CAIRO (AP) — A high-profile paramilitary commander in Sudan has changed sides and joined the country’s army in a move welcomed by army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan shortly after the war entered its fourth year.
Burhan on Sunday welcomed Maj. Gen. al-Nour Ahmed Adam, who defected earlier this month from the Rapid Support Forces. The ruling sovereign council posted a video on social media showing Burhan’s meeting with Adam, who is known as al-Qubba, in Sudan’s Northern province on the border with Egypt.
“Doors are open to all those who lay down arms and join the path of national reconstruction,” Burhan, who chairs the sovereign council, said in a statement.
The RSF didn’t comment on the defection.
Adam fled the RSF-controlled Darfur region earlier this month and joined the military along with dozens of fighters and equipment, according to local media.
The Sudan Tribune news outlet reported that Adam left after “disputes” with the RSF leadership, mainly over not appointing him as a military commander of North Darfur province after the RSF seized control of el-Fasher city in October – the military’s last stronghold in the Darfur region.
Adam is one of the most senior officers to defect from the paramilitaries during the war. In 2024, Abu Aqla Kaikel, who led the Sudan Shield Forces, left the RSF when the military retook the crucial central province of Gezira.
The war broke out in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the sprawling country.
The war has killed at least 59,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED. The U.S.-based war tracking group said its toll was almost certainly low given difficulties in reporting.
A minibus drives past an empty checkpoint where a mannequin dressed as a soldier stands in downtown Khartoum, Sunday, April 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday loosened federal rules that require grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment, a step President Donald Trump said would help lower grocery costs.
Trump, at a White House ceremony, said the action by the Environmental Protection Agency would “substantially lower costs for consumers” by delaying costly restrictions that limit the type of refrigerants U.S. businesses and families can use.
The move to relax the Biden-era rules on harmful pollutants known as HFCs emitted by refrigerators and other appliances was the latest attempt by the Trump administration to try to address rising voter concerns over the cost of living ahead of pivotal elections in November.
It is not clear how much or how quickly the loosening of the refrigerant rule might impact grocery prices. Industry groups said the move could even raise prices because manufacturers have already redesigned products, retooled factories and trained workers to build and service next-generation refrigerant equipment.
Inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, amid price spikes caused by the Iran war and President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.
The Biden-era regulation was “unnecessary and costly and actually makes the machinery worse,” Trump said at a ceremony joined by top executives from Kroger, Piggly Wiggly and other grocery chains. The EPA action will protect hundreds of thousands of jobs and save Americans more than $2 billion a year, he said.
The Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, which represents more than 330 HVAC manufacturers and commercial refrigeration companies, said the change in approach would “inject uncertainty across the market” and could even raise prices.
“This rule works against basic supply and demand,” said Stephen Yurek, the group’s president and CEO. “By extending the compliance deadline” for phasing out hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, the administration “is maintaining and even increasing demand in the market for existing refrigerants while supply continues to fall.”
Manufacturers have already retooled product lines and certified models based on the existing timeline, Yurek said. Nearly 90% of residential and light commercial air conditioning systems use substitute refrigerants, rather than HFCs, he said.
The administration's action on refrigerants represents a reversal after Trump signed a law in his first term that aimed to reduce harmful, planet-warming pollutants emitted by refrigerators and air conditioners. That bipartisan measure brought environmentalists and major business groups into rare alignment on the contentious issue of climate change and won praise across the political spectrum.
The 2020 law reflected a broad bipartisan consensus on the need to quickly phase out domestic use of HFCs, greenhouse gases that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and are considered a major driver of global warming.
The EPA action highlights the second Trump administration’s drive to roll back regulations perceived as climate friendly. The plan is among a series of sweeping environmental changes that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has said will put a “dagger through the heart of climate change religion.”
Environmentalists criticized the administration’s actions, saying the new rule would exacerbate climate pollution while disrupting a yearslong industry transition to new coolants as an alternative to HFCs.
The 2020 law signed by Trump, known as the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, phased out HFCs as part of an international agreement on ozone pollution. The law accelerated an industry shift to alternative refrigerants that use less harmful chemicals and are widely available.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Chemistry Council, the top lobbying group for the chemical industry, were among numerous business groups that supported the law and an international deal on pollutants, known as the Kigali Amendment, as victories for jobs and the environment. U.S. companies such as Chemours and Honeywell developed and produce the alternative refrigerants sold in the United States and around the world.
The 2023 rule now being relaxed imposed steep restrictions on HFCs starting in 2026. Zeldin said the rule from the Democratic Biden administration did not give companies enough time to comply and that the rapid switch to other refrigerants caused shortages and price increases last year. Some in the industry dispute this.
The Food Industry Association, which represents grocery stores and suppliers, applauded the Trump EPA proposal last year, saying the earlier rule “imposed significant and unrealistic compliance timelines.”
Kevin McDaniel, Piggly Wiggly franchise owner, speaks during an event with President Donald Trump about loosening a federal refrigerant rule, in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, May 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Kroger CEO Greg Foran speaks speaks during an event with President Donald Trump about loosening a federal refrigerant rule, in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, May 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection Agency administrator, listens as President Donald Trump speaks during an event about loosening a federal refrigerant rule, in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, May 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump speaks during an event about loosening a federal refrigerant rule, in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, May 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
FILE - A shop owner reaches into a drink display refrigerator at his convenience store in Kent, Wash., Oct. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
