Arrest former Prince Andrew...

UK police arrest former Prince Andrew amid Epstein fallout

Thames Valley Police say they have ‘arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office.’

By Noah Keate

British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

The former prince has faced multiple allegations over his links to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including claims that he passed confidential documents to Epstein while he was serving as a British trade envoy between 2001 and 2011. He has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

“As part of the investigation, we have today (19/2) arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk,” Thames Valley Police said in a statement on Wednesday. “The man remains in police custody at this time.”

British police do not routinely name those arrested as part of an investigation before any criminal charge is brought. Mountbatten-Windsor has not been charged with an offense.

The news has prompted a rare statement from Mountbatten-Windsor’s brother, King Charles III, who said via his office that he backed the police investigation.

“I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office,” he said.

“What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities. In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation.

“Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”

The British monarch added: “As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter. Meanwhile, my family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all.

Thames Valley Police Assistant Chief Constable, Oliver Wright, said in a statement: “We understand the significant public interest in this case and we will provide updates at the appropriate time.

“Following a thorough assessment, we have now opened an investigation into this allegation of misconduct in public office.

“It is important that we protect the integrity and objectivity of our investigation as we work with our partners to investigate this alleged offence.”

Starmer: nobody is above the law

Speaking before the arrest was confirmed, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was pressed on Mountbatten-Windsor’s case, and told the BBC “nobody is above the law.”

The prime minister has repeatedly urged for the royal, who was stripped of his prince title by King Charles III last year, to testify before the U.S. Congress as it investigates the Epstein scandal.

In 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, but he denied all allegations.

Starmer stressed “anybody who’s got relevant information should come forward to whatever the relevant body is.” But he would not be drawn on whether the police should be involved as “they will conduct their own investigations.”

Shit

In feud with Wes Moore, Trump slings feces

The president returned to his long-running gripes over all things scatological this week in his feud with the rising Democratic star.

By Miranda Willson and Annie Snider

President Donald Trump didn’t just take his feud with Maryland governor and possible 2028 Democratic presidential hopeful Wes Moore into the gutter this week. He turned to the toilet.

In a series of social media posts Monday and Tuesday, Trump blasted Moore for what he deemed an inept response to a sewage spill that sent hundreds of millions of gallons of raw waste into the Potomac River beginning four weeks ago.

“There is a massive Ecological Disaster unfolding in the Potomac River as a result of the Gross Mismanagement of Local Democrat Leaders, particularly, Governor Wes Moore, of Maryland,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social, saying that it’s time for the federal government to step in. “I cannot allow incompetent Local ‘Leadership’ to turn the River in the Heart of Washington into a Disaster Zone.”

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president is worried that the Potomac River will carry the stench of excrement during the July 4 celebration of the country’s semiquincentennial that Trump has been planning since returning to office.

“He is worried about that. Which is why the federal government wants to fix it, and we hope that the local authorities will cooperate with us in doing so,” Leavitt said in response to a reporter’s question during the White House press briefing.

It’s not the first time Trump has turned poop into a political weapon. In fact, the president who complains regularly about low-flow toilet standards has a long list of scatological gripes that have become one of the few areas where his administration is seeking additional environmental protections as it aggressively rolls back dozens of climate, air and water pollution rules.

It was on the sewage-fouled beaches of San Diego that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin marked his first Earth Day as the nation’s top environmental regulator. The administration has put concerted effort into pressuring Mexico to do more to stem the tide of raw sewage pollution flowing across the border from Tijuana, which for years has dirtied beaches and sickened residents and Navy SEALs who train nearby.

And during Trump’s first term, it was San Francisco’s long-running sewer overflow problem that EPA targeted for enforcement after the president groused about the city’s large homeless population — a move that California leaders saw as politically charged.

Now as Trump feuds with Moore, the nation’s only Black governor, less than two weeks after excluding him from a White House dinner for the National Governor’s Association, the image of millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing into the nation’s capital offered another level of political punch altogether. The situation comes as Moore is pushing to redraw Maryland’s congressional lines to counter Trump’s red-state redistricting.

“It’s a great political issue. Nobody wants sewage in the water — that is true of Democrats and Republicans,” said Mae Stevens, a water infrastructure lobbyist who previously served as an environment staffer for Democratic former Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin.

Asked about the president’s longstanding interest in sewage pollution, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said the administration would not allow “the failures of local and state Democrats to diminish the quality of life for millions of Americans.”

