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LONDON (Reuters) – The University of Oxford said on Thursday it has stopped accepting funding from China’s Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL], the leading global supplier of telecoms network equipment, after scrutiny over the company’s relationship with China’s government.

“Oxford University decided on January 8 this year that it will not pursue new funding opportunities with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd or its related group companies at present,” the university said in a statement.

“The decision has been taken in the light of public concerns raised in recent months surrounding UK partnerships with Huawei. We hope these matters can be resolved shortly.”

A Huawei spokesman said they had not been informed of the Oxford decision and only found out when it was reported in the media.

(Reuters) – Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s White House hopes could hang on how he quickly he is able to resolve the city’s first teachers’ strike in three decades, which disrupted classes for nearly half a million students for a fourth day on Thursday.

Although the 47-year-old Democrat does not have direct control over the nation’s second-largest school system, he will mediate talks between union and district leaders after days of protests that grabbed nationwide headlines.

The move may help Garcetti, who is considering a presidential run but has not officially declared his intentions, raise his national profile.

Strategists said it also could tie his reputation to the outcome, with a quick deal giving him a boost while drawn-out scenes of the union’s 30,000 mostly Latino teachers on picket lines could harm his standing with key Democratic constituencies.

“Before the strike, I had this in the column of things that would be really hard on his presidential campaign,” said Raphael Sonenshein, the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University in Los Angeles. “If he’s able to bring some influence to bear that contributes to a positive resolution, that would potentially be a plus.”

Garcetti is one of more than a dozen Democrats weighing whether to take on the Republican Party’s presumptive 2020 nominee, President Donald Trump. White House aspirants are already scrambling to try to raise their national profiles and secure staff and donors.

In his two terms as mayor and decade before that on the city council, the Spanish-speaking Garcetti focused on environmental and urban planning initiatives, seeking to cut back Los Angeles’ famous dependence on cars.

He frequently employs the hashtag #MayorsGetThingsDone on Twitter, part of his argument that his experience compares favorably with that of lawmakers in often-gridlocked Washington.

But other than leading the city’s bid for the Olympic Games, which resulted in Los Angeles being chosen to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, Garcetti has rarely been in the national spotlight.

‘RIGHTEOUS FIGHT’

Garcetti offered to serve as a mediator in the teacher strike, starting on Thursday, which convinced the two sides to come to the table for the first time since the strike began.

Before assuming the mediator role, Garcetti had carefully walked a line. He supported teachers, whose demands have focused on lowering class sizes and adding support staff such as nurses to schools in addition to a pay raise, while also acknowledging the school board faces financial pressures.

“This is an important and righteous fight about the soul of our schools,” Garcetti told Reuters on Tuesday after chatting with several teachers at a downtown deli. “At the same time, we have to find the resources to do it. You can’t spend money that you don’t have.”

Unlike in some big cities, an independently elected board, not the mayor, runs the Los Angeles Unified School District and is leading the negotiations.

Garcetti recalled his grandmother’s time working as an educator in the 1960s in Milwaukee.

“It’s kind of similar to now: We have a society that is increasingly polarized in terms of wealth,” he said. “Those who depend on public institutions like public schools, if we can’t make them work, we won’t have a strong nation.”

Garcetti has not shown up in the top 10 of likely 2020 Democrats in recent polls. He trails in name recognition compared with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who declared her candidacy last month, and former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, who have expressed strong interest.

A long strike could only hurt Garcetti’s chances of building a positive national reputation, said Ben Tulchin, a Democratic pollster who has worked for Los Angeles school board candidates and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

“If it drags on, it’s a huge inconvenience for Los Angeles voters,” Tulchin said. “It makes a steep climb even steeper. He’s got a lot of people he’s got to leapfrog.”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Striking Los Angeles teachers and America’s second-largest school district headed on Thursday for their first bargaining session since talks collapsed last week, as a walkout by some 30,000 educators entered a fourth day.

