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Air France-KLM flew a biofuel-powered Airbus A350 from Paris to Montreal on Tuesday, demonstrating the airline's readiness to adopt low-emissions fuel despite deep industry divisions over the pace of its adoption.
Air France flight 342 took off from Charles de Gaulle airport with a 16% mix of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in its fuel tanks, produced in France by Total from used cooking oil.
The flight signalled a "shared ambition to decarbonize air transportation and to develop a SAF supply chain in France", the companies said in a joint statement with airport operator ADP .
Jet fuel produced from biomass or synthetically from renewable power has the potential to slash carbon emissions, albeit at a heavy cost by comparison to the price of kerosene.
Starting next year, flights departing from France will be required to use 1% SAF, ahead of European Union goals to reach 2% by 2025 and 5% by 2030 under the bloc's Green Deal policy.
But traditional network airlines have sought to exempt long-haul flights, arguing that a Europe-only SAF requirement could expose them to unfair foreign competition.
That has drawn an angry response from low-cost airlines including Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet , which wrote to the EU in March to demand that the rules apply to all flights originating in Europe.
Airlines have a "major responsibility" to cut emissions, Air France-KLM Chief Executive Ben Smith said on Tuesday - while reiterating doubts about European SAF quotas for long-haul.
"We have to be on a level playing field," Smith told Reuters. "We can't have a situation where airlines that are based outside Europe can undercut us, (and) that is a real concern."
Transport and Environment, a Brussels-based campaign group that signed the budget carriers' open letter, again rejected calls to exclude long-haul from biofuel rules.
Any such exemption would have "no logic", the group's aviation director Andrew Murphy said.
Green fuel used for the Paris-Montreal flight was produced by Total at its Oudalle plant near Le Havre as well as La Mede, a refinery in southern France converted to biofuels in 2019.
(REUTERS)
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The Pasquotank County, North Carolina District Attorney announced Tuesday he will not be filing charges against police officers who shot Andrew Brown, Jr., an unarmed 42-year old Black man, in the head, killing him while serving an arrest warrant on April 21. After holding a lengthy press conference Andrew Womble became defensive when asked about releasing the video, and later when asked how he could make a decision to not charge officers when all the facts are not in.
"I'm not releasing the video, this is done," Womble told reporters. "Anything in my office is not public record by statute."
The Associated Press adds: "Womble, who showed portions of the video at the news conference, said Tuesday that he would not release the video."
Womble reportedly has a total of about two hours of video from police body cams, but only allowed the family of Andrew Brown, Jr. to see less than 20 minutes worth. He showed a very small portion of video on Tuesday to support his decision to not file charges against any of the officers.
Womble went on to say that any release of the video would have to be done through the court, but when asked if he had requested the video be released he said he had not.
“You can not swing a skunk in front of a group of people then ask them not to smell it," Womble said last month.
On Tuesday Womble told reporters, "Mr. Brown's death, while tragic, was justified, because Mr. Brown's actions caused three deputies with the Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office to reasonably believe it was necessary to use deadly force to protect themselves and others."
After urging the public to not "jump to conclusions until all the facts are out," one reporter reminded Womble he had just admitted he did not have all the facts.
"Do you think all the facts are out?" the reporter said. "You told us that you don't know how fast the car was going, whether the car was decelerating or accelerating. And the still images you showed us told a different story, before the first shot was fired. Once you put the video in motion, it looked like Brown was turning away from the officer."
"I'm sorry, your question is?" Womble, defensively replied.
"How do you respond to that?" the reporter posited.
"What was the question?" Womble again replied.
"Are you sure all the facts are in?" the reporter continued. "You said you don't know if the car was decelerating or accelerating."
"I know that all of the facts that I needed to make this decision are in," Womble replied.
"Isn't that important?" the reporter pressed. "That's important. If you look at the video. If you look at the video in motion, it looks like he's turning away before the first shot is fired, that's important."
"Sir, there are several cases," Womble said defensively, "there's a litany of cases in our American jurisprudence where shots are fired into still cars, cars that aren't moving. So, the speed at which Mr. Brown is moving at the officers...not relevant in my determination."
The reporter said if Brown had hit the brakes, "isn't that important?"
Womble refused to answer and went to another reporter.
The full video of Womble's press conference is here:
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The number of vaccinated House representatives has seemingly topped out, with more than half of Republicans refusing to disclose their status.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) claimed 75 percent of his party's members had been vaccinated in early March and called for the House to return to its pre-pandemic voting and committee rules, but several months later there's been no change in vaccination rates, according to the Washington Post's Paul Kane.
All 219 House Democrats told CNN they had been vaccinated, while only 95 of 211 GOP members will say whether they had been.
So, according to Kane, if vaccination rates had not risen high enough for the Democratic majority to lift pandemic safety rules, that's due to the Republican minority's refusal.
Polls have consistently shown a partisan divide in willingness to be vaccinated, with 41 percent of Republicans in one recent survey who don't plan to get the shots, compared with 4 percent of Democrats who say the same.
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