The source of the spill is the Potomac Interceptor sewer line, which partially collapsed Jan. 19 near Cabin John, Maryland, amid frigid winter temperatures, releasing nearly 200 million gallons of untreated wastewater in the first five days. Operating since constructed in 1964, the 54-mile line carries wastewater from D.C. suburbs as far away as Dulles Airport to a treatment plant in southern Washington.

DC Water, the utility that operates the line, has been making emergency repairs to the broken interceptor, but the effort will take four to six more weeks. After that, crews will need to get to work on an already-planned rehabilitation project, which could take a further nine or 10 months, DC Water spokesperson Sherri Lewis said.

Though the spill captured the nation’s attention only this week, local environmentalists have been sounding the alarm from the beginning.

“It’s certainly a big ecological problem and an incredible threat to public health to have raw sewage splashing around and on shorelines,” said Hedrick Belin, president of the Potomac Conservancy, a conservation group. “We don’t need partisan politics getting in the way. This crisis is just too serious.”

Officials in Maryland, which is technically responsible for the Potomac River, responded “within hours” of the initial spill, said Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for Moore. But the interceptor falls under EPA’s regulatory purview, according to the governor’s office, accusing the agency that’s lost thousands of staff under Trump of failing to take action.

“For the last four weeks, the Trump Administration has failed to act, shirking its responsibility and putting people’s health at risk,” Moussa said in a statement. “Notably, the president’s own EPA explicitly refused to participate in the major legislative hearing about the cleanup last Friday.”

Zeldin shot back at that accusation on Tuesday afternoon.

“At no point in the lead up to today had DC Water or the state of Maryland requested EPA to take over their responsibilities, and EPA has continued to offer its full support to state and local leaders from the onset,” Zeldin said in a post on X.

Funding woes and ‘really poor infrastructure’

Water experts say the sewage spill is a symptom of a larger problem: Aging sewer pipes and water lines nationwide are in desperate need of repairs, but cash-strapped local governments are struggling to pay for them.

The Trump administration has repeatedly pushed to slash federal funding for water projects. Last year, the White House proposed a 90 percent cut to EPA’s State Revolving Funds, the water sector’s largest source of federal dollars. The Senate ultimately rejected the cut in a spending bill that Trump signed into law last month.

But extra water funding from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law is set to run out this fall, and experts warn of a coming funding cliff at the same time as extreme weather and AI data centers put more pressure on existing pipes, sewers and treatment plants.

“We’ve got really poor infrastructure. A lot of these pipes, especially on the East Coast, were built decades ago,” said Jon Mueller, a visiting associate law professor at the University of Maryland. “I think it’s unfortunate that it takes a disaster like this to get people to focus on the problem.”

It’s not yet clear how much the Potomac spill will cost, but the broader rehabilitation project for the interceptor sewer system’s “most vulnerable sections” is $625 million, said DC Water spokesperson Sherri Lewis. The utility has been coordinating with EPA, she added.

“Just last week, we hosted the Assistant Administrator for Water for a tour of the site and briefing on the project and the progress made to date,” Lewis said in a statement.

Although officials say the worst of the spill has been contained and that it has not impacted drinking water supplies, 243.5 million gallons of sewage overflows have been reported thus far.

Environmental advocates are worried about long-term implications for the river, which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary and the subject of decades of cleanup efforts.

Earlier this month, University of Maryland researchers recorded extremely high concentrations of bacteria, including a strain that resists antibiotics, tied to the spill. By springtime, that could render parts of the water unsafe for boating, canoeing and fishing.

Dean Naujoks, who leads the environmental group Potomac Riverkeeper, said he hopes Trump’s involvement could improve what he described as a “botched” cleanup process by DC Water. But he cast blame as well on EPA, describing the agency as essentially missing in action.

“We can’t get a hold of [EPA]. I have no idea what they’re doing,” Naujoks said. “The squabble between Trump and Gov. Moore has focused more of the attention on accountability, which I think is a good thing.”

Look at the damage....

Look how much Canadians hate the United States now

It’s not just about the trade war. Nearly half of America’s neighbors to the north now think the U.S. is a bigger threat to world peace than Russia.

By Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Anna Wiederkehr

It’s the world’s most awkward breakup.

