tougher

DRIVERS of SUVs in England may soon face more stringent parking rules under a law inspired by the European Union.

Earlier this year, reports revealed that SUVs have become the most popular type of car in the UK – with sales data showing they accounted for a third of all new car registrations.

4

4

4

4

Given their growing presence on UK roads, many believe stricter regulations are needed to address their impact on safety, air pollution and public space.

According to Birmingham Live, experts and campaigners are calling for measures similar to those introduced in European cities, such as Paris, where parking costs for SUVs have been significantly increased to discourage their use and reduce pollution.

An hour of parking for SUVs in the Paris city centre now costs €18 instead of the usual €6, whilst in the outskirts the cost is €12 instead of €4.

For six hours, SUVs will be charged a whopping €225 – around £195 – instead of the previous €75.

French newspaper Le Parisien reported that the new parking rates for larger vehicles in Paris had reduced the number of SUVs using surface parking by two-thirds.

The French cities of Lyon and Grenoble have similar rules, as does Tubingen in Germany.

Dr Anna Goodman, an academic transport researcher and director of Transport for Quality of Life, said: “SUVs increasingly dominate our streets. In just two decades, the share of SUVs in English cities has grown tenfold.

“In London alone, the number of SUVs has swelled by around 720,000. This has important implications for congestion, public space, and road safety.

“The evidence is clear that SUVs increase road danger for people walking and cycling, particularly for children.”

Oliver Lord, UK Head of Clean Cities, added: “The sheer scale of car-spreading is staggering.

“These oversized vehicles are not just swallowing our public space; they’re also far more dangerous, especially for children.

“If we want cities that are safe, breathable, and accessible, we have to get serious about tackling the rise of these urban land-hogs.”

SUVs are often criticised for their size, higher fronts and reduced visibility from the driver’s seat, making them more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists.

They are also blamed for contributing to air pollution and climate breakdown due to their heavier, more polluting nature.

The UK’s current best-selling cars, the Ford Puma, Kia Sportage and Nissan Qashqai are all classed as crossover SUVs.

But even bigger are the likes of the Range Rover, Skoda Kodiaq and BMW X5.

Barbara Stoll, senior director of T&E’s Clean Cities campaign, added: “A child is killed every day on our roads, yet cars are being made so large that children are invisible from the driver’s seat. How is that acceptable?”

“Thankfully, more and more city leaders are pushing back against car-spreading, standing up for what citizens actually want: safe, green streets without monster vehicles.”

ANCHORAGE — President Trump is on his way to Alaska for a high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin, indicating he will take a tougher line with the Russian leader over a ceasefire in Ukraine after three brutal years of war.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said Putin would face “economically severe” consequences if negotiations in Anchorage today fail to yield progress toward peace. He said that only Ukraine could decide whether to cede territory to Moscow. And he expressed support for U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine in any future peace agreement, so long as they fall short of NATO membership for the beleaguered nation.

“Yes, it would be very severe,” Trump said. “Very severe.”

Traveling from Moscow, Putin is bringing along several Russian business leaders, according to the Kremlin, a sign he hopes to begin discussions on normalizing relations with Washington. But Trump said he would not discuss business opportunities until the war is settled.

It’s a position that will relieve allies in Europe that have been hoping Trump would approach Putin with a firm hand, after months of applying pressure on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to prepare to make concessions to Moscow.

Zelensky was not invited to the Alaska negotiations. But Trump said he hoped his meeting on Friday would lead to direct talks “very shortly.”

Trump had said in recent days that a peace deal would include the “swapping” of land, a prospect roundly rejected in Kyiv. The Ukrainian constitution prohibits territorial concessions without the support of a public referendum.

“They’ll be discussed, but I’ve got to let Ukraine make that decision,” the president said of land swaps. “I’m not here to negotiate for Ukraine. I’m here to get them to the table.”

Trump will host Putin at the Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage later on Friday, the first meeting between a U.S. and Russian president since 2021.

Russian Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday that Putin’s war aims remain “unchanged.” And an aggressive Russian advance along the front lines this week provided evidence to military analysts that Moscow has no plans to implement a ceasefire.

