇹. Congratulations!https://t.co/xoL14QjPPR #LivingHeritage pic.twitter.com/2iY86Obn3n — UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳 (@UNESCO) December 10, 2025 ‘Cooking is a gesture of love’ UNESCO did not single out any famous dishes or regional specialities. Instead, the citation focused on how much Italians value the everyday rituals around food: the big Sunday lunch, the tradition of nonnas teaching kids how to fold tortellini just right, and simply sitting down together to enjoy a meal. Advertisement “Cooking is a gesture of love; it’s how we share who we are and how we look after each other,” said Pier Luigi Petrillo, part of Italy’s UNESCO campaign and a professor at Rome’s La Sapienza University. In its announcement, UNESCO described Italian cuisine as a “cultural and social blend of culinary traditions”. “Beyond cooking, practitioners view the element as a way of caring for oneself and others, expressing love and rediscovering one’s cultural roots. It gives communities an outlet to share their history and describe the world around them,” it added. The UNESCO listing could deliver further economic benefits to a country already renowned for its cooking and where the agri-food supply chain accounts for about 15 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP). It could also bring some relief to traditional family-run restaurants, long the backbone of Italian dining, which are facing a harsh economic climate in a market increasingly polarised between premium and budget options. The Colosseum is illuminated during a special light installation, after Italy won a place on UNESCO’s cultural heritage list [Remo Casilli/Reuters] Honouring cultural expressions Italy is not the first country to see its cuisine honoured as a cultural expression. In 2010, UNESCO inscribed the “gastronomic meal of the French” on its intangible heritage list, calling out France’s tradition of marking life’s important moments around the table. Other food traditions have been added in recent years, too, including the cider culture of Spain’s Asturian region, Senegal’s Ceebu Jen dish, and the traditional cheese-making of Minas Gerais in Brazil. UNESCO reviews new candidates for its intangible-heritage lists every year under three categories: a representative list; a list for practices considered in “urgent” need of safeguarding; and a register of effective safeguarding practices. At this year’s meeting in New Delhi, the committee evaluated 53 proposals for the representative list, which already includes 788 entries. Other nominees included Swiss yodelling, the handloom weaving technique used to make Bangladesh’s Tangail sarees, and Chile’s family circuses. A woman spoons ‘spaghetti alla Carbonara’ during a cooking competition [Andrew Medichini/AP Photo] Adblock test (Why?)