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Macron wants to crash summit with Russia, China and allies

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Emmanuel Macron wants to take his one-man global diplomacy to another level.The French president wishes to become the first Western leader to be invited to a BRICS summit, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said late Monday.“Having a dialogue is always positive, even when we don’t 100 percent agree on everything,” Colonna said at a press conference in Pretoria, where she had just met with her South African counterpart, Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, according to French public broadcaster RFI.“We’re thinking out loud — but it’s obviously a decision that only the relevant countries can take — about the possibility of continuing this dialogue, why not at the BRICS summit or in another format,” the French minister said.South Africa will host the next summit of BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, all of which remain close to Moscow despite the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — in Johannesburg on August...

Labour vows to ‘fix the holes in Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

LONDON — A Labour government under Keir Starmer will “fix the holes in Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal,” including on electric vehicles, the party’s trade chief said Tuesday, promising to mend ties with the U.K.’s largest trade partner.While Labour “will not go back into the EU or rejoin the customs union or restore freedom of movement,” the party’s Shadow Trade Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds told business leaders at the Trade Unlocked conference in Birmingham that it “would work to reset our trading relationships.”“That has to include fixing holes in the TCA,” he added, referring to the EU-U.K. Trade and Cooperation Agreement.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is “putting our car manufacturers at risk,” Thomas-Symonds told POLITICO, and “very urgently” needs to address a mechanism in the Brexit deal taking effect at the end of the year that could impose 10 percent tariffs on electric vehicles traded with the EU.  “We’re in an urgent situation,” Thomas-Symonds said, emphas...

Why don’t the Chicago Bulls have any draft picks? Will Zach LaVine be traded? 7 big questions ahead of the NBA draft.

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

The blockbuster 2023 NBA draft will kick off in New York City on Thursday night — and as of today, the Chicago Bulls will not have a single pick.The Bulls traded away the bulk of their draft stock in recent years, which could lead to an anticlimactic draft night. If the team doesn’t make a move to secure a draft pick, this will be the first time the franchise hasn’t participated in the NBA draft since 2005.Here’s how the Bulls got to this point.1. Where did the picks go this year?The Bulls could have had three picks in the 2023 draft — one first-rounder and two second-rounders. But all three picks have been ceded — either in trades or as a penalty — leaving the Bulls without a stake in the current action.When the Bulls traded with the Orlando Magic for center Nikola Vučević in 2021, they included a protected first-round draft pick in the package that ultimately fell to this year. The Vučević trade already cost the Bulls a...

Agganis All-Star Week festivities

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Agganis All-Star Week starts Sunday, June 25 with the Opening Ceremony and four of the nine All-Star Games that will take place over the course of four days.The Opening Ceremony, which will be held at 9 a.m. at Manning Field in Lynn, will include the presentation of 2023 Agganis Foundation Scholarships, five major awards, and the introduction of this year’s Agganis All-Stars in the following sports: girls and boys lacrosse, softball, baseball, girls and boys basketball, girls and boys soccer and football.The lacrosse doubleheader will be held June 25 at Manning Field at 11 a.m. (girls) and 1 p.m., withsoftball and baseball played at the adjacent Fraser Field that day at noon and 2 p.m. Action continues Monday, June 26 with the girls and boys basketball doubleheader at Lynn Classical High School at 5:30 and 7 p.m.The boys and girls soccer games will be June 27 at Manning Field at 5:30 (boys) and 7 p.m. The 61st Agganis All-Star Football Game will close the week on Wednesday, June 28 ...

Head of UN agency for Palestinian refugees warns of service cuts without more funding

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that without a new injection of funding, it is “likely or highly likely” that the agency will not be able to deliver some services or pay salaries by the fall.UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said at a press conference in Beirut that the agency responsible for services to Palestinian refugees has been facing a shortfall of $150 million to $200 million annually in recent years.Donors at a pledging conference earlier this month provided only $107 million in new funds, significantly less than the $300 million the agency had called for to keep its programs running through the end of the year.Those programs include health and education services and, in some cases, cash assistance to families in Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Jordan.While he acknowledged that the agency’s funding woes have become “almost a broken record,” Lazzarini warne...

