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When is a veto not a veto? Rishi Sunak’s Brexit laws fuel fresh unionist concerns

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

DUBLIN — With Brexit, the devil is always in the detail.New legislation published Monday enacting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s much-heralded Windsor Framework makes clear that unionists in Northern Ireland will be able to object to new EU laws — but won’t hold the power to veto them. Careful reading of the draft regulations enacting into law the so-called Stormont Brake shows that the power to block the introduction in Northern Ireland of any new EU goods standards — essential for Northern Irish exporters to observe if they want to maintain barrier-free trade with neighboring Ireland and the wider EU — will lie exclusively with London, not Belfast.And the legislation shows the U.K. government ultimately reserves the right to override any unionist objections, citing “exceptional circumstances.”Such caveats have proven a dealbreaker for some unionists already highly skeptical of the prime minister’s claims to have allayed their chief concerns over the much-maligned...

France-Germany feud heats up over cars and nuclear

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

BERLIN — A growing row between Germany and France risks crashing into a crucial EU summit later this week.EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss economic competitiveness and ammunition for Ukraine, but the clash between Germany and France over combustion-engine cars and nuclear energy now looms disruptively over those talks.“I am a supporter of permanent Franco-German compromise, but also of truth in the Franco-German relationship. When we have a disagreement, we don’t hide it, we work to overcome it,” French Transport Minister Clément Beaune told POLITICO.The EU’s move to ban the sale of polluting cars and vans by 2035 in order to tackle spiraling transport-linked greenhouse gas emissions has ignited the latest row after Germany mounted an unusually late blockade of the EU green car rules alongside a small group of allies, including Italy.Berlin wants a clear exemption for e-fuels, a synthetic alternative to fossil fuels, which wo...

If boring Switzerland can’t save its banks, who can?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

Oh, Switzerland — that beautiful land of financial stability, reliability and everything being just a little dull.Not anymore. As Credit Suisse, Europe’s 19th biggest lender, goes down the tubes, becoming the most dramatic banking casualty since the 2008 financial crisis, the worry now is it turns out to be the first domino in a chain that stretches round the world. After all, we’ve been here before and it wasn’t pretty. And if boring, safe Switzerland can’t save its banks, then, well, who the hell can?To understand what happened, think of a shotgun marriage. On Sunday, the stricken Zurich-based lender was forced by Swiss authorities to get into bed with its longtime domestic rival UBS. It was historic. A 3 billion Swiss-francs deal that — for a few hours at least — allowed everyone to breathe a sigh of relief.The aim was to protect investors and depositors and to stem a full-on banking crisis. Temporarily at least, that was achieved.But as usual, the devil i...

Japan’s Kishida heading to Ukraine for talks with Zelenskyy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was heading to Kyiv early Tuesday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Japan’s public television NHK showed Kishida riding a train from Poland heading to Kyiv. Kishida’s surprise trip to Ukraine comes just hours after he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.Kishida, who is to chair the Group of Seven summit in May, is the only G-7 leader who hasn’t visited Ukraine and was under pressure to do so at home. Due to limitations of Japan’s pacifist constitution, his trip was carefully arranged secretly. Kishida is Japan’s first postwar leader to enter a war zone. Kishida, asked before his trip to India about a rumor of his possible trip at the end of March, denied it and said nothing concrete has been decided.Japan has joined the United States and European nations in sanctioning Russia over its invasion and providing humanitarian and economic support for Ukraine.Japan was quick to react b...

Trump indictment would be unprecedented in US history

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

The decision whether to indict former President Donald Trump over hush-money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign lies with a Manhattan grand jury that has been hearing evidence in secret for weeks.An indictment of Trump, who is seeking the White House again in 2024, would be an unprecedented moment in American history, the first criminal case against a former U.S. president. Law enforcement officials are bracing for protests and the possibility of violence after Trump called on his supporters to protest ahead of a possible indictment. An indictment could also test a Republican Party already divided over whether to support Trump next year, in part due to his efforts to undermine his 2020 election loss.Trump denies any wrongdoing and has slammed the Manhattan district attorney’s office probe as politically motivated.Here’s a look at the hush-money probe, grand jury process and possible ramifications for his presidential campaign:____WHAT’...

