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Rishi Sunak is failing his first major electoral test

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

LONDON — The Conservative Party suffered a heavy night of losses in Rishi Sunak’s first major electoral test since he became prime minister in October.Voters went to the polls on Thursday to elect local representatives in 230 councils across England. In results counted overnight, Labour gained control of some of its top target councils including Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent and seized Medway council from the Tories after 20 years. The Conservatives lost control of 10 councils and more than 200 council seats, leading to forecasts they are now on track to lose up to 1,000 seats — at the worst end of independent expectations.The Liberal Democrats took control of Windsor and Maidenhead council, in former Prime Minister Theresa May’s constituency, for the first time in 16 years. Many seats are still to be counted through Friday, but the earliest results make for grim reading in Conservative headquarters.Local election results are always an imperfect indicator. Thursday’s vote only t...

Italy’s FM Tajani to France: Say sorry for ‘gratuitous insults’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

The war of words between Rome and Paris is heating up.Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Friday said there are “no excuses” for French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin’s criticism of Italy’s migration policy on Thursday. Tajani canceled a planned visit to Paris over the remarks.“This attack leaves one dumbfounded. It’s a clap of thunder in a quiet sky, an outpouring of gratuitous insults,” Tajani told Corriere della Sera in an interview.Darmanin “offended all Italians, in addition to the government and the prime minister,” Tajani said, adding the comments were “a stab in the back from a prominent member of the French government.”The Italian foreign minister called off a working dinner with his French counterpart Catherine Colonna on Thursday — just a few hours before their scheduled meeting in Paris.Earlier on Thursday, Darmanin told RMC radio that the “far-right” Italian government led by Prime Minister...

Parliament’s Qatargate debate: Build a wall or look inside

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

The European Parliament panel that is charged with responding to the Qatargate bribery scandal is divided over whether the real threat comes from without — or within.This split was laid bare Thursday as lawmakers, rushing to show they’re taking the scandal seriously ahead of next year’s European elections, held a debate on a report regarding the Parliament’s response to allegations of a cash-for-favors scheme involving current and former EU parliamentarians, on behalf of interests from Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania.The scandal, which has come to be known as Qatargate, was just one clear example of the need to shore up the Parliament’s “security culture,” said Slovak MEP Vladimír Bilčík, one of the file’s principal authors and a member of the center-right European People’s Party. He and French MEP Nathalie Loiseau, of the centrist Renew group, drafted a measure that sought to protect the democratically elected institution from potentially nefarious non-EU influence, while o...

The power behind the throne

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

In modern Britain, the monarchy still shapes how the country is run.By Tim RossIllustration by Tim O’BrienLONDON — Queen Elizabeth II saw it all coming.  After seven decades as the United Kingdom’s head of state, her majesty knew better than perhaps anyone else the qualities that make for a good prime minister. Boris Johnson, she seemed to have decided, didn’t have them. “It was such a remarkable event, to witness the eye roll of Queen Elizabeth II,” recalled Andrew Gwynne, a British member of parliament.  In June 2019, as Brexit battles paralyzed parliament, the ruling Conservative Party was in the frenzied process of choosing a new leader to succeed Theresa May as prime minister. Gwynne, an opposition Labour MP, was among the guests at a reception for faith leaders among the gilt-framed portraits and chandeliers in Buckingham Palace. During a private chat between the queen and a handful of MPs, the question came up of who would take charge of the country. ...

Gunman kills 8 in Serbia’s second mass shooting in 2 days

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A gunman killed eight people and wounded 14 in three Serbian villages, authorities and media reported, shaking a nation still in the throes of grief over a mass shooting a day earlier. Police arrested a suspect Friday after an all-night manhunt.The second shooting came Thursday, a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade, the capital.The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, Wednesday’s shooting was the first at a school in the country’s modern history.The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.Late Thursday, an attacker shot at people in three villages near Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, according to state broadcaster RTS.“I heard some tak-tak-tak s...

