cities

THE BRITISH cities with the worst availability and speed of electric vehicle charging have been revealed in new research.

More and more people are making the switch to EVs each passing year, but access to charging infrastructure continues to be a key concern for motorists.

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Cost, speed and access to EV chargers can vary vastly from region to region across the country.

But new data from Available Car has shed light on exactly which cities are the best and worst to drive an electric vehicle.

Researchers looked at the number of charging points per 10,000 people within a five mile radius of city centres.

They also noted the average cost and time it takes to charge half an EV battery.

The data examines 53 major cities across the UK, excluding London.

Liverpool was found to be the city with the lowest number of chargers, with just two chargers per 100,000 people within a five mile radius of the city centre.

Newcastle barely did better at 2.4 chargers per 100,000, while Bradford and Leeds followed up with 2.6 each.

Smaller cities boasted far better numbers in the EV charging accessibility ranking.

Ripon was the city with the highest number of chargers per 100,000 at 63.1 – far ahead of second placed Salisbury at 43.7.

But simply finding a charger isn’t the only issue EV owners face.

Available Car’s data also highlighted a major regional disparity in the time it takes to charge half a battery.

Leicester is the city found to have the slowest EV charging times – taking an average of 8.25 hours to get to half charge.

Available Car’s report reads: “The city’s slower charging infrastructure highlights the need for investment in faster chargers to support the growing demand for electric vehicles.

“Without quicker charging options, Leicester may face challenges in encouraging more drivers to switch to electric.”

But Leicester EV drivers have some solace – as the survey also found it to cheapest city to charge your car, where a half full battery would cost an average of £12.60.

Brighton & Hove and Portsmouth followed Leicester as the next slowest for charging, 6.24 and 5.67 hours respectively.

Wakefield recorded the speediest charge of the cities surveyed, taking an average of just 0.8 hours.

The researchers used a Tesla Model Y as the benchmark vehicle when gathering the data.

Their report adds: “Making the switch to an electric vehicle (EV) should be an exciting step towards greener, more sustainable driving.

“However, one of the biggest barriers preventing drivers from switching from petrol or diesel to electric vehicles is having to rely on their local charging infrastructure, particularly the time it takes to charge and the cost involved.

“Unlike petrol and diesel drivers, EV owners must navigate the UK’s charging network, where charging speeds and costs vary significantly based on location and charger type.”

TRENTON, N.J. — The Trump administration sued four New Jersey cities over their so-called sanctuary city policies aimed at prohibiting police from cooperating with immigration officials, saying the local governments are standing in the way of federal enforcement.

The Justice Department filed the suit Thursday against Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken in New Jersey federal court. The lawsuit seeks a judgment against the cities and an injunction to halt them from enacting the so-called sanctuary city policies.

“While states and local governments are free to stand aside as the United States performs this important work, they cannot stand in the way,” the suit says.

It’s the latest case from President Trump’s administration against sanctuary policies. The administration also sued Chicago, Denver, the state of Colorado, and Rochester, N.Y.

There is no official definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities. The terms generally describe limited local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE enforces U.S. immigration laws nationwide but sometimes seeks state and local help.

Messages seeking comment were left Friday with the affected cities.

Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh said his city would fight the suit, calling it an “egregious attempt to score political points at Paterson’s expense.”

“We will not be intimidated,” he said in a text message.

Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla said in a statement the city prides itself on its inclusivity.

“The City of Hoboken will vigorously work to defend our rights, have our day in court, and defeat the Trump Administration’s lawlessness. To be clear: we will not back down,” he said.

The mayors of all four cities are Democrats.

New Jersey’s attorney general adopted a statewide Immigrant Trust Directive in 2018, which bars local police from cooperation with federal officials conducting immigration enforcement. The policies adopted by the four cities are similar.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that New Jersey’s statewide policy could stand, but it’s unclear how that court’s order might affect the government’s case against the four cities.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

What happened in Palestine in 1948?

Every year on May 15, Palestinians around the world mark the Nakba, or catastrophe, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.

Having secured the support of the British government for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, on May 14, 1948, as soon as the British Mandate expired, Zionist forces declared the establishment of the State of Israel, triggering the first Arab-Israeli war.

