内容摘要：, with vehicles often having to drive through deep potholes.

, with vehicles often having to drive through deep potholes.

The Welsh government said emergency departments had recorded their busiest April on record."Despite this, performance in emergency departments improved against the four and 12-hour targets in April," said a spokesperson.

“But ambulance performance is not where we want it to be."The average response to amber calls did improve, however, and more than 80% of red 999 calls received a response in 15 minutes."We have been clear with health boards about the need to release ambulance crews from emergency departments quickly to support faster response times to those in most need.”

Figures showed more than 23,000 hours were "lost" in April by ambulances having to wait longer than 15 minutes outside major A&E units in Wales to hand over patients.Former first minister of Wales Vaughan Gething has announced he will not be standing for re-election in 2026.

In July he stepped down from the top job

Mr Gething had been embroiled in controversy since taking over in March, and was dogged by questionsFor months after Hamas attacked Israel, the fear was that the war would spread, and get worse. Slowly, and then very quickly, it happened, after Israel’s devastating attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon.

It is too late to say the Middle East is on the brink. Israel is facing off against Iran. The warring parties have plunged over it, and countries not yet directly involved are desperate not to be dragged over the edge.As I write Israel has still not retaliated for Iran’s ballistic missile attack on 1 October. It has indicated that it intends to inflict a severe punishment. President Biden and his administration, Israel’s constant supplier of weapons and diplomatic support, are trying to calibrate a response that might offer Iran a way to stop the accelerating climb up the ladder of escalation, a phrase strategists use to describe the way wars speed from crisis to disaster.

The proximity of the US elections, along with Joe Biden’s steadfast support for Israel, despite his misgivings about the way it has been fighting, do not induce much optimism that the US will somehow finesse a way out.The signals from Israel indicate that Netanyahu, Gallant, the generals of the IDF and the intelligence agencies believe they have the upper hand. October 7th was a disaster for them. All the major security and military chiefs, except the prime minister, apologised and some resigned. They had not planned for a war with Hamas. But planning for the war with Hezbollah started after the last one ended in 2006 in a humiliating stalemate for Israel. Hezbollah has suffered blows from which it might never recover.