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COP28’s success judged on challenging fossil fuel industry, UN official says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

Mark Carney, the United Nations’ special envoy on climate action and finance, has said that the achievements of COP28 will depend on the host country’s ability to confront the fossil fuel industry.“All countries need to be judged on what their contribution is,” Carney told POLITICO’s Power Play podcast, ahead of the summit which is set to begin in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday.“And that goes for a country [the UAE] that is a leading oil and gas producer, also a leading renewable producer,” he added.The UAE, home to some of the largest oil reserves in the world, has attracted criticism for appointing Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber as COP president, in spite of his role as CEO of its national oil company.Climate activist Greta Thunberg has, for example, said the appointment of al-Jaber — who is also chairman of the board of directors of the UAE’s national renewable energy company — was “co...

Time to ‘step up’: Mark Carney throws down the gauntlet at COP28

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

Listen on Spotify Apple Music Google Play EN_Google_Podcasts_Badge Created with Sketch. Acast Amazon Music The diplomatic caravan is rolling into Dubai for this year’s COP — the United Nations’ round of global climate talks. Scores of world leaders and luminaries — including King Charles and the pope — from nearly 200 countries are due to attend, alongside an estimated 70,000 ...

Sainte-Soline : une prime à la bassine pour le préfet des Deux-Sèvres

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

Le préfet des Deux-Sèvres a été encouragé financièrement à construire des bassines. Une feuille de route obtenue par POLITICO et signée en août 2021 par le Premier ministre Jean Castex liste “le nombre de constructions [de réserve] lancées” parmi les indicateurs utilisés pour évaluer la performance annuelle du préfet de l’époque.Quelques semaines plus tard démarrait la construction du projet de méga bassine de Sainte-Soline, qui a donné lieu à de violentes manifestations dans les mois qui ont suivi. Plusieurs de leurs organisateurs étaient jugés mardi à Niort, où plusieurs peines de prison avec sursis ont été requises.Le sujet est depuis devenu éminemment politique : les Insoumis défendent ce jeudi à l’Assemblée un moratoire sur les projets de méga-bassines dans le cadre de leur niche parlementaire, alors que plusieurs associations écologistes dénoncent l’impact sur les nappes phréatiques et la biodiversité de ces réserves d’eau à usage agricole.Feuilles de route et perfo...

Eddie Murphy decks the halls in ‘Candy Cane Lane’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

For “Candy Cane Lane,” his first-ever holiday movie, Eddie Murphy celebrates in El Segundo, aka Christmas Central.Screenwriter Kelly Younger’s childhood experiences on the real Candy Cane Lane in El Segundo inspired this wild, magical trip with elves, spells and what is easily several tons of Christmas decorations.Murphy, 62, is Chris, determined this year to win the neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest.  Only Chris unwittingly signs a contract with Jillian Bell’s elf Penny who casts a serious spell.  Here comes the 12 Days of Christmas LIVE!Chaos ensues as Chris, his wife (Tracee Ellis Ross) and their three kids band together to stop Pepper and bring peace to the Lane.Director Reginald Hudlin last worked with Murphy on “Boomerang,” over 30 years ago.  “What happened,” said Hudlin in a virtual press conference yesterday, “we had been talking with Amazon, and I said, ‘I want to do a Christmas movie’ and they said, ‘We have a Christmas movie and Eddie Murphy wants t...

Editorial: Amid migrant crisis, D.C. Dems fight border security bid

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

As those living outside the Beltway know, there’s a migrant crisis in America. Cities and states around the country are straining to cope with continued arrivals of individuals and families seeking shelter, food, housing and education.We’ve reached shelter capacity in Massachusetts, some migrants are staying in the state transportation building, and Gov. Maura Healey has sent up flares for federal and state funding to ease the burden.For Democrats on Capitol Hill, everything’s fine.According to The Hill, reports surfaced that a bipartisan group of lawmakers negotiating a foreign aid deal tentatively agreed to raise the legal standard for asylum claims and is considering cracking down on the humane parole of migrants into the United States. Some Senate Democrats are seeing red.“As negotiations surrounding the supplemental aid package progress, we are concerned about reports of harmful changes to our asylum system that will potentially deny lifesaving humanitarian pr...

