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Court backs UK government’s veto of Scotland’s gender self-ID plan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

LONDON — The U.K. government acted lawfully in moving to block Scotland’s plans to make it easier to legally change gender, a top Edinburgh court ruled Friday.The Scottish and U.K. governments have been locked in a court battle over the reforms, which were comfortably passed by the Scottish parliament last year. The Scottish government wanted to introduce a self-identification system to make it easier for people to change their legally recognized sex.But the U.K. government stepped in to block the legislation, arguing it conflicted U.K.-wide equalities law. It teed up a major fight between Holyrood and Westminster, and saw the governing SNP in Scotland deeply divided on how to proceed. An initial appeal by the SNP-led Scottish government against the veto has now failed — after Edinburgh’s Court of Session ruled against their case Friday.The losing side has 21 days to decide whether to further appeal by taking the case all the way up to the U.K.’s Supreme Court. The...

Macron faces backlash after Jewish ceremony at presidential palace

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

Emmanuel Macron is facing widespread pushback, even from within his own ranks, from critics who say the president breached France’s long-standing history of secularism after he attended a Jewish ceremony in the Élysée Palace on Thursday.Macron had been invited to receive an award for fighting antisemitism and safeguarding religious freedoms at an annual event from the Conference of European Rabbis.During the event, France’s chief rabbi Haïm Korsia lit a ceremonial candle as members of the audience sang traditional Hanukkah songs in Hebrew. Lighting candles on a multi-branched chandelier, called a menorah, is a Jewish ritual that is part of the Hanukkah celebrations, which this year began on Thursday and will last until next Friday.Macron said Friday, during a visit to the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, that he didn’t regret what happened “at all.” “I think that on this point we need to keep our heads,” the French president told reporters. &#...

Orbán calls Ukraine ‘one of the most corrupt countries in the world’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stood firm in his staunch opposition to Ukraine being admitted to the EU, calling it “corrupt” a week before EU leaders are set to make a decision on starting talks with Kyiv on joining the bloc. “Hungary is a neighbour of Ukraine … we know exactly what is happening,” Orbán told French news outlet Le Point in an interview published Friday. “Ukraine is known to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It’s a joke!” he said. “We cannot take the decision to start a process of accession negotiations,” Orbán said.EU leaders are set to gather in Brussels next week for two historic decisions on Ukraine: approving a plan to begin discussions on Kyiv joining the 27-nation bloc and the release of €50 billion in aid for Ukraine.Yet Orbán’s shadow looms over the summit, as the Hungarian leader has adamantly opposed the opening of accession negotiations for Ukraine — despite the European Commission ...

Fears grow that fossil fuel firms will capture booming hydrogen industry

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

The EU is polishing off legislation to accelerate an emerging multibillion-euro green energy industry — hydrogen gas. Yet experts warn new rules under development may put the new sector in the hands of oil and gas giants.Negotiators are meeting Friday in Brussels for what could be the final round of talks on one of the bloc’s flagship green energy policies, the hydrogen and decarbonized gas package. If EU capitals, the European Parliament and the EU’s executive can strike a deal, the initiative would kickstart as soon as next spring an EU-wide web of hydrogen producers, which harness solar and wind power to split water molecules and generate the gas.Backers say the legislation would be a boon for Europe’s renewable aspirations as it seeks to zero out carbon emissions by 2050.Jerzy Buzek, the Polish MEP leading the Parliament’s work on the initiative, called it “great news for our energy security — especially in circumstances of the brutal war which...

Officials credit good Samaritans with helping stop attempted arson at Martin Luther King’s birth home in Atlanta

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

(CNN) — Good Samaritans helped thwart a woman’s attempt to set a fire at the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, police said.Police were called to the historic home in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood around 5:45 p.m. Thursday on a vandalism report, the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement. When officers arrived, they found multiple people had stopped the 26-year-old woman after she poured gasoline on the property, the statement said.“It was a little scary there for a minute because we didn’t know who she was, we didn’t know if she had weapons on her, we didn’t know anything,” Zach Kempf told CNN affiliate WSB of seeing the woman throwing gas on the home.Kempf, who was visiting the area from Utah, stepped in to block the woman after she picked up a lighter, he said.Two off-duty officers visiting from New York then helped restrain the woman until police arrived, WSB reported.The woman was arrested and charged with attempted arson and interfere...

