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Paris stinks! Fears of a rat invasion as garbage strike hits French capital

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

PARIS — In the French capital, the garbage collectors are on strike, which means there is stinking trash piled high in the streets, politicians screaming at one another, and a likely invasion by … rats!Garbage bags could be seen piling up on the sidewalks of Paris over the weekend — especially in areas with many restaurants — forming shoulder-high piles of waste. That’s because the city’s garbage collectors have been on strike since March 6 in protest at a controversial reform of France’s pension system championed by President Emmanuel Macron.The reform would increase the age of retirement for garbage collectors — who can at present retire early with reduced benefits on account of the hardship of their work, which has been shown to affect their life expectancy — from 57 to 59.As a consequence, around 5,600 tons of uncollected waste lay in the streets of the capital on Monday — day eight of the strike — according to the Paris mayor’s office, quoted by F...

Gary Lineker saga exposes weakness at the heart of the BBC

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

Gary Lineker 1, BBC 0. That was the consensus in Westminster on Monday as the U.K.’s national broadcaster was forced into an apology and an embarrassing climbdown following a bitter impartiality row with its star football presenter.It followed a week in which what initially seemed a brief Twitterstorm was allowed to snowball into a far-reaching saga that gripped the watching public, drove a wrecking ball through Britain’s treasured weekend sports coverage, and raised broader questions about BBC impartiality, the role of social media and the broadcaster’s murky links to senior Tory figures.It was announced Monday that Lineker, a former England striker who is paid more than £1 million a year by the BBC, will be back presenting Britain’s long-running football show Match of the Day this weekend, having been abruptly taken off air ahead of last week’s program. The brief suspension came after Lineker triggered a social media storm by comparing the U.K. g...

The digital euro — not if but when

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

Paschal Donohoe is the Eurogroup president and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform of Ireland.In recent years, the pace of innovation and change in the financial and payments sector has been exponential. We can now make payments, transfer money, and invest by using tools that didn’t even exist a few years ago. And between 2019 and 2022, the share of euro area mobile payments more than tripled in both number and value.These new technologies can benefit both consumers and companies, enabling greater access to financial services, offering more choices and increasing the efficiency of operations. But they also raise important questions about how to regulate them to safeguard our financial stability and protect consumers.We have seen the emergence of cryptocurrencies from private actors and the concept of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) take hold globally. In this context, we need to consider how best to ensure our common currency — ...

UK-Canada trade chiefs to meet after ‘sour’ Indo-Pacific talks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

LONDON — U.K. trade chief Kemi Badenoch meets her Canadian counterpart Tuesday after the two nations clashed over Britain’s bid to join a key Asia-Pacific trade bloc.The U.K. is on the cusp of joining the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), long held out as a key post-Brexit prize.But Canada’s demand that Britain opens up its beef market thwarted hopes of a breakthrough during talks on the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc earlier this month, four people familiar with the talks confirmed to POLITICO. The U.K. government said it would not comment on live negotiations.The confrontation between London and Ottawa at the week-long summit was “sour indeed” for all involved, said a diplomat from a CPTPP member country.A Brussels-based trade expert briefed on the talks said: “The meeting in Vietnam ended with all the other participants basically throwing their hands in the air saying Canada and [the] U.K. must sort out th...

The race is on to reform the EU’s power market

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

The European Commission is about to present a “targeted” reform of the bloc’s power market — even if the mad political drive to rejig how electricity is priced during last year’s emergency has subsided.That means the proposals being put forward by the Commission on Tuesday are more limited — not the revolution advocated by some countries like France and Spain, but also more than market conservatives like Germany and the Netherlands wanted — according to drafts seen by POLITICO.But even as the pressure to overhaul the market has faded, it’s been replaced by a fresh effort to build enough political traction to get the proposal through the EU’s legislative process before next year’s European election.“Last year, politicians essentially wanted to take over electricity market designs and thought they knew what outcomes they wanted — they wanted to repair the market with a hammer,” said Georg Zachmann, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank. “At the same tim...

