Author: MoorningTimes

Cardiff Bay’s Labour administration has managed to pass the Welsh budget after striking a deal with Plaid Cymru, releasing a real-terms funding increase for all government departments and local authorities ahead of May’s Senedd elections.With 100 days to go before the contest, in which polls suggest the pro-independence Plaid Cymru will end more than 100 years of Labour hegemony in Wales, the government has allocated £27.5bn in spending for 2026-2027, up £1.2bn on the previous fiscal year.As a result of the deal, which the Senedd passed on Tuesday evening after Plaid Cymru agreed to abstain, the health and social care…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Alexander Vindman, the one-time National Security Council (NSC) aide whose testimony before Congress fueled the first impeachment of President Donald Trump, on Tuesday announced he’s launching a Democratic Senate campaign in Trump’s adopted home state of Florida.Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, is aiming to challenge GOP Sen. Ashley Moody, who was appointed last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill the Senate seat left vacant when then-Sen. Marco Rubio stepped down to serve as Secretary of State in Trump’s second administration.Republicans are defending their 53-47 Senate majority in this year’s…

The Labour party’s civil war over the Gorton and Denton byelection has intensified after Andy Burnham accused Downing Street sources of lying about his decision to apply to stand in the Manchester seat.The Manchester mayor was reacting to suggestions by unnamed Keir Starmer allies that he had been told “in no uncertain terms” that any request to the NEC committee to put his name forward for the byelection would be refused.Responding to a post on X by ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, which suggested sources close to the PM therefore saw Burnham’s move to stand as an explicit attempt to…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The Republican Party is appealing a New York judge’s decision to throw out the congressional lines for a GOP-held district in New York City on Monday.The judge ruled that the current map for Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ district, which lies in Staten Island and Brooklyn, dilutes the power of its Black and Hispanic voters. The state’s Independent Redistricting Commission has now been tasked with creating a new map by February 6.Republicans filed appeals to the ruling in two separate courts, including a mid-level appeals court and the state’s highest court, the Court of…

Rayner urges government to be more ‘unapologetically Labour’The leasehold announcement is an example of what Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM and former housing secretary, meant when she said at a fundraising event last night that the government should be more “unapologetically Labour”.In its manifesto, Labour said: We will take further steps to ban new leasehold flats and ensure commonhold is the default tenure. We will tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges. Given the government has a manifesto mandate for what it is proposing today (see 8.57am), the announcement should not come as a surprise. But it has impressed…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime was crucial to propping up America’s closest Communist neighbor, Cuba, for many years — but with the despot now in a New York prison, U.S. lawmakers and analysts are turning their attention to Mexico, a top U.S. ally and trading partner that has quietly taken Venezuela’s place.As of January, Mexico reportedly accounted for 13,000 barrels per day or 44% of Cuba’s 2025 oil imports, the top factor keeping what some lawmakers describe as a teetering economy barely afloat. With renewed trade talks approaching in July, Republican lawmakers…

This week, Keir Starmer will reportedly visit China. This will be the first trip of this kind by a British prime minister since Theresa May’s three-day visit to Beijing in 2018. Since then, relations between London and Beijing have become increasingly fraught, caught between growing security concerns and deep economic interdependence. Allegations of espionage and influence operations have sharpened political and public suspicion in the UK, even as deep trade links and supply chains on which the country depends make disengagement unrealistic. As fierce debate about the recent approval for the new Chinese embassy has shown, there are strong opinions…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A federal appeals court sided with the Trump administration Monday in a ruling that blocks restrictions on tactics being used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while dealing with anti-ICE agitators in Minnesota. The ruling by the three-judge panel 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals put a stay on a lower court ruling that prevented officers from arresting, detaining, pepper-spraying or retaliating against protesters in Minneapolis without probable cause as anti-ICE agitators continue to confront authorities carrying out enforcement operations. “We accessed and viewed the same videos the district court did,” the…

Ever since Andy Burnham abandoned Westminster to become Greater Manchester’s first ever mayor in 2017, he has been dogged with questions about returning to parliament for the top job. He never hid his ambition to become prime minister one day – he couldn’t, really, given that he tried and failed twice to become Labour party leader. But he insisted time and again that he was perfectly happy back in his beloved north, and had no plans to get back to London.Then on Saturday night, he finally cracked. He wrote to Labour’s ruling body to ask for permission to stand in…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran on a message of making the Big Apple more affordable for everyday Americans, but some of his actions in the first few weeks of his tenure have served to undercut that reality.In the early days of his time as mayor, Mamdani has already shown a penchant for vehemently defending low-wage, unskilled delivery-app workers in a manner that industry executives and business experts think will hit consumers’ pocketbooks. He sued a delivery app startup earlier this month for allegedly violating the city’s worker-rights laws, and warned…