Zionist military forces expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands and captured 78 percent of historic Palestine. The remaining 22 percent was divided into what are now the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.

The fighting continued until January 1949 when an armistice agreement between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria was forged. The 1949 Armistice Line is also known as the Green Line and is the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank. The Green Line is also referred to as the (pre-) 1967 borders, before Israel occupied the rest of Palestine during the 1967 war.

Israel’s military occupation of Palestine remains at the core of this decades-long conflict that continues to shape every part of Palestinians’ lives.

Mapping the Palestinian villages Israel destroyed

Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist military forces attacked major Palestinian cities and destroyed some 530 villages. About 15,000 Palestinians were killed in a series of mass atrocities, including dozens of massacres.

On April 9, 1948, Zionist forces committed one of the most infamous massacres of the war in the village of Deir Yassin on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. More than 110 men, women and children were killed by members of the pre-Israeli state Irgun and Stern Gang Zionist paramilitary organisations.

Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta documented detailed records of what happened to these 530 villages in his book, The Atlas of Palestine.

Where are Palestinian refugees today?

Some six million registered Palestinian refugees live in at least 58 camps located throughout Palestine and neighbouring countries.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides assistance and operates hundreds of schools and health facilities for at least 2.3 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, 1.5 million refugees in Gaza, 870,000 refugees in the occupied West Bank, 570,000 refugees in Syria and 480,000 refugees in Lebanon.

The largest camps in each are Baqa’a in Jordan, Jabalia in Gaza, Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Yarmouk in Syria, and Ein el-Hilweh in Lebanon.

More than 70 percent of Gaza’s residents are refugees. About 1.5 million refugees live in eight refugee camps around the Gaza Strip.

According to international law, refugees have the right to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced. Many Palestinians still hope to return to Palestine.

The plight of Palestinian refugees is the longest unresolved refugee problem in the world.

May 12 (UPI) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom released guidelines for city leaders across his state to have homeless encampments removed on Monday.

The governor’s plan prohibits persistent camping in a single location, prohibits encampments that block sidewalks and requires local officials to provide notice and make every reasonable effort to identify and offer shelter before removing an encampment.

“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets. Local leaders asked for resources — we delivered the largest state investment in history,” Newsom said in a statement. “They asked for legal clarity — the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”

Rollout of Newsom’s model to “resolve encampments” is partly backed by $3.3 billion in voter-approved funds. It follows a U.S. Supreme Court decision made last year in the case Grants Pass, Ore., vs. Johnson.

The high court ruled that Grants Pass did not violate the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution when it enacted penalties for camping on public property.

Citing this decision, Newsom’s plan calls on local governments to immediately “address dangerous and unhealthy encampments and connect people experiencing homelessness with shelter and services.”

The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that more than 187,000 people experienced homelessness in California last year, a state record. Two-thirds of unhoused Californians lived without any shelter, representing about half of the unsheltered population throughout the United States.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday again urged California cities and counties to ban homeless encampments, increasing his pressure campaign on local governments to follow the state’s lead and remove tents from sidewalks and other public property.

“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets,” Newsom said in a statement. “Local leaders asked for resources — we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity — the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”

The Democratic governor released a model ordinance for local governments to adopt that his office described as a starting point before jurisdictions craft their own policies. Newsom’s plan asks locals to prohibit persistent camping in one location and encampments that block sidewalks. It also requires local officials to attempt to offer shelter before removing a temporary dwelling.

Newsom coupled the announcement with the release Monday of $3.3 billion in funding from Proposition 1, approved by voters in 2024, for communities to expand behavioral health housing and treatment options for their mentally ill and homeless populations. The funding is not contingent on cities banning encampments.

The funding adds to $27 billion the state has already given to local governments to address homelessness, a challenging political issue in California.

Advocates for the homeless repeatedly argue that the state does not have enough supportive housing and shelter beds to funnel those removed from tents and sidewalks into better conditions. The governor often voices his frustration over the lack of progress at the local level, casting homelessness as a humanitarian crisis and a health and safety issue.

Last year Newsom issued an executive order requiring state agencies to remove homeless encampments on state property and similarly urged local governments to do the same.