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The first minister says she has not given up on bringing HS2 funding to Wales.

Despite the high-speed rail project being entirely in England, Wales received no extra cash from the previous Conservative UK government to make up for the scheme.

So far, Eluned Morgan's UK party colleagues have been reluctant to commit to consequential funding.

Further savings and cuts may need to be found as a health board grapples with a budget deficit of just under £23 million – which could balloon to around £35 million.

The dire financial situation facing Powys Teach Health Board (PTHB) was discussed at a board meeting on Wednesday, September 25.

PTHB had initially planned to post a £24.9 million deficit budget this year, but in May they were asked by the Welsh Government to look at the figures again.

This saw the figure brought down to £22.9 million, which has yet to be agreed by the Welsh Government.

A consortium of Welsh climate activists has set out a series of measures it would like to see pursued in 2025.

Climate Cymru is an active network of 370 partner organisations from every sector of Welsh society, and a movement of over 15,000 individuals from across Wales who say they share a desire for urgent, fair action to address the climate and nature emergencies.

The network’s campaign coordinator David Kilner said: “We’d like to see the Welsh Government join the global Fossil Free Treaty – a concrete, binding plan to end the expansion of new coal, oil and gas projects and manage a global transition away from fossil fuels.

To imagine a Wales and a world where peace reigns is not just to imagine the absence of war. It’s to imagine a place where we all live free from fear, where our rights are respected, and where everybody is equal. It’s to imagine conducting all our relationships – with ourselves, neighbour to neighbour, stranger to stranger, community to community, country to country – with justice and fairness. Imagine if this kind of positive peace was part of our national identity, a value that drove all of what we do.

Ahead of the United Nations Summit of the Future, a global cooperation event held in New York last weekend, Academi Heddwch Cymru (Wales’s Peace Institute) worked on a paper exploring how Wales can become a ‘Nation of Peace’ – Cymru fel Cenedl Heddwch. Imagine that.

Senior councillors have backed plans to buy and set up a new waste depot, to tackle the county borough’s low recycling rates.

But the clock is ticking on a potential deal for a site, which Caerphilly County Borough Council must effectively agree to buy in October or the landowner will reportedly “pursue other options”.

The depot will be key to the council’s waste strategy, launched after it recorded Wales’ worst recycling rates in 2023.

You can read part one in the series here.

One of the most common arguments used by Unionists against Welsh independence is that Wales cannot afford to pay its own way. They repeat that Wales receives £18bn a year as a ‘handout’ from the UK, and cannot survive without this ‘subsidy’. They overlook that Wales also generates taxes and revenue, collected directly by the UK, and the £18bn is largely a return of that.

However, it’s been difficult to refute such claims as there was long a shortage of reliable data on the economic performance of Wales. There’s a huge body of economic statistics and data published by the UK Government in its National Accounts – commonly referred to as ‘The Blue Book’ – but it’s difficult for the average person to follow, let alone extract the necessary data in a Welsh context.

Reform UK is to hold events in Wales, Scotland, and across the English regions, as it eyes up representation in the Senedd and town halls, Nigel Farage has said.

The Reform leader announced a Welsh conference, a Scottish gathering, and regional events in the North East and South West, as the party rounded off its national conference.

Mr Farage on Friday laid out a plan to professionalise the party, giving its members a stake in its ownership.

A battle to save Blackwood Miners’ Institute from being “mothballed” looks set to drag on, complicated by the venue’s charitable status.

Caerphilly County Borough Council leader Sean Morgan announced today (Thursday September 19) a decision on the historic site’s future would be postponed while the local authority takes legal advice.

The council has proposed mothballing the cultural venue – which it currently subsidises to the tune of £347,000 annually – because of the need to make a further £45 million in budget savings over the next two years.

A Welsh Labour minister defended cuts to winter fuel payments for most pensioners in a debate on Wednesday.

Conservatives challenged Labour in the Senedd to back calls for the UK government to reverse the plans, warning they will have a "devastating impact" with an estimated 500,000 losing up to £300 this winter.

But Jane Hutt, Social Justice Secretary, said "difficult decisions" were being taken because of a £22bn "black hole" in UK public finances.

Plaid Cymru will lead a debate in the Senedd this afternoon calling for the Welsh Government to honour NHS commitments made by the last three First Ministers.

Former FMs Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething both made promises to tackle long waiting lists which now stand at a record breaking high in Wales.

In an interview with Politics Wales at the weekend, the newly installed First Minister Eluned Morgan sparked a row with health bosses after saying she would hold them to account on getting long waits down.

The junior minister who was sacked by Vaughan Gething after being falsely accused of leaking messages to the media has been elected the Chair of the Senedd’s Standards of Conduct Committee.

Hannah Blythyn was removed from her Welsh Government role of Social Partnership Minister by the former First Minister in May.

Mr Gething claimed she was the source of a screen grab leaked to Nation.Cymru from a Covid-era ministerial group chat.

Both ‘the Prince of Wales’ as a title and the person who holds it have a unique but controversial place in Welsh culture and society. There are some in Wales who dislike both and want them gone, and some who love that the title exists and see the person who holds it as being an honour for Wales as a country and as part of the UK. Some view the very existence of the title as proof that Wales is, or is seen as, inferior or beholden to England.

Yet the title itself holds no true power and its holder performs no real function in modern Wales. Perhaps it should either be endowed with real meaning, or done away with, one or the other?