Many of the world's largest companies are failing to take significant enough steps to meet their pledges to vastly reduce the impact of their greenhouse gas emissions in the decades ahead.

That's the conclusion of a new report by the NewClimate Institute, an environmental organization that works to combat global warming. Its researchers, who examined the actions of 25 companies, concluded that many of them are misleading consumers by using accounting practices that make their environmental goals relatively meaningless or are excluding key parts of their businesses in their calculations.

The European Union announced a $48 billion plan Tuesday to become a major microchip producer to try to curb its dependency on Asian markets for the component that powers everything from cars to hospital ventilators and game consoles.

At a time when natural gas shortages and reliance on Russia for energy shows the political risks of economic dependency, the 27-nation bloc is moving to boost its economic independence in the critical semiconductor sector with its Chips Act.

Thailand on Tuesday moved one step closer toward being the first Asian nation to decriminalize marijuana, after its health minister signed a measure officially dropping cannabis from a list of controlled drugs.

The delisting will mean all parts of cannabis, including flowers and seeds, are allowed to be used in Thailand. However, extracted content will remain illegal if it contains more than 0.2% of the psychoactive ingredient that produces a "high" — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

COVID-19 vaccine sales boosted Pfizer earnings well past expectations in the fourth quarter, but the drugmaker is setting a lower-than-expected bar for 2022.

Pfizer debuted on Tuesday annual forecasts for both earnings and revenue that fell short of analyst expectations even as the drugmaker expects another robust year of sales from its vaccine, Comirnaty, and its new coronavirus treatment, Paxlovid.

The hawksbill sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, its shell ashen and stomach taut.

A week ago, the adolescent turtle washed up on a beach in Kalba, a city on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates. Once unspoiled, the coast of mangrove trees is now fouled by piles of trash dragged from nearby landfills. Strewn across the shore are plastic bags, packages, bottle caps — and far too often, dead turtles.

Israel says security forces killed three Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday who had been responsible for recent shooting attacks.

The Shin Bet internal security agency says the men were armed and in a vehicle, and were killed in a clash with security forces. No Israelis were harmed in the shooting, it said.

Japanese automaker Nissan swung back into the black for the quarter through December, despite shortages of computer chips that have hit the entire industry and many other manufacturers.

Nissan Motor Co., allied with Renault SA of France, reported Tuesday a 32.7 billion yen ($284 million) profit for the fiscal third quarter, a reversal from the 37.8 billion yen loss racked up a year ago.

Diplomatic efforts to defuse the tensions around Ukraine continued on Tuesday with French President Emmanuel Macron expected in Kyiv the day after hours of talks with the Russian leader in Moscow yielded no apparent breakthroughs.

Macron is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as fears of a possible Russian invasion mount. Moscow has massed over 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders, but insists it has no plans to attack Ukraine. The Kremlin has demanded guarantees from the West that NATO will not accept Ukraine and other former Soviet nations as members, halt weapon deployments there and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe — demands the U.S. and NATO reject as nonstarters.

Libya's parliament said it will name a new prime minister this week to head the transitional government, a move that will likely lead to parallel administrations in the already chaotic nation.

Two candidates — former Interior Minister Fathi Bashaga and Minister-Counsellor Khalid al-Baibas — have submitted their bids to replace Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. They appeared in a parliamentary session Monday in the eastern city of Tobruk to present their plans.

In a flurry of diplomacy across two continents, President Joe Biden met with Germany's new leader and vowed the crucial Nord Stream 2 Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline will be blocked if Russia further invades Ukraine. Russia's Vladimir Putin retorted that the U.S. and its allies are the only ones talking invasion.

Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron met for more than five hours in Moscow at the same time Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke at the White House in efforts to defuse the crisis before armed conflict breaks out. Russia has massed thousands of troops at the Ukraine border, adding military might almost daily.