In the first teachers’ strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in 30 years, members of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union are seeking higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff, while denouncing their current working conditions as an “injustice.”

“They are resolute on reaching an agreement,” the president of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union, Alex Caputo-Pearl, said at a news conference, referring to the union’s bargaining team ahead of Thursday’s talks.

LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner has said the demands, if fully met, would place too great a strain on the district’s budget.

The union is seeking a 6.5 percent pay raise. LAUSD teacher pay currently averages $75,000, according to state figures. The district has offered a 6 percent hike with back pay.

Mayor Eric Garcetti, who attended a teachers’ rally earlier this week and has voiced strong support for their cause, said in a statement that the two sides had agreed to reopen negotiations on Thursday, with his office serving as mediator.

Union leaders said Garcetti had met with both parties and that California’s top education official, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, was also in contact with each side and had offered his support in efforts to reach a settlement.

Thurmond could play a key role in helping the district secure extra funds it may need to close a deal with the teachers.

Negotiators for the district and the union have not met face-to-face since union leaders rejected the LAUSD’s latest contract offer on Friday. The union disputes Beutner’s assertions that the district lacks sufficient resources to accept teachers’ demands.

Caputo-Pearl said on Wednesday that the union was “engaged” with Thurmond, and with California Governor Gavin Newsom, to “try to push on the state as well for additional funding.”

“The money’s there. There’s no doubt about it. California is the richest state in the country,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “The money is there for kids.”

The teachers, who have been without a contract for nearly a year, walked off the job on Monday. LAUSD officials have kept all 1,200 of its schools open on a limited basis with skeleton staff of administrators and substitute teachers, but attendance has been running at roughly a third of normal.

Thousands of striking teachers fanned out across the sprawling school district for a series of rallies and picketing on Thursday, braving a fourth day of showers that did little to dampen their spirits.

“It’s important that we show the example of what we can do and the power that we have as the people,” said Justin Polk, a high school music teacher, at the news conference alongside Caputo-Pearl. “Our strength comes in numbers.”

The Los Angeles walkout follows a wave of teacher strikes last year across the United States over pay and school funding, including work stoppages in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arizona.

Denver teachers could vote to strike by Saturday if no deal on a new contract is reached by then.

Beutner, a former publisher and investment banker, said the district had proposed staff increases that would cost $130 million a year – more than county officials have said is available – while the union’s demands would cost $800 million.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s last-minute scramble to shape its exit from the EU, its biggest policy upheaval in half a century, hit the rocks on Thursday as Prime Minister Theresa May and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn dug in their heels for competing visions.

After May’s two-year attempt to forge an amicable divorce with an independent trade policy was crushed by parliament in the biggest defeat for a British leader in modern history, May asked party leaders to forget self-interest to find a solution.

Yet there was little sign on Thursday that either of the two major parties – which together hold 88 percent of the 650 seats in parliament – were prepared to compromise on key demands.

Corbyn said May had sent Britain hurtling towards the cliff edge of a sudden exit on March 29 with no transition period, and urged her to ditch her “red lines”. But he repeated his own condition for talks: a pledge to block a no-deal Brexit.

“The government confirmed that she would not take ‘no-deal’ off the table,” Corbyn said in a speech in Hastings, scene of a battle in 1066 that ushered in the Norman conquest of England.

“So I say to the prime minister again: I am quite happy to talk, but the starting point for any talks about Brexit must be that the threat of a disastrous no-deal outcome is ruled out,” Corbyn said.

But the further May moves towards softening Brexit, the more she alienates dedicated Brexit supporters in her own Conservative party who think the threat of a no-deal exit is a crucial bargaining chip and should anyway not be feared.

If May fails to forge consensus, the world’s fifth-largest economy will drop out of the European Union on March 29 without a deal or will be forced to delay Brexit, possibly holding a national election or even another referendum.

Corbyn said that, under certain conditions, he would look at options including another referendum – a remark that increased expectations in financial markets that the political chaos would ultimately delay or stop Brexit. [GBP/]

DEAL BY PARLIAMENT?