5 classic holiday looks to dazzle this season

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

Around the holidays, the “what to wear” options are endless, much more thrilling than usual, and so much, much more adventurous and fun. And they lend themselves to the kind of drama embraced by parties and movies, red carpets, and big nights out.Here are five iconic holiday looks for all kinds of occasions in the coming weeks.A Bit of Black Watch TartanA favorite of Kate Middleton and Megan Markle thanks to its place as a revered tradition in Scotland, it pops up mostly around the holidays in America. And as fetching as it is on sharp-looking casual numbers like the Black Watch plaid Holland pant ($47 on factory.jcrew.com), with their slim and straight leg, I really fall for it in a fancier form for the holidays. Exhibit A: The Black Watch Plaid One-Shoulder Georgette Gown by Polo Ralph Lauren ($798 on neimanmarcus.com). The gorgeous one-shoulder neckline is fit for gala evenings and big nights out, with its sleeveless fit and flare silhouette and high-drama, floor-swee...

‘Family Switch’ contrived, but cast makes it fun

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

Just when I thought I was never going to have to review another body-switching movie, along comes “Family Switch” from Netflix for the holidays. Directed by the filmmaker known as McG, whose credits include “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” and “Terminator Salvation,” and scripted by Victoria Strouse (“Let It Snow”), Adam Sztykiel (“Black Adam”) and Amy Krouse Rosenthal (“You May Want to Marry My Husband”), “Family Switch” has a title that is too on the nose. It tells the Christmas-themed tale of the supposedly dysfunctional Walker family. Mother Jess (Jennifer Garner) is an architect; father Bill (Ed Helms), who totally scored when he got the much better-looking Jess to marry him, teaches music at the school attended by his two older children. They are precocious smarty pants Wyatt (Brady Noon, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”) and soccer-playing phenom CC (Emma Myers, better known as the werewolf roommate of Wednesday Addams on “Wednesday.”)Within the first thre...

Moore: Dems have officially rejected JFK’s legacy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

There’s a political cartoon going around that shows John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy sitting on a couch watching a speech by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The two hold their palms to their heads and moan that their legacy is being twisted and ruined.This has the situation completely backward. It isn’t RFK Jr. who is rejecting the Kennedy brothers’ legacy, but President Joe Biden and the modern-day Democrats.It’s been said many times — and it happens to be true — that if JFK were alive today and he were espousing the ideas of his 1,000-day presidency, he would be a Republican. JFK was a staunch Cold War anti-communist/socialist. He espoused lower tax rates, was pro-life, served our country in uniform valiantly, was patriotic, was a hawk on protecting First Amendment civil liberties, and he and his brother, who served as attorney general, took on union and government corruption.Not many Democratic leaders today check any of these boxes.This is why the Left has com...

Lucas: Biden needs backbone to fight antisemitism

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

If some of the hundreds of thousands of pro Hamas, anti-Israel demonstrators across the country — and the world — volunteered to fight for the Hamas terrorists the war might be over by now.And Israel might have been defeated.But is so much easier to shut down bridges in New York, deface the gate outside of the White House, harass American Jews, tear down hostage posters and chant inane slogans about destroying Israel and killing everybody in it, than it is to man an AK-47 and fight in the rubble of Gaza City.In Washington and New York, law-breaking demonstrators do not even get arrested. Fighting for their cause in Gaza would get them killed.But these loud and well-organized antisemitic demonstrators, especially in left-leaning colleges and universities like Harvard, would rather chant mindless slogans than put on a set of fatigues and do some real fighting.And some of the Harvard pro-Hamas demonstrators in Cambridge are so uneducated, so downright ignorant, that they think th...

Dear Abby: Mom left decades ago, now she’s dying

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:45:19 GMT

Dear Abby: I was married young to my high school sweetheart. We had five children together. During that time, I joined the Air Force. After six years of marriage, I discovered my wife was cheating on me. Once I realized we couldn’t reconcile, I told her I wanted a divorce and custody of the children. She agreed. It cost me my career with the USAF.Flash-forward to today: Thirty-seven years have passed. I have never said a bad word to my children about their mother. My ex never took the time to build meaningful relationships with them. My oldest daughter once tried to have a relationship with her. A month or so later, she asked, “Dad, why did you ever marry that woman?”I have just learned from my oldest daughter that her mother is dying and has less than six months to live. My oldest shared the news with her siblings, who had given up on having a mother years ago. She also offered to drive her mom to appointments.Do you think it would be good for my children to write...