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Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer fight over spiraling NHS waiting lists at PMQs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

Prime minister’s questions: a shouty, jeery, very occasionally useful advert for British politics. Here’s what you need to know from today’s session in POLITICO’s weekly run-through.Housekeeping note: After two weeks in a row of low-energy battles between deputies Oliver Dowden and Angela Rayner at PMQs, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer returned to the fray today. Don’t get used to seeing them though — the Commons will rise tomorrow for a six-week recess.What they sparred about: Politics is all about the pledges in 2023. On the day some actual progress was made towards one of Sunak’s core pledges to halve inflation, Starmer pressed the PM on another key promise: lowering NHS waiting lists, which are currently higher than they have ever been. What Sunak wanted to talk about: The PM tried to blame long health service waits on strikes in the public sector — and said Starmer should “unglue himself from the fence” and decide if he supports them or not.What Starmer wan...

Putin to dodge summit in South Africa over arrest warrant

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes committed in Ukraine, will not attend a summit of BRICS countries in South Africa next month, the South African presidency said Wednesday.“By mutual agreement, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will not attend the Summit but the Russian Federation will be represented by Foreign Minister, Mr Sergey Lavrov,” the South African government said in a statement.In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Putin over the forced transfer of children to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.The warrant put South Africa — which has enjoyed a historically close relationship with Russia, and has refused to cut ties with the Kremlin — in a tight spot.As a signatory to the ICC, it would have been bound to enforce the warrant and arrest Putin if he visited the country for a planned leaders’ summit of the BRICS countries — Bra...

UK apologizes to veterans for LGBT ban as damning review published

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologized to LGBT people who were prevented from serving in the country’s military, as a damning review found a decades-long ban had left “a stain on the illustrious history of the U.K.’s armed forces.”Speaking in the House of Commons as a state-ordered review of the impact of the 1967-2000 ban was published, Sunak criticized “an appalling failure on the British state, decades behind the law of this land.”“As today’s report makes clear, many endured the most horrific sexual abuse and violence, homophobic bullying and harassment, all whilst bravely serving this country,” the U.K. prime minister said. “Today, on behalf of the British state, I apologize.” While homosexuality was partly-decriminalized in England and Wales in 1967, the British military continued to regard it as incompatible with service until the turn of the century. The report, chaired by retired judge and member of the Hou...

Everything the chief of MI6 told us about Russia, China and AI today

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

On the 55th anniversary of the Prague Spring, the head of Britain’s secret intelligence service sat down with POLITICO’s Anne McElvoy — a journalist with deep experience reporting from behind the Iron Curtain — to talk about Russia, Wagner warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, China and AI in spycraft.In the rare exclusive interview, Richard Moore issued a thinly-veiled recruitment call to Russians who’ve become disillusioned with their leadership while assessing that President Vladimir Putin was “under pressure” internally after a mutiny by mercenaries exposed his weakness.“Join hands with us — our door is always open,” Moore — known as “C” inside the agency — said in a speech at a POLITICO event hosted by the British embassy in Prague.The MI6 chief, who rose to lead the agency in 2020 after a career in diplomacy, repeatedly referred to Prague’s history as a center of resistance against Russian dominance as a parallel to current times. While the...

Reliever Evan Phillips ‘wasn’t quite ready’ for the Orioles’ land of opportunity. He’s seized it with the Dodgers.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

Evan Phillips walked into the manager’s office at Triple-A Norfolk’s Harbor Park in the summer of 2021, knowing one of two outcomes awaited him.He allowed himself to be hopeful, to think that his boyhood team, the Orioles, needed him again and he was getting called back up. Phillips’ numbers with Norfolk weren’t ideal, but he felt he had thrown better of late and believed he could contribute something to a team heading to the bottom of the major league standings for the second time in four years.Instead, that early August meeting was to inform Phillips of his release, his time with Baltimore ending just after his three-year anniversary of joining the organization he had rooted for since being born on the Eastern Shore.Nearly two years later, he’s made it back to Camden Yards, returning this week as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ closer and one of the best relievers in baseball.“Baltimore will always be special to me,” Phillips said from the ...