The two leaders are expected to greet one another on the tarmac before meeting privately. Afterward, they will take an expanded lunch meeting with their aides, followed by a news conference, according to the White House.

Tougher United States trade penalties on goods originating in one country being re-shipped from another are not expected to immediately follow new US tariffs, three people in Southeast Asia with knowledge of the matter said, easing a major cause of concern.

Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and Thailand, have been explicitly targeted by White House officials for their alleged role in facilitating the so-called transshipment to the US of Chinese goods, which would face higher tariffs if shipped directly from China.

The administration of US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on goods from dozens of countries from Thursday, and in an executive order, said products determined to have been illegally rerouted to conceal their country of origin would face additional duties of 40 percent. But it did not clarify what constitutes transshipment.

US imports from Southeast Asia’s biggest economies, which rely heavily on exports, are now subject to tariff rates of about 19 percent, many of which have been significantly reduced from previously threatened rates.

Existing US customs guidance states that goods from countries with no free trade agreements with Washington, such as Southeast Asian nations, can be labelled as made in the country where they undergo a “substantial transformation” of components, even if those parts entirely come from another country, such as China.

And with no new US guidance on rules of origin or specification of what transshipment means, some officials in Southeast Asia have told exporters that existing rules apply.

That effectively limits cases of transshipment to illegal activities, like the use of forged export certificates or documents obtained illicitly.

“Currently, all exported goods [from Thailand] are subject to a 19 percent rate because there are no rules on transshipment yet,” Arada Fuangtong, head of the Thai Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Foreign Trade, told Reuters on Thursday.

Her message was echoed by US officials in Vietnam, who told businessmen the tariff of 20 percent would apply to Vietnamese goods, even if they are entirely made with Chinese components and only assembled in Vietnam, according to one person familiar with those talks.

Trade consultants have said rules are vague, and they have advised clients, even before the new wave of US tariffs, to have at least 40 percent of local content for their exports to the US. That is “to be on the safe side”, one of them said.

The US embassy in Vietnam did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The Office of the US Trade Representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside US working hours.

“Goods defined by US customs as transshipped are subject to 40 percent duties, but pending any new definition, that’s limited to old definitions,” said a Vietnam-based consultant.

Both people declined to be named in order to speak more freely.

China dependence

According to the US customs guidance, repackaging does not usually cause a “substantial transformation”, but assembly may, depending on the complexity of the operations.

It is unclear if this narrow interpretation of transshipment could be enforced for other countries.

Economic ministries in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the issue.

Manufacturers in Southeast Asia, which rely heavily on Chinese components, have been in the dark for months about what Washington would consider transshipment.

Questions remain about whether that would include goods with a large, but yet undefined, share of components or raw materials from China, even when they are legitimately transformed in Southeast Asian nations.

A strict definition of transshipment may come later, multiple investment consultants warned.

An executive order signed by Trump last week said the US will “publish every six months a list of countries and specific facilities used in circumvention schemes”.

That will “inform public procurement, national security reviews, and commercial due diligence”, it said.

“The message from Washington is deterrence,” said Marco Forster, director for Southeast Asia at investment consultancy Dezan Shira and Associates.

“If your supply chain cuts corners, it won’t be treated as a technical error. It’ll be treated as fraud.”

Berlin calls itself ‘locomotive’ of European crackdown on immigration, expelling 81 Afghans before meeting.

Germany’s interior minister has hosted five of his European counterparts to discuss ways of tightening the region’s asylum rules, as his country deported 81 Afghans to their Taliban-controlled homeland.

The European Union’s immigration system needed to be “tougher and stricter”, Minister Alexander Dobrindt said after Friday’s meeting in southern Germany with the interior ministers of France, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Denmark, as well as EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner.

The cohort issued a five-page communique on their aims, which included the establishment of “return hubs” for holding people outside the EU, enabling asylum procedures in third countries, and allowing deportations to Afghanistan and Syria as standard practice.

All measures would require approval from Brussels.

“When we analyse what has been agreed here, it’s lofty ambitions, but not much detail about how they intend to pursue what’s in these five pages,” said Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin.

Ministers, he said, had talked about “the sorts of things that they agree on, but they know they can’t implement them themselves as unilateral decisions.”

