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Grant Shapps announced as new UK defense secretary to replace Ben Wallace

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

Grant Shapps has been moved from his current role as energy secretary to take on the defense brief.The appointment was made to replace Ben Wallace, who stepped down as the U.K.’s defense minister Thursday after four years in the role.Shapps, who has held several senior Cabinet posts during his career, is a long-time ally of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and will take over responsibility for guiding the U.K.’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.The decision to appoint Shapps will lead to a significant shake-up at the top of government, with a new energy secretary expected to be appointed later today.In his resignation letter Thursday, Wallace said the Ministry of Defence was a “more modern, better funded and more confident than the organization I took over in 2019”.But he implored the Prime Minister and his successor to push for additional funding for the military.“I know you agree with me that we must not return to the days where defence was view...

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak appoints new defense secretary ahead of next year’s general election

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Grant Shapps, one of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s staunchest Cabinet allies, was named U.K. defense secretary on Thursday as Sunak began a Cabinet reshuffle ahead of a general election that is expected to take place next year.The move came after Ben Wallace formally submitted his resignation earlier in the day, honoring a promise made last month. Wallace was defense secretary for four years, overseeing Britain’s military response to the war in Ukraine.Shapps, who supported Sunak during his campaign to become Conservative Party leader and prime minister last year, has been a Cabinet member since 2019, most recently serving as secretary of state for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.Wallace used his resignation letter to press for increased funding for the military, long his primary issue.“I genuinely believe that over the next decade the world will get more insecure and more unstable,’’ Wallace wrote in his letter to Sunak. “We both share the belief...

Typhoon Saola churns toward south China, suspending transport and delaying the school year

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese state media report at least 121 passenger trains are suspending service in anticipation of the arrival of Typhoon Saola. People in areas of southern China were warned to stay away from the coastline and several cities delayed the start of the school year. The suspensions on key lines running from north to south as well as on regional networks will begin Thursday and continue through Sept. 6, state broadcaster CCTV reported. China’s National Meteorological Center said Saola was moving toward the coast at a speed of about 15 kph (9 mph) and was due to make landfall Friday afternoon in the southern province of Guangzhou with sustained winds of 119 kph (74 mph) and gusts of up to 220 kph (137 mph). The storm will then travel west down the coast into the Guangxi region before curving south out to sea between Saturday night and Sunday morning, gradually weakening as it goes. The Guangdong city of Shanwei, closest to where Saola is expected to make landfall, ordered ...

UBS reports huge 2Q profit skewed by Credit Suisse takeover and foresees $10B in cost cuts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss banking giant UBS on Thursday announced plans to save $10 billion in costs, including through 3,000 staff reductions in Switzerland in the coming years, as it moves ahead with “full integration” of longtime rival Credit Suisse’s domestic operations following a takeover.The announcement came as the Zurich-based bank reported $29 billion in net and pre-tax profit in the second quarter, its first earnings release since the government-orchestrated merger to help stave off a possible global financial meltdown.Underlying profit before taxes came in at $1.1 billion, which excludes some $29 billion in negative goodwill, integration costs and other impacts of the takeover. Goodwill is an accounting technique, and the figure stems from the difference between the $3.25 billion that UBS paid for Credit Suisse and the underlying value of its assets.In a separate statement, Credit Suisse, calling itself a UBS subsidiary following the completion of the deal on June 12, an...

The USA is in great position entering Round 2 of the World Cup. So are many other teams

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The opponent names will become more recognizable for USA Basketball now. Nikola Vucevic awaits on Friday, Jonas Valanciunas on Sunday, and if the Americans keep progressing through this FIBA World Cup the challenges will only get tougher.To that, they say this: Good.Second-round play at the World Cup starts Friday, with a 32-team field to start the tournament now down to 16 contenders for the Naismith Trophy. The U.S. is one of eight teams with 3-0 records, and those are the teams that have the easiest path to the quarterfinals.“There’s an immediate respect level from guys going against them in the NBA,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr said. “The familiarity really helps as well. The hard part is when you go into a game and there’s a great player who these guys don’t know, and he’s got a last name with lots of letters, and you have to refer to him as No. 5 or whatever and our guys aren’t ready for how good this player is. That’s a huge challenge in this tournament.”...