Rain, snow arrive in Mass. as nor’easter sets in

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

Rain and snow began to move across Massachusetts Monday evening as communities across the state complete final preparations for an expected daylong nor’easter ramping up overnight. Snow is expected to gradually replace rain overnight, pushing from west to east to communities around Worcester by 6 a.m. Tuesday. While snowing in the west, continuing rain will make for a wet morning commute east of I-495 into Boston on Tuesday. RELATED: Nor’easter UpdateSnow will push across the rest of the state through the morning, moving through the Merrimack Valley before midday and getting into Boston by the early afternoon. Almost all of Massachusetts is expected to be seeing some form of snow before 6 p.m. Tuesday.While likely not seeing intense snowfall rates of 1 or 2 inches per hour, snow will likely be falling steadily in many locations for several hours before winding down after midnight on Wednesday morning. The highest snowfall totals from this round of winter weather are e...

Ex-Yankee Joey Gallo heckled in spring training game vs. former team

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

Yankees fans down in Florida gave a stark reminder on how they felt about a former Bronx Bomber.Ex-Yankee Joey Gallo was booed loudly during the Minnesota Twins’ 1-0 victory over the Bombers Monday, giving the two-time All-Star a preview of what future road games in Yankee Stadium will be like.Gallo went 1-for-3 in the game and was heckled each time he came to the plate. The 29-year-old became enemy No. 1 to Yankees fans after an abysmal tenure in the Bronx. Days before the 2021 trade deadline, the Yankees acquired Gallo and lefty reliever Joely Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers in exchange for four minor leaguers. The Yankees hoped that the transaction would bring a productive lefty bat and defense to a team hoping for postseason success.Gallo’s time with the Yankees wasn’t a good one.In 140 games with the Bombers from July 2021 to August 2022, Gallo slashed .159/.291./368 with 25 homers and 46 RBI. He struck out 194 times in 501 plate appearances and never showed ...

Defense carries Foxboro past Walpole in Div. 2 girls state semifinal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

BRIDGEWATER – Offense is what brought Foxboro to the Div. 2 state semifinals, but it was their defense that brought them one win away from a state title at Bridgewater-Raynham Monday night.After a back-and-forth first three quarters, the fifth-seeded Warriors stepped up on defense as well as offensively over the final quarter and a half to defeat top-seeded Walpole 51-37 in the Div. 2 state semifinals.“As disappointing as it is not to play this game at the TD Garden, the excitement that this gym had and the effort that we gave, I’m not even disappointed that we didn’t get to play at the Garden to tell you the truth,” said Foxboro coach Lisa Downs about her team’s effort.Next up, Foxboro will face off against No. 6 Dracut in the Div. 2 state final at Tsongas Center this weekend. The Warriors last made it to the finals in 2020 and ended up co-state champions with Taconic after winning the Div. 2 state semis at TD Garden over North Reading 52-35.With a 22-18 advantage at the half that ...

Joe Mazzulla admits concern after Celtics’ ugly loss to lowly Rockets

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

The Celtics knew this six-game road trip – with several beatable opponents – was important as they try to build good habits and fix some of their glaring issues as the playoffs loom.But if Saturday’s win over the Hawks was an encouraging sign, Monday was a major step in the opposite direction.The Celtics have suffered some puzzling losses to inferior opponents this season and Monday’s defeat is easily among the worst of the season, especially at this stage of the year. The C’s didn’t start the night with the right energy and their bad habits and deficiencies were on display in ugly fashion in a costly, inexcusable 111-109 loss to the Houston Rockets, who are dead last in the Western Conference with 52 losses and already officially eliminated from the playoff picture, and who the Celtics pummeled by 24 back in December.Forget the No. 1 seed. At this rate, the Celtics will be fighting over their final 13 games just to maintain the No. 2 seed, which they lead by just one game over the ...

President Biden wraps up San Diego visit at Democratic National Committee event in North County

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:34:36 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- President Joe Biden continues to make stops in the San Diego area Monday after meeting with British and Australian Prime Ministers to discuss the countries’ partnership and defense issues.FOX 5 captured video of Biden arriving via helicopter in Del Mar around 6:15 p.m. There, he made his way to the final event of the day in Rancho Santa Fe for a Democratic National Committee reception, according to White House officials.The event's goal was to raise $1 million for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund. Representative Scott Peters and about 40 guests total were in attendance, where the president spoke for about 40 minutes. Press pool reports told FOX 5 he shared stories about his family life and spoke about everything from policy to defending Ukraine and why he wanted to run for office in 2020, which he says “was to restore the soul of the country.”   National City teacher pleads not guilty to over a dozen...