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No skeletons, please: The UK Conservative Party cleans house

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

LONDON — If Rishi Sunak’s mission is to make politics boring again, he needs to start with his own MPs. After a seemingly endless string of scandals involving Tory politicians — from parliamentary porn-viewing, to bullying and outright sexual assault — party chiefs are intent on cleaning up their image at the next general election.Sick of lurid headlines, officials in Tory HQ are beefing up the vetting procedure for would-be-MPs ahead of the next national poll, widely expected to take place in 2024.The aim is to replace a number of departing Tory MPs who — for a variety of reasons — found themselves embroiled in scandal with a slick new generation of scrupulously-vetted politicians.Anne Jenkin, a Tory peer who has led the drive to elect more female Conservatives, said the process of getting on the candidates’ list will be “far more stringent” and that “it would be harder to get through if you have a history of bad behavior.”“The powers that be are far more aware and far less to...

Russia strains to put off a Ukrainian counteroffensive

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.Unveiling the hypersonic Kinzhal missile in 2018, Russian President Vladmir Putin had bragged it was almost impossible to intercept. But overnight Monday, Ukrainian commanders claimed to have shot down all half a dozen of the missiles tracking toward Kyiv. They also said Ukraine’s air defenses downed a dozen other missiles, as well as Iranian-made drones.So, not that hard to detect after all.Predictably, Moscow insisted all their missiles struck their intended targets — facilities storing ammunition, weapons and military equipment supplied by the West. But there’s no ground evidence to support this claim — although they did manage to hit a Patriot air-defense missile battery, with U.S. officials saying an assessment is now underway to see if the damage can be patched up quickly in situ.Even if a Patriot system was mangled, however, at first glance the overall impact of all the missiles expended by Russia on Monday — as well as the s...

A civil war in Poland’s top court upends efforts to reconcile with Brussels

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

WARSAW — Poland’s government is desperate to unlock €36 billion in grants and loans from the EU’s pandemic recovery fund, but to get the cash it needs to finalize a law rolling back legal reforms that Brussels said undermined judicial independence.The problem?President Andrzej Duda in February sent the bill to be examined by the Constitutional Tribunal but the court has been unable to gather a quorum of 11 out of 15 judges because it’s locked in a civil war. That’s delaying both the money and the effort by Warsaw to improve its poisonous relations with Brussels ahead of this fall’s parliamentary election.At least six judges say the six-year term of the tribunal’s President Julia Przyłębska has expired and that she’s no longer in charge. When Przyłębska — a rumored close friend and lunch companion of Law and Justice (PiS) party boss and Poland’s de facto ruler Jarosław Kaczyński — tries to summon them for hearings on the legislation, they don’...

Build that wall, Greek leader says ahead of election

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

ATHENS — Greek voters will decide Sunday whether to harden the country’s line on migration by extending a border wall with Turkey, or elect the left-wing opposition Syriza party which has adopted a softer stance on the issue.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pledged to lengthen the fence to cover almost the entire length of Greece’s 192 kilometer border with Turkey by 2026. He also wants the EU to provide the funding, arguing that Greece alone should not bear the cost of protecting the bloc’s most problematic border.And if the pledge to build a wall and make someone else pay for it sounds familiar, Mitsotakis rejects the comparison with Donald Trump, who won the U.S. presidency in 2016 with a slogan to do something very similar with Mexico.“I don’t have thick blond hair, so I think the comparison is not particularly relevant,” Mitsotakis said in an interview last month with German newspaper Bild, published in English on the prime minister’s website.He sa...

