Washington is deeply concerned over the release this week of a Sudanese man facing the death penalty in connection with the killing of a U.S. diplomat in 2008, the State Department said on Wednesday.

Abdelraouf Abuzeid was found guilty in the killing of American John Granville and a Sudanese colleague, who both worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development and were killed by gunmen in Khartoum.

An assertion by Abuzeid’s family that the United States agreed to his release as part of a Sudanese government settlement with the victims was inaccurate, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.

Price said the U.S. government is deeply troubled by a lack of transparency in the legal process that resulted in his release.

“We will continue to seek clarity about this decision,” Price said.

Abuzeid’s brother told Reuters on Monday that his sibling was released by the country’s high court two years after a financial settlement was reached between the Sudanese government and Granville’s family.

Abuzeid remains listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States.

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The European Commission presented its Green Deal Industrial Plan on Wednesday in response to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), with increased levels of state aid to help Europe compete as a manufacturing hub for clean tech products.

While EU countries welcome the U.S. commitment to energy transition, they fear the IRA’s $369 billion of subsidises for electric vehicles and other clean technologies could put companies based in Europe at a disadvantage.

EU countries are worried their companies will suffer because of U.S. tax breaks, many of which are only applicable for local produced content.

For electric vehicles, U.S. consumers can earn tax breaks of $7,500 but only if the vehicle’s final assembly is in North America, where at least half of the value of the vehicle battery components must also be manufactured.

EU countries say this goes against the basic World Trade Organization principle of non-discrimination, that one’s own and foreign products should be treated alike.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said that, while subsidies to foster the energy transition are acceptable, they should comply with WTO rules and there should be a level playing field.

Europe-based companies are put at a disadvantage to U.S. rivals and, say EU politicians, may choose to relocate or at least prioritise investment in the United States, making it a leader in clean tech production at Europe’s expense.

Companies looking to set up factories may put U.S. expansion first.

The EU is not Washington’s only ally to take exception to the package, with South Korea also concerned its carmakers will not be eligible for the U.S. tax breaks.

The EU wants the same treatment as U.S. trade partners Canada and Mexico, whose production is largely included in the subsidy schemes, but many EU officials believe the bloc is unlikely to see all its demands met.

Any revision of the act by the U.S. Congress is out of the question, so European officials see their best hope in guidance on implementation issued by the U.S. Treasury Department.

In December, it secured a partial win when the Treasury said that electric vehicles built outside North America would qualify for tax credits if leased by consumers.

The Treasury is set to provide guidelines in March for electric vehicles bought by consumers, but there appears less room for manoeuvre.

The European Commission and the White House have set up a high-level task force to discuss the issue. One possible opening would be for Washington to grant the EU the concessions it will offer free trade agreement partners – such as on supply of critical materials for vehicle batteries.

The EU does not have a free trade agreement with the United States, although the transatlantic partners regularly discuss trade issues, such as in their Trade and Technology Council.

No one wants to rekindle trade tensions that damaged transatlantic relations during the Trump administration, so European officials say that challenging the United States at the WTO is only a final and unlikely option.

France has led calls for Europe to respond with state support of its own for European companies, including through a “buy European act” and large-scale subsidies.

The European Commission has proposed a loosening of state aid rules to allow support for investments in renewables, for decarbonising industry and for “strategic equipment”, such as batteries, solar panels, wind turbines and heat pumps.

Aware that not all 27 EU countries will be able to offer subsidies to the same extent as France or Germany, the Commission says EU members can draw on existing funds, much of them remaining from the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund.

Longer term, the European Commission says it will propose a European Sovereignty Fund, but it is unclear how it will operate and how it will be funded.

There is already clear resistance from certain EU members to suggestions that the EU’s plan could eventually entail further joint borrowing.

($1 = 0.9649 euros)

Pope Francis heard harrowing accounts from victims of conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday, including rape, amputation, forced cannibalism and sexual slavery, and he condemned the atrocities as war crimes.

In a poignant encounter at the Vatican’s embassy in the capital Kinshasa, victim after victim told their story to the pontiff before laying down objects symbolising their suffering, such as a machete or a dagger, before a large wooden crucifix.

They included Ladislas Kambale Kombi, 16, from a village in North Kivu province in the east, who saw his father beheaded and dismembered and his mother kidnapped by militia men, leaving him and two younger sisters alone.

