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Campaign is said to be first time Labour-affiliated Unison is lobbying en masse against a key party policyMigrant workers and the UK’s largest union will carry out a mass leafleting campaign in Shabana Mahmood’s Birmingham constituency to protest against a planned change in immigration policy.The Labour-affiliated Unison union says the changes will adversely affect migrant care workers. About one-third of all care workers and one-fifth of all NHS workers are migrants. Continue reading...

Lord Robertson says diplomatic tone from White House is at ‘historic low’ and two allies are likely to keep divergingUK politics live – latest updatesBritain’s high military dependence on the US “is no longer tenable” and the UK has to become increasingly independent of the special relationship with Washington, a former Nato chief has warned.Lord Robertson, who last week accused British leaders of a “corrosive complacency” towards defence, said on Wednesday the traditional allies were diverging over values – and that even after Donald Trump, the separation was likely to continue. Continue reading...

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth makes announcement and calls military’s flu vaccine mandate ‘broad’ and ‘not rational’Members of the armed services will no longer be required to have an annual flu vaccination shot under a new policy announced Tuesday by Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary.In a video statement posted to social media, Hegseth described the mandate as “overly broad” and “not rational” and the decision to drop the vaccine requirement as “seizing this moment to discard any absurd overreaching mandates that only weaken our war fighting capabilities”. Continue reading...

Maria Medetis Long had expressed doubts over case of John Brennan, whose agency said Russia boosted Trump in 2016Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxA federal prosecutor leading the investigation into former CIA director John Brennan is no longer working on the case after expressing reservations about it, according to a person familiar with the matter.The prosecutor, Maria Medetis Long, informed attorneys involved in the case she was no longer handling it, according to CNN, which first reported she was leaving the case. Medetis Long is a career attorney serving as the chief of the national security division in the US attorney’s office for the southern district of Florida. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading...

Beijing may be reaping some diplomatic benefit but Trump’s war holds risks for its energy security and economyTwo months ago, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, promised it would be a “big year” for China-US relations. He was right, but perhaps not in the way he expected.Wang was speaking before a planned visit by Donald Trump to Beijing in March, which would have been Trump’s first trip to China since 2017. But the trip, and a meeting with China’s president, Xi Jinping, was kicked back by several weeks after Trump decided to launch strikes with Israel against Iran, starting a war in the Middle East that has caused a global energy crisis and roiled diplomatic relations across the board. Continue reading...

Rising inflation and unemployment mean effects of Iran war could be even worse than the post-Covid cost-of-living crisisGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAs diesel prices make history by passing $3 a litre in nearly every capital city around the country, the stresses of high fuel costs are beginning to show.Truckies are warning they will go out of business if they can’t renegotiate their contracts with customers; farmers are warning the same, telling families that food in our supermarkets could soon cost more. Continue reading...

• New York University Abu Dhabi team discovered clues of subsurface water on Mars in Gale Crater using NASA's Curiosity rover data, indicating habitability lasted longer than previously thought. • Ancient sand dunes hardened into rock billions of years ago after interacting with groundwater, confirmed by comparing Martian formations to UAE desert analogs. • Led by Dimitra Atri, the study published in Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets highlights underground sites as prime locations for past life evidence.

In a randomised trial, men who experience premature ejaculation benefitted from using an app to learn techniques for extending intercourse