Speaking after the meeting, Dobrindt said, “We wanted to send a signal that Germany is no longer sitting in the brakeman’s cab on migration issues in Europe, but is in the locomotive.”

Afghans deported

Hours before the meeting, Germany demonstrated just how serious it was about cracking down on migration by sending 81 Afghan nationals back to their homeland, prompting an outcry from rights organisations.

Amnesty International criticised the deportations, saying the situation in Afghanistan was “catastrophic” and that “extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture are commonplace”.

Europe’s top economy had stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban movement’s return to power in 2021.

But Berlin resumed expulsions last year when the previous government of Olaf Scholz expelled 28 convicted Afghans.

Current Chancellor Friedrich Merz defended the expulsions of the 81 Afghan men, saying he was “grateful” to be able to deliver on promises made when entering government in May.

None of those deported “had a residence status any more. All asylum applications were legally rejected without further legal recourse”, he said at a news conference.

Bavaria state’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said 15 of the deported Afghans had been incarcerated for crimes, including murder and manslaughter, sexual offences and property crimes.

The state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said 13 Afghans deported from there had been jailed for crimes including homicide, bodily harm, drug offences and serious arson.

In the wake of the announcement, the United Nations said no one should be sent back to Afghanistan, whatever their status.

The UN human rights commissioner called for an “immediate halt to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers”, highlighting the risks faced by returnees.

Published on
03/07/2025 – 7:20 GMT+2

ADVERTISEMENT

The majority of French, Spanish, and German citizens want stricter EU enforcement of Big Tech, according to a new YouGov survey.

Almost two-thirds in France (63%), 59% in Germany, and 49% in Spain said EU enforcement of laws addressing Big Tech’s influence and power is too relaxed, when asked to choose between too relaxed, too strict, or about right.

Only 7% of respondents in France, 8% in Germany, and 9% in Spain felt the enforcement was too strict.

The survey, commissioned by two NGOs—People vs Big Tech and WeMove Europe—follows the EU’s 2022 adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), aimed at regulating tech giants’ impact on users and the marketplace.

Both regulations are caught up in the trade dispute between the EU and the US, in which the US has described the DSA and DMA as unjustified non-tariff barriers.

EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera told Euronews last week that the EU would not give in to US pressure on the issue.

“We are going to defend our sovereignty,” Ribera said, adding: “We will defend the way we implement our rules, we will defend a well functioning market and we will not allow anyone to tell us what to do.”

Surprisingly, the survey results also show that the survey participants believed Big Tech holds more power than the EU itself.

Half of French respondents (50%), 48% in Germany, and a majority in Spain (55%) believe that Big Tech companies are “more powerful” or “slightly more powerful” than the EU. In contrast, only 9% in France, 12% in Germany, and 15% in Spain think tech giants are “slightly less powerful” or “much less powerful.”

The survey was conducted on a sample of 2,070 respondents in France, 2,323 in Germany, and 2,077 in Spain.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday proposed deeper Medicaid cuts, including new work requirements for parents of teens, as a way to offset the costs of making President Trump’s tax breaks more permanent in draft legislation unveiled for his “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The proposals from Republicans keep in place the current $10,000 deduction of state and local taxes, called SALT, drawing quick blowback from GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states, who fought for a $40,000 cap in the House-passed bill. Senators insisted negotiations continue.

The Senate draft also enhances Trump’s proposed new tax break for seniors, with a bigger $6,000 deduction for low- to moderate-income senior households earning no more than $75,000 a year for singles, $150,000 for couples.

All told, the text unveiled by the Senate Finance Committee’s Republicans provides the most comprehensive look yet at changes the GOP senators want to make to the 1,000-page package approved by House Republicans last month. GOP leaders are pushing to fast-track the bill for a vote by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the chairman, said the proposal would prevent a tax hike and achieve “significant savings” by slashing green energy funds “and targeting waste, fraud and abuse.”

It comes as Americans broadly support levels of funding for popular safety net programs, according to the poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Many Americans see Medicaid and food assistance programs as underfunded.

