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Scathing report finds Boris Johnson deliberately misled UK Parliament over ‘partygate’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament about the lockdown-flouting parties that undermined his credibility and contributed to his downfall, a committee of lawmakers said Thursday after a year-long investigation.A scathing report from the House of Commons Privileges Committee found that Johnson’s actions and his response to the committee were such a flagrant violation of the rules that they warranted a 90-day suspension from Parliament. While a condemning indictment of the former prime minister’s conduct, the recommendation is largely symbolic because Johnson angrily quit as a lawmaker Friday after the committee informed him of its conclusions. “We have concluded above that in deliberately misleading the House, Mr Johnson committed a serious contempt,” the committee’s report said. “The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the Prime Minister, the most senior member of the government. There is no pre...

Kosovo tightens border security after saying 3 police officers ‘kidnapped’ by Serbian forces

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s prime minister on Thursday said border security would be tightened following what he described as Serbia’s role in the “kidnapping of three police officers.”Prime Minister Albin Kurti also criticized NATO-led international peacekeepers for not providing an official explanation of what happened to the three border police officers. Kurti says they were “kidnapped inside Kosovo’s territory” while Belgrade says they were “arrested” in Serbian territory.Kurti, speaking at a news conference, showed maps of where the incident allegedly occurred, saying that Serbia’s special police and army units had entered deep into Kosovo territory.After a meeting of Kosovo’s top security council, the prime minister said border checks would increase and traffic from Serbia would be limited, but he added they were not “commercial steps,” suggesting goods would continue to move freely across the border.“What surprises us is the silence and tolerance of int...

Bill Cosby sued by 9 more women in Nevada over alleged decades-old sexual assaults

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nine more women are accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a lawsuit that alleges he used his “enormous power, fame and prestige" to victimize them.A lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Nevada alleges that the women were individually drugged and assaulted between approximately 1979 and 1992 in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe homes, dressing rooms and hotels.One woman alleges that Cosby, claiming to be her acting mentor, lured her from New York to Nevada, where he drugged her in a hotel room with what he had claimed to be non-alcoholic sparkling cider and then raped her. 9 women file lawsuit in Las Vegas accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault The 85-year-old former “Cosby Show” star has now been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by more than 60 women. He has denied all allegations involving sex crimes. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — and spent nearly three years at a state prison near Philadel...

Small Bites Review: With hefty empanadas and juicy arepas, Montebello is a great skyway lunch

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

Montebello is only open three hours a day.Thankfully, though, those hours are 11 to 2 on Tuesdays through Fridays, so if you’re downtown and need lunch, the skyway-level empanada and arepa shop is just what you’re looking for.The business started as a food truck, a converted school bus that still makes its way to breweries around the Twin Cities. But thanks to the Downtown Alliance’s Grow Downtown program, which provides free short-term leases for vacant storefronts, Montebello opened a casual counter-service restaurant late last year, too.The menu downtown is different from the food truck, and they’re pulling inspiration from a variety of culinary traditions.South American empanadas make up about half the menu. The “big beef” empanada, also listed as an empanada de pino, is your classic Chilean hand pie. Ground beef with hard-boiled egg, chopped olives, and a few raisins. The “big chicken” is inspired by the Peruvian dish lomo saltado and features chicken stir-fried with vegetables...

Patrick Horan: Why we don’t need to tolerate higher inflation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

Inflation is finally falling. Although the year-over-year inflation rate is still over 4%, well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, much of that reflects especially large price increases from last summer. As those unusual months cycle out of the data, the rate will likely keep dropping.With inflation trending down, but not yet at target, some notable economists including Nobel laureate Paul Krugman and Moody’s Analytics’ Mark Zandi have questioned whether the Fed should even worry about the target. In their view, getting all the way down to 2% could threaten the strong labor market. This is not a new perspective. Over the years, many economists have argued that a slightly higher inflation target could actually be a good thing.We should reject these arguments. A higher target is harmful and unnecessary for the Fed to do its job of promoting full employment and price stability.The idea that higher inflation would be good might sound strange. Why would some economi...