Lawyer Eastman faces disciplinary hearing over plot to keep Trump in power after 2020 election loss

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An effort to disbar conservative attorney John Eastman, who devised ways to keep President Donald Trump in the White House after his defeat in the 2020 election, will begin Tuesday in Los Angeles.Eastman is expected to spend the day testifying before the State Bar of California in a proceeding that could result in him losing his license to practice law in the state. He faces 11 disciplinary charges stemming from his development of a dubious legal strategy that was aimed at helping Trump remain in power by disrupting the counting of state electoral votes.The State Bar’s counsel will seek Eastman’s disbarment during a hearing before the State Bar Court that’s expected to last at least eight days. If the court finds Eastman culpable of the alleged violations it can recommend a punishment such as suspending or revoking his law license. The California Supreme Court makes the final decision.Eastman is scheduled to testify in his own defense Tuesday. Th...

Build begins on Wyoming-to-California power line amid growing wind power concern

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

RAWLINS, Wyo. (AP) — Portrait photographer Anne Brande shoots graduation and wedding engagement photos at scenic spots throughout southeastern Wyoming’s granite mountains and sprawling sagebrush valleys, but worries what those views will look like in a few years. Wind energy is booming here.“Dandelions in my yard, you know, when there’s four or five, it’s OK,” Brande said. “When my whole yard is dandelions, I’m just not too excited.”In a state where being able to hunt, fish and camp in gorgeous and untrammeled nature is a way of life, worries about spoiled views, killed eagles and disturbed big-game animals such as elk and mule deer have grown with the spread of wind turbines.On Tuesday, state and federal officials will break ground on TransWest Express, a transmission line that will move electricity from the $5 billion, 3,000-megawatt, 600-turbine Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind farm to southern California, a place legally mandated to switch to clean energ...

Vatican document highlights need for concrete steps for women, ‘radical inclusion’ of LGBTQ+

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — An unprecedented global canvassing of Catholics has called for the church to take concrete steps to promote women to decision-making roles, for a “radical inclusion” of the LGBTQ+ community and for new accountability measures to check how bishops exercise authority.The Vatican on Tuesday released the synthesis of a two-year consultation process, publishing a working document that will form the basis of discussion for a big meeting of bishops and laypeople in October. The synod, as it is known, is a key priority of Pope Francis, reflecting his vision of a church that is more about the faithful rank-and-file than its priests. Already Francis has made his mark on the synod, letting lay people and in particular women have a vote alongside bishops. That reform is a concrete step toward what he calls “synodality,” a new way of being a church that envisions more co-responsibility in the key mission of spreading the Catholic faith.The document highlights key concerns tha...

Germany prods China on Ukraine war as leaders pledge to work together on climate

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s chancellor pressed China to lean harder on Russia over its war in Ukraine on Tuesday, while leaders from both countries pledged to work together to combat climate change as two of the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitters.Chancellor Olaf Scholz and about half of his Cabinet hosted a delegation led by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, making his first foreign trip since becoming China’s No. 2 official in March, as the two nations held high-level government consultations for the seventh time. The meeting in Berlin comes a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, indicating an effort by Beijing to reach out to the West and improve frosty relations.Germany is keen to maintain good ties with China, its biggest trading partner, despite wariness over Beijing’s growing assertiveness and refusal to criticize the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Germany’s recently published national security strategy describe...

Andrew Tate is charged with rape and human trafficking in Romania

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Divisive social media personality Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, have been charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women, prosecutors in Romania said Tuesday.Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said prosecutors filed the charges against the brothers, who are both British-U.S. dual citizens, along with two Romanian women.In a statement, the agency said that the four defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 “in order to commit the crime of human trafficking” in Romania as well as the United States and Britain. It alleged that seven female victims were misled and transported to Romania, where they were sexually exploited and subjected to physical violence by the gang.The Tate brothers and the two Romanian suspects were detained in late December in Romania’s capital Bucharest. The brothers won an appeal on March 31 to be moved from police custody to house arrest.Tate, 36, is a professional kickboxer ...