May has refused to countenance another election, having lost her parliamentary majority in a snap poll in 2017 that left her reliant on the support of a small Northern Irish pro-Brexit party.

She has repeatedly said another referendum would corrode faith in democracy among the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU in 2016.

“I believe it is my duty to deliver on the British people’s instruction to leave the European Union. And I intend to do so,” she said in a televised address.

Her spokesman said Britain had not raised the idea of delaying Britain’s exit with the EU, though former prime minister Tony Blair said a delay was now inevitable.

As the United Kingdom tumbles towards its biggest political and economic shift since World War Two, other members of the European Union have offered to talk.

“We will do everything we can so that Britain exits with, and not without, an agreement,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Berlin’s lower house of parliament.

But they can do little until London decides what it wants.

Ever since the UK voted by 52-48 percent to leave the EU in June 2016, British politicians have failed to find agreement on how or even whether to leave the EU. If there is a solution to the riddle, it may be for parliament’s backbenchers to find it.

May will on Monday put forward a motion in parliament on her proposed next steps. Over the following week, members of parliament will be able to propose alternatives.

On Jan. 29, they will debate these plans, and voting on them should indicate whether any of them could get majority support.

If a way forward emerges, May could then go back to the EU and seek changes to her deal. Parliament would still need to vote on any new agreement, and it is not clear when that might happen.

Labour wants a permanent customs union with the EU – which would resolve the intractable problem of managing the land border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic – as well as a close relationship with its single market and greater protections for workers and consumers.

Most Conservative MPs reject a customs union because it would prevent Britain having an independent trade policy – one of their main demands.

“RECKLESS BREXIT”

Without any deal, trade with the EU would default to basic World Trade Organization rules – a worrying prospect for manufacturers dependent on smooth, uncomplicated supply lines.

Company chiefs are aghast at the political crisis over Brexit and say it has already damaged Britain’s reputation as Europe’s pre-eminent destination for foreign investment.

From Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel to Scottish whisky distillers, firms have called for urgent and decisive government action and warned of the consequences of a no-deal Brexit.

“If anybody believes that you can just go ahead without some sort of an agreement here, I think that that is reckless,” said John Bason, finance chief of Associated British Foods (ABF.L), a food and retail group with annual sales of over $20 billion.

“The UK’s food supply generally is dependent on the free-flowing border,” Bason said.

LONDON (Reuters) – A second referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union would take more than a year to organise, according to official government guidance shown to lawmakers on Wednesday, a source in Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said.

Earlier, a spokeswoman for May told reporters that a one-page document had been shown to lawmakers during meetings aimed at finding a way forward on Brexit.

“In order to inform the discussions, a very short paper set out in factual detail the number of months that would be required, this was illustrative only and our position of course is that there will be no second referendum,” she said.

May has been meeting lawmakers from all parties on Thursday in an attempt to find a way out of an impasse over how Britain should leave the EU, after May’s own plan was resoundingly rejected by parliament on Tuesday.

Although May has repeatedly rejected a second referendum, a vocal campaign in favour of holding a new vote has the support of some lawmakers.

HASTINGS, England (Reuters) – It doesn’t take much for Britain’s main opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to win a cheer from his Labour Party faithful — the ovations the left-wing leader gets for his promises to build a fairer society have become the stuff of political lore.

But in the English seaside town of Hastings on Thursday, another message drew an almighty roar of approval — that his party might look at a second referendum on Brexit.

The prospect of holding a second referendum on leaving the European Union poses a particular challenge for Corbyn: while many of the party’s members fervently back it, others just want to leave as soon as possible.

Like the rest of Britain, Labour was deeply divided by the June 2016 referendum on membership of the EU in which 52 percent voted to leave and 48 percent backed remaining in the bloc.