Take that, Russian raccoon! The battle of Kyiv Zoo heats up

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.Unleash the dogs of war — and lions and monkeys and polar bears!Russia’s latest missile barrage against Kyiv was foiled by Ukraine’s supercharged air defense system but there was still plenty of damage, including to Kyiv Zoo.Kyiv’s hardman Mayor Vitali Klitschko said some missile debris fell into the zoo but “fortunately, none of the animals or workers were injured.” He added that “anti-stress measures are now being conducted with the animals.”The plight of zoo animals has been a small but fascinating part of the war. The most bizarre story came late last year from Kherson where Russian soldiers took a number of animals — including raccoons, wolves, peacocks, a llama and a donkey — from the local zoo. “While retreating from Kherson Russians stole animals from the local zoo,” Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs, wrote on Twitter.A man seen grabbing a rac...

UK plays catch-up in chips war with £1B semiconductor strategy

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

LONDON — The U.K. will invest £1 billion over the next decade to secure semiconductor supplies and boost its chip design sector, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced in the early hours of Friday morning.As POLITICO reported last month, the strategy will focus on the U.K.’s strengths in design and compound semiconductors, where it already has clusters in Cambridgeshire and South Wales — rather than competing with U.S. and EU manufacturing subsidies worth nearly $100 billion.Semiconductors are needed in everything from iPhones to missiles, but the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the global economy’s reliance on Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers. The threat of war in Taiwan, home to TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor company, has triggered a race among the largest economies to shore up their chip supplies.Around £200 million of the U.K. funding will come between now and 2025, the government said, which will support setting up a National Semiconductor Infrastructure Initiative to...

Italy prepares to quit Xi’s global building megaplan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

HIROSHIMA, Japan — It took four years for Italy to consider breaking off its special relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In 2019, Italy became the first G7 country to join China’s global infrastructure program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to the surprise of allies in the West. Now, Italy’s right-wing leader Giorgia Meloni is ready to tell her G7 counterparts she is prepared to sever ties with Xi’s landmark foreign policy project, according to one senior diplomat familiar with her government’s deliberations. Meloni has not yet taken a final decision, but the discussion in Rome is focused on how to exit Belt and Road, rather than whether to do so, said the diplomat, who was speaking anonymously because the matter is sensitive. If it comes, such a move would represent a dramatic turnaround in relations between Italy and China, planting Meloni firmly in the camp of Sino-skeptic countries led by U.S. President Joe Biden. It would also mark a blow t...

Election results in Hull called into question over decision to extend voting hours due to fire

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

The results of a recent election in Hull has been called into question in the aftermath of a massive fire on election day earlier this week. Local leaders opted to keep polls open late. A judge, though, did not sign off on the decision.Now, some town meetings have already been postponed as the town can’t certify the election and can’t swear in the presumptive winners of the races until the current issue is resolved.The fire happened in a home on Q Street, drawing an emergency response as flames billowed over the area. The blaze also temporarily shut down the main road that runs through Hull, leaving the road closed for about one hour. In an effort to keep the election fair for those who couldn’t get to the polls earlier in the day, Hull’s town clerk decided to extend hours at the town’s lone polling place, Hull High School, by two hours. The town tried to notify residents, posting a message on social media and sending a reverse 911 call. Ultimately, however,...

Police in pursuit of motorcyclist suspected of being armed and dangerous in L.A.

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department are in pursuit of a motorcyclist who is allegedly armed and dangerous and may also be wanted for assault with a deadly weapon. The chase, which began near the West Hills area, transitioned onto Mullholland Drive where the suspect was clocked traveling at speeds of near 70 miles per hour on the windy roadway. Sky5 is overhead.

Driver sought in fatal hit-and-run in Burlington

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:30:00 GMT

Halton police are searching for the driver of a vehicle wanted in a fatal hit-and-run in Burlington on Thursday afternoon.Police say they were called to the area of North Shore Boulevard and the Queen Elizabeth Way, near the Burlington Skyway just after 2:30 p.m. following reports a cyclist had been struck. Investigators say the cyclist was later pronounced dead.The driver did not remain at the scene. Police say the silver sedan was last seen heading eastbound on Lakeshore Road toward Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital. The vehicle is believed to have damage to the front passenger side.