Patroons look to build on record-breaking play in Regional Finals

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- The Albany Patroons ran through the Newfoundland Rogues in the Eastern Conference Finals in record-breaking fashion. Now the Pats get the St. Louis Griffins in the Regional Final, just two wins away from the TBL title series. Get the latest, news, weather, sports and community events delivered right to your inbox! The best of three series starts Thursday night in Saint Louis, with game two at the Armory on Sunday, and game 3 at the Armory on Monday, if necessary. The Patroons scored a TBL playoff record 134 points in game one against the Rogues, and then broke that record with 135 points in game two. So what's working for the Patroons? They say the answer is simple. "We've got really good players top to bottom," said Patroons guard Derrick Rowland Jr. "When you have good players they make plays and honestly we could have scored more than we did. We're just hot. People are making shots, we're moving the ball, and we're getting up and down in transition." "E...

France's Le Maire pledges renewed push to cut public spending

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire (pictured) will take a more stringent approach to public finances, he told the Financial Times ahead of a 19 June conference expected to unveil large cuts in public expenditures.In an interview published on Wednesday (14 June), Le Maire promised a renewed push to cut public spending, saying France needed to stick to its debt reduction program after narrowly avoiding a downgrade by ratings agency S&P this month.Although S&P retained its AA rating for France's sovereign debt, it stayed cautious about the outlook on account of strained public finances."The decision by S&P is an incentive to do more and to do better," Le Maire said. "We need to stick to our debt reduction program and to cut public expenditures."France, its debt among Europe's highest, at nearly 110% of economic output, said last month it planned to freeze 1% of the budget of each ministry, following an earlier decision to cut 5%, in a bid to make good on deficit reducti...

Belarus has started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said his country has started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.The deployment is Moscow's first move of such warheads - shorter-range less powerful nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield - outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.The step is being watched closely by the United States and its allies as well as by China, which has repeatedly cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war."We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia," Lukashenko said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 Russian state TV channel which was posted on the Belarusian Belta state news agency's Telegram channel."The bombs are three times more powerful than those (dropped on) Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he said.Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vlad...

Mayor of Leipzig elected new Eurocities president

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

The Mayor of Leipzig, Burkhard Jung (pictured), will represent major European cities in the coming two years as president of Eurocities. He succeeds the Mayor of Florence, Dario Nordella, and is joined by the Mayor of Ghent, Mathias De Clercq, who will become the network’s vice president.Jung, who was elected by delegates from more than 200 major European cities, wants to strengthen the relationship between cities and the EU and reinforce European democratic values.He stressed: “Now more than ever, the future of Europe and its prosperity depends on the involvement of local governments and local communities. Cities have been hit particularly hard by global challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. People are dealing with energy poverty and rising inflation, and cities have led emergency efforts to receive Ukrainian refugees.”Jung calls for EU solidarity at all levels of government and demands that cities are involved in the development of future EU policie...

Germany to unveil first-ever National Security Strategy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:56:19 GMT

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's (pictured) government was set to unveil Germany's first National Security Strategy on Wednesday (14 June) which aims to provide an overview of the country's foreign policy and ensure a cohesive cross-ministry approach to security.Germany has had policy documents in the past addressing security but Scholz's three-way coalition agreed it wanted a more comprehensive strategy in its pact in November 2021.That idea gained a new urgency following Russia's invasion of Ukraine which exposed the poor state of the German military, Germany's over-reliance on Russia for energy and insufficient protection of critical infrastructure such as gas pipelines.Germany had been too complacent in light of new threats including increasingly assertive authoritarian states such as Russia and China in the decades of peace and prosperity following the end of the Cold War, analysts said.The Ukraine war, however, heralded a "Zeitenwende" or "turn of era", as Scholz said in a landmark sp...