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20 people who matter in the UK’s race to net zero

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

LONDON — The U.K. has net zero targets. Now it’s just got to figure out how to get there — fast. In the space of four years, the U.K.’s legal net zero target has gone from words on paper to a vast national effort touching the lives of everyone in the country. Despite ambitious goals, enshrined in law, some in industry criticize what they see as the lack of a plan to aggressively reduce emissions.There are only a small number of people who can really shape the path the U.K. takes — and we’ve whittled down that cast of characters to 20 net zero influencers in politics, policy and business. Some are ardent climate campaigners, some are trying to swing the debate the other way, some sit somewhere in between. And some are just trying to get the nuts and bolts right. Here’s POLITICO’s 20 people who matter in U.K. net zero policy: 1. Nick Park, Sunak’s energy guruNo, not the Wallace & Gromit guy. Park is No. 10’s energy policy special adviser, the off...

Poland braces for abortion protests as doctors become center of storm

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

WARSAW — A wave of abortion rights protests is set to take place in Poland on Wednesday sparked by the death in May of a pregnant woman — an incident that has thrust doctors into the eye of the storm.Dorota Lalik, a 33-year-old pharmacist, checked into the Pope John Paul II hospital in the southern Polish town of Nowy Targ after her waters broke on May 21. She was five months pregnant.According to Polish media site gazeta.pl, Lalik was told initially that her pregnancy could be sustained and that her health was not in danger. A relative of the late woman said that the staff told Lalik to “lie with her legs up so that the waters might come back,” according to the report. After a three-day ordeal, Lalik’s health began deteriorating rapidly. While she was given an abortion on May 24, she eventually died from septic shock and multiple organ failure the same day.Her death has caused outrage in Poland, with anger directed at the country’s anti-choice laws but also at docto...

Tuesday’s high school roundup/scores: King Philip edges St. Mary’s in Div. 2 state semifinal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

BASEBALLMatt Kelley (two-run home run, two runs scored), and Brendan Sencaj (hit, RBI, two runs) set the tone offensively as third-seeded King Philip (17-7) outlasted No. 10 St. Mary’s (Lynn) 6-4 in the Div. 2 state semifinals. … Owen McHugh cleared the bases with a two-out double in the sixth inning, providing crucial insurance for top-seeded Milton (21-3) en route to a 4-0 win over No. 5 Whitman-Hanson. Scott Longo also struck out 15 for the Wildcats in 6 ⅔ innings.In the Div. 3 state semifinals, Jacob DeCoste went the distance while striking out six and allowing two earned runs as No. 2 Medfield (18-5) doubled up No. 3 Bishop Stang, 8-4. … Caleb Allen struck out 14 in a complete-game effort as No. 4 Oakmont knocked off top-seeded Taconic, 2-0.Cullen Crocker broke a scoreless tie with a sacrifice fly in the top of the 14th, then Jake Centrella and Ryan Solimini followed with run-producing doubles as No. 12 Abington (16-8) defeated No. 9 Northbridge, 5-1. … Connor Flynn’s RBI singl...

Squandering Red Sox drop second consecutive extra-inning game to Rockies

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

How to sum up the 2023 Red Sox in one word?Squander.It’s not that they don’t have opportunities, it’s that they’re not seizing them. They pass up free passes, and load the bases just to leave them that way. It’s gotten progressively worse all season. After averaging 6.6 left on base per game in April (29 games) and 6.8 in May (26 G), they’re up to 7.8 over 13 games this month.Their inability to capitalize reached new heights on Tuesday night, as they were forced to do something a Red Sox team hadn’t done since May 1996: Go to extra innings three days in a row.(They’d also played three extra-inning games in a row in June 2000, but not on consecutive days.)And for the second night in a row, the Red Sox lost to the Colorado Rockies by one run in the 10th inning (7-6).Making his third start of the month after working out off the bullpen since mid-April, Kutter Crawford allowed four earned runs on five hits, walked three, and struck out fiv...

Yankees win, but Luis Severino stumbles again in Subway Series opener

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

After a lat strain delayed his 2023 debut, Luis Severino looked like a shot in the arm for an injury-riddled Yankees’ rotation after his first two starts of the season.The right-hander tallied two earned runs and 10 strikeouts over 11.1 innings against the Reds and Padres on May 21 and 27, respectfully, a strong showing as he continued to build up at the major league level after two minor league starts. Since then, however, Severino’s performance has been more of a problem than a welcomed addition.That remained the case Tuesday against the Mets, as the 29-year-old permitted five earned runs (six total) over 4.2 innings in a teeter-totter, 7-6 Yankees win that saw Max Scherzer pitch poorly, too. Severino also gave up seven hits and 10 hard-hit balls while walking three, striking out four and balking twice over 104 pitches.Aaron Boone could’ve spared Severino a run, but the manager stuck with the starter with two outs in the fifth following a brief mound visit. The c...

