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Russia beats Tom Cruise in race for first movie shot in space

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

Russia has released a trailer for “The Challenge,” the first feature film to be shot in space.It was shot some 400 kilometers above Earth on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021 — before the invasion of Ukraine — and will be released next month, making it the first movie in which the actors and director were flown out to space for filming.In 2020, Hollywood star Tom Cruise, along with director Doug Liman, had revealed plans to travel to the ISS to shoot a feature film in collaboration with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and NASA. There’s no sign yet of that movie.“The Challenge” is about a female cardiac surgeon called Zhenya (played by Russian actress Yulia Peresild) who is part of a team of doctors sent to operate on a cosmonaut (played by actual cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy) who loses consciousness while on the ISS.Peresild and producer-director Klim Shipenko traveled to the ISS along with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov in October 2021 and filmed...

EU officials distance themselves from intel on Nord Stream blasts

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

STOCKHOLM — European officials wanted nothing to do Wednesday with reports that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year. Their message: Don’t put this intel on us, and we’re not touching it.A joint German media investigation published Tuesday evening indicated Ukrainians may have been involved in the underwater explosions in the Baltic Sea. The New York Times backed up the findings in its own report, which said U.S. officials had reviewed similar intelligence. The Ukrainian government, however, denied any involvement and the reports do not directly link Kyiv to the sabotage.The allegations, if true, could damage public support for Europe’s unyielding support for Ukraine — particularly in Germany, which is investigating the explosion alongside Sweden and Denmark. But officials kept the possibility at arm’s length.“I would hesitate to give a clear analysis,” said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, arri...

MEP Mussolini hands sanitary pad to Italy’s EU commissioner

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

BRUSSELS — Forza Italia MEP Alessandra Mussolini on Wednesday gave Italy’s EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni a red-marked sanitary pad with his name on it and the inscription “VAT 0%.”Mussolini’s protest was aimed at eliminating value-added (or sales) tax on feminine hygiene products — something that nearly all EU countries impose.“Happy Women’s Day,” Mussolini — the granddaughter of Italy’s wartime fascist leader Benito Mussolini — told Gentiloni as she handed him the pad “with wings” because they “cost more.” It came at the end of a European Commission press conference on 2024 national budget guidelines, and coincided with International Women’s Day.“As a delegation of Forza Italia, we ask for 0 percent taxation on sanitary pads, paid menstrual leave and the harmonization in all member states of the rules concerning health rights and gender equality,” Mussolini told cameras in front of a table with several femi...

Biden to reveal nuke submarine plans Monday with UK, Australian leaders

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

President Joe Biden will unveil the first phase of an ambitious three-nation nuclear submarine deal next to the leaders of the United Kingdom and Australia on Monday in San Diego, according to six people familiar with the plans.The announcement is the culmination of 18 months of negotiations as the three countries figure out how to provide Australia with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. Restrictions on technology transfers and classified nuclear processes have complicated plans ever since the deal — known as AUKUS — was struck in September 2021. Last week, State Department and Pentagon officials briefed House Foreign Affairs Committee members about some of the issues.British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will join Biden for the event on Monday. Local lawmakers who are planning to attend the proceedings still don’t have concrete details about the timing or exact location. Plans to have the three men walk aboard a submarine for the ann...

Ukraine and UN call for Black Sea grain deal extension

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday called for the extension of a deal with Russia that allows Ukrainian grain exports to pass through the blockaded Black Sea. “Today, we are interested in ensuring that there is no hunger in the world. And our common policy is to continue the operation of the ‘grain corridor,’” Zelenskyy said, after talks in Kyiv. The deal, which was initially brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July and extended in November, comes up for renewal again on March 18. “I want to underscore the critical importance of the rollover of the Black Sea Grain Initiative on 18 March and of working to create the conditions to enable the greatest possible use of export infrastructures through the Black Sea, in line with the objectives of the initiative,” said Guterres. Some 23 million tons of Ukrainian produce have been transported under the initiative so far, amid Russian President ...