Sources in Labour suggest that a second referendum — backers call it a “People’s Vote” — is something Corbyn would do almost anything to avoid. So far, he has kept the option open while being clear that he would prefer other alternatives, such as a new election or Labour’s own plan for leaving the EU.

“All options are on the table. We’re serious about finding a way through,” he told several hundred supporters in a meeting hall in a former church on the southern English seafront.

“Our first option is the alternative plan we have laid out over the past year … But if the government remains intransigent … and the country is facing the potential disaster of ‘no deal’, our duty will then be to look at other options … including the option of a public vote.”

That drew cheers from a crowd which also applauded Corbyn’s plan not to speak to May to find a way to break the deadlock in parliament on Brexit unless the prime minister rules out leaving the EU without an agreement — the ‘no deal’ option.

May has adamantly rejected any new vote that would allow an option to halt Brexit. The prime minister says a failure to deliver the outcome of the 2016 vote to leave would be “catastrophic” for British democracy.

Nevertheless, backers of a new referendum say it would be possible to force one, if Corbyn were finally willing to throw the support of the main opposition party behind it.

Although Corbyn campaigned to remain in the EU in 2016, some of his critics within the party say he was only ever a lukewarm supporter of it. He voted against joining the European project in the 1970s and criticised it from the left for decades.

Labour sources say Corbyn’s reluctance to support a second referendum comes from a fear not only of alienating Labour voters mainly in northern and central England who backed “leave”, but also concern about widening rifts in the country.

“SPLINTERS”

In a week when May’s plan for Brexit was crushed in parliament and Corbyn’s bid to force a national election failed, many in the party say the time to put off a decision has now run out. David Lammy, a prominent Labour supporter of a new referendum, said that if Corbyn sits on the fence, he “will get splinters in places he doesn’t want”.

Three of Britain’s four living former prime ministers say a People’s Vote is the only way to break the deadlock. A poll this week found Britain would back staying in the EU by a 12 percentage point margin.

But for Labour’s leadership, the idea of a second referendum poses serious problems — it could alienate “leave” voters in the next election, who form a majority in many of the constituencies Labour would need to win to take power.

Only 71 of the 256 Labour lawmakers signed a letter to Corbyn this week calling on him to back a new vote, and J.P. Morgan analyst Malcolm Burr noted that even if Corbyn ordered his party to back it, some of his lawmakers would still balk.

“We find it difficult to see Labour support for a second referendum rising above 200 votes,” Burr said, noting that this would mean 65 Conservatives would have to be won over. He put the odds of a new referendum at just 25 percent.

Still there is continued pressure, from other opposition parties and from business. In a letter on Wednesday after the Conservative government defeated Corbyn’s no-confidence motion which could have triggered an election, leaders of the smaller opposition parties wrote to ask Corbyn to back a new referendum.

“Following this evening’s unsuccessful vote of no confidence in the prime minister, which we all supported, we are writing to implore you to adopt as party policy a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal,” wrote parliamentary leaders of Scottish and Welsh parties, the pro-EU Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

More than 100 bosses of smaller British companies including in media, design and architecture also said the only way to stop the country from “crashing out of the EU with no deal” would be to ask “the people whether they still want to leave the EU”.

“With the clock now ticking rapidly before we are due to quit, politicians must not waste any more time on fantasies,” they wrote in a letter.

But for now, Corbyn is still in no hurry to pick sides.

“We are the party that has consistently sought to bring people together, to find a way through that respects people’s concerns whichever way they voted in the referendum,” he said.

“Because I believe that the real divide in our country is not between leave and remain,” he said, shifting to a Labour Party slogan: “It is between the many and the few.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An internal watchdog auditor said on Wednesday the U.S. government separated “thousands” more children than were previously known but said that a lack of comprehensive record-keeping means the exact number is unclear.

The auditor also said that at least 118 children had been separated between July 1 through Nov. 7, 2018, after the administration of President Donald Trump officially ended a ‘zero tolerance’ prosecution policy of border crossers that led to some of the separations.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May has proposed a collaborative approach to finding a new Brexit deal after the agreement she had negotiated was crushed by parliament on Tuesday in the biggest defeat for a British government in modern times.