More than a year after U.S. President Donald Trump casually joked about absorbing Canada and repeatedly threatened debilitating tariffs on its goods, many Canadians are convinced their former pals to the south have lost the plot.

New results from The POLITICO Poll suggest a lasting chill has settled over the world’s former bosom buddies. Americans are rosy as ever about their northern neighbors, but Canadians don’t share the love.

Their message to America: It’s not us, it’s you.

Canadians don’t see Trump’s America as merely an annoyance, the survey found. They consider the superpower next door the world’s greatest threat to peacetime.

The POLITICO Poll — in partnership with U.K. polling firm Public First — finds Canadians increasingly view the United States as a source of global volatility instead of as a stabilizing ally.

This article is part of an ongoing project from POLITICO and Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, to measure public opinion across a broad range of policy areas.

In survey question after survey question, Canadians say the U.S. no longer reflects their values, is more likely to provoke conflict than to prevent it and, as a result, is pushing Canada to consider closer ties with other global powers — including overtures to China that would have seemed unthinkable only a couple of years ago.

Here’s the Canada-U.S. schism explained.

AN UNRELIABLE ALLY

Canadians are wary of their ability to depend on the US

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rose to power on a pledge to defend Canada from Trump. When the realities of a prolonged trade war set in, he promised to reduce Canada’s reliance on its nearest neighbor.

Roughly three-quarters of Canadian exports find their way to U.S. customers. Carney has traveled the world in search of new partnerships with the European Union, China and Qatar. A new defense industrial strategy sets targets aimed at building up domestic production and buying overseas kit for the military only when necessary.

Carney put a finer point on his worldview with a headline-making rallying cry in Davos: In a world of great-power rivalry and fewer rules, middle powers need to band together.

The POLITICO Poll shows Carney’s approach is popular at home.

Canadians were the most likely — among respondents in Canada, Germany, France and the U.K. — to say the U.S. is not a reliable ally (58 percent).

A slight 42 percent plurality of respondents from Canada go even further, saying the U.S. is no longer an ally of Canada. Only about one in three Canadians, 37 percent, said “The US is still an ally of Canada.”

Other results that reveal the extent of Canada’s mistrust:

57 percent of Canadians in the poll said the U.S. cannot be depended on in a crisis.

67 percent say the U.S. “challenges” — as opposed to supports — its allies around the world.

69 percent agree the U.S. tends to create problems for other countries rather than solve them.

The threat next door

Canadians consider the US a bigger threat than Russia

Europeans see the greatest threat to world peace in their own backyard.

Slight majorities in the three European countries in the poll chose Russia, which upended the global order nearly four years ago with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as the largest threat: Germany (56 percent), France (55 percent) and the UK (53 percent).

Canadians are likewise worried about what’s next door.

Almost half of Canadians point a finger at the U.S. — a 19-point lead over Russia, which took the next largest share (29 percent). A large plurality of Canadians (43 percent) see the U.S. as “mostly a threat” to global stability. Another 34 percent say Americans are “sometimes a force for stability, sometimes a threat.”

Conservative voters agree that the U.S. is the top threat to peace — but only 35 percent of them. Another 30 percent picked Russia, followed by 22 percent who said China.

A fire starter

Canadians across parties agree: Trump is the antagonist

More than two out of three Canadians believe Trump is actively seeking conflict with other countries.

Liberal voters who powered Carney’s stunning victory last year — a rare fourth-consecutive win for the party — overwhelmingly see things that way. Progressive New Democrats are even likelier than the centrist governing party to hold that view.

But even Conservative voters, who broadly support close and enduring ties with Americans, have mixed feelings. A 57 percent majority say the U.S. president is looking around the world for a fight.

And that foreign intervention worries them, too: 47 percent of Canadians say U.S. involvement overseas makes the world less safe.

A look east

Canadians warm to a closer relationship with China

In the middle of the Covid pandemic, Canadians viewed Beijing with deep suspicion.

Chinese authorities had for more years imprisoned two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, on espionage charges.

Ottawa and Western allies widely viewed the so-called Two Michaels’ prolonged detention as retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei exec Meng Wanzhou as part of an extradition request from Washington.

In 2021, several months before the Two Michaels were released, a Research Co. survey revealed a low point in Canadians’ take on China: only 19 percent held a positive view.

The U.S. president’s torching of the relationship with Canada has flipped public opinion.

Forced to pick, a majority of Canadians (57 percent) now say they’d rather depend on China than Trump’s America.

