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UK Labour reshuffle: The winners and losers in Keir Starmer’s shake-up

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

LONDON — Keir Starmer revamped his Labour frontbench Monday — and not everyone’s thrilled.As the U.K. opposition leader prepares for a general election next year, Starmer chose to promote key figures from his party’s right flank, demoting one-time leadership rival Lisa Nandy and a host of other figures from the party’s so-called “soft left” faction. “I’m really pleased that having put in the hard yards to change the Labour Party, we now have such a strong team on the pitch that is ready to deliver the change our country desperately needs,” Starmer declared as the dust settled.But a spokesperson for the left-wing Labour campaign group Momentum offered up another take, berating the “promotion of a narrow band of Blairites unwilling to offer the decisive change the country is crying out for.”With polls suggesting Labour is on course to form the next British government, here’s POLITICO’s guide to the reshuffle winners and...

Russia ready to restart grain deal if sanctions lifted, Putin tells Erdoğan

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

Moscow could revive the Black Sea grain deal and allow Ukraine to export millions of tons of agricultural products to food-importing nations in exchange for Western sanctions on Russia being relaxed, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.Speaking after talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Russian resort city of Sochi, Putin said that the U.N.-brokered deal could be restarted “in the coming days,” provided restrictions on Russian agricultural exports were dropped.“We are not against this deal. We are ready to return to it as soon as the commitments towards us are fulfilled,” Putin said. However, at the same time, he claimed that the West “deceived us at the expense of humanitarian goals” in the implementation of the grain deal.Russia, he added, will supply 1 million tons of discounted grain for processing in Turkey and then to be shipped on to poorer nations for free.Erdogan, meanwhile, said that there was no alternative to the now-defunct deal and said he had p...

Steve Harwell, founding lead singer of Smash Mouth, dead at 56

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

(CNN) — Steve Harwell, the founding lead singer of the rock group Smash Mouth, died Monday, according to his manager.He was 56.No cause of death was shared, but Harwell had been receiving hospice care over the weekend. He died at his home in Boise, Idaho, with family and friends by his side, according Robert Hayes, the manager of Smash Mouth.“Steve Harwell was a true American Original. A larger than life character who shot up into the sky like a Roman candle,” Hayes said in a statement to CNN. “Steve should be remembered for his unwavering focus and impassioned determination to reach the heights of pop stardom. And the fact that he achieved this near-impossible goal with very limited musical experience makes his accomplishments all the more remarkable. His only tools were his irrepressible charm and charisma, his fearlessly reckless ambition, and his king-size cajones.”Harwell was a founding member in 1994 and longtime lead singer of Smash Mouth, best known for its ch...

Dorchester man arrested after Caribbean Festival gunfire is accused of shooting 6 victims

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

A Dorchester man who had been arrested on gun charges after the Caribbean Festival mass shooting last week is now accused of shooting six of the eight victims, according to Boston Police.Gerald Vick, 30, had been arrested near the annual J’ouvert Parade, part of Boston’s Caribbean Festival, following the gunfire on Saturday morning, Aug. 26.When Boston Police officers took Vick into custody, officers found a 9mm pistol with a large capacity magazine — equipped with a “Glock switch” that enables the gun to fire continuously. Vick was initially charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.Now, Boston Police have charged him with shooting six of the eight victims. Vick has been charged with: six counts of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon — firearm; armed assault to murder; unlawful possession of a machine gun; unlawful possession of a firearm — subsequent offense; armed career criminal; discharging a firearm within 500′...

Northern Ireland police chief resigns after controversies including huge data breach

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland’s top police officer resigned Monday following a series of controversies that plagued the police force, including what he described as an “industrial scale” data breach.The Northern Ireland Policing Board confirmed that Simon Byrne has resigned as chief constable, with immediate effect. Bryne has faced growing pressure to step down since personal data on all serving members of the police force were mistakenly published last month in response to a freedom of information request. The details included the surnames, initials, location and departments for around 10,000 officers and staff. Police said that dissident republicans claimed to be in possession of information about police officers following the incident.The breach was particularly sensitive given the delicate security situation in Northern Ireland, which is still trying to overcome decades of sectarian violence known as “The Troubles.” Twenty-five years after a peace agreement largely ended the vi...

