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BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union nations reached a tentative breakthrough deal to provide Ukraine with billions in additional funds for arms and ammunitions coming from the profits raised from frozen Russian central bank assets held in the bloc.
The agreement among the 27 EU ambassadors was announced by Belgium, which holds most of the frozen assets in the bloc.
It came after weeks of tough negotiations among member states, which were made more complicated by the stringent financial limits on using such funds.
Kyiv has long been urging that those funds be used to get vital military supplies as it struggles to stave off renewed Russian attacks.
A small group of member states, especially Hungary, refuse to supply weapons to Ukraine so special safeguards had to be included in the deal to allow for some 10% of the funds to be considered general aid.
Follow AP’s coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union nations reached a tentative breakthrough deal to provide Ukraine with billions in additional funds for arms and ammunitions coming from the profits raised from frozen Russian central bank assets held in the bloc.
The agreement among the 27 EU ambassadors was announced by Belgium, which holds most of the frozen assets in the bloc.
It came after weeks of tough negotiations among member states, which were made more complicated by the stringent financial limits on using such funds.
Kyiv has long been urging that those funds be used to get vital military supplies as it struggles to stave off renewed Russian attacks.
A small group of member states, especially Hungary, refuse to supply weapons to Ukraine so special safeguards had to be included in the deal to allow for some 10% of the funds to be considered general aid.
Follow AP’s coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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MIAMI (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, has been chosen to serve as a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention, the state party chairman said Wednesday.
Republican Party of Florida chairman Evan Power said the 18-year-old high school senior will serve as one of 41 at-large delegates from Florida to the national gathering, where the GOP is set to officially nominate his father as its presidential candidate for the November general election.
NBC News first reported the choice of Barron Trump as a delegate.
Barron Trump has been largely kept out of the public eye, but he turned 18 on March and is graduating from high school next week.
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York said there would be no court on May 17 so that Trump could attend his son’s graduation.
“We are fortunate to have a great group of grassroots leaders, elected officials, and members of the Trump family working together as part of the Florida delegation to the 2024 Republican National Convention,” Power said in an emailed statement.
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Members of the public have been invited to share ideas for how to increase the number of hedgehogs.
The Conservative-controlled council said "habitat fragmentation" was known to have contributed to a decline in hedgehog numbers in recent years.
It established a strategy to support hedgehogs after local people voted it the creature it wanted the council to focus on helping.
Hedgehogs are officially classed as vulnerable to extinction in the UK and were added to the "red list" of Britain's under-threat mammals three years ago.
Conservative councillor Alan Sharp said: "As well as requiring developers to take positive measures to support hedgehogs it is also bringing it to the public's attention that small measures, like hedgehog holes in a fence, can really make a big difference.
"We hope as many people as possible, and especially developers, will embrace the opportunity to help the recovery of hedgehogs here in East Cambridgeshire, and that they will contribute positively to the consultation."
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The Austrian government wants to enable the transfer of convicted criminals from non-EU countries to serve their sentences in Kosovo.
In December 2021, Denmark signed an agreement with Kosovo to rent a prison in a small town south of the capital Priština.
Over a span of 10 years — and in exchange for €210 million — 300 inmates sentenced to deportation are to be relocated.
“We want to further intensify cooperation between our countries in the area of security and the fight against organized crime,” Karner said.
At the migration conference, over 250 political leaders and international organizations discussed solutions through partnerships with non-EU countries to manage refugee arrivals and facilitate returns.
Critics say the deportation plans undermine asylum regulations in the EU and violate human rights.
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For some listeners on the call, it was a surprising goal: Microsoft had just shut down the Japanese developer Tango Gameworks, which was coming off the small, prestigious hit title Hi-Fi Rush.
When rumors swirled that it wasn’t doing well commercially, Aaron Greenberg, vice president of Xbox games marketing, wrote on X that Hi-Fi Rush “was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations.”
“While there are titles we can’t announce yet,” Spencer said in the September 2023 interview, translated by VGC, “we are currently developing new games in collaboration with Japanese companies.” It’s worth wondering if that’s still the plan now that Tango is shut down.