US House speaker rejects Zelenskyy’s invite to Ukraine

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to visit the embattled nation amid his hesitancy to greenlight aid, a request the California Republican quickly shut down.“He has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview.When informed about the Ukrainian invitation, the speaker told CNN that he would not take the trip and blamed the Biden administration for not acting quickly enough to aid Ukraine. Still, McCarthy (R-Calif.) held his position that the U.S. should not be sending a “blank check” to Kyiv, repeating a position he initially made last fall that sparked uproar from members of both parties.“Let’s be very clear about what I said: no blank checks, OK? So, from that perspective, I don’t have to go to Ukraine to understand where there’s a blank check or not,” McCarthy...

Row after Braverman email blames civil servants for blocking small boats plan

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

LONDON — Home Secretary Suella Braverman was accused of a “cowardly attack” on the U.K. civil service after a campaign email sent in her name blamed Whitehall for frustrating plans to cut the number of small boats crossing the English Channel.In a Conservative Party message sent to supporters under Braverman’s name — but which Downing Street and the Conservatives denied she had seen or approved — the home secretary appeared to point the finger at government officials for scuppering earlier efforts to grip the issue.“We tried to stop the small boat crossings without changing our laws,” the email, sent to Conservative members Tuesday and bearing Braverman’s signature, said. “But an activist blob of left-wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party blocked us.” No. 10 sought to distance Braverman from the campaign message Wednesday lunchtime, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson telling journalists that the home ...

Top Scholz ally slams German government over blockade on EU car engine law

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

BERLIN — A regional German leader from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party harshly criticized the government Wednesday over its last-minute blockade of the EU’s plan to phase out the combustion engine.Stephan Weil, the premier of the Lower Saxony state — home of iconic German carmaker Volkswagen — told daily newspaper Welt that Germany’s objection to final approval of the European Union’s legislation to ban the sale of new CO2-emitting cars and vans from 2035 was unnecessary and causing reputational damage.“No one really has anything to gain” from the German blockade, Weil said, adding: “It’s safe to say that Germany’s reputation in Brussels has been damaged by this sudden maneuver.”The liberal Free Democrats (FDP), one of Germany’s three coalition parties, have held up the EU law at the final stage — after Berlin had previously given its backing — by insisting that the European Commission must propose an exemption tha...

PMQs scorecard: Lefty lawyer klaxon as Sunak and Starmer clash on small boats

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

Prime minister’s questions: a shouty, jeery, very occasionally useful advert for British politics. Here’s what you need to know from this week’s session in POLITICO U.K.’s new weekly run-through. What they sparred about: Asylum laws. In a week dominated by the government’s efforts to tackle cross-channel migration, the detail of Rishi Sunak’s small boats bill was the focus as he locked horns with Keir Starmer. The Labour leader used all six of his questions to press Sunak on the process — not the morality, you may note — of the plan and took shots at previous unsuccessful efforts to tackle the issue. In true PMQs-style, Sunak focused right back on Starmer’s pre-Labour leader comments in favor of immigration — and got a “lefty lawyer” jibe in too at the former director of public prosecutions.Biggest cheer of the day: Forget politics — the chamber roared with glee when the Tory MP Chris Clarkson used his question to, on International Women’s Day, as...

Brussels police on lookout over metro terror attack threat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:18:52 GMT

The Belgian federal police said Wednesday it remained “vigilant” after it received an email Tuesday threatening a terror attack targeting the Brussels underground metro system.“At the moment, we remain very vigilant, as is necessary,” said a spokesperson for the Belgian federal police, in charge of security in metro stations.The police carried out a sweep in the metro during the night, but “found nothing suspicious,” the spokesperson added.According to a spokesperson for the Brussels civil prosecutor — which has taken over the investigation — the risk of a “real attack” is considered “unlikely.”A spokesperson for the Belgian National Crisis Center — charged with organizing the security response in case of a terror attack — said the threat was being evaluated, but confirmed that an attack was unlikely.The threat was picked up by the American embassy in Brussels, which issued a warning to U.S. citizens, recommending they R...