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Ireland’s Leo Varadkar has announced he is stepping down as prime minister.

Mr Varadkar, 45, has led the Fine Gael party since 2017 and served as Taoiseach twice.

His first stint leading the country lasted from 2017 to 2020, before he took up the role as Tanaiste – deputy prime minister – from 2020 until December 2022.

He has been the Irish premier since then in a “rotating Taoiseach” agreement that underpinned his party’s coalition with Fianna Fail and the Green Party.

Mr Varadkar became the first openly gay Taoiseach after he came out during the 2015 marriage equality referendum.

It comes as the Irish government was defeated in twin referendums earlier this month.

Almost 74% of voters rejected the care amendment, which proposed removing references to a woman’s “life within the home” and mothers’ “duties in the home” when providing care, replacing them with an article acknowledging the importance of family members in general, without defining them by gender.

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Some 67.7% of voters rejected the second amendment, which had proposed extending the meaning of “family” beyond marriage in the constitution, instead including households based on “durable” relationships.

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Musk promises ban on Apple, Greenpeace calls for Bitcoin’s PoS, and other news: Hodler’s Digest, June 9-15

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Musk promises ban on Apple, Greenpeace calls for Bitcoin’s PoS, and other news: Hodler’s Digest, June 9-15

Elon Musk threatens to ban Apple devices if they integrate with ChatGPT, Greenpeace calls for a shift in Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism, and more.

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Fresh poll predicts Tories will win just 72 seats in next parliament

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Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar steps down

Two polls published today spell bad news for Rishi Sunak, with one showing a drop of four points and the other that his party is on course to pick up just 72 seats.

A poll by Savanta for The Daily Telegraph showed the Tories are down four points to just 21% of the vote – the lowest by that pollster since the dying days of Theresa May’s premiership in 2019.

In a boost for Nigel Farage, the poll showed Reform UK up three points with 13% of the vote.

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A separate Survation poll for Best for Britain, published by The Times, predicted that the Tories would win just 72 seats in the next parliament, compared with 456 for Labour.

It comes after a YouGov poll on Thursday night put Nigel Farage’s party on 19% of the vote, compared with 18% for the Conservatives.

The development prompted Mr Farage to declare Reform as the “opposition to Labour” going into the election.

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Spot Ethereum ETFs may begin trading by July 2 — Bloomberg Analyst

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Spot Ethereum ETFs may begin trading by July 2 — Bloomberg Analyst

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas says his “best guess as of now” is that spot Ether ETFs will begin trading in the United States before July 2.

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