Even the original Hades is climbing back up the Steam charts, breaking its all-time peak player count record just today almost four years after its initial release.
While we don’t know exactly what sales goals Microsoft had for Hi-Fi Rush, clearly there is a demonstrated appetite for this kind of game, with Tango Gameworks positioned perfectly to deliver it.
With Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks gave Microsoft just what Booty says he wants: a small, creatively unique, highly praised, award-winning game.
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Two prominent progressive lawmakers, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and California congressman Ro Khanna, revealed on Wednesday a new bill aimed at eliminating medical debt.
Now, as the chair of the Senate health, education, labor, and pensions (Help) committee, Sanders has worked with Khanna for over a year to introduce a bill that could make his campaign promise a reality.
According to a separate study published in the journal Health Affairs in 2016, approximately one-third of cancer survivors had gone into debt as a result of their diagnoses, and 3% had filed for bankruptcy.
“I’ve met people who say they’re just resigned to having this debt ruin their credit, and they don’t pay it, but they have this kind of harassment and anxiety while they’re dealing with a chronic condition like cancer or diabetes,” Khanna said.
Sanders and Khanna’s bill may face a difficult journey to passage in the Republican-controlled House, but polls suggest that cancelation of medical debt attracts widespread support from members of both parties.
According to a March survey conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, Joe Biden continues to lead Donald Trump among likely voters under 30, but just 44% of the president’s young supporters say they enthusiastically back their candidate.
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The Senedd will have more politicians and a new voting system from 2026, after the plans cleared their final hurdle in the Welsh Parliament on Wednesday evening.Senedd members (MSs) voted to increase their numbers from 60 to 96, from the next election to Cardiff Bay.Welsh government top lawyer Mick Antoniw said it was a chance to "strengthen the very foundations of our parliamentary democracy".But the legislation was opposed by the Welsh Conservatives - Darren Millar said it was “deeply flawed” and would “only serve to undermine our democracy”.
The legislation therefore got the two-thirds support in the Senedd required to become law.In a debate in the Welsh Parliament, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth promised the new law would "make sure that the people of Wales are no longer democratically short-changed".Supporters insist that 36 more members are needed, to scrutinise both the law-making process and Welsh ministers' actions, in a far more powerful Senedd than the fledgling institution which began 25 years ago.
Critics say it gives parties too much power to decide who gets electedMinisters say it will make elections simpler by giving voters one ballot paper.The current combination of 40 local and 20 regional MSs would be replaced by 16 larger constituencies, each represented by six members.Parties would put forward lists of ranked candidates for every seat, under what is known as a closed list system, preventing voters from backing individual candidates.Out will go the Westminster-style first-past-the-post electoral process, to be replaced by a system that reflects the share of the vote each party has received in each of the 16 constituencies.
“I urge all members to seize this opportunity to strengthen the very foundations of our parliamentary democracy.“To refresh, improve and modernise the legislature to make it fit for the many challenges we face as a nation.”
But Mr Millar, for the Welsh Conservatives, saw the legislation as doing precisely the opposite.It was “deeply flawed”, would “only serve to undermine our democracy”, and would “damage the relationship between the public and their elected representatives”, he said.The closed list electoral system would strip away “a fundamental right enjoyed by Welsh voters of generations".He said it would take away the "opportunity for them to choose the individual person they want to represent their area and giving that right to party elites in charge of electoral candidate lists”.“It is the biggest power-grab from the people of Wales that it has ever suffered in the history of Welsh democracy.”The Conservative said the costs of “almost £20m each and every year” was money “that our national health service, our schools and our other public services are crying out for”.Mr Millar added: “Wales needs more doctors, dentists, nurses and teachers.
Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Jane Dodds, her party's sole representative in Cardiff Bay, has been a major critic of the closed list system in the legislation.She told the Senedd that she would vote for the bill as moving away from the “outdated first-past-the-post system” was “definitely a positive step”.But she said the reform bill as it stands “remains fundamentally flawed”.“The introduction of closed party lists risks robbing voters of true choice," she said.Unlike the UK Parliament, neither the current or proposed future Senedd rules would allow voters to expel members who misbehave after they are elected.Presiding Officer Elin Jones, who referees debates, has told BBC Wales the electors should have that right.In Westminster, MPs who break the rules can face by-elections if enough of their constituents sign a petition in favour.No such recall system exists in the Senedd.Ms Jones said that she was "continually disappointed by politicians whether they are elected here, Westminster or local councils that let the people that voted for them down by their own behaviour".“I think it’s right that people should have to recall members at that point and to have a view as to whether they should be continuing in that role," she said.One complication is that under the new electoral system, as with current regional members, there will be no by-elections, the mechanism by which voters replace their MP if enough of them sign a recall petition.Mr Antoniw told the Senedd on Wednesday that there was "cross-party support for the standards of conduct committee taking evidence to identify an effective and proportionate recall machinery that works for Wales and for our electoral system".
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He made the proposal just after council's finance and corporate services committee voted in favour of a new penalty system that would take parking ticket challenges out of the courts.
City staff said the current system is "jammed up," and replacing justices of the peace with council-appointed adjudicators will mean faster disputes for residents.
While basing fines on income could require co-operation with federal bodies, like the Canada Revenue Agency, Menard thinks there might be alternatives.
If drivers still aren't satisfied, they could take the matter in person or virtually to a hearing officer, who would be appointed directly by council and meant to be independent of the city bureaucracy.
Jeff Leiper wondered whether there would be any "guardrails" to prevent council from directing a hearing officer to cancel tickets for political reasons.
A city lawyer said his preliminary view is that council would potentially run afoul of conflict of interest policies if it intervened in the work of independent adjudicators.
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For some listeners on the call, it was a surprising goal: Microsoft had just shut down the Japanese developer Tango Gameworks, which was coming off the small, prestigious hit title Hi-Fi Rush.
When rumors swirled that it wasn’t doing well commercially, Aaron Greenberg, vice president of Xbox games marketing, wrote on X that Hi-Fi Rush “was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations.”
“While there are titles we can’t announce yet,” Spencer said in the September 2023 interview, translated by VGC, “we are currently developing new games in collaboration with Japanese companies.” It’s worth wondering if that’s still the plan now that Tango is shut down.
Even the original Hades is climbing back up the Steam charts, breaking its all-time peak player count record just today almost four years after its initial release.
While we don’t know exactly what sales goals Microsoft had for Hi-Fi Rush, clearly there is a demonstrated appetite for this kind of game, with Tango Gameworks positioned perfectly to deliver it.
With Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks gave Microsoft just what Booty says he wants: a small, creatively unique, highly praised, award-winning game.
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The Federal Communications Commission clarified its net neutrality rules to prohibit more kinds of fast lanes.
While the FCC voted to restore net neutrality rules on April 25, it didn't release the final text of the order until yesterday.
The final rule "prohibits 'fast lanes' and other favorable treatment for particular applications or content even when the edge provider isn't required to pay for it... For example, mobile carriers will not be able to use network slicing to offer broadband customers a guaranteed quality of service for video conferencing from some companies but not others," said Michael Calabrese, director of the Open Technology Institute's Wireless Future Project.
Under the draft version of the rules, the FCC would have used a case-by-case approach to determine whether specific implementations of what it called "positive discrimination" would harm consumers.
Under the original plan, "there was no way to predict which kinds of fast lanes the FCC might ultimately find to violate the no-throttling rule," she wrote.
Any plan to put certain apps into a fast lane will presumably be on hold for as long as the current net neutrality rules are enforced.
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The remark, which Putin repeated twice during his year-end news conference in December, shed light on a campaign he is waging that has received little attention outside wartime Russia: to imbue the country’s education system with patriotism, purge universities of Western influences, and quash any dissent among professors and students on campuses that are often hotbeds of political activism.
Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leaders of Russian universities, which are overwhelmingly funded by the state, have zealously adopted the Kremlin’s intolerance of any dissent or self-organization, according to an extensive examination by The Washington Post of events on campuses across Russia, including interviews with students and professors both still in the country and in exile.