Asked whether Canada should deliberately move closer to China, 39 percent agreed — with a majority of those respondents (60 percent) directly naming Trump as the reason to build bridges across the Pacific.

An eye toward the future

Canadians are optimistic about US–Canada ties in a post-Trump era

Any prolonged Canada-U.S. tension feels deeply personal to many border-town residents. The rivers and lakes and straight-line boundaries that divide the two countries were for decades just technicalities.

Ask a Canadian who grew up on the Ontario side of Niagara Falls, and they’ll talk about going “over the river” — not across a border — to visit friends and family, go to work or have a night out.

But Canadian visits to the U.S. have dropped significantly since Trump’s inauguration. Tourists are taking their money elsewhere. Snowbirds who flock annually to Florida and Arizona have found other sunny options.

A declining state of affairs has frayed countless deeply woven ties.

Still, respondents expressed some optimism about the future.

Forty-one percent of Canadians say Trump represents a lasting change. But nearly half (49 percent) said the relationship between the United States and Canada will recover in a post-Trump era.

A similar proportion of Canadians share that optimism across party lines: Liberal (51 percent), Conservative (50) and NDP (46).

But then there’s the solid core of skeptics — 29 percent of the country is convinced there is no going back.

Carney won on an “elbows up” rallying cry that urged Canadians to stand up for themselves. Now they’re reckoning with the everyday impact of a lasting cross-border rupture.

The country seems to have settled on a new maxim for now: America if necessary, but not necessarily America.

Great Orion Nebula

Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born in Orion. These stellar nurseries lie at the edge of the giant Orion molecular cloud complex, some 1,500 light-years away. This detailed view spans about 12 degrees across the center of the well-known constellation, with the Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star-forming region, visible toward the lower right. The deep mosaic also includes, near the top center, the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula. Image data acquired with a hydrogen-alpha filter adds other remarkable features to this wide-angle cosmic vista: pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and portions of the surrounding Barnard's Loop. While the Orion Nebula and many stars in Orion are easy to see with the unaided eye, emission from the extensive interstellar gas is faint and much harder to record, even in telescopic views of the nebula-rich complex.

Could be the big winner........

Why California could be the big winner as EPA abandons climate policy

The federal government is walking away from its tailpipe emissions rules, sparking a legal debate over whether states can now write their own standards.

By Alex Nieves

The Trump administration just tore apart decades of U.S. climate policy, but it may have also handed California its golden ticket.

EPA’s decision last week to nix the so-called endangerment finding — the Obama-era ruling that underpinned the federal government’s authority to develop climate policy — gives car and truck makers free rein to build models without consideration of greenhouse gases.

That’s a major blow for California Democrats and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’ve hitched their climate ambitions to manufacturers offering more electric vehicles and to drivers adopting the still-maturing technology en masse. (The transportation sector accounts for roughly half of California’s carbon emissions, state officials estimate.)

The move tees up a conservative Supreme Court to overturn its 2007 decision affirming EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases. While unwinding Massachusetts v. EPA would represent a monumental reversal of U.S. policy, some legal experts argue it could hand state regulators newfound power to fill the void.

That’s because states are preempted from setting their own tailpipe standards — a restriction that becomes hard to defend if the federal government bows out of the emissions game.

“If that happens, then EPA lacks any authority to issue standards, including under a new administration,” said Ann Carlson, who led the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under former President Joe Biden. “That would leave states as the natural locus for regulatory power.”

That would be paradigm shifting for California air regulators, who in June watched congressional Republicans revoke the EPA waiver that gave the state power to set stricter-than-federal tailpipe rules. A world without the endangerment finding could make the politically fraught task of seeking federal approval a hurdle of the past.

Trump’s EPA is trying to head off that legal reasoning. The agency’s official repeal argues that states are still preempted from developing laws or regulations that “adopt or attempt to enforce any standard relating to the control of emissions from new motor vehicles or engines.”

“These ‘legal experts’ should read the Clean Air Act before engaging in scare tactics designed to perpetuate unlawful regulations,” EPA spokespeople said in a statement Tuesday.

The question is whether that language would hold up to judicial scrutiny. Carlson said nothing is certain given the makeup of the Supreme Court, but California has a fighting chance.

“The federal government is trying to argue that states are preempted, but they’re also arguing that the Clean Air Act doesn’t give them the power to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and trucks,” Carlson said. “That seems like an argument that is inconsistent on its face.”