Palestinian kills 1 after ramming truck into soldiers at West Bank checkpoint and is fatally shot

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A Palestinian driver slammed his truck into soldiers at a busy checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing one Israeli before being shot dead, Israeli authorities said, in the latest bloodshed in a relentless cycle of violence to roil the region.The violence came a day after Israeli police shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who stabbed a man in a Jerusalem light-rail station and after Palestinian militants detonated a bomb near a convoy of Israeli troops escorting Jewish worshippers to a holy site in the West Bank, wounding four Israeli troops. The unrest is part of more than a yearlong wave of violence that has surged to levels unseen in the West Bank in some two decades. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said one person was killed in the attack. At least two others were injured, according to paramedics. Israel’s Defense Ministry said the driver sped away and was stopped by security guards at a separate checkpoint nearby. P...

In the news today: Canadians in ‘hellish situation’, BC fires spark political flames

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today…Canada leaving four men in ‘hellish situation’Sally Lane says she is “overjoyed” to hear news of her son Jack — even if he’s barely hanging on in a Syrian prison — after years of silence.Lane says a civil society delegation messaged her from northeastern Syria to report that members had met with Jack after authorities managed to locate him within the prison system.Jack Letts, a Canadian citizen, is among the many foreign nationals in ramshackle Syrian camps and jails run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the war-ravaged region from militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.More details about Letts and other detained Canadians are expected to emerge today when members of the delegation discuss their recent five-day visit at a news conference in Ottawa.The four-person delegation says it held meetings with officials and saw a number of C...

A building fire in Johannesburg kills at least 64 people, many of them homeless, authorities say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — At least 64 people died when a nighttime fire ripped through a rundown five-story building in Johannesburg that was used by homeless people, emergency services said Thursday.Some of the people living in the building in South Africa’s biggest city threw themselves out of windows to escape the blaze and might have died because of that, a local government official said. Seven of the victims were children, the youngest a 1-year-old, according to an emergency services spokesperson.Another 43 people were injured in the blaze, which broke out at about 1 a.m. in the heart of Johannesburg’s central business district, Johannesburg Emergency Services Management spokesman Robert Mulaudzi said.Abandoned and broken-down buildings in the area are common and often taken over by people desperately seeking some form of accommodation. City authorities refer to them as “hijacked buildings.”Mulaudzi said the death toll was likely to increase and more bodies were likely tr...

Rain and a wrong address delayed firefighters reaching a Philippine factory blaze. 15 people died

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A fire killed 15 people Thursday in a small apparel factory in a Philippine residential area, where firefighters were delayed by flooding, traffic and a wrong address, a fire protection official.Most of the victims appeared to be factory workers and carpenters who were sleeping in rooms when the fire broke out Thursday morning. Some were found dead on an aisle outside the rooms and the factory owner and his child were among the dead, Chief Superintendent Nahum Tarroza of the Bureau of Fire Protection said. Three people survived with injuries by jumping off the second floor of the two-story factory in panic, Tarroza said. The three were taken to a hospital. The firefighters’ arrival was delayed by about 14 minutes after a monsoon-season downpour and wind caused flooding and traffic jams and a wrong address was given to firefighters, Tarroza said.Tarroza said he would order an investigation into the firefighters’ delayed response. The fire in the...

India is one of the world’s fastest-growing EV markets. This is why

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:02:54 GMT

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Groceries stashed in the back of an electric delivery scooter are an increasingly familiar sight in the Indian city of Bengaluru. In crowded markets, electric rickshaws drop off and pick up passengers. And the number of tech startups focused on electric transport has shot up as the city — and country — embrace electric vehicles.India is one of the fastest-growing electric vehicle markets in the world and now has millions of EV owners. More than 90% of its 2.3 million electric vehicles are the cheaper and more popular two- or three-wheelers — that’s motorbikes, scooters and rickshaws — and over half of India’s three-wheeler registrations in 2022 were electric, according to an IEA report released in April. A $1.3 billion federal plan to encourage EV manufacturing and provide discounts for customers, along with the past decade’s rising fuel costs and consumer awareness of the long-term cost benefits are combining to drive up sales, analysts say. Electric v...