And the most fundamental precept of academic life — the freedom to think independently, to challenge conventional assumptions and pursue new, bold ideas — has been eroded by edicts that classrooms become echo chambers of the authoritarian nativism and historical distortions that Putin uses to justify his war and his will.
In October 2022, in a scene captured on video and posted on social media, dozens of students gathered in a courtyard to bid a tearful goodbye to Skopin, Smolny’s cherished philosophy professor who was fired for an “immoral act” — protesting Putin’s announcement of a partial military mobilization to replenish his depleted forces in Ukraine.
Skopin, who earned his PhD in France, and his cellmate, Kalmykov, were perfect examples of the type of academic that Russia aspired to attract from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s — enticed after studying abroad to bring knowledge home amid booming investment in higher education.
Another student, Yelizaveta Antonova, was supposed to get her bachelor’s degree in journalism just days after legendary Novaya Gazeta newspaper reporter Yelena Milashina was brutally beaten in Chechnya, the small Muslim-majority republic in southern Russia under the dictatorial rule of Ramzan Kadyrov.
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Now The Register reports that Dell will track employees' badge swipes and VPN connections to confirm that workers are in the office for a significant amount of time.
An unnamed source told the publication: "This is likely in response to the official numbers about how many of our staff members chose to remain remote after the RTO mandate."
The Register reported that Dell "plans to make weekly site visit data from its badge tracking available to employees through the corporation's human capital management software and to give them color-coded ratings that summarize their status."
Here at Dell, we expect, on an ongoing basis, that 60 percent of our workforce will stay remote or have a hybrid schedule where they work from home mostly and come into the office one or two days a week."
In a statement to The Register, a representative said that Dell believes "in-person connections paired with a flexible approach are critical to drive innovation and value differentiation."
News of Dell's upcoming tracking methods comes amid growing concern about the potentially invasive and aggressive tactics companies have implemented as workers resist RTO policies.
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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The ghost of Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign is ringing up significant support in state primaries despite her withdrawal from the race in March shortly before Donald Trump had clinched the Republican nomination.
Unease about President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has sparked a protest vote movement in some states, raising similar questions about the strength of his support in November.
Biden’s campaign attributed Haley’s Indiana showing to Trump’s trouble in suburbs and cited similar primary numbers in swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Haley, who ended her campaign after losses to Trump across almost all Super Tuesday states in early March, recently announced she was joining the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank.
Just before Super Tuesday, Haley said she no longer felt bound by a pledge that required all GOP contenders to support the party’s eventual nominee in order to participate in the primary debates.
She has said little publicly but has continued to utilize her email outreach, via her Stand for America PAC, sending out updates on her Hudson appointment, as well as the return of her husband, Michael, from a South Carolina Army National Guard deployment that saw him stationed in African during a large portion of her primary campaign.
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President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that American bombs have been used by Israel to kill Palestinian civilians.
"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," Biden said during a CNN interview when asked whether the 2,000-pound bombs sent to Israel have killed civilians.
If the Israeli military launches a ground offensive in Rafah, a city in Gaza where more than one million people are sheltering, the White House will not supply "the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah to deal with the cities," Biden said.
An Israeli official told NBC News there was deep frustration in the Israeli government over the decision as Israel's military prepares to launch an expected ground offensive in the southern city in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the military would enter the city "with or without" a deal with Hamas.
Biden has reiterated his opposition to the Rafah offensive in calls with Netanyahu, according to White House readouts of the leaders' conversations.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concern for the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there.
It also comes as the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war.
Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House.
The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who said they only learned about the military aid holdup from press reports, despite assurances from the Biden administration that no such pauses were in the works.
“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., his voice rising in anger during an exchange with Austin.
The State Department is separately considering whether to approve the continued transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems onto bombs, to Israel, but the review didn’t pertain to imminent shipments.
