Catch up on current events with these news highlights from last week.
BUSINESS
British Airways canceled around 800 flights on Saturday from London Heathrow and Gatwick airports. A power surge crippled BA’s flight, baggage, and communications systems, leaving 75,000 passengers stranded and costing BA more than $100 million in compensations, refunds, additional staffing, and lost revenue. “Delta and Southwest airlines both had similar issues within the last year and while both were very inconvenient for passengers, they didn’t have a lasting impact on the stock price.”
HEALTH
Lawmakers headed home for recess aren’t hopeful that they can get the 50 votes needed to pass health care legislation through the Senate. “Senators reported that they’ve made little progress on the party’s most intractable problems this week, such as how to scale back Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and overall Medicaid spending. Republicans have started writing the very basics of their repeal legislation, even though they’ve made few decisions about what it will say.”
POLITICS
Confused about the allegations of the Trump administration’s back-channel with Russia? Vox breaks down the Washington Post’s and New York Times’ accounts of Jared Kushner’s and future former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s connections to Moscow.
SCIENCE
Two experts from the Australian government’s Reef 2050 advisory committee claim that the plan to preserve the Great Barrier Reef from coral bleaching is “no longer feasible ‘due to the drastic impacts of climate change.'” Higher ocean temperature forces algae to abandon coral leading to mass bleaching along coral reefs and leaving reef-associated fish populations vulnerable.
WORLD
“France’s newly elected president, Emmanuel Macron, came out of his first meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday with a message of stark challenge, promising French military reprisals for any use of chemical weapons by Russia’s allies in Syria and saying he would closely monitor the curtailing of civil rights for gay people in Chechnya. The meeting was Mr. Macron’s first with the Russian leader, and he appeared intent on introducing himself as a new factor for Russia to take into consideration on the European stage. It was also a chance for Mr. Macron to show France and the rest of Europe what kinds of issues will matter to him in international relations.”