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Meet Oliver Dowden, the man running the UK while Rishi Sunak’s away

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is finally off on holiday in California — and he’s left his fixer-in-chief in charge.Oliver Dowden — known as “Olive” to his friends — got the call-up to be Sunak’s deputy prime minister in April after predecessor Dominic Raab quit. But just who is the minister now left with his hand on the tiller? POLITICO has your back.‘Safe pair of hands’Dowden’s day job is to oversee the powerful U.K. Cabinet Office under the swanky and slightly-meaningless title of chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Cabinet Office tries to coordinate work that spans different government departments and get business agreed by top ministers through the civil service machine.In his in-tray since taking up that job: contingency planning for a fresh winter of discontent as public sector workers staged rolling walkouts; and the small matter of King Charles III’s coronation.Old friend and veteran Tory MP John Hayes ...

Von der Leyen vs. Weber: The fight for Europe’s conservative soul

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

BRUSSELS — They’re supposed to be political allies. But squaring off over dinner and wine at the center-right European People’s Party’s Brussels headquarters in early July, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and party leader Manfred Weber tussled over the future of the EU’s environmental policy. The prickly policy fight between the two Germans is central to what kind of Europe is liable to emerge on the international stage from EU elections next year, which their grouping of Europe’s conservative parties is on track to win.While the cautious von der Leyen has governed the Commission as a broad-based technocrat, an aggressive Weber is now seeking to drag the conservative family further to the right, and mop up votes from those frustrated with migration and new green laws.“Frosty, tense and no budging from either side,” is how one person with knowledge of the working dinner described it, backing up the accounts of two others who were in a room stuffed ...

UK Tories’ anti-green turn suggests they’re ready to lose

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

Karl Mathiesen is a senior climate correspondent at POLITICO Europe.Rishi Sunak’s anti-green swerve is the clearest sign yet that his Conservative party is preparing for opposition.It’s been coming. Sunak started his tenure needing to be bullied into attending the 2022 U.N. climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh. But, encouraged by the result of the Uxbridge by-election and campaigning tabloids, the famously climate-ennui prime minister is now openly abandoning the green Toryism of his predecessor-but-one Boris Johnson.With Sunak promising this week to campaign for motorists, cutting the cost of polluting, and launching a swathe of new North Sea oil licenses, the years of broad U.K. climate consensus appear to be over.For now, much of the government’s existing climate agenda, largely developed under Johnson, remains intact. Long term goals to reach net-zero by 2050 are very popular and therefore safe. But the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an official advisory board for U.K....

China is not as powerful as the West might think

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

President Xi Jinping wants to project China as a powerful trade partner — or dangerous adversary — to virtually any country hoping to be successful in the 21st century. “The rise of the East, and the decline of the West” is his motto. As Chinese growth rocketed and Western politicians fretted over how to respond, it became a national catchphrase, too.But among the Chinese people — and increasingly in the chancelleries and boardrooms of Europe — a different story is beginning to be told: Beijing’s march toward global economic domination may not be invincible after all. China managed only weak GDP growth after belatedly liberating itself from pandemic restrictions. The property market is in crisis and youth unemployment has risen to hazardous levels, with one estimate putting it at 50 percent. Private entrepreneurs increasingly live in fear of what the state will do to their businesses and consumers have stopped spending the way they did in the pre-COVID good times. In ...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has ripped façade off anti-imperialism

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist who writes for outlets such as CNN, the Washington Post and World Politics Review.It was a stunning moment, but it should have been unremarkable: Gabriel Boric, the leftist president of Chile, calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “war of imperial aggression,” pleading with his Latin American and Caribbean counterparts to recognize the fact.In the end, Boric failed.The final communique of the summit between the European Union and CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, didn’t condemn Russia. Instead, it blandly expressed “concern” regarding the war, in keeping with a curious phenomenon plaguing the so-called Global South.What has happened to their vaunted disdain for imperialism, the one they proclaimed on city walls and fulminated against in the streets?Despite decades of decrying the evils of imperialism and colonialism, the leaders of Latin America and Africa, now confronted with Russia’s brazen effort to grab Ukrain...