The question now is whether California and the blue states that have historically followed its lead on auto policy will put the legal theory to the test.

Newsom and state air regulators aren’t talking about the go-it-alone tactic as an option yet. Spokespeople for Newsom’s office declined to answer whether his administration is exploring the idea, instead pointing to the governor’s statement last week that California will sue to stop the endangerment finding rollback.

But prominent state lawmakers say the strategy is already being discussed inside the Capitol.

“Absolutely, this has been the topic of conversation,” Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, chair of the Utilities and Energy Committee, said during a press briefing last week. “There is, I think, a certain irony that in the revocation of the endangerment finding, it actually could provide California with more latitude and more direct responsibility.”

“Yes, this is definitely a conversation, so stay tuned,” she added.

That’s a debate the auto industry wants to avoid. While major car companies lobbied Congress to revoke California’s EV sales mandate last year, they stopped short of advocating against the endangerment finding and didn’t explicitly praise the repeal last week.

“The auto industry in America remains focused on preserving vehicle choice for consumers, keeping the industry competitive, and staying on a long-term path of emissions reductions and cleaner vehicles,” said John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents most major automakers.

The auto industry — which has long advocated for unified regulations across the United States — now could face a scenario where it’s not only easier for California to issue tailpipe rules, but states like New York or Illinois could also create their own patchwork of standards.

“They got more than what they asked for,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights for Cox Automotive.

Acknowledges violating dozens of recent court orders

DOJ acknowledges violating dozens of recent court orders in New Jersey

The self-assessment came amid rising concern among judges managing a flood of immigration cases.

By Kyle Cheney

The Trump administration acknowledged violating court orders issued by New Jersey’s federal judges more than 50 times over the past 10 weeks in cases stemming from the Trump administration’s mass deportation push.

Associate Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fox, who was tapped in December to help lead the Justice Department’s New Jersey office after temporary pick Alina Habba was forced out, said those violations were spread across more than 547 immigration cases that have flooded the courts since early December, straining both prosecutors and judges.

The violations include a deportation to Peru that occurred in violation of a judge’s injunction, as well as three missed deadlines to release ICE detainees.

There were also six missed deadlines to respond to court orders, 12 missed deadlines to provide bond hearings to ICE detainees, 17 out-of-state transfers after judges had issued no-transfer orders, three instances of imposing release conditions in violation of court prohibitions and 10 instances of failing to produce evidence demanded by courts.

“We regret deeply all violations for which our Office is responsible. Those violations were unintentional and immediately rectified once we learned of them,” Fox wrote in a letter accompanying the report. “We believe that [the Department of Homeland Security’s] violations were also unintentional.”

Fox’s conciliatory approach stood in stark contrast with previous statements from the Justice Department and ICE that have blamed “rogue judges” for the administration’s noncompliance.

DOJ produced the catalog of violations in response to an order by U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz.

Farbiarz’s concerns mirror similar alarms raised by judges across the country who have described increasingly frequent violations of their edicts by administration officials carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation surge.

Judges in Minnesota recently assessed that the administration violated 94 court orders in January. And judges across the country have described “rampant” and “purposeful” violations of their orders.

Farbiarz praised the thoroughness of Fox’s report but said its conclusions were alarming, especially upon a closer inspection of the math.

“The sworn materials show that this case is not fully an outlier,” he wrote. “Judicial orders should never be violated.”

Farbiarz ordered the administration to follow up by Feb. 25 with a detailed plan for how it intends to fix its recent burst of violations, particularly given Fox’s assertion that the errors were a result of by sky-high caseloads caused by the mass deportation push.

“If this is an accurate diagnosis of the issue,” the judge said, “it will be important for the Court to understand the across-the-board administrative steps the Respondents are taking to ensure 100% compliance with judicial orders.

NATO Black Sea mission

Romania calls for NATO Black Sea mission

The plea comes as Romania faces mounting aerial and maritime security threats from Russia, Defense Minister Radu Miruță says.

By Victor Jack

NATO should shift counter-drone equipment, radars and air defense missiles to the Black Sea as part of a new allied mission to deter Russia, Romanian Defense Minister Radu Miruță told POLITICO.

“The Black Sea is … where the Russians are having a huge interest,” he said in an interview at the margins of the Munich Security Conference. “It’s a sea that should be protected, and it's a sea where Romania is very interested [for NATO] to offer protection.”