Pope insists Vatican-China relations are on track but says more work is needed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis insisted Monday that the Vatican’s relations with China were going well but said work must still be done to show Beijing that the Catholic Church isn’t beholden to a foreign power.Francis spoke about the Holy See’s dealings with China during a press conference en route home from Mongolia, where Beijing and its crackdown on religious minorities overshadowed an otherwise historic first papal visit to the majority Buddhist nation.Francis sent a telegram of greetings to Chinese President Xi Jinping as his aircraft flew through China’s airspace coming and going to Mongolia. The pontiff also gave a special shout-out to the Chinese people at the end of his main Mass in Ulaanbaatar. He brought up to the altar the current and retired bishops of Hong Kong to demonstrate his “warm” affection for the Chinese people.But relations remain strained, particularly over a 5-year-old agreement on nominating Catholic bishops. The 2018 accord aimed t...

Pope wants to keep big Vatican meeting on the church’s future behind closed doors, ideology-free

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis defended the decision to keep the discussions of a big Vatican meeting on the future of the Catholic Church behind closed doors, saying Monday the three-week conference was a religious moment for the church and “not a television program” that was open to scrutiny.Francis was asked repeatedly on his way home from Mongolia about the Oct. 4-29 meeting, or synod of bishops, which is opening after an unprecedented two-year canvassing of rank-and-file Catholics around the globe about their hopes for the church.Many Vatican watchers consider the synod to be a defining moment of the Francis pontificate, since the official agenda includes hot-button issues such as the role of women in decision-making roles in the church, the acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics and celibacy for priests.While the meeting is not a decision-making body, many Catholics who participated in the pre-meeting consultations are eager to see how their contributions are considered or...

Protesters in southern Syria smash statue as they mark 2015 assassination of anti-government leader

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of angry protesters in southern Syria smashed the statue of Syria’s late president on Monday as they they marked the 2015 assassination of a prominent anti-government Druze leader.The protests in the province of Sweida, where the Druze community represents the majority of the population, have entered their third week. The demonstrations were initially driven by surging inflation and the war-torn country’s spiraling economy but quickly shifted focus, with marchers calling for the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government.Monday’s protest took place in the provincial capital, also called Sweida, where angry men and woman called for the downfall of Assad’s government. Some smashed the statue of Assad’s late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.Several demonstrators marched up to the building of the local branch of the social security and tore down a giant poster of Bashar Assad, according to videos circulated on social media and opposition activists....

Serbian player loses a kidney after getting injured at Basketball World Cup

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Serbian Basketball Federation announced Monday that forward Borisa Simanic has lost one of his kidneys as the result of an injury sustained during a World Cup game against South Sudan.Simanic has been operated on twice in Manila, the team said. Additional complications presented themselves after the first surgery, team doctor Dragan Radovanovic said, requiring the second procedure on Sunday where the kidney was removed.Serbia plays Lithuania in a World Cup quarterfinal on Tuesday.“It was really tough for us when we heard what happened,” Serbian forward Nikola Milutinov told reporters after the team practiced Monday. “First, we didn’t believe it was such a bad thing. It’s really affected us. We’re really praying for him that he’s going to be good as soon as possible.”Simanic was injured with just under 2 minutes left in Serbia’s win over South Sudan on Wednesday. South Sudan’s Nuni Omot was trying to score under the b...

West Virginia University crisis looms as GOP leaders focus on economic development, jobs

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:10:56 GMT

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — On the same day that dejected students pleaded with the board of West Virginia’s flagship university not to eliminate its entire foreign languages department and dozens of other programs, Gov. Jim Justice said he was feeling hopeful about the future of education in the state.“We’ve had tough times — there will be more tough times — but absolutely we are rising from the ashes,” Justice said Aug. 22, while signing a bill allocating $45 million for another state school, Marshall University, to open a new cybersecurity center 200 miles from West Virginia University.Lawmakers approved the Marshall project, heralded as the nation’s “new East Coast hub” for cybersecurity, in a hastily called special session last month but rejected calls to send WVU funds to address its budget deficit, currently about $45 million. The Legislature’s lack of interest in bailing out the state’s largest university comes as WVU struggles with the financial toll of dwindling e...