Interest rates held but Bank signals rise if energy prices stay high
Rates are held for the sixth time in a row but the Bank of England says high energy prices make a future rise more likely.
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Politics
UK needs 'credible path' on defence spending, says Nato chief
Mark Rutte tells the BBC that UK ministers accept the need to make yearly steps to up spending.
Andy Burnham to meet Irish Taoiseach for first time
Martin will be the first international leader to visit Number 10 North, the government said ahead of the talks.
Healey to ask EU finance ministers to let UK into Made in Europe scheme
The chancellor wants the Made in Europe programme to deepen ties with the UK "rather than erecting new barriers".
UK's 'dismal' Eurovision song choices to be examined by MPs
It comes after the UK's entry Look Mum No Computer came last in May's final, scoring just one point.
UK Youth Parliament looks set to be axed
Some say scrapping the parliament for 11 to 18-year-olds would be a blow for democracy, while others say it is overdue.
'Don't be silly' over Falklands and Irish unity, top Tory tells Trump
Shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat says the US president's recent comments were aimed at US voters, in a BBC interview.
Not just 'Nice Guy Eddie': Lib Dems eager for leader to show radical side at party conference
There is a sizeable group of Lib Dem MPs who openly question whether the party's problem is with its leader, while others support his stance.
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Badenoch says she is instructing lawyers to challenge government after Tory-run council's 94% tax hike
A row is growing over Wandsworth Council's rise, which the local authority is blaming on government funding cuts.
What the commemoration of the 235th anniversary of Bois Caïman means for Haiti’s memory and future
August 14, 1791, put in motion the first major anti-slavery movement in Haiti — part Vodou ceremony, part political congress, and wholly a movement of protest and resistance.
The A’uwẽ-Xavante people's denunciation of megaprojects in Brazil
An Indigenous-led campaign denounces the impacts of a mega railway project and demands respect for territory, self-determination, and the right to live and dream.
Ecuador detains former minister José Serrano after U.S. deportation
Deported from the United States, Ecuador’s former “superminister” now faces grave criminal investigations and political accusations in a justice system facing questions over due process.
Judge orders Trump administration to reinstate thousands of fired government workers
A California federal judge on Thursday ordered six U.S. agencies to reinstate thousands of recently hired employees who were fired as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce. The ruling made by U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco applies to the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department. Alsup last month temporarily blocked the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the human resources department for federal agencies, from or
US lawmakers running out of time to fund government
U.S. lawmakers are running out of time to pass a short-term continuing resolution, or CR, that will fund the government past a March 14 deadline. "Democrats need to decide if they're going to support funding legislation that came over from the House, or if they're going to shut down the government. So far, it's looking like they plan to shut it down," Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on the Senate floor Thursday. Appropriations bills require a 60-vote threshold for passage in the Senate, which means Republicans need to secure at least eight Democratic votes. Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Trump asks Supreme Court to intervene in bid to curb birthright citizenship
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump took the fight over his attempt to restrict automatic U.S. birthright citizenship to the Supreme Court on Thursday as the Republican president's administration asked the justices to narrow a judicial block imposed on this key element of his hardline approach toward immigration. The Justice Department made the request challenging the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued against Trump's order by federal courts in Washington state, Massachusetts and Maryland. The administration said the injunctions should be scaled back from applying universally and limited to ju
Trump intent on imposing global tariffs
The on-again, off-again tariffs between the United States and other countries are again under scrutiny, with the U.S. president not budging. VOA White House Correspondent Carolyn Presutti reports.
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Senate averts government shutdown, overcomes Democratic opposition
The U.S. Senate passed a stopgap spending bill Friday evening, averting a partial government shutdown and overcoming Democratic opposition to the measure. The bill passed 54-46 after clearing a more difficult procedural hurdle to stop debate on the measure, which required at least 60 votes. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the bill earlier this week to meet a March 14 deadline to keep the government running. Senate Democrats had fractured over whether to support the short-term continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government for the next six months, reduce tot
2 judges rule mass firings of agency employees to be illegal
Federal judges in two separate cases ruled this week that recent mass firings of employees as part of President Donald Trump’s push to cut the size of the federal workforce were illegal and ordered thousands of probationary employees to be reinstated — at least for now. The Trump administration pushed back, filing appeals in both cases. "This injunction is entirely unconstitutional," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday. "You cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president of the United States," she added.
Trump vows accountability for those who pursued him in court cases
U.S. President Donald Trump promised to seek accountability for those who pursued legal cases against him when he was out of office, speaking Friday at the Justice Department. "Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice. But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over, and they are never going to come back. They're never coming back," Trump said. During his years out of office, the department twice indicted Trump on charges that he illegally stored classified documents at his Florida estate and that he worked to overturn the results of
US Appeals court allows DEI crackdown
A U.S. federal appeals court Friday lifted a block on the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, pausing a lower court ruling blocking enforcement of a series of presidential executive orders halting support of DEI initiatives. The three-judge panel on the Fourth Circuit of Appeals, in Richmond, Virginia, found that the directives by President Donald Trump were likely constitutional, disagreeing with a ruling in February by a federal judge in Maryland. The judges are allowing the Trump administration to implement the policy while