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'Waste of money':  Former Italian PM Conte against EU rearmament plan

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'Waste of money':  Former Italian PM Conte against EU rearmament plan

In an interview to Euronews, Five Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte said that the Commission “is exaggerating the Russian threat” to boost military expenditure

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The rearmament plan just presented by the European Commission and aiming at unlocking up to €800bn is considered a total waste of money by the former Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte.

In an interview with Euronews, Conte claims that ReArm EU

means “throwing money away to allow all the member states to continue increasing military spending in an uncoordinated and disorderly manner”, instead of boosting a “serious common defense project”, which in his view should reach a strategic autonomy with “a major step” in EU’s political integration.

Conte’s Five Star Movement organized a protest outside and inside the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, showing peace flags and demanding the funds foreseen for military expenditure should be spent on to public health and other priorities. 

The Left group in the European Parliament, to which Five Star Movement belongs, believes that the plan will only benefit weapons manufacturers and arms dealers, and criticizes what it calls the sidelining of the European Parliament in the approval process.   

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The former Italian prime minister challenges the idea of  “peace through strength”: despite considering Russians as a threat, Conte believes that the EU should not “fuel tensions with Russia”, but instead “being in the first line to build a future based on dialogue.”

And he accused the European Commission of “exaggerating the Russian threat to justify a waste of public money”.

Siding with Ukraine, but without military aid

According to Conte, the EU should have a voice in the peace negotiations between Russia and the US on war in Ukraine, which will be a major challenge.  “It will be extremely difficult to defend Ukraine’s position, because, clearly, Russia’s negotiating power has increased.”

In the Italian domestic debate, his party has for long advocated stopping military aid to Ukraine. However, Conte rejects being labeled a pro-Russian. “We have nothing to do with the positions of the most radical right-wing parties. We are not pro-Putin, we have condemned him for the aggression against Ukraine from the very beginning. We have no ideological contamination that could mislead us.”

While he backed the EU sanctions to Russia, he believes that they did not reach the target. “We were told that the Russian economy would collapse. We were even told that they had run out of bullets, out of weapons, and that they were struggling on a military level. All lies. We must acknowledge that the Russian economy had a 4.1% GDP growth in 2024.”

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Asked about the security guarantees to provide to Ukraine, Giuseppe Conte does not want to put forward any concrete answers, claiming that it would be premature to discuss this now. 

He is strongly against the idea, floated by current Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, of extending to Ukraine NATO’s Article 5 – its collective defence clause – without the country being granted actual membership of the alliance.

“This solution is unacceptable: it would mean that from a proxy war that we have been fighting up to now, tomorrow we would switch to a direct war in favor of Ukraine, instead of working on a peace negotiation. A total madness”.

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Thousands of dinosaur footprints discovered on rock faces in northern Italy

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Thousands of dinosaur footprints have been found in a national part in northern Italy known as the Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio Branchi.

Experts say they are from enormous herbivores that lived there 210 million years ago in the Triassic period.

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Sporticast 510: The Sordid Saga of a Legends’s Former Mansion

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Sporticast 510: The Sordid Saga of a Legends’s Former Mansion

On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including the latest in a strange sports real estate story.

In 2012, Michael Jordan listed his Bulls-era mansion outside Chicago for about $29 million, or $41 million in today’s dollars. It took more than a decade and multiple price drops for the home to sell, which it did late last year for $9.5 million. The buyer, a partner in a local real estate firm, has since tried multiple ways to monetize the property. Initially he tried to sell timeshares for $1 million each, but that plan was thwarted by the local town council. He’s back in front of that same council this week, seeking approvals related to his next plan: to build a “multi-sensory experience focused entirely on personal transformation.” The tourist attraction would require the use of a parking lot on an adjacent nature preserve.

Next the hosts discuss major upset in college sports. Nebraska’s women’s volleyball team, the top seed in this year’s NCAA tournament, was upset by Texas A&M in the quarterfinals. Riding a wave of volleyball commercial growth, the Huskers spent more on the sport than any other public school in the country, according to numbers from Sportico‘s college finance database. The team reported $2.57 million in ticket sales during the 2023-24 school year, the third highest total for any women’s team at any public school in the country, trailing only Iowa and UConn women’s basketball.

