Excess deaths surged as heat wave hits Europe

European countries recorded thousands of additional deaths during last month’s brutal heat wave, according to preliminary data. Temperatures across much of the Continent soared in the middle of last month, smashing records between July 18 and 20.  The U.K. recorded 40 degrees Celsius for the first time that week, in a heat wave scientists said […]

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Chasing ghosts of Margaret Thatcher

LONDON — Margaret Thatcher famously declared in 1987 that she would go on and on as prime minister. Soon after she was ousted — but that hasn’t stopped her dominating the Conservatives’ leadership race 35 years later. Wannabe British prime ministers Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are, despite their different economic and political approaches, competing […]

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How to fight — and how not to fight — stagflation

Paul Taylor, a contributing editor at POLITICO, writes the “Europe At Large” column.   PARIS — The Continent is facing the specter of stagflation, with European Union inflation hitting 9.6 percent in June and growth forecasts slashed for both this year and 2023 due to the war in Ukraine, the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, drought and global […]

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EU antitrust enforcers investigating Google Play Store

The European Commission’s antitrust enforcers are investigating Google’s app store rules, according to two people close to the matter.  Google’s rivals have received confidential questionnaires from Brussels, probing billing terms and developer fees for the U.S. tech giant’s Play Store, the two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. An investigation in the Netherlands […]

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Sinn Féin: Northern Ireland risks winter election as voters freeze

DUBLIN — Northern Ireland risks an unwanted winter election with cash-strapped voters freezing in their homes, the first minister-elect warned Wednesday as the Democratic Unionist Party again blocked the region’s power-sharing assembly from operating. Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin — the Irish nationalist party that overtook the DUP in May’s Northern Ireland Assembly election — […]

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