Trump reiterates he wants to buy Greenland for US security

Donald Trump hinted he still wants to buy Greenland, a self-ruling territory of Denmark, saying that U.S. ownership and control of the island is an “absolute necessity” for national security.

The U.S. President-elect reopened a debate from 2019, when he offered to buy what is the world’s biggest island, a proposal that was quickly rebuffed by Denmark at the time.

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Trump said on Truth Social Sunday, “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

Greenland is already crucial to American national defense, being home to a U.S. air base and a radar station. The war in Ukraine has dramatically increased the territory’s military value to the U.S. and NATO, given the island’s strategic location between the Arctic and the North Atlantic.

—Bloomberg News

Retiring Sen. Joe Manchin trashes ‘toxic’ Democrats in exit interview

Retiring Sen. Joe Manchin Monday trashed the Democratic Party as “toxic” in an interview timed to his departure from Washington D.C.

The moderate lawmaker, who won two terms as senator in deep-red West Virginian, told CNN’s Manu Raju that the national party has moved too far from its working-class roots. “The (Democratic) brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of – it’s just, it’s toxic,” Manchin said.

He explaining his decision to register as an independent earlier this year, saying he could not stick with his lifelong party “in the form of what Democratic party has turned itself into.”

Manchin, 77, a wealthy coal baron with a populist streak, sipped a beer during the interview as he slammed his former party colleagues for taking political correctness way too far.

—New York Daily News

Colorado’s landfills leak climate-warming methane into the air. What’s the state going to do about it?

Landfills in Colorado release millions of metric tons of greenhouse gasses each year as organic waste including food, paper and yard trimmings decomposes into the soil, contributing to global warming and harming human health.

Colorado, as part of its multipronged approach to eliminate 90% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, is planning to address those landfill emissions next year with rules that could require operators to install new equipment to curb the amount of methane they release and to increase monitoring technology to better track just how much is being generated.

The state’s Air Quality Control Commission is expected to create the new rules in August, which would place Colorado among the nation’s first states to enact more stringent regulations on landfills than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The state kicked off its efforts last week with the first of three public hearings to explain why environmental leaders want to regulate landfill emissions of methane, a far more potent pollutant than carbon dioxide, and how they would propose doing so.

—The Denver Post

New government takes office in Romania amid deep political crisis

BUCHAREST, Romania — A new government took office in the Romanian capital Bucharest on Monday as the country faces a deep political crisis.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis tasked incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu with forming the new government.

Ciolacu — who has been prime minister since 2023 — will lead a pro-European coalition of his Social Democrats (PSD), the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) and the UDMR/RMDSZ party representing the country's Hungarian minority.

Following parliamentary elections on December 1, eight ministers are to come from the PSD, with six from the PNL and two from the UDMR. The coalition partners also agreed to nominate PNL politician Crin Antonescu as their joint candidate for the next presidential elections, after the Romanian Constitutional Court earlier this month annulled the result of the first round of the presidential election.

—dpa