CDC study warns of 'dramatic increase' in deadly fungus across US

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

(The Hill) - Candida auris, a rare and sometimes deadly fungal disease, is spreading through the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned this week, citing a “dramatic” increase in cases.According to the CDC, Candida auris is a type of yeast that can cause severe illness in hospitalized patients. It primarily affects older people and those with weakened immune systems, rejects treatments from traditional antifungal medications and has a mortality rate of up to 60 percent, health officials said.There were at least 2,377 confirmed cases in the U.S. in 2022, according to CDC statistics. That total was a steep jump from the 1,474 cases in 2021 and continued a rapid increase from 2020, when there were just 757 confirmed cases. Tranq making ‘deadliest drug threat’ in US ‘even deadlier,’ DEA warns Health officials said that the fungus’s resistance to antifungal medication is “particularly concerning” because those medications are often the first option for treatm...

Rangers sign Lefty Will Smith to 1-year, $1.5M deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

SURPRISE, Ariz. (AP) — Left-handed reliever Will Smith agreed to a $1.5 million, one-year contract with the Texas Rangers on Saturday and will report to spring training.The 33-year-old was 0-3 with a 3.97 ERA and five saves in 65 relief appearances last year for Atlanta and Houston, which acquired him on Aug. 2 for current Ranger Jake Odorizzi. The Astros declined a $13 million option on Nov. 9, allowing Smith to become a free agent as he completed a $40 million, three-year contract.He was an All-Star with San Francisco in 2019, the final season with the Giants for current Rangers manager Bruce Bochy. Smith had a career-high 37 saves for Atlanta in 2021.He has a 31-34 career record with 91 saves in 513 appearances over 10 seasons for Kansas City (2012-13), Milwaukee (2014-16), San Francisco (2016, 2018-19), Atlanta (2020-22), and Houston (2022).Infielder Mark Mathias was designated for assignment to open a roster spot. He was 3 for 10 with three RBIs and three walks in five spring t...

Trudy Rubin: Russian attack on a U.S. drone underlines why we must help Ukraine win

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

Whether or not to help the Ukrainians drive Russian invaders out of their country is rapidly becoming a 2024 campaign issue.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says aiding Kyiv is not a vital U.S. interest, and dismisses the brutal Russian invasion as a “territorial dispute” with Ukraine. Meantime, former President Donald Trump says if he were reelected, he would negotiate a deal that let Russia take over Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine. (Most Ukrainians speak Russian.)So, even though the coming months will be critical for Ukrainian efforts to roll back the Russians, the political debate over aid to Ukraine is bound to grow in 2023. Vladimir Putin will try to sway that debate in Russia’s favor, with risky machinations like the Russian downing of an unmanned U.S. drone over international Black Sea waters on Tuesday. MAGA House members and Fox News host Tucker Carlson will stir up the GOP base by repeating Kremlin talking points.This is why it is more crucial than ever for P...

Tyler Cowen: Artificial Intelligence is about to transform childhood. Are we ready?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

With the introduction of GPT-4 and Claude, AI has taken another big step forward.GPT-4 is human-level or better at many hard tasks, a huge improvement over GPT-3.5, which was released only a few months ago. Yet amid the debate over these advances, there has been very little discussion of one of the most profound effects of AI large language models: how they will reshape childhood.In the future, every middle-class kid will grow up with a personalized AI assistant — so long as the parents are OK with that.As for the children, most of them will be willing if not downright eager. When I was 4 years old, I had an imaginary friend who lived under the refrigerator, called (ironically) Bing Bing. I would talk to him and report his opinions to my parents and sister.In the near future, such friends will be quite real, albeit automated, and they will talk back to our children as directly as we wish. Having an AI service for your child will be as normal as having a pet, except the AI serv...

St. Louis and MoDOT crews increase pothole patrol amid spring weather

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:25:00 GMT

ST. LOUIS - With the start of warmer weather, potholes that formed in the winter are becoming bigger and deeper. The city and MoDOT plan to keep up with demand across the St. Louis region.Recent roller coaster weather has allowed potholes to expand."In springtime, they pop up more often, much like daffodils,” said Tom Blair, district engineer for MoDOT.To keep up with demand, the Missouri Department of Transportation planned to increase crews. They said a milder winter has freed up some money in the budget to use on projects such as fixing potholes. Top story: Search for missing St. Charles woman leads to abandoned car "You'll also see a lot of our crews out there do road sweeping, shoulder sweeping,” Blair said. “Sort of like that spring cleanup, like we all want to do on our yard, that's what MoDOT has to do in the spring; we prioritize all that spring cleanup stuff, which includes filling potholes."In 2022, St. Louis officials said they had filled more than 6,000 potholes. Cur...