José Luis Ábalos found to have taken bribes on Covid-era public contracts in damaging blow to Pedro Sánchez
Spain’s supreme court has jailed the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos for 24 years for taking bribes on public contracts for sanitary equipment such as face masks during the Covid pandemic.
Ábalos’s aide, Koldo García, was jailed for 19 years in a trial that is one of several scandals to have enveloped the government of Pedro Sánchez over recent months.
Continue reading...Number of countries issue alerts with sustained and rising temperatures expected to present danger to health
Two children aged four and two have been found dead in their family’s car in south-eastern France, the local prosecutor said, as a large swathe of western Europe suffers a ferocious heatwave forecast to shatter absolute temperature records.
“The causes of death are yet to be determined, but the heat is the leading line of inquiry,” said Hélène Mourges, the prosecutor in the town of Carpentras, where the temperature was expected to exceed 39C (102.2F) on Monday afternoon.
Continue reading...Ursula von der Leyen, Friedrich Merz and Volodymyr Zelenskyy say British PM helped increase security
European leaders have paid tribute to Keir Starmer after he announced his resignation as the British prime minister, triggering the postponement of an upcoming EU-UK summit.
The European Council president, António Costa, said: “For sure we need to postpone it, but we are reassessing the opportunity to hold this new summit …
Continue reading...Experts thought H5N1 bird flu would more likely reach Australia’s north. But an arrival from Antarctica had always been possible
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Brown skuas and giant petrels are a common sight offshore in southern Australian waters in the winter months, but they will rarely risk venturing on to land.
So when two of these birds were discovered sick – on beaches a few kilometres apart on Western Australia’s southern coastline – it was a sign something might be wrong.
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