QUICK HITS

1 Battleship on the river: USS New Jersey heads for repairs:

Residents in the Philadelphia area are about to see a rare site — a battleship floating down the Delaware River. The USS New Jersey is scheduled to move today from its dock in Camden, New Jersey, when it will head to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for extensive maintenance work. The retired battleship will initially head to the Paulsboro Marine Terminal, where it will be balanced to prepare for dry docking, and will then go to the Navy Yard six days later. The maintenance work is expected to take about two months. The ship’s website says it’s the most decorated battleship in Navy history. It has been a floating museum since 2011.

2 Vietnam’s president resigns over communist breaches:

President Vo Van Thuong of Vietnam has resigned after violating Communist Party regulations, state media reported Wednesday, the second president to step down in a little more than a year. While the president is part of a leadership collective and largely ceremonial, Thuong’s resignation is likely to unnerve many officials within a oneparty system that prides itself on unity and stability. And it could be a sign of an internal power struggle for the future.

3 Ireland’s prime minister steps down in surprise move:

Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s barrierbreaking taoiseach, or prime minister, said Wednesday he would step down as the country’s leader, days after the defeat of two referendums that the coalition government had championed and after years of waning public support for his political party, Fine Gael. Ireland is scheduled to hold a general election early next year, and his decision will not trigger an earlier election, he said.

4 Extreme heat wave pushes South Sudan to close schools:

Extreme heat is forcing South Sudan to close its schools. Authorities have ordered schools shuttered across the world’s youngest nation since Monday because of a wave of excessive heat that is expected to last at least two weeks. Temperatures are forecast to reach 113 degrees Fahrenheit, far above typical 90-degree highs.

5 Google fined $271 million in French clash with news outlets:

Alphabet Inc.’s Google was fined $271 million by France’s competition watchdog for failing to keep its pledge to broker fair agreements with media outlets for publishing links to their content, including by plundering press articles to train its AI technology, without informing them. The regulator said Wednesday that Google had failed to respect commitments to negotiate deals with press publishers in good faith, and that it improperly trained its Bard generative AI chatbot on press content.