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Labour tees up election fight over childcare

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

LONDON — The U.K.’s opposition Labour Party will make a major play for the votes of younger parents with a speech Thursday at a center-right think tank. In a speech at Onward, the Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson will promise to make reforming the childcare system her “first priority in government.”Phillipson will argue that mounting childcare costs and an insufficient number of free childcare hours is depriving parents of opportunities elsewhere.“The childcare model the Conservatives have built fails everyone, denying parents the ability to work the jobs they’d like, to give their children the opportunities they’d like, and is not of the quality that staff want to provide,” she will say.The party will promise 30 hours of free childcare a week if they enter government.Childcare is likely to be a key battleground ahead of the next election, with the government also mulling its own reform proposals as families feel the pinch of inflation.Rese...

Major Russian missile barrage slams targets across Ukraine

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

By HANNA ARHIROVA and ELENA BECATOROS (Associated Press)KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed “a massive rocket attack” that hit critical infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions of Ukraine, the country’s president said Thursday, with officials reporting at least six deaths in the largest such night-time attack in three weeks.Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the barrage that came while many people slept as an attempt by Moscow “to intimidate Ukrainians again.”“The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do,” Zelenskyy in an online statement.The war has largely ground to a battlefield stalemate over the winter. The Kremlin’s forces started targeting Ukraine’s power supply last October in an apparent attempt to demoralize the civilian population. The barrages later became less frequent, with analysts speculating Russia may have been running low on ammunition. The last massive barrage took ...

Russian missiles hit Ukraine, causing death and destuction

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed a missile barrage targeting energy infrastructure across Ukraine early Thursday, hitting residential buildings and killing at least six people in the largest such attack in three weeks, officials said.In southern Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, lost power as a result of the missile attacks, according to nuclear state operator Energoatom.It is the sixth time the plant has been in a state of blackout since it was taken over by Russia months ago, forcing it to rely on 18 diesel generators that can run the station for 10 days, Energoatom said. Nuclear plants need constant power to run cooling systems and avoid a meltdown.“The countdown has begun,” Energoatom said. Five people were killed in the Lviv region after a missile struck a residential area, Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi said. Three buildings were destroyed by fire and rescue workers were combing through rubble looking for more possible victims...

Israelis stage ‘day of resistance’ against Netanyahu plan

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli protesters on Thursday were intensifying their opposition to a contentious government proposal to overhaul the judiciary, with plans to block Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s route to the airport ahead of an official trip overseas and as the U.S. defense secretary was visiting.Demonstrators, who have been out protesting for more than two months against the overhaul, launched a “day of resistance to dictatorship” on Thursday. Parents and children demonstrated across the country ahead of school drop off and some protesters barricaded the offices of a conservative think tank helping to spearhead the judicial changes. The uproar over Netanyahu’s legal overhaul has plunged Israel into one of its worst domestic crises. Beyond the protests, which have drawn tens of thousands of Israelis to the streets and recently became violent, opposition has surged from across society, with business leaders and legal officials speaking out against what they...

Satellite photos: Likely Israel strike damages Syria airport

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A suspected Israeli airstrike targeting Aleppo International Airport in Syria again tore multiple craters on its runway, satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press showed Thursday. A United Nations official separately has criticized the attack for hindering earthquake relief for the hard-hit, war-torn nation. The attack on Aleppo airport comes as Israel previously struck the airfield as part of an Israeli campaign to disrupt Iranian weapons transfers to the country. Those attacks have continued despite ongoing political turmoil in Israel and as Iran’s nuclear program edges closer to enriching weapons-grade levels of uranium as negotiations over it have fallen apart. The satellite photos, taken early Tuesday afternoon by Planet Labs PBC, show vehicles gathered on the airport’s single asphalt runway around the damage. One spot, directly south of its passenger terminal, appeared to be a new, significant crater. It appeared the strik...

3 Palestinian militants killed in Israeli military raid

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — At least three Palestinian militants were killed in a shootout with Israeli troops on Thursday, the latest incident of near-daily bloodshed in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli raid was the most recent in months of deadly arrest operations by the military in the northern West Bank. The past year has been the bloodiest in recent decades. The Israeli army and police said troops raided the village of Jaba to apprehend suspects wanted for attacks on Israeli soldiers in the vicinity. The suspects opened fire on the Israeli troops, who shot back and killed three, all members of the Islamic Jihad militant group, police said. Police released a photo of assault rifles, pistols, ammunition and other items it said troops apprehended from the suspects. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the men as Sufyan Fakhoury, 26, Nayef Malaisha, 25 and Ahmed Fashafsha, 22, and said they were shot by Israeli fire during the military operation. It said a fourth man was hospitalized...

Bomb kills 3, including provincial governor, in Afghanistan

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A bomb killed a Taliban-appointed provincial governor and two others in Afghanistan’s Mazar-e- Sharif Thursday, a Taliban police spokesman said. The explosion killed Daud Muzmal and two others inside the governor’s office in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, according to Mohammad Asif Waziri, the Taliban appointed spokesman for local police chief. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the regional affiliate of the Islamic State group — known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province — is a key rival of the Taliban. The militant group has increased its attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021. Targets have included Taliban patrols and members of Afghanistan’s Shiite minority.. The Associated Press

Seoul: Leaders of S. Korea, Japan to hold summit next week

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The leaders of South Korea and Japan will hold a summit next week, Seoul officials said Thursday, days after South Korea announced a major step toward resolving strained bilateral ties stemming from Tokyo’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.President Yoon Suk Yeol is to visit Japan from March 16-17 at the invitation of the Japanese government. During this two-day trip, Yoon will hold a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Yoon’s office said in a statement.The announcement came three days after South Korea said it would raise local funds to compensate Koreans who performed forced labor during Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule. The South Korean plan doesn’t require Japanese companies to contribute to the reparations.Bilateral ties suffered a major setback after South Korea’s top court in 2018 ordered two Japanese companies to compensate some of their former Korean employees for forced labor during the colonial rule. The companies and the Japanes...

Copernicus: Antarctic sea ice extent reaches all-time minimum in February – Second warmest winter on record in Europe

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

Surface air temperature anomaly for February 2023 relative to the February average for the period 1991-2020.[1]Data source: ERA5. Credit: Copernicus Climate Change Service/ECMWF.The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission with funding from the EU, routinely publishes monthly climate bulletins reporting on the changes observed in global surface air temperature, sea ice cover and hydrological variables. All the reported findings are based on computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world. February 2023 - temperature highlights: ·       February 2023 was the fifth warmest globally·       Most of Europe had above-average air temperatures, particularly northern Norway and Sweden, and the Svalbard region·    ...

Detached house sells in San Jose for $1.6 million

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:50:50 GMT

1511 Rojo Place – Google Street ViewThe property located in the 1500 block of Rojo Place in San Jose was sold on Feb. 16, 2023. The $1,640,000 purchase price works out to $941 per square foot. The house built in 1977 has an interior space of 1,742 square feet. The property features four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garage, and two parking spaces. There’s also a pool in the backyard. The unit sits on a 6,000-square-foot lot.Additional houses have recently been purchased nearby:A 1,670-square-foot home on the 1000 block of Almarida Drive in San Jose sold in November 2022 for $1,730,000, a price per square foot of $1,036. The home has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.In September 2022, a 1,415-square-foot home on Whitehall Avenue in San Jose sold for $1,575,000, a price per square foot of $1,113. The home has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.