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Puerto Rico roiled by widening political crisis as top official comes under fire

The administration of Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González is mired in a new political crisis tied to a top government official that serves as her chief of staff

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Vietnamese Tycoon's Seized Hermes Collection Sold For Over Rs 5 Crore

The sale included several Hermes Birkin bags, which are among the most expensive and in-demand luxury handbags in the world. 

Pete Hegseth accuses Nato countries of ‘free riding’ in combative address

US defence secretary addresses allies in latest attempt to get Europe to raise military budgetsPete Hegseth has announced a review of the US military presence across Europe, in a combative address to Nato allies where he threatened to cut force numbers in countries spending the least on defence.The US defence secretary, speaking at a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels, accused some countries of “free riding” and others of being shameful for not allowing their airbases to be used by US jets bombing Iran in the spring. Continue reading...

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‘Cynical to get power’: Michel Barnier on Boris Johnson, Brexit and the EU’s future

Former negotiator believes in an unstable world, it is ‘perfectly possible’ the UK can rejoin the EU with old opt-outsUK could keep special pre-Brexit terms if it rejoined EU, Michel Barnier saysA couple of years ago, Michel Barnier spent a weekend with Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley. It was not some ghoulish Brexit spin-off of The Traitors, but the result of the former EU negotiator’s wife, Isabelle, being a close friend of Johnson’s French cousin, Anne du Boucheron, the owner of Château de la Baronnière, a 19th-century estate in Mauges-sur-Loire, in western France.“We spent a weekend together in a French castle. Very friendly. Long promenades in the forest,” Barnier recalls of Johnson senior, with whom he discussed the former prime minister’s motivation to back Brexit. “It was interesting. Boris was much more European at the beginning. Even if he was critical. I don’t see it as a motivation but it is, perhaps, a method or attitude: to be pragmatic in some way. Cynical. Cynical to get power.” Continue reading...

UK could keep special pre-Brexit terms if it rejoined EU, Michel Barnier says

Exclusive: Former chief Brexit negotiator says staying out of euro and Schengen area would be ‘perfectly possible’‘Cynical to get power’: Michel Barnier on Boris Johnson, Brexit and the EU’s futureMichel Barnier has said Britain could regain its special terms if it rejoined the EU and claimed it was becoming clearer every day to the British people that they would be stronger in Europe.In an interview before the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum next week, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator said he could not see any obstacle to the UK keeping the pound and remaining outside the passport-free Schengen travel area should the country rejoin. Continue reading...