Franklin blanks Methuen, 4-0, returns to state championship game

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

WORCESTER – For the first time in 60 years, a rematch in the Division 1 state final is on deck.Austin Campbell threw five shutout innings while Esig Chin collected a pair of hits and scored two runs as No. 1 Franklin blanked No. 21 Methuen, 4-0, on Tuesday night at Holy Cross to earn a date with Hockomock Kelley-Rex foe Taunton in the championship game.Franklin will look to avenge last year’s defeat at the hands of the Tigers in the final game. It’s the first Division 1 state title rematch in Massachusetts since 1962-63 when Chicopee beat Somerville in consecutive seasons.“I think we have great leadership,” Franklin coach Zach Brown said. “It hasn’t always been easy, especially with off the field situations, but guys have stayed together. I am really proud of their effort.”The win provided a sliver of joy in an otherwise emotionally turbulent time for Franklin. For the second time this spring the Panthers lost a classmate as sophomore ...

Golden Knights blast Panthers 9-3 in Game 5 to capture first Stanley Cup title

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Golden Knights delivered their city a true Vegas-style party from dazzling passes to Mark Stone’s hat trick to all-out goal celebrations, capturing the young organization’s first Stanley Cup with a 9-3 romp over the beaten up and exhausted Florida Panthers on Tuesday night.Coach Bruce Cassidy, in a nod to the Knights’ brief history, started five of the original Vegas players known as the Misfits and put the sixth on the second shift. Cassidy sounded confident the day before the game that his team would play well, and it certainly did, blowing open a one-goal game in the second period to lead 6-1. The nine goals tied the record for the most in a Cup Final.“Vegas, you certainly know how to throw a party,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told the crowd. “What’s going on inside this arena and outside is incredible and a testament to what a great hockey market this is.“What has happened here has been simply incredible. Not only is Vegas a ...

Australian prosecutors drop murder charge over German backpacker’s death in 2005

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian prosecutors dropped a murder charge Wednesday against German immigrant Tobias Moran over the death of his German backpacker girlfriend Simone Strobel in 2005.Charges of murder and perverting the course of justice were withdrawn in Lismore Local Court in New South Wales state, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said in an email. No reasons were given.The naked body of 25-year-old Strobel from Rieden, Bavaria, was found hidden under palm fronds in a Lismore park on Feb. 17, 2005. She was found six days after she was reported missing and close to where she had been camping in a Lismore trailer park with Moran, then known as Suckfuell, his sister Katrin Suckfuell, and friend Jens Martin.Moran, now 43, was arrested in July 2022 in the west coast city of Perth where he lived. He was extradited to New South Wales and charged with murder and perverting the course of justice. A Sydney court released him on bail and allowed him to return to...

110 million people forcibly displaced as Sudan, Ukraine wars add to world refugee crisis, UN says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

Some 110 million people have had to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution, or human rights violations, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says. The war in Sudan, which has displaced nearly 2 million people since April, is but the latest in a long list of crises that has led to the record-breaking figure. “It’s quite an indictment on the state of our world,” Filippo Grandi, who leads the U.N. refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva ahead of the publication Wednesday of UNHCR’s Global Trends Report for 2022. Last year alone, an additional 19 million people were forcibly displaced including more than 11 million who fled Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what became the fastest and largest displacement of people since World War II.“We are constantly confronted with emergencies,” Grandi said. Last year the agency recorded 35 emergencies, three to four times more than in previous years. “Very few make your headlines,” Grandi added, arguing that the w...

Syria says Israeli airstrikes over southwest Damascus wounded soldier and caused damage

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:39 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Airstrikes attributed to Israel over Syria’s capital early Wednesday critically wounded one soldier, Syrian state media reported.Syria’s state news agency, SANA, citing military officials, said the strikes over southwest Damascus also caused “material damage” without giving further details.It reported that Syrian air defenses shot down some of the missiles.Israeli authorities did not comment immediately.Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment next door, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of neighboring Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.The last suspected Israeli airstrike on Syria was on May 29, targeting locations in the vicinity of Damascus. Israel has also targeted the international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo several times this past year, often putting it out of commission.The Associated Press