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Novak Djokovic said he had no regrets about missing tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami due to his Covid-19 vaccination status but hoped that he would be allowed into the United States later this year for the US Open.

OTTAWA, March 24 (Reuters) - The United States and Canada must together build a North American market on everything from semiconductors to solar panel batteries, in the face of growing competition, including from an "increasingly assertive China," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.

Overshooting climate thresholds can seem inevitable, and we may feel powerless to stop it. It can be overwhelming nonetheless to contrast how little is being done about climate change with the clarity of the science. But we are not without power to alter this course by making different decisions every day that, when added up, can reduce the severity of global warming we will live with for decades to come.

A new Federal Reserve program that offers subsidized loans to banks is also a good idea under the circumstances. President Biden´s pledge on Monday that "we´ll do whatever is needed" was needed. The government´s decision to guarantee the full amount of insured and uninsured deposits at Silicon Valley Bank and New York´s Signature Bank is the best choice available to preserve the health of the broader economy.

"We strongly believe that now is not the time to consider the opening up of a pathway for Russian and Belarusian athletes to return to the Olympic Games in any status," the Polish foreign ministry said in a statement issued jointly with Britain, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The catastrophe was compounded by the failure to plan for what came next. Iraqis watched as power stations and national treasures were looted, while American troops guarded the oil ministry and Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, glibly dismissed the turmoil: "Freedom´s untidy." The security vacuum and de-Ba´athification strategy fomented sectarianism not only in Iraq itself, but far beyond its borders - and fueled terrorism that has proved not only most deadly in the region, but has taken lives in the west, too. Later decisions such as support for Nouri al-Maliki made matters worse.

"While the IOC has made no final decisions yet, we strongly urge it to reconsider its plans and return to the original well-proven stance supported by the international community," the Polish statement said.

WARSAW, March 27 (Reuters) - Russian and Belarusian athletes should be banned from the 2024 Olympics in Paris unless Moscow pulls its forces out of Ukraine, according to Poland, Britain and the Baltic states, despite the IOC saying it plans to let them compete as neutrals.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned Russia and Belarus after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but is now reluctant to exclude their athletes from the Olympics entirely for fear of a return to the boycotts of the Cold War era.

Alabama´s new Republican secretary of state campaigned last year on leaving ERIC and withdrew on his second day in office. Louisiana was the first to quit last year. Trump demanded on social media that states drop out.

Humans have already overheated Earth by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit). We have to cancel and retire existing fossil fuel projects as well. To avoid irreversible damage to our communities and ecosystems, we can´t just stop permitting new oil and gas drilling and coal- and gas-fired power plants, and end production of combustion-engine vehicles.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre piled on by claiming Moderna´s price hike is "hard to justify" even as Biden officials hail the benefits of Covid vaccines and boosters. If they are as effective as public-health officials say, then the benefits from reducing hospitalizations among the elderly would more than exceed the new higher price.

March 23 (Reuters) - The United States and Canada have reached a deal that would allow for the closure of an unofficial border crossing between New York state and the province of Quebec, but the final details still need to be worked out, a Canadian government source familiar with the talks told Reuters.

It did not take long for anyone to realize that the Iraq war was the disaster that many had predicted; not much longer than it took to confirm that it was launched on a lie and that there were no weapons of mass destruction. When the 10th anniversary arrived, Islamic State (IS), birthed by the war´s fallout, had yet to make its frightening rise to establishing a "caliphate". Whatever relief or joy was felt by Iraqis at the fall of Saddam Hussein´s violent and oppressive regime, it was soon subsumed by the horror of what followed. The body count and wider damage have not stopped rising since. Two decades on from the beginning of the war, with the "shock and awe" assault of March 19, 2003, we are still fathoming the impact of the U.S.-led and U.K.-backed invasion.