Motorcyclist killed in hit-and-run crash in Plaistow, NH, suspect arrested

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

A 64-year-old motorcyclist was struck and killed by a truck in Plaistow, New Hampshire Wednesday, and witnesses said the driver, who was arrested shortly after the crash, drove away from the scene without stopping.State and local police responded to the intersection Main Street and Westville Road around 3:35 p.m. Police said Lory Beck of Epping, New Hampshire was transported to the hospital where she succumbed to her injuries. Barry Burrows, 78, of Kingston, New Hampshire is currently in custody and charged with Conduct After an Accident-Death Resulting, officials said.Police said witnesses were able to provide a “detailed description of the truck and the driver” who absconded from the scene. The investigation is ongoing.Neighbors said speeding is a major issue in the area.“Unfortunately I have to see these things all the time,” said Jay Gordon, who lives on the street. “It happens quite a bit here on this road, cars come whipping down here, and sometimes they don’t stop.”

MBTA union reaches agreement for largest pay increase for workers since 1990s

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

The MBTA reached a deal with its largest union Wednesday, resulting in some pay raises and other bonuses.Gov. Maura Healey and MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng announced the new deal with union ATU Local 589 to increase wages and bonuses to help retain valuable frontline workers.The tentative four-year agreement includes a raise that totals 18% over four years, which is the largest pay increase for T workers since the 1990s.It is also aimed to improve recruitment by adding signing bonuses.“This agreement will help ensure that growth at the pace we need it to and it will also help us keep more of our current employees from leaving,” Healey said.The union’s president said the Healey Administration has shown unwavering support to ensure the success of the T.The agreement also includes better pay progression for new hires, longevity bonuses and certain benefits for part-time employees.

Orioles lose control in sixth inning, walking three and then plunking two with bases loaded, in 4-1 loss to Blue Jays

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

Shintaro Fujinami, the Orioles’ lone bullpen addition ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline, brings tremendous upside. Wednesday’s outing showed his downside.Inheriting two runners from Grayson Rodriguez with two outs in the sixth of Baltimore’s matchup with the Toronto Blue Jays, Fujinami issued a four-pitch walk, then hit consecutive batters, allowing both of Rodriguez’s runners to score before an error by shortstop Jorge Mateo brought in another. The three scores in a hitless inning provided the final margin in Baltimore’s 4-1 defeat at the Rogers Centre.At the cost of sending No. 30 prospect Easton Lucas to the Oakland Athletics, Fujinami was a tantalizing acquisition for the Orioles (66-42), with his high-velocity fastball and wicked splitter making him an enticing option to add to manager Brandon Hyde’s All-Star late-inning tandem of Yennier Cano and Félix Bautista. But the right-hander has at times struggled to harness his devastatin...

Man accused of firing shots outside Jewish school in Tennessee charged with multiple crimes

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A man suspected of trying to enter a Jewish school with a gun in Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday and firing shots outside the building has been charged with multiple crimes, the lead agency looking into the shooting said Wednesday.The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Joel Bowman, 31, of Stanton, Tennessee, was charged with criminal attempted second-degree murder, reckless endangerment, possessing a firearm during the commission or attempt to commit a dangerous felony, carrying weapons on school property, and assault against a first responder.Bowman remained hospitalized in Memphis as of Wednesday, the bureau said. Officers shot Bowman after finding his truck soon after he left the school, and he was hospitalized in critical condition, police said at the time. Bowman had exited the truck with a firearm in hand, and the “situation escalated,” the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday.A message left at one phone listing for Bowman wasn’t immediately...

Federal jury acquits Louisiana trooper caught on camera pummeling Black motorist

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:10 GMT

A federal jury in Louisiana on Wednesday acquitted a white state trooper charged with violating the civil rights of a Black motorist despite body-camera footage that showed the officer pummeling the man 18 times with a flashlight. The case of Jacob Brown was the first to emerge from a series of FBI investigations into troopers’ beatings of Black men during traffic stops in Louisiana and underscored the challenges prosecutors face convicting law enforcement officials accused of using excessive force. After a three-day trial in Monroe, jurors found Brown not guilty of depriving Aaron Bowman of his civil rights during a 2019 beating that left Bowman with a broken jaw, broken ribs and a gash to his head. Brown, 33, who defended the blows to investigators as “ pain compliance,” would have faced up to a decade in federal prison if convicted. Brown’s defense attorney, Scott Wolleson, told The Associated Press he was grateful for the verdict. “The men and women of the jury recognized ...