B.C. port strike returns, docs show nuke plans getting updated: In The News for today

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today.Strike resumes, shutting down B.C. ports againBritish Columbia’s ports are facing an uncertain future after the longshore workers union rejected a tentative mediated deal and resumed strike action that had been put to a temporary halt only last week.The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada says in Tuesday’s decision to go back to picket lines that “employers have not addressed the cost of living issues” faced by workers in the last few years.The union representing about 7,400 workers who were previously on strike from July 1 to 13 says its priority has always been to protect its jurisdiction, and that position “has not changed.”A late-night joint statement was released by the Minister of Labour, Seamus O’Regan, and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, confirming the employers’ association agreed to the terms ...

Stock market today: Wall Street mixed with a big slate of corporate earnings on tap

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

BANGKOK — Wall Street shifted between small gains and losses Wednesday as earnings season kicks into high gear.Futures for the S&P 500 and for the Dow Jones Industrial Average each inched up less than 0.1% before the opening bell. Carvana shares jumped more than 24% in premarket trading after the online car dealer said it secured a deal to refinance its debt. It also reported that its profit per car nearly doubled from a year ago and it issued an optimistic forecast. Tesla, Netflix and United Airlines report quarterly results after the bell. The financial performance of some of the country’s biggest corporations has been surprisingly strong, though the bar was lowered heading into the second quarter with expectations that the slowing economy would squeeze margins and profits. Whether or not a recession is imminent is still up for debate, but on Tuesday Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during an interview with Bloomberg TV in India during a meeting of Group of 20 financ...

Revolving Door: DEA’s No.2 quits amid reports of previous consulting work for Big Pharma

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s second-in-command has quietly stepped down amid reporting by The Associated Press that he once consulted for a pharmaceutical distributor sanctioned for a deluge of suspicious painkiller shipments and did similar work for the drugmaker that became the face of the opioid epidemic: Purdue Pharma. Louis Milione’s four years of consulting for Big Pharma preceded his 2021 return to the DEA to serve as Administrator Anne Milgram’s top deputy, renewing concerns in the agency and beyond about the revolving door between government and industry and its potential impact on the DEA’s mission to police drug companies blamed for tens of thousands of American overdose deaths. “Working for Purdue Pharma should not help you get a higher job in government,” said Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a watchdog for corporate influence in the federal government. “Too much collegiality is a problem. It’s hard to vi...

Canadian wildfires hit Indigenous communities hard, threatening their land and culture

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

EAST PRAIRIE METIS SETTLEMENT, Alberta (AP) — Carrol Johnston counted her blessings as she stood on the barren site where her home was destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire that forced her to flee her northern Alberta community two months ago. Her family escaped unharmed, though her beloved cat, Missy, didn’t make it out before a “fireball” dropped on the house in early May. But peony bushes passed down from her late mother survived and the blackened May Day tree planted in memory of her longtime partner is sending up new shoots — hopeful signs as she prepares to start over in the East Prairie Métis Settlement, about 240 miles (385 kilometers) northwest of Edmonton.“I just can’t leave,” said Johnston, 72, who shared a home with her son and daughter-in-law. “Why would I want to leave such beautiful memories?”The worst wildfire season in Canadian history is displacing Indigenous communities from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, blanketing them in thick smoke, destroying homes and ...

European Union rushes firefighters to Greece as grueling Mediterranean heat wave takes toll

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:55:51 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Fire planes and ground crews from several European countries are heading to Greece where wildfires have intensified as relentless heat wave conditions are keeping much of southern Europe above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Three firefighting teams from Poland, Romania and Slovakia are due in Greece on Thursday, while Israel has pledged two firefighting aircraft, adding to the four planes from Italy and France already operating outside Athens. New evacuations were ordered on Wednesday as wildfires raged near the Greek capital. A second heat wave hit the Mediterranean country from the west following days of record-high temperatures that baked southern Europe.In a round-the-clock battle to preserve forests, industrial facilities, and vacation homes, evacuations continued for a third day along a highway connecting Athens to the southern city of Corinth. Temperatures in southern Greece are expected to reach 44 C (111 F) by the end of the week, in the ...