The Morning Call

Israel’s Netanyahu taking steps officially to form government

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TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s president officially tapped former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government Sunday, opening the door for the likely return to power of the long-serving leader after a one-year hiatus. With Netanyahu comes what’s expected to be Israel’s most right-wing coalition ever.

Elections earlier this month indicated a clear win for Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox and ultranatio­nalist allies and ended the short-lived, ideologica­lly-diverse government that had ousted him last year after Netanyahu’s 12 consecutiv­e years in power.

Though political horse-trading began as soon as the election results firmed up, Sunday’s developmen­t means Netanyahu now has up to six weeks to conclude negotiatio­ns and cobble together a government.

Netanyahu struck a conciliato­ry tone at the Jerusalem event where Israel’s ceremonial President Isaac Herzog bestowed upon him the task of forming a government.

“We will do everything to make this, with God’s help, a stable government, a successful government, a responsibl­e government, a dedicated government that will work for the benefit of all residents of the state of Israel, without exception,” he said.

Netanyahu returns to power after five elections in less than four years that were all essentiall­y a referendum on his fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.

Netanyahu is expected to emerge from negotiatio­ns with a stable majority coalition of 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

Netanyahu, 73, faces charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals involving media moguls and wealthy associates.

Slovenia election: Liberal rights advocate Natasa Pirc Musar won a runoff Sunday to become Slovenia’s first female head of state and said her first task would be to bridge a deep left-right divide in the Alpine nation of 2 million.

With nearly all of the votes counted in the small European Union nation, Pirc Musar led Slovenia’s conservati­ve former Foreign Minister Anze Logar by 54% to 46%. Her victory boosts the country’s liberal bloc following the center-left coalition victory in Slovenia’s parliament­ary election in April.

British economy: Britain’s Treasury chief warned Sunday of a coming spending crunch and tax increases for cash-strapped Britons as he bids to fill the “black hole” in the country’s finances.

Billing himself as a “Scrooge” figure ahead of Thursday’s Autumn Statement, when he will update Parliament on the government’s budget measures, Jeremy Hunt said he was forced to make “very difficult decisions” in his attempt to curb inflation and put the British economy back on an even keel.

He told British broadcaste­rs that he was determined to make an expected recession as shallow as possible and warned that everyone could expect to pay more in taxes.

“I’m a Conservati­ve chancellor, and I think I’ve been completely explicit that taxes are going to go up. And that’s a very difficult thing for me to do because I came into politics to do the exact opposite,” he told the BBC, using his official title, chancellor

of the Exchequer.

Hunt is seeking to make up to $71 billion in savings and extra revenue in a bid to tighten up public finances and undo some of the damage that economists say

was done by his predecesso­r, Kwasi Kwarteng, and former Prime Minister Liz Truss.

Britain’s economy, like that of many other countries, is struggling as Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has

driven up food and energy costs, pushing consumer price inflation to 40-year highs.

Remembranc­e Sunday:

The U.K fell silent for two minutes on Remembranc­e

Sunday as King Charles III led the nation in honoring servicemen and women who lost their lives in past conflicts.

Big Ben chimed 11 times to mark the start of the silence as thousands of veterans, including some who had served during the World War II looked on solemnly under gray London skies.

Their number gets fewer each year — adding poignancy to the appearance of Charles, leading the ceremony for the first time since the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in September. She had served as a mechanic and truck driver during the last months of World War II and continued to join the annual commemorat­ion in London well into her 90s.

The veterans watched Charles lay a newly designed wreath of poppies at the foot of the Cenotaph, London’s war memorial.

Remembranc­e Sunday is marked every year in the U.K. on the closest Sunday to Armistice Day on Nov. 11 with the wearing of poppies and a national two-minute silence observed at 11 a.m. It marks the moment the guns fell silent in 1918 at the end of World War I.

White House wedding:

“Here Comes the Bride” will be heard at the White House very soon. Again.

Naomi Biden, the granddaugh­ter of President Joe Biden, and Peter Neal are getting married on the South Lawn on Saturday in what will be the 19th wedding in White House history.

It will be the first wedding with a president’s granddaugh­ter as the bride and the first one in that location, according to the White House Historical Associatio­n.

A mutual friend set up Naomi Biden, 28, and Neal, 25, about four years ago in New York City, and the White House said they have been together ever since. Naomi Biden is a lawyer; her father is Hunter Biden. Neal recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvan­ia law school. The couple live in Washington.

 ?? ANDREW KRAVCHENKO/AP ?? Art amid the war in Ukraine: A delicate black-and-white painting of a gymnast doing a handstand graces the wall of a wrecked building Sunday outside of Kyiv and appears to be the work of the British graffiti artist known as Banksy. The artist posted photos on his Instagram page of the artwork in Borodyanka, northwest of Ukraine’s capital.
ANDREW KRAVCHENKO/AP Art amid the war in Ukraine: A delicate black-and-white painting of a gymnast doing a handstand graces the wall of a wrecked building Sunday outside of Kyiv and appears to be the work of the British graffiti artist known as Banksy. The artist posted photos on his Instagram page of the artwork in Borodyanka, northwest of Ukraine’s capital.

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