Suspect flees on foot after bad crash in Wilmington

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

Massachusetts State Police and Wilmington Police responded to a bad crash near Andover Street Friday morning.Troopers arrived to the area around Andover Street and Emerald Ave in Wilmington just before 2 a.m. after receiving request from Wilmington officers for assistance on a suspect search. State Police said a vehicle crashed at the location “after being pursued by local officers.” A female passenger was trapped inside the car and the driver, a male “with a criminal history involving firearm and drug offenses” fled on foot.A four-hour search of the surrounding areas utilizing state police K9 teams, the MSP Drone Unit and Air Wing, did not locate the suspect, who is described as a black male wearing camouflage. Wilmington Police will continue investigating his whereabouts. The female passenger was extricated from the crashed vehicle by Wilmington Firefighters; she was transported to a local hospital with serious injuries. This is a developing story; sta...

Hunter Biden is indicted on 9 tax charges, adding to gun charges in a special counsel investigation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden was indicted on nine tax charges in California as a special counsel investigation into the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son intensifies against the backdrop of the 2024 election.The new charges filed Thursday — three felonies and six misdemeanors — are in addition to federal firearms charges in Delaware alleging Hunter Biden broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018. They come after the implosion of a plea deal over the summer that would have spared him jail time, putting the case on track to a possible trial as his father campaigns for reelection.Hunter Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” special counsel David Weiss said in a statement. The charges are centered on at least $1.4 million in taxes Hunter Biden owed during between 2016 and 2019, a period where he has acknowledged struggling with addiction. The back taxes have since bee...

As Pakistan cracks down on illegal migrants, nearly half a million Afghans have left, minister says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Nearly half a million Afghans who were living in Pakistan without valid documents have returned home in just over two months as part of an ongoing crackdown on foreigners in the country without papers, the caretaker interior minister said Friday.The expulsions are part of a nationwide crackdown by the government in Islamabad that started two months ago. Pakistan insists the campaign is not against Afghans specifically, though they make up most of the foreigners in the country. Pakistan has long hosted about 1.7 million Afghans, most of whom fled during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation. In addition, more than half a million people fled Afghanistan when the Taliban seized power in August 2021, in the final weeks of U.S. and NATO pullout. At a news conference in Islamabad on Friday, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said more than 482,000 Afghans have returned home in the past more than two months, 90% going voluntarily. He said Pakistan has also decided to depo...

Hosting a Party?! In This Economy?!

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

In this episode, Sal is getting ready to host family and friends for the holidays but is worried about how much food, drinks and gifts will cost this year.Jordan talks to retail analyst, Bruce Winder, to break down the cost of hosting and find creative ways to save. Then, he talks to financial expert, Kelley Keehn, about how to handle tricky money conversations with your guests.

Thousands of tons of dead sardines wash ashore in northern Japan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:44 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Thousands of tons of dead sardines have washed up on a beach in northern Japan for unknown reasons, officials said Friday.The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning, creating a sliver blanket along a stretch of beach about a kilometer (0.6 mile) long.Local residents said they have never seen anything like it. Some gathered the fish to sell or eat.The town, in a notice posted on its website, urged residents not to consume the fish.Takashi Fujioka, a Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute researcher, said he has heard of similar phenomena before, but it was his first time to see it.He said the fish may have been chased by larger fish, become exhausted due to a lack of oxygen while moving in a densely packed school, and were washed up by the waves. The fish also may have suddenly entered cold waters during their migration, he said.The decomposing fish could lower oxygen levels in the wat...