They close by taking about the Big 12‘s proposed private equity plan. A few days after Big 12 member Utah laid out its own on-campus capital ambitions, Sportico reported that the Big 12 is in talks to set up what essentially amounts to a credit facility for its members via a potential partnership with RedBird Capital-backed Collegiate Athletic Solutions.

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(You can subscribe to Sporticast through Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.)

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Bystanders seen confronting Australian gunman during ISIS-inspired deadly rampage

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Bystanders seen confronting Australian gunman during ISIS-inspired deadly rampage

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Bystanders were seen on video confronting a gunman before his ISIS-inspired deadly mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, could begin. 

Despite their efforts to disarm him, the gunman eventually overpowered the two bystanders and killed them, according to authorities.

The bystanders were later identified as Boris and Sofia Gurman, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The outlet reported that the Gurmans were walking by as they saw the assailant exiting a vehicle. Though Boris had the upper hand for a moment after picking up the shooter’s rifle, the attacker allegedly picked up another rifle during the confrontation and fatally shot the couple, making them the first victims of the massacre.

“We are heartbroken by the sudden and senseless loss of our beloved Boris and Sofia Gurman,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “While nothing can lessen the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness.”

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RABBI KILLED IN SYDNEY HANUKKAH ATTACK HAD WARNED AUSTRALIAN PM ABOUT RISING ANTISEMITISM

Bystanders were seen confronting one of the gunmen behind the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Australia’s Bondi Beach. (Jenny/Reuters)

In the video, obtained and verified by Reuters, an eyewitness replaying the dashcam footage recalls how the incident unfolded.

“You see the shooter here — he fired shots from here, shooting from here. And then look, this guy went and tackled him (shooter), knocking him to the ground. At that point, he had already grabbed the gun,” the witness, who was speaking in Mandarin, said in the video, according to a Reuters translation.

Authorities have identified the shooters as a father, 50, and a son, 24. The father was killed at the scene, while the son was shot by police and taken to the hospital in critical condition. Australian authorities also said that the shooters had improvised explosives and homemade ISIS flags in their vehicle.

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On Sunday, the pair opened fire on families celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and leaving more than two dozen injured. The Australian government is investigating the incident as a terror attack targeting the Jewish community.

GAL GADOT, ASHTON KUTCHER CONDEMN ANTISEMITIC TERROR ATTACK AT BONDI BEACH HANUKKAH EVENT

Police teams take security measures at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday after a terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community during the first night of Hanukkah. ( Claudio Galdames A/Anadolu via Getty Images)

During the deadly rampage, another bystander, Ahmed al Ahmed, an Australian immigrant, wrestled a gun away from one of the shooters. His attorney said that Ahmed does not regret intervening, despite being “riddled with bullets” and in intense pain.

“He doesn’t regret what he did. He said he’d do it again. But the pain has started to take a toll on him,” Ahmed’s attorney, Sam Issa, told The Sydney Morning Herald. “He’s not well at all. He’s riddled with bullets. Our hero is struggling at the moment.”

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The outlet reported that Ahmed has undergone his first round of surgery and that Issa fears the hero bystander may lose his left arm.

“He’s a lot worse than expected. When you think of a bullet in the arm, you don’t think of serious injuries, but he has lost a lot of blood,” Issa said.

President Donald Trump praised Ahmed for his actions, calling him “a very, very brave person” and saying that he has “great respect” for him.

People attend a floral memorial in honor of the victims of a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday, at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. (Flavio Brancaleone/Reuters)

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The Bondi Beach attack is the worst mass shooting Australia has seen since the country implemented sweeping reforms after a shooter killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. Following the Bondi Beach attack, Australian leaders have vowed to strengthen the country’s already restrictive gun laws.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced several proposed actions, including limiting the number of guns one can possess.

“The government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary. Included in that is the need for tougher gun laws,” he said after meeting with his National Cabinet.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano, Bradford Betz and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.

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