Strong earthquake hits Japan; possible casualties and damage

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Authorities were looking into possible casualties and damage after a strong earthquake hit Friday afternoon near central Japan, but there were no reports of a tsunami threat.Government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that authorities were checking into possible casualties, putting human life first. There was a report of buildings being damaged, but details were still being confirmed, he said.The 6.2 quake struck Ishikawa prefecture at 2:42 p.m. near the central west coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s earthquake information center. The Japan Meteorological Agency put the preliminary magnitude at 6.3, but later raised it to 6.5. They measured the depth at about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles). The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said two people were reported hurt in Ishikawa’s Suzu City, on the northern tip of the Noto Peninsula: One person was found without vital signs after falling from a ladder,...

Adidas breakup with rapper Ye, lost Yeezy sales hit earnings

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Adidas saw operating earnings dwindle in the first three months of the year as the German sportswear company’s breakup with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West and his popular Yeezy shoe brand cost it 400 million euros ($441 million) in lost sales. Profit was down to 60 million euros from 437 million euros in the same quarter a year ago, while profit margin shrank to a bare 1.1%. Net sales declined 1%, to 5.27 billion euros, and would have risen 9% with the Yeezy line, the company said Friday.Losing the Yeezy brand is “of course hurting us,” new CEO Bjorn Gulden said in a statement, which didn’t explain what Adidas would do with 1.2 billion euros worth of unsold Yeezy shoes after the company cut ties with the rapper now known as Ye in October.The breakup, which followed Ye’s antisemitic comments on social media and in interviews, will reduce earnings by 500 million euros in the coming year, the Herzogenaurach-based company has said. Gu...

In The News for May 5 : A look at April’s employment numbers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of May 5 …What we are watching in Canada …Statistics Canada is set to release its April labour force survey this morning, providing updated numbers on employment levels in the country. RBC says it expects 12,000 jobs were added last month, the lowest number since September.  Employers have kept their hiring appetite in recent months, even as high interest rates make borrowing more expensive for people and businesses. The unemployment rate continued to sit at five per cent in March, hovering near record lows.However, job vacancies have been falling and the Bank of Canada’s recent business outlook survey shows employers reporting less intense labour shortages. The Bank of Canada’s aggressive rate hikes are expected to filter through to the labour market in the coming months, leading to a rise in unemploymen...

UK Conservatives take battering in key local elections

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Conservative Party endured big losses in early results from local elections being viewed as a test of support for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ’s government as a national election approaches. The opposition Labour Party and Liberal Democrats made significant gains.While the bulk of results were due later, the Conservatives acknowledged it had already been “a disappointing night” as ballots were counted from Thursday’s voting.But Conservative chairman Greg Hands argued that it had “not been a resounding result for Labour.” The left-of-center opposition party hopes the results will confirm its front-runner status for a general election that is due by the end of 2024.With about a quarter of results in, the Conservatives had lost more than 200 seats in elections for more than 8,000 seats on 230 local councils across England. The right-of-center party lost control of several councils, including Medway in southeast England, which it had run for a quarter-century, and...

India FM: Global institutions suffer from ‘trust deficit’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:53:28 GMT

PANAJI, India (AP) — India’s foreign minister on Friday criticized global institutions’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and their ability to resolve geopolitical upheaval, saying that alternative forums have an opportunity to tackle such challenges.Subhrahmanyam Jaishankar said the developments have disrupted global supply chains, especially in energy, food and fertilizer, and hit developing nations the hardest. His remarks opened a meeting of foreign ministers as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security pact dominated by Moscow and Beijing that seeks to act as a counterweight to U.S. alliances across East Asia to the Indian Ocean.“These crises have also exposed a credibility and trust deficit in the ability of global institutions to manage challenges in a timely and efficient manner,” he said. “With more than 40% of the world’s population within the SCO, our collective decisions will surely have a global impact.”Jaishankar did not mention ...