What’s in the “Big Beautiful Bill” so far

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda, a hodgepodge of GOP priorities that Republicans are trying to swiftly pass over unified opposition from Democrats — a tall order for the slow-moving Senate.

Fundamental to the package is the extension of some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks approved during his first term, in 2017, that are expiring this year if Congress fails to act. There are also new ones, including no taxes on tips, as well as more than $1 trillion in program cuts.

After the House passed its version, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would add $2.4 trillion to the nation’s deficits over the decade, and leave 10.9 million more people without health insurance, due largely to the proposed new work requirements and other changes.

The biggest tax breaks, some $12,000 a year, would go to the wealthiest households, CBO said, while the poorest would see a tax hike of roughly $1,600. Middle-income households would see tax breaks of $500 to $1,000 a year, CBO said.

Both the House and Senate packages are eyeing a massive $350-billion buildup of Homeland Security and Pentagon funds, including some $175 billion for Trump’s mass deportation efforts, such as the hiring of 10,000 more officers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

This comes as protests over deporting migrants have erupted nationwide — including the stunning handcuffing of Sen. Alex Padilla last week in Los Angeles — and as deficit hawks such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul are questioning the vast spending on Homeland Security.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer warned that the Senate GOP’s draft “cuts to Medicaid are deeper and more devastating than even the Republican House’s disaster of a bill.”

Trade-offs in bill risk GOP support

As the package now moves to the Senate, the changes to Medicaid, SALT and green energy programs are part of a series of trade-offs GOP leaders are making as they try to push the package to passage with their slim majorities, with almost no votes to spare.

But criticism of the Senate’s version came quickly after House Speaker Mike Johnson warned senators of making substantial changes.

“We have been crystal clear that the SALT deal we negotiated in good faith with the Speaker and the White House must remain in the final bill,” the co-chairs of the House SALT caucus, Reps. Young Kim (R-Calif.) and Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), said in a joint statement Monday.

Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York posted on X that the $10,000 cap in the Senate bill was not only insulting, but a “slap in the face to the Republican districts that delivered our majority and trifecta” with the White House.

Medicaid and green energy cuts

Some of the largest cost savings in the package come from the GOP plan to impose new work requirements on able-bodied single adults, ages 18 to 64 and without dependents, who receive Medicaid, the health care program used by 80 million Americans.

While the House first proposed the new Medicaid work requirement, it exempted parents with dependents. The Senate’s version broadens the requirement to include parents of children older than 14, as part of their effort to combat waste in the program and push personal responsibility.

Already, the Republicans had proposed expanding work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to include older Americans up to age 64 and parents of school-age children older than 10. The House had imposed the requirement on parents of children older than 7.

People would need to work 80 hours a month or be engaged in a community service program to qualify.

One Republican, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, has joined a few others pushing to save Medicaid from steep cuts — including to the so-called provider tax that almost all states levy on hospitals as a way to help fund their programs.

The Senate plan proposes phasing down that provider tax, which is now up to 6%. Starting in 2027, the Senate looks to gradually lower that threshold until it reaches 3.5% in 2031, with exceptions for nursing homes and intermediate care facilities.

Hawley slammed the Senate bill’s changes on the provider tax. “This needs a lot of work. It’s really concerning and I’m really surprised by it,” he said. “Rural hospitals are going to be in bad shape.”

The Senate also keeps in place the House’s proposed new $35-per-service co-pay imposed on some Medicaid patients who earn more than the poverty line, which is about $32,000 a year for a family of four, with exceptions for some primary, prenatal, pediatric and emergency room care.

And Senate Republicans are seeking a slower phaseout of some Biden-era green energy tax breaks to allow continued develop of wind, solar and other projects that the most conservative Republicans in Congress want to end more quickly. Tax breaks for electric vehicles would be immediately eliminated.

Conservative Republicans say the cuts overall don’t go far enough, and they oppose the bill’s provision to raise the national debt limit by $5 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills.

“We’ve got a ways to go on this one,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Mascaro and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

The resignation of Barack Obama’s “vetter in chief” Wednesday may introduce yet another layer to the already intensive process of identifying a vice presidential candidate — vetting the vetters.

