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Lawmakers, countries clinch deal on 2024 EU budget

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

Negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU struck a deal late Friday on the bloc’s budget for next year. Under the agreement, the budget includes commitments of €189.4 billion for 2024. EU lawmakers said they secured additional funding, on top of the European Commission’s draft budget, for some of the Parliament’s priorities, such as humanitarian aid, the bloc’s R&D program Horizon Europe and the Erasmus exchange program. Spain, current holder of the rotating Council Presidency, stressed that there is “enough financial leeway to respond to unforeseen circumstances.” The budget will help to address “the most urgent consequences of the crisis in the Middle East in the countries concerned, as well as in Europe and its neighborhood,” the Commission said in a statement on the deal. While there is a deal on the EU’s 2024 budget, talks are still ongoing for a review of the EU’s longer-term budget, the m...

Macron: Meta, Google ‘don’t deliver’ on handling of hate speech

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

French President Emmanuel Macron has criticized tech companies’ handling of hate speech on their platforms. In an interview with the BBC, Macron took on Meta and Google specifically, saying that they “simply don’t deliver” on their engagements around content moderation on their platforms. Macron made the remarks in the wake of the Christchurch Call Summit, an initiative involving world leaders and tech companies that was launched after the online live-streaming of a terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019. The aim is to stop the spread of terrorist and violent content online. Meta and Google didn’t send representatives to Friday’s Christchurch Call gathering in Paris, which Macron said shows that “they don’t want to play anymore.” Other companies, such as X, Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI had representatives there. Many platforms also don’t have sufficient moderators capable of handling the French langua...

Germany’s Scholz backs Calviño for EIB top job

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

MÁLAGA, Spain — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave his backing to Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nadia Calviño to take over the running of the European Investment Bank next year.“I worked together with Nadia Calviño intensely when I was the finance minister of Germany and it’s my perspective that she would be a very good president of the EIB,” Scholz said Saturday at a meeting of top European Socialist leaders in Spain. Germany’s public support to Calviño is a blow to the other major contender Margrethe Vestager, the Danish executive vice president of the European Commissioner who took unpaid leave from her EU job in order to run for the EIB position. There are also candidates from Italy, Poland and Sweden.A decision must be taken by the end of the year when current EIB President Werner Hoyer will leave.The EU bank hands out billions of euros a year for major infrastructure projects and is expected to play a crucial role in the rebuilding of Ukraine....

Celtics’ Payton Pritchard pushes through early-season struggles to reach breakthrough

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

The Celtics bet on Payton Pritchard this summer. After a frustrating third season in which his role diminished, he was promised a bigger one with the Marcus Smart trade. The Celtics backed it up with a contract extension.But even after a strong preseason, the early returns weren’t positive. Pritchard went on a cold spell to start the season. In a five-game stretch, he went scoreless in four of them. In the other, he scored 15 but all of them came in the fourth quarter of a blowout win over the Pacers. On Friday, he admitted that doubt started to creep in.“I think it started messing with me mentally a little bit,” Pritchard said. “But then I went back to what made me a great shooter in the first place. So I just dialed it back into that. It’s just kind of just a mental game. It starts to kind of affect you, start second-guessing shots. At the end of the day, you put in too much work. So I just believe in myself.”That work and that belief carried Pritchard through a trying seaso...

Pope forcibly removes leading US conservative, Texas bishop Strickland

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday forcibly removed from office the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a conservative active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and some of his priorities.A one-line statement from the Vatican said Francis had “relieved” Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of Tyler and appointed the bishop of Austin as the temporary administrator.Strickland has emerged as a critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of “undermining the deposit of faith,” and particularly his recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church. The Vatican earlier this year sent in investigators to look into his governance of the diocese, amid reports he was making doctrinally unorthodox claims.The Vatican has not released the findings of the investigation, and Strickland had insisted he wouldn’t resign voluntarily. He has said in media interviews he he was given a mandate to serve by the late Pope Benedict XVI.The Associated Press

A missile strike targets Kyiv as Russian train carriages derail due to ‘unauthorized interference’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as part of an overnight bombardment felt across the country, local officials said Saturday, while drones that Russian officials blamed on the Ukrainian military targeted areas around Moscow and the region of Smolensk.A ballistic missile was shot down as it approached the Ukrainian capital, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He said that no one was injured.The Ukrainian air force later confirmed an Iskander-M missile ballistic missile was used in the attack, the first attempted missile strike on Kyiv in almost two months. The missile was destroyed by the country’s Patriot air defense system.Ukraine’s air defense systems actively repelled attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Kirovohrad regions. The country’s air force said Russian troops launched 31 Shahed-136/131 drones, of which 19 were shot down.The strike in the Odesa region damaged the cityR...

‘We want her back,’ husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

PRAGUE (AP) — This wasn’t how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva — who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe — has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a “foreign agent.” “Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison,” Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. “We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible,” he said, visibly shaken. Kurmasheva was detained on Oct 18, becoming the second U.S. journalist detained in Russia this year, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges in March. She is being held in a detention center, awaiting a trial that could sentence her to up to five years in prison.Her ordeal ...

UK police step up efforts to ensure a massive pro-Palestinian march in London remains peaceful

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

LONDON (AP) — London police have stepped up efforts to ensure a pro-Palestinian march on Saturday remains peaceful following a week of political sparring over whether the demonstration should go ahead on the weekend Britain honors its war dead.More than 2,000 officers, some called in from surrounding forces, will be on the streets of the capital this weekend to make to ensure marchers obey the law and to prevent potential confrontations with counter protesters, the Metropolitan Police Service said.Police are also taking steps to reassure the Jewish community, which has been targeted by a surge in antisemitic incidents since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and Israeli forces responded with strikes and sending troops into the Gaza Strip.“We know the cumulative impact continued protest, increasing tensions, and rising hate crimes are having across London and the fear and anxiety our Jewish communities in particular are feeling,” the police said in a statement. “They have a ri...

One year after liberation, Ukrainians in Kherson hold on to hope amid constant shelling

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — One year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, residents have grown accustomed to hearing outgoing fire from the left bank of the Dnieper river, where Russian troops are positioned. They know that familiar crackle means they have seven seconds to find a shelter, or a sturdy wall to hide behind. Their lives are mostly limited to the comfort of home and the necessity of the supermarket. Many shops are still shuttered. Municipal workers wear bullet-proof vests and wait to be dispatched to sweep up the rubble from yet another impact.Between lulls of artillery fire coming from the river, which marks the contact line between battling armies in the Kherson region, Ukrainians venture out to buy food, bicycle down grassy residential lanes or convene in the few restaurants that dare to remain open.Marking the anniversary of Russia’s defeat on Nov. 11 is a bittersweet occasion, many residents say, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinds on...

China ambassador seeks ‘rational’ relations, trade boost by ‘reserving differences’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:23:21 GMT

OTTAWA — China’s ambassador to Canada says Ottawa’s allegations of foreign interference in Canadian elections are hurting economic ties — but he insists his country isn’t punishing Canada.His comments come after years of diplomatic strain between the two countries.Beijing detained Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig from late 2018 until fall 2021.China meanwhile imposed multi-year bans on Canadian imports of meat and canola. And a year after the Canadian government named China as a disruptive global force and declared Beijing as responsible for attempts at foreign interference, the Chinese government left Canada out as it loosened restrictions on group travel. Analysts argue those moves amount to economic coercion aimed at changing Canadian policies. But Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu doesn’t see things that way — and the head of a prominent business group that advocates for deepening trade ties argues it’s time for a rethink.“China...