Prime Minister Keir Starmer has underlined the UK’s cast iron commitment to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence to respond to growing threats, ahead of a NATO summit where he will say a step up in defence spending can safeguard the future of the Alliance. At the summit in Washington D.C., the PM will emphasise his determination to face down global threats to Britain and its western allies. He will praise NATO members’ efforts to increase defence spending and say that further increases in spending will help the alliance tackle the nature of today’s threats. The Prime Minister…
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SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good afternoon. So it’s a particular pleasure to be here with the latest star recruit of the Washington Nationals baseball team, Jens Stoltenberg, also known as the Secretary General of NATO. It was wonderful being with Jens yesterday at Nationals Park, watching him throw out the first pitch, but it’s been even more wonderful to be side by side with the Secretary General for the last three and a half years in my case, watching his leadership of our Alliance. We have NATO coming together for its 75th anniversary here in Washington – of course, celebrating those 75…
While millions of Americans vacation on beaches every year to seek out sun, sand and the sea, many might not realize how dangerous digging holes in the sand can be. In February 2024, a 7-year-old girl died after an approximately 5-foot (1.5-meter) hole she and her brother dug in the sand collapsed in on her, burying her alive. As a coastal science researcher who’s been studying beaches for many years, I was called in to help investigate the girl’s death. While many people nearby stepped in to try to free the girl after the sand hole collapsed, local firefighters couldn’t…
Any night now, a “new star” or nova will appear in the night sky. While it won’t set the sky ablaze, it’s a special opportunity to see a rare event that’s usually difficult to predict in advance. The star in question is T Coronae Borealis (T CrB, pronounced “T Cor Bor”). It lies in the constellation of the northern crown, prominent in the Northern Hemisphere but also visible in the northern sky from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand over the next few months. Most of the time T CrB, which is 3,000 light years away, is much too faint to…
Physical activity is important for children; it supports improved health, development and sleep. However, children in the early years (from birth to age five) with disabilities are consistently underrepresented in national monitoring, and are subsequently excluded from intervention efforts promoting physical activity. The ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth (the most comprehensive assessment of child and youth physical activity in Canada) was released in May, and again reported a noticeable lack of available data for children with disabilities. As researchers in the Child Health and Physical Activity Lab in the School of Occupational Therapy at Western…
Grant supports jobs, training in 7 Montana counties, 2 American Indian reservationsWASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced an award of $800,000 to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry for employment and training services for people in Montana affected by the closure of the Pyramid Lumber and Roseburg Forest Products lumber mills in Missoula County. Administered by the department’s Employment and Training Administration, the award is the first increment of a National Dislocated Worker Grant of up to $1,988,070 for the state to provide retraining and skills development for dislocated workers primarily in Missoula County, and in Flathead, Lake, Lincoln, Mineral, Powell and Sanders counties and…
At the time of his sentencing in April last year, his supporters argued that imprisonment could cost him his life, with the politician already suffering from a serious nerve condition after twice being mysteriously poisoned. Since the sudden death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, those fears have intensified. “Given the Russian authorities’ track record of obfuscation and false statements, his actual location cannot be ascertained,” the Free Russia Foundation, an NGO, said in a statement, calling the refusal to allow his lawyers to visit a breach of Russian and international norms. Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen, is rumored to be among those slated for a…
Do constants of nature — the numbers that determine how things behave, like the speed of light — change over time as the universe expands? Does light get a little tired travelling vast cosmic distances? It was believed that dark matter and dark energy explained these cosmological phenomena, but recent research indicates that our universe has been expanding without dark matter or dark energy. Doing away with dark matter and dark energy resolves the “impossible early galaxy problem,” that arises when trying to account for galaxies that do not adhere to expectations regarding to size and age. Finding an alternative…
Thank you, Madam Chair. On the morning of 8 July, Russia launched yet another prolonged, deadly missile attack against cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih. President Zelenskyy said that over 40 missiles, including Kinzhal ballistic missiles, were used in the attack. At least 41 people have so far been confirmed dead, with over 170 more injured, although that number is, tragically, likely to rise further. In Kyiv, the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital – which is the biggest children’s medical facility in Ukraine and the country’s primary provider of specialist paediatric care – was among the buildings struck. There can…
Wednesday Season 2 is currently shooting in Ireland with director Tim Burton, and showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, bringing the series to life. The series is doing big things for Ireland, and it’s been revealed that it is the “largest production to ever film in Ireland” in terms of production spend.In celebration of that, Ireland’s prime minister, Taoiseach Simon Harris, visited the set to meet the cast and crew of the series, and to offer a few words to mark the occasion.Harris said: “I’m delighted to see Ireland continues to be chosen as a location to film series and…