“Holy Father, it’s horrible to witness such a scene. It never leaves me. At night, I can’t sleep. It’s hard to understand such cruelty, such quasi-animal brutality,” he told the pope, before laying down a machete at the crucifix.

After speaking and putting down their objects, Kombi and the other victims then knelt in front of the pope, who put his hand on their heads and held their hands, each in turn, and blessed them quietly.

Emelda M’karhungulu was among several women who recounted their experiences of sexual violence. She said that in 2005, then aged 16, she was kidnapped by rebels who attacked her village in South Kivu province, and took her to a forest camp where she was raped every day for three months by up to 10 men.

“We want a different future. We want to leave behind us this dark past and be in a position to build a beautiful future. We demand justice and peace,” she told the pope, laying down paramilitary clothing like that worn by her kidnappers.

Eastern Congo has been plagued for decades by conflict driven in part by the struggle for control of vast mineral deposits between the government, rebels and foreign invaders, and in part by the fallout from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Bijoux Makumbi Kamala, 17, recounted her abduction from her village in North Kivu in 2020 and her 19 months of detention in a rebel camp, during which she was raped every day by a commander until she escaped, pregnant with twins.

She told how her captors mixed human flesh from the victims they killed or maimed and forced captives to eat it.

Carrying her daughters, one on her front and one on her back, she laid down a small floor mat, a symbol of her past subjugation, before the crucifix. The pope held her hands and those of her daughters as he blessed them.

Two other young women held up what was left of their upper limbs. One was missing her hands and the left arm of the other was cut off at the elbow.

Francis, who was on the first full day of his visit to Congo and had earlier celebrated Mass in front of a million people, responded to these stories with an emotional speech calling for an end to violence and resignation.

“Your tears are my tears. Your pain is my pain. To every family that grieves or is displaced by the burning of villages and other war crimes, to the survivors of sexual violence and to every injured child and adult, I say: I am with you,” he said.

Appealing to all parties, internal and external, who orchestrate war in Congo in order to plunder the country, he said: “Enough! Stop getting rich at the cost of the poor, stop getting rich from resources and money stained with blood!”

Armed conflict has killed millions of people over the past decades, left 5.7 million people internally displaced and 26 million facing severe hunger in the coming months, according to the United Nations.

The pope spoke of “polarising struggles in which ethnic, territorial and group dynamics intertwine”, acknowledging that conflicts over land and weak institutions played a part.

“Yet it is, above all, a war unleashed by an insatiable greed for raw materials and money that fuels a weaponized economy and requires instability and corruption,” he said.

“What a scandal and what hypocrisy, as people are being raped and killed, while the commerce that causes this violence and death continues to flourish!” he said.

During his Mass at an airport in Kinshasa earlier, the pope urged the Congolese people to grant each other a “great amnesty of the heart” and called on any Christians engaged in battle to lay down their arms.

The people of Kinshasa have given the pope one of the most vibrant welcomes of his foreign trips. On his arrival on Tuesday, tens of thousands lined his motorcade route, and at his Mass on Wednesday hundreds of thousands sang and danced.

A papal stop in the eastern city of Goma, foreseen when the trip was originally scheduled for last July, was later scrapped because of a flare-up in violence in the region last year between the M23 rebel group and government troops.

Thursday will be the pope’s last full day in Congo, before he departs on Friday for neighbouring South Sudan, another country grappling with conflict and hunger.

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U.S. stock indexes fell on Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates later in the day, while an upbeat outlook from Advanced Micro Devices lifted chipmakers.

The Fed is widely seen as raising its target interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point in its first policy meeting of the year, after rapid increases in 2022 to tame decades-high inflation.

Money markets are betting on one more 25 basis point (bps) hike in March, and a terminal rate of 4.9% in June.

“It’s really boiling down to a longer term outlook beyond this policy meeting and where this peak terminal rate with Fed funds is going to be,” Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial.

Recent readings have indicated that inflation is easing, with the Fed also looking at data that will determine the resilience of the labor market and the pace of wage growth.

Meanwhile, data showed U.S. job openings unexpectedly rose in December ahead of the Labor Department’s comprehensive report on nonfarm payrolls for January due on Friday.