James A. Johnson, a well-connected Washington political insider, was supposed to help Obama find a running mate whose past would not embarrass the ticket. His sudden resignation amid criticism of his own past financial dealings spotlights just how crucial that role has become.

“The unifying theme at this stage is finding out, and looking for, skeletons that would cause them to rule people out,” said Michael Nelson, a political analyst at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., who has written extensively about the presidency.

Behind every such worry lies the memory of the seminal moment in vice presidential selection history: the July 13, 1972, conversation between Missouri Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton and Frank Mankiewicz, a top advisor to South Dakota Sen. George S. McGovern.

McGovern had just narrowly won the Democratic presidential nomination and, after being turned down by a few other contenders, settled on Eagleton as his running mate. Almost as an afterthought, Mankiewicz asked Eagleton “kind of laughingly” whether there was anything in his past that “might give us trouble.”

Eagleton said the closet was empty — omitting to mention his three hospital stays for psychiatric treatment, including two rounds of electroshock therapy. Two and a half weeks later, McGovern booted Eagleton from the ticket, accelerating an epic election day loss that effectively ended McGovern’s national political career.

“I thought it was a pretty good decision, until it went awry,” Mankiewicz reminisced this week.

Neither campaign of the presumed 2008 nominees — Democratic Sen. Obama of Illinois and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona — would discuss their vetting processes. But it’s safe to assume that they’re embracing a political version of the Hippocratic oath: First, find a running mate who will do no harm.

“The biggest risk is picking a VP with a fatal flaw, which causes the conversation to be diverted onto the VP and his/her weakness, and reflects badly on the management abilities of team Obama or McCain,” political analyst Bruce E. Cain, director of the UC Washington Center, wrote in an e-mail.

With Johnson gone, Obama is now relying on former Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President Kennedy, both new to the process. It was unclear whether Obama would replace Johnson, who had previously helped vet running mates for Walter F. Mondale in 1984 and John F. Kerry in 2004. McCain gave his search job to former lobbyist and Reagan White House Counsel Arthur B. Culvahouse.

Stringent vetting of running mates began with Jimmy Carter, who ran four years after McGovern and, mindful of the Eagleton fiasco, deputized Charles H. Kirbo, who devised a list of about two dozen questions that he designed in a way to elicit truthful answers from potential candidates.

Each stumble — including those for posts such as President Clinton attorney general nominees Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, who withdrew over revelations of employing illegal immigrants — has added to the list.

“It’s gotten increasingly more intense,” said Joel K. Goldstein, a political analyst at St. Louis University School of Law. “The questionnaire now is 60 to 80 questions, many multiples longer than the written questions that Kirbo used, and much more detailed. And it extends to family members.”

In 1984, Geraldine A. Ferraro — whose appointment was shepherded by Johnson — initially helped Mondale catch up with Reagan in polling but they soon lagged, in part over questions about her personal finances when her husband, real estate broker John A. Zaccaro, declined to release his tax returns after Ferraro had said he would do so.

And questions about whether Dan Quayle used family connections to avoid military service in Vietnam surfaced after George H.W. Bush hurriedly named Quayle his running mate leading into the 1992 Republican National Convention.

Because the selection of a No. 2 is such a sensitive decision, both Obama and McCain decline to discuss it. Even some past search leaders would not talk, including Los Angeles lawyer Warren Christopher, who led Bill Clinton’s and Al Gore’s search teams, and James A. Baker III, who helped with the elder Bush’s search.

But Christopher wrote about his experience in his 2001 memoir, “Chances of a Lifetime,” describing almost two months of interviews, background checks and debates over the political pros and cons until he settled on five people who underwent even more intense scrutiny.

“They would complete a detailed questionnaire, submit tax returns and medical records, and give us access to confidential records,” Christopher wrote, adding that a lawyer would then analyze the material. “We had designed the process to prevent the kind of surprises that had emerged in the Tom Eagleton, Geraldine Ferraro and Dan Quayle cases.”

And with the Internet, the media and the public now have easy access to many records, making it even more important that the campaigns find the skeletons first.

“It is a better process,” Mankiewicz said. “You got a lot of ways to look into things. . . . You can trace a guy back to his birth.”

—

[email protected]