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“I told him that as the leader of a great power he will be met with respect all over the world, but the reverence and love he encounters in our Serbia will not be found anywhere else,” President Aleksandar Vučić said after a welcoming ceremony in front of Palata Srbije, a lavish socialist-era compound often used for state visits.
Xi stopped in Belgrade after two days in France with President Emmanuel Macron, and before a trip to Budapest to meet Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — like Vučić, another thorn in the West’s side.
Xi’s arrival was met with stringent security measures which effectively brought the Serbian capital to a halt, with upwards of 6,500 police officers stationed at key locations along the visit route, granting the Chinese ruler the grandeur and formality that aligns with his aim to enhance the country’s significance in the West.
Opposition parties issued a press release Wednesday morning, alleging that employees of Serbian state-owned companies were instructed to skip work and join the sizable crowd welcoming Xi.
The pro-government news outlet Politika featured a front-page piece penned by Xi on Tuesday, describing the relationship between two countries as “ironclad” — a term that gained popularity in many socialist nations during the 20th century for its association with industrialization and the working class.
“This visit shows that Serbia has exchanged Russia for China went it comes to its main partner to bargain with the West,” said Vuk Vuksanović, an expert on Sino-Serbian relations and a senior researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy.
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While insisting that his support for the Jewish state remains “ironclad,” Mr. Biden opted for the first time since the Gaza war erupted last fall to use his power as Israel’s chief arms supplier to demonstrate his discontent.
“We’re going to continue to do what’s necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told senators at a hearing on Wednesday as he became the first administration official to publicly confirm the weapons pause.
The dispute has come to a head in recent days as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his war cabinet appeared to be approaching a decision to proceed with the military assault on Rafah despite U.S. objections.
“The decision means Biden has decided to use his only real form of leverage over Bibi — withholding weapons,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, who had just returned from a trip to the Middle East, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname.
On the other hand, Democrats and progressives who have been pressing Mr. Biden to limit or cut off arms to curtail Israel’s war said the president’s action was long overdue and still not enough after more than 34,000 have died in Gaza, including both combatants and civilians.
The State Department is also still weighing whether to proceed with the delivery of Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits that can convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided weapons, but there is no imminent shipment at the moment.
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Steve Albini, a rock musician and revered audio engineer who played a singular role in the development of the sound of alternative rock music in the 1980s, the ’90s and beyond — recording acclaimed albums by Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Pixies and hundreds of others — while becoming an outspoken critic of the music industry, died on Tuesday at his home in Chicago.
The cause was a heart attack, according to Taylor Hales of Electrical Audio, the studio in Chicago that Mr. Albini founded in 1997.
With a sharp vision for how a band should be recorded, and an even sharper tongue for anything he deemed mediocre or compromised, Mr. Albini was one of rock’s most acerbic wits.
“Never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their nose rings,” he wrote after recording “Surfer Rosa,” the seminal 1988 album by the Boston-based band Pixies, which became one the classics of 1980s alt-rock.
(Even so, Mr. Albini remained a close friend of Kim Deal, the bassist in that band, and recorded her solo project, the Breeders.)
As a musician, Mr. Albini led the bands Big Black in the 1980s and, since 1992, Shellac, both of which venerated loud, raw guitars and angry, screaming vocals.
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Canada Post wants the federal government to consider changing the legislation that requires it to deliver letter mail daily— a mandate the Crown corporation says no longer reflects modern realities and is causing it to lose money.
The postal charter, which dictates how frequently Canada Post delivers mail, hasn't undergone any significant changes since it was created in 2009, Hamilton said.
The company blames its plight on the continued decline in mail revenue and warns of even larger and unsustainable losses if its operating model doesn't undergo major changes.
But unlike its private competitors, Canada Post is also required to deliver mail to all Canadians, everywhere, five days a week — even if it loses money doing it.
But Canada Post has struggled to compete with new, privately owned parcel companies that hire gig workers who are cheaper and deliver on evenings and weekends.
"We need to bargain language … [so] we're able to negotiate a safe way for workers to deliver the mail [and] get home at a reasonable time, because health and safety must be a priority," Simpson said.
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