Separately, data showed U.S. manufacturing contracted further in January as higher interest rates stifled demand for goods.

“It’s going to come down to the narrow line between avoiding a recession and entering a recession. That’s the Fed’s issue as they finish up their two-day policy meeting today,” Turnquist added.

All three indexes had a strong start to the year, with the S&P (.SPX) and the Dow (.DJI) witnessing their first gain for January since 2019 as investors returned to markets, which were bruised in the previous year by a hawkish Fed.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.O) added 8.0% as the semiconductor maker said it expects its business to improve in the second half of the year, propping the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX), which climbed 1.8%.

All of the 11 major sectors on the S&P 500 were down, with technology shares (.SPLRCT) falling the least.

Snap Inc (SNAP.N) tumbled 14.2% after the social media company said it expects current-quarter revenue to decline by as much as 10%.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) dipped 0.1% ahead of reporting fourth-quarter results after the bell.

At 12:21 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was down 381.36 points, or 1.12%, at 33,704.68, the S&P 500 (.SPX) was down 25.69 points, or 0.63%, at 4,050.91, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) was down 51.42 points, or 0.44%, at 11,533.13.

Dow component Amgen Inc (AMGN.O) dropped 4.8% as the drugmaker said its fourth-quarter revenue fell slightly, while videogame publisher Electronic Arts Inc (EA.O) slumped 12.0% on lowering its annual bookings forecast.

Seventy percent of the 200 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported fourth-quarter earnings have topped Wall Street expectations. Analysts now see earnings of S&P 500 firms declining 2.4% for the quarter, per Refinitiv estimates.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.48-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.13-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 13 new 52-week highs and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 75 new highs and 21 new lows.

Supernovas are not always so super. These explosions that mark the death of a star often are spectacularly energetic. But once in a while they are a complete dud.

Scientists on Wednesday detailed one of the duds – a massive star that had so much of its material siphoned off by the gravitational tug of a companion star in a stellar marriage called a binary system that by the time it came to explode at the end of its life cycle it could barely manage a whimper.

Its eventual explosion was so tame, in fact, that the collapsed star – now an incredibly dense object called a neutron star – remains in a docile circular orbit with its companion. A more powerful explosion at the very least would have resulted in a more oval-shaped orbit and even could have sent the star and its companion hurtling in opposite directions.

This binary system, studied using a telescope at the Chile-based Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, is located about 11,000 light years from Earth in our Milky Way galaxy in the direction of the constellation Puppis. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

The neutron star’s mass is about 1.4 times that of our sun, having previously been 12 times more massive than the sun. Its companion star boasts a mass 18 to 19 times greater than the sun after cannibalizing its mate. The two stars orbit around each other every 59-1/2 days, separated by about eight-tenths of the distance existing between Earth and the sun.

The anemic stellar explosion that did occur was called an “ultra-stripped” supernova. These happen when a massive star collapses as it runs out of fuel in its core, but cannot manage a strong blast because a companion star has sucked off much of its outer layers and removed material that otherwise would be violently ejected into space.

“Since there is little material in the stellar envelope, there is almost no ejecta from the shock of the collapse,” said Arizona-based astronomer Noel Richardson of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

Study co-author Clarissa Pavao, an Embry-Riddle undergraduate student studying physics, described the explosion as: “Faint, subtle and passive.”

“If there was more of an explosion, the orbit would not be circular,” Richardson said. “A normal supernova wouldn’t necessarily destroy the companion, but could disrupt the orbit a lot more. It could, for example, give a kick to the system that either makes the orbit much more elliptical or even sends the surviving star and the neutron star on fast trajectories in opposite directions with speeds that could even send them out of the galaxy.”

The type of binary system examined in this study is rare, with roughly 10 estimated to exist in a Milky Way populated by about 100-400 billion stars.

Unlike the lonely sun, perhaps half of our galaxy’s stars reside in binary systems. Scientists have pondered whether planets capable of harboring life exist in such systems, as depicted, for example, with “Star Wars” character Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine.

“We know of some systems that are binaries with planets, but these are harder to confirm, and all of these are for stars with masses like our sun,” Richardson said. “In the case of these massive stars, we have not yet detected planets around them. The stars weigh so much more and are more luminous than sun-like stars, making the planet detection more difficult than around the smaller stars.”