What is her new approach, and will it work?

WHAT IS MAY PROPOSING?

Immediately after Tuesday’s 432 to 202 defeat, May said she would meet with senior parliamentarians from all parties to seek a deal that could command the support of parliament and was “genuinely negotiable”. She said there was an urgent need to make progress.

She has sought meetings with the leaders of all other opposition parties in parliament and committed to make a statement on her new approach on Jan. 21.

WILL IT WORK?

May is largely keeping to the negotiating principles she has used throughout the Brexit talks, which have alienated different factions of lawmakers on different points.

There is no single policy change May can make that both respects her negotiating principles and can win over enough lawmakers to get parliamentary approval.

Any change she makes to appeal to one group will probably cost her votes from another faction.

WHAT IS UP FOR DISCUSSION?

May has set out the terms on which she is willing to talk. She refers to them as principles for the discussion, others call them “red lines”. These are the key issues:

– 1. NO-DEAL BREXIT

May’s preference is to leave the EU with a deal, but she does not rule out leaving without a deal.

If May said she wanted to leave without a deal she would gain the support of some Conservative eurosceptics, but lose the support of pro-EU lawmakers in her party and rule out winning votes from almost all opposition parties.

If she ruled out leaving without a deal, she would open up the possibility of gaining votes from the opposition Labour party and pro-EU Conservative lawmakers, but would alienate Conservative Brexit supporters who say the threat of such a departure is a crucial bargaining chip in talks with the EU.

– 2. DELAY BREXIT

May wants Britain to leave on March 29, the date set down in British law.

If she chose to try to delay that date she would lose the support of Conservative eurosceptics, but open up the possibility of winning votes from other parties. However, on its own, this would not be enough to win opponents’ support.

– 3. THE BACKSTOP

May has agreed to an insurance policy designed to prevent the return of border posts and checks on the frontier between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland, and so ensure respect for a pact that has secured more than 20 years of inter-communal peace in the once-troubled British province.

This has cost her the votes of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which props up her minority government, and a large cohort of eurosceptic lawmakers in her own party.

If she successfully removed or altered the so-called ‘backstop’ she could win the support of many critics in her own party and bring the DUP on board.

But the European Union, defending Ireland’s interests, has insisted there cannot be a deal without the backstop.

– 4. END FREE MOVEMENT

May says any deal must give Britain control of its borders, laws, and money. This refers to an ambition to end free movement of people from the EU, end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and stop making membership payments to the EU.

By dropping the requirement to end free movement, May would open up the possibility of a ‘softer’ Brexit that involves remaining a member of the EU single market, for instance one modelled on Norway’s relationship with the EU.

This could win the support of pro-EU lawmakers in her own party, and could help to win over some opposition members of parliament. But it would cost her the votes of Conservative eurosceptics, who argue it would not be a “true Brexit”.

– 5. INDEPENDENT TRADE POLICY

May insists that Britain must be free to strike free trade deals with other countries. This effectively rules out Britain remaining in the EU customs union, or setting up a new permanent customs union with the EU.

Changing this policy would meet one of the main demands of the opposition Labour Party, but would cost May the votes of Conservative eurosceptics and some others who say it would tie Britain into a set of rules that it had little power to influence.

Currently approximately 600 species might be inaccurately assessed as non-threatened on the Red List of Threatened Species. More than a hundred others that couldn’t be assessed before, also appear to be threatened. A new more efficient, systematic and comprehensive approach to assess the extinction risk of animals has shown this. The method, designed by Radboud University ecologist Luca Santini and colleagues, is described in Conservation Biology on January 17th.

Emperor penguin chicks hatch into one of Earth’s most inhospitable places — the frozen world of Antarctica. Childhood in this environment is harsh and lasts only about five months, when their formerly doting parents leave the fledglings to fend for themselves.