SACRAMENTO (ANP) - Kiezers in de Amerikaanse staat Californië verwerpen naar verwachting een unieke belasting voor miljardairs, voorspelt Decision Desk HQ, dat de Amerikaanse verkiezingsuitslagen bijhoudt, op X. Met bijna drie kwart van de stemmen geteld, steunt slechts 46 procent van de kiezers het voorstel, 54 procent is tegen.
Het voorstel, bekend als Proposition 40, behelsde een eenmalige belasting van 5 procent op het vermogen van miljardairs die begin 2026 in Californië woonden. Het merendeel van de opbrengsten zou worden ingezet om de gezondheidszorg te versterken. Kiezers konden zich erover uitspreken tijdens de midterms van dinsdag.
De verwerping is een tegenslag voor pogingen om extreem vermogen in de hele Verenigde Staten te belasten. Voorstanders hoopten dat Californië als blauwdruk zou dienen voor soortgelijke initiatieven elders in het land.
Het voorstel sneuvelde mede door tegenstand van een coalitie die onder meer bestond uit tech-miljardairs en de Democratische gouverneur Gavin Newsom. Zij besteedden meer dan 300 miljoen dollar aan advertenties en andere middelen om de publieke opinie tegen het voorstel te keren.
Russia could use tri leader summit to nudge China and US closer to its position on Ukraine, experts say. What we know on day 1,718
Beijing has confirmed that it is discussing a historic meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the US president, Donald Trump, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said at a press briefing this week in Beijing that China “is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state”, which could take place on the sidelines of the Apec summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen this month.
Russia would probably use the summit to nudge China and the US closer to Moscow’s positions on Ukraine, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center. However, Trump has been warned by his advisers to steer clear of Ukraine as a topic of the discussions, said Danny Russel, a former senior state department official who served in Barack Obama’s administration and who is now a distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
Ukraine again came under attack from Russia on Saturday, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for allies to supply Kyiv quickly with missiles for the US-made Patriot system to defend Ukrainian cities. Zelenskyy on Friday had warned that the Ukrainian military was bracing for new strikes by Russian forces against important infrastructure. “We have intelligence at this time that Russia is preparing new strikes on energy, on bridges across the Dnipro, on civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “The air force and the armed forces of Ukraine as a whole are preparing for defence. It will not be easy.”
Kyiv, along with other Ukrainian cities, has been subjected to near-constant attacks for several weeks. A missile attack by Russian forces early on Saturday damaged a residential building in the Ukrainian capital, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The city’s military administration, also writing on Telegram, said two people were injured and a building housing a kindergarten was damaged. Officials continued to warn residents of the potential for more strikes hours after the attack.
President Zelenskyy says he wants specific guarantees from western allies on how postwar security support would function when the war with Russia finally ends. Zelenskyy’s comments in an interview aired late Thursday followed two days of discussions among allies in Brussels that focused on postwar security and reconstruction. They also came before planned three-way talks next week in Abu Dhabi between Ukraine, Russia and the United States, the first trilateral peace discussions since February. “What matters is that it’s clear on paper,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukraine’s private 1+1 television broadcast late Thursday. “The question isn’t dozens of points, but simply an understanding of the outcome: If Russia starts [attacking] again, what will happen? Who will do what, with what means, and when?”
The Brussels meetings brought together officials from the US, UK, France, Germany and the European Union, along with representatives from the World Bank and the US investment group BlackRock, Ukrainian lead negotiator Rustem Umerov wrote in an online post. “We separately discussed the threats from Russia to Ukraine and all of Europe, as well as joint steps to counter them,” Umerov wrote.
Continue reading...She came from humble Italian origins to join India’s ruling family. Then both her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, and her husband, Rajiv, were brutally murdered. In a rare interview, the politician talks about her reluctant rise to power, Narendra Modi’s repressive regime – and why youth protests give her hope for the future
• Read an exclusive extract from Sonia Gandhi’s memoir here
For a woman who has been a witness to some of the most significant political moments in modern Indian history, Sonia Gandhi likes to insist her life has been far from remarkable. “Oh, I don’t know that I would say it’s an extraordinary story,” she says, shifting uncomfortably.
It’s hard to reconcile this modest characterisation with the course her life has taken over the last 79 years. Born to a working-class family in a small town in northern Italy, today she sits at the heart of Indian political power, having weathered assassinations and personal tragedy to become one of the country’s most influential figures. She held Indira Gandhi’s bloodied body after the then-prime minster, her mother-in-law, was gunned down at their home in Delhi in 1984. She then became India’s first lady when her husband, Rajiv Gandhi, took his mother’s place as prime minister. And when Rajiv, too, was killed, she threw aside her distaste for politics to step up and lead his fragmenting party. In 2004, having taken Congress to electoral victory, she famously turned down the prime minister post. She can still boast of being the longest-serving president of Congress, both when India’s oldest political party was in power and later, when it became the flailing opposition. When Gandhi stepped down in 2017, her son Rahul was appointed her successor.
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