Last year, NATO launched two missions aimed at tackling growing subsea cable-cutting incidents and bolstering the alliance’s vulnerable air defenses, dubbed Baltic Sentry and Eastern Sentry. Last week, it also launched Arctic Sentry — largely to placate Donald Trump after he threatened to annex Greenland, in part citing security threats to the island.

The alliance should now launch a similar Black Sea Sentry scheme, Miruță said, as Bucharest struggles to respond to Russia’s drone warfare in neighboring Ukraine. 

In response to the call, a NATO official told POLITICO that the alliance would “continue to adapt” its Eastern Sentry mission in response to “reckless violations of ... airspace including in Romania.” NATO is “working with Romania to strengthen this line of effort even further,” they added.

The country, which shares a 650-kilometer border with Ukraine, has seen over a dozen drone incursions since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In response, Bucharest last year changed its laws on downing drones, shifted troops to the border and bought a new American Merops anti-drone system — but the violations are continuing.

“We are seeing drones coming over the Black Sea to Ukraine,” Miruță said, and “activity … is increasing ... It’s difficult to scan 24 hours per day this entire land. We are scanning everything, but we are focusing our resources especially in the areas where the population is living.”

Given that Ukraine lies on the other bank of the Danube River from Romania, that makes it “difficult for the Romanian army to decide if a drone that is coming ... will stop there or not.”

There are also broader merits to a Black Sea mission.

While NATO’s Eastern Sentry already ostensibly covers Romania’s airspace, the Russian threat extends beyond aerial incursions to the sea as well, according to Oana Popescu-Zamfir, director of the Bucharest-based GlobalFocus Center security think tank.

Moscow’s presence in the Black Sea is exposing a “huge deficit” in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, she said. Meanwhile, Romania’s Neptun Deep gas project, which is set to come online next year, raises the “increasing prospect of hybrid activity” by Russia, she said.

As a result, “we … need to be prepared for any sort of acts of sabotage,” Popescu-Zamfir said, as well as GPS jamming and suspicious behavior from Russian vessels. In response, NATO could deploy underwater drones, enhance satellite detection and centralize its monitoring of the region.

That's a call Miruță is backing. “I'm asking with my entire voice to have a fair distribution over the entire eastern flank from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea,” he said, arguing a Black Sea Sentry program could involve shifting more “counter drones, radars, air missiles” and other allied equipment to the area.

However, some NATO allies are skeptical, worrying that the idea may stretch resources. “Due to the overstretched force model I do not see a strong appetite for it,” said one NATO diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive matter.

But for Miruță, it's a question of burden sharing. “There are some resources concentrated in the Baltic Sea … but it's also needed in the Black Sea,” he said, “so let's distribute in a fair way the resources in between these two points.”

Anti-Trump trade club

Carney offers to ‘broker a bridge’ to build giant anti-Trump trade club

The Canadian PM responded to questions about POLITICO’s reporting that Ottawa is spearheading conversations between the EU and an Indo-Pacific trade bloc.

By Graham Lanktree

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has offered to “broker a bridge” between the European Union and a fast-growing Indo-Pacific trade bloc this year to form a new anti-Trump trade pact.

Carney was responding to questions on Tuesday about POLITICO’s reporting that Ottawa is spearheading conversations between the EU and nations in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

“We can help broker a bridge between the two,” Carney said during a press conference as he unveiled Canada’s defense industrial strategy in Montreal.

“It's the opportunity to have a rules-based trading bloc of one and a half billion people with complementary economies, and also provides a basis potentially for further expansion out of that,” the prime minister said.

The CPTPP trade bloc includes Canada, the U.K., Japan, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and other Pacific nations.

The plans would bring nearly 40 nations on opposite sides of the globe closer together to reach a deal on so-called rules of origin. These rules determine the economic nationality of a product.

A deal would allow manufacturers throughout the two blocs to trade goods and their parts more seamlessly in a low-tariff process known as cumulation.

Carney said Canada is “in a unique position” to push talks forward with the 27 nations of the EU as it’s both a member of CPTPP and has the CETA trade deal with Brussels.

“We're not alone in this idea. It's one of the first conversations I had with the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand — like-minded countries who see the merits in developing this,” Carney said, citing a “series of conversations” with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa and several CPTPP leaders about it.

Carney spoke with Keir Starmer about the talks on Monday, according to a read-out of their call.

“Stronger ties between the EU and CPTPP members will strengthen supply chains, unlock new opportunities for Canadian businesses, and reinforce a rules-based trading system,” wrote Canada's International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu on Monday. “Canada is proud to be at the centre of this momentum.”

Nice when the pope says fuck you...

Pope snubs Trump’s Gaza peace board 

The pontiff, who has criticized the U.S. president, believes the United Nations should manage international crises, his top diplomat says.

By Tom Foley

Pope Leo will not participate in U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza due to concerns it seeks to undermine the United Nations. 

The Holy See received an invitation to join the board in late January but declined “because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States,” said Vatican top diplomat Pietro Parolin, outside a meeting with the Italian government Tuesday, according to the Vatican News site.  

The Board of Peace, chaired by Trump, is designed to oversee Gaza’s demilitarization and reconstruction under a U.N.-endorsed ceasefire framework.

“One concern is that at the international level it should above all be the U.N. that manages these crisis situations,” Parolin said. “This is one of the points on which we have insisted.” 

Pope Leo has been a critic of the U.S. president on immigration policy, foreign affairs and climate change, since taking up the helm of the Catholic Church last May.  

The details of the peace board’s operations and potential to become an alternative U.N. have caused European nations to decline participation. EU member countries Hungary and Bulgaria did signal that they would join the board during a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland last month.

While the EU will not join Trump’s organization, it is sending Dubravka Šuica, the European commissioner for the Mediterranean, to Washington for the board’s first formal meeting this Thursday.

Surprise, surprise

Surprise, surprise: Russia-Ukraine talks yield no peace breakthrough

The negotiations have largely become political theater for an audience comprising Donald Trump.

By Veronika Melkozerova

Despite the efforts of American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Moscow, Kyiv and Washington concluded another round of talks in Geneva with scant progress toward ending the Russian war in Ukraine.

After two days of negotiations, which were described as intense and messy, both Russia and Ukraine reported that constructive dialogue continues, though the sides remain far apart on key territorial and political issues.

The talks failed to yield any broader breakthrough on halting hostilities, on prisoner of war exchanges or on a truce regarding strikes on energy infrastructure.

The negotiations have largely become political theater, with each side trying to convince U.S. President Donald Trump that the other is to blame for the conflict dragging on.

Ukraine has repeatedly called for stronger U.S. pressure on Russia and concrete security guarantees to end the war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told POLITICO earlier this month that he believes Trump can force Russian leader Vladimir Putin to make meaningful concessions.

“From what I heard from our group, the talks were constructive. The military negotiations group has a common understanding on how to monitor the ceasefire and the end of the war if there’s a political will to end it,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on Wednesday, after the talks finished.

According to Zelenskyy, the U.S. will definitely take part in the monitoring if Russia’s war ends, and that’s already a “constructive signal.”

However, when it comes to sensitive political issues, like the territories in Ukraine’s east and ownership of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the sides still have different positions.

“Talks were tough in the political aspect. While I see progress in the military aspect, here there is no such progress. Sides agreed to continue dialogue. But I still will find out more details after Ukrainian negotiators come back,” Zelenskyy added.

Russia also reported that talks were tough, after Wednesday’s meeting lasted for only two hours — following a marathon six-hour session on Tuesday.

“Negotiations were difficult, but businesslike. A new meeting with Ukraine will be held in the near future,” said Putin’s negotiator Vladimir Medinsky after the meeting.

Witkoff said the dialogue alone should be celebrated as a success belonging to U.S. President Donald Trump, but admitted the sides are still just talking rather than agreeing.

This round of talks was not actually “that good,” a person familiar with the atmosphere in the room told POLITICO. The sides came to the table expecting different things and talks were “confusing” in many ways, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss private talks.

Indeed, before the negotiations started, Russia’s delegation announced that the meetings would be focused on territorial issues, while the Ukrainian delegation said it was planning to discuss humanitarian and security issues.

“We are focused on working through the key provisions necessary to finalize the process. This is complex work that requires agreement by all parties and time. There is progress, but no details at this stage,” Ukrainian Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov said in a statement Wednesday.

“The next step is to reach the necessary level of alignment to submit the developed decisions for consideration by the presidents. Our task is to prepare a real, not a formal, foundation for this. The ultimate goal remains unchanged — a just and sustainable peace,” he added.