Britain’s regulators lack the mindset to boost growth and the financial sector’s global competitiveness, and need parliamentary backing to accept more risk when applying rules, the City of London said on Wednesday.

Chris Hayward, policy leader at the City, which administers the capital’s financial district, said that a new public-private body is needed to attract foreign investment.

The sector is worried about its competitiveness after being largely cut off from the European Union since Brexit, and as UK companies choose to list in New York.

In response to this, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority have been given a secondary objective of aiding growth and the financial sector’s international competitiveness when writing rules, but there is scepticism it will make a difference.

“I don’t think the FCA in particular, the regulators generally, culturally have found it within their psyche to really promote risk taking, taking opportunities to promote growth, being flexible,” Hayward told the House of Lord’s financial services regulation committee.

The new remit alone won’t boost inward investment and growth, and a new promotional body is needed for the UK to compete with Ireland and elsewhere, Hayward said.

“There seems to be some reticence about having a public private partnership,” Hayward said.

Parliament should also back regulators to accept more risk, given it implies “retribution” when things go wrong, as is inevitable at times, he added.

“It’s not fair to make regulators entirely the whipping boy,” Hayward said.

The FCA, which had no immediate comment, has faced a fierce backlash against its ‘naming and shaming’ plans to name companies it investigates early on, rather than after a probe has been concluded.

Britain’s finance minister Jeremy Hunt has said the plans appear to contradict the growth objective, and should be rethought.

Committee member Jonathan Hill suggested regulators need clarity between their statutory duties, and the “blue sky” and “social mission” discretion behind ‘naming and shaming‘ and other proposals that “reduce” growth and competitiveness.

The committee is scrutinising the new competitiveness objective ahead of the first annual report on it from regulators in coming weeks.

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) needs $400 million to feed millions of people in Southern Africa following a drought that plunged parts of the region into hunger, the programme said on Wednesday.

The WFP told Reuters it needed urgent funding for six months to support drought relief in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, after harvests fell as a result of an El Niño-induced drought that has affected 4.8 million people.

El Niño, a weather phenomenon that disrupts wind patterns and warms the temperature in parts of the Pacific Ocean, can impact crop yields by reducing rain levels.

“It’s fair to say this will probably be the biggest El Niño response we have ever done in Southern Africa,” WFP spokesperson Tomson Phiri told Reuters.

About 70% of the Southern African population that relies on rain-fed agriculture had their harvests “wiped out” by lack of rains, Phiri added.

Phiri said the WFP, which also provides cash payouts for hungry communities, is looking to buy grain from outside markets.

In August last year WFP spent $14 million to support communities in Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, Phiri said.

Successive droughts in the region have caused dwindling grain stocks, forcing affected countries like Zimbabwe to obtain grain abroad.

A group of private millers in Zimbabwe are planning to import 1.4 million metric tonnes of maize from Brazil, Argentina and other countries to help address hunger.

In Zimbabwe Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said the government will receive a $32 million insurance payout for drought relief from the African Union Climate Agency.

Ncube said part of the funding will be used as cash transfers for vulnerable communities with some going to humanitarian agencies to provide support for procuring food.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will defend a narrow majority in the Nov. 5 elections. Below are some of the races to watch as Republicans and Democrats battle through 2024 for control of the chamber.

California Assembly member Vince Fong, a Republican, won a special election runoff against Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux to fill Republican former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s seat. McCarthy resigned from Congress late last year after a small group of hardliners in his own party engineered his ouster, a historic first.

Fong will represent the state’s 20th Congressional District and add to Republicans’ narrow 217-213 majority. No Democrat advanced to the runoff in the nonpartisan contest.

Republican incumbent Tony Gonzales, who represents a district in south Texas, faces a May 28 nominating contest runoff challenge from fellow Republican Brandon Herrera, a gun rights social media personality.

The contest is closely watched because it is seen as a bellwether for the direction of the party, with some of Gonzales’ fellow House Republicans targeting him for his more moderate positions, including for supporting bipartisan gun safety legislation after 19 young students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, part of his district.

Republicans Lazaro Garza, a rancher, and Jay Furman, a military veteran, are competing in a May 28 primary runoff to take on Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar in Texas.

Cuellar and his wife were indicted on federal charges accusing them of accepting bribes meant to benefit an Azerbaijani state-owned energy company and a bank based in Mexico. They have denied wrongdoing.

Cuellar ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, and the district had not been considered a top target for Republicans. But the court case could play a role in the November election.

Michael Rulli, a Republican state senator, will face off against Michael Kripchak, a Democrat who worked in the entertainment industry before co-founding an electronic signal location tracking company, in a June 11 special election and November’s general election to replace Representative Bill Johnson of Ohio.

Johnson had stepped down to head Youngstown State University, leaving voters in his district to choose candidates to hold the seat through the rest of the term and also in the general election.

The district is heavily Republican.

Republican Representative Nick LaLota’s district, made up of a number of suburbs of New York City, is one of several seats Democrats are aiming for in their quest to recapture the House majority.

Though a half dozen Democrats had filed to take him on, the field has winnowed to a race between former CNN journalist John Avlon and the former chair of a university’s chemistry department, Nancy Goroff.

Republican George Santos, who was expelled from Congress in December after being indicted over corruption charges, ended his long-shot independent bid to unseat LaLota in April.

New York’s congressional primaries are on June 25.

Pro-Israel groups have sought primary challengers to left-wing lawmakers, but the incumbents have mostly been able to far outraise opponents, who have failed to gain much traction.

One exception is Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman, a former school principal in his second two-year term representing a district covering part of New York City and some of its suburbs.

His challenger, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, has attacked Bowman for the congressman’s outspoken criticism of Israel’s handling of the conflict in Gaza, a vote against Democratic President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill and for not producing enough results. Bowman has pointed to the resources he has steered toward the district.

Latimer has raised more campaign funds than Bowman, and polling suggests the primary will be competitive. The seat is considered a safe seat for Democrats, meaning that whoever wins their primary is favored to win the general election.

Colorado will hold a special election on June 25, opens new tab to replace Republican Ken Buck, who left Congress before his two-year term was up.

Firebrand conservative Lauren Boebert, who won an unexpectedly narrow reelection bid in 2022 and who was facing a tough primary opponent in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, has said she would run in Buck’s old district instead.

But Boebert, who would have needed to resign her seat to run for the special election, has said she would only run in the general election.

The special election will include candidates such as Greg Lopez, a Republican former mayor who has pledged to serve as a placeholder through the end of Buck’s term, and Trisha Calvarese, a Democrat who worked as a speechwriter in Washington before returning home to Colorado to care for her parents after they became ill.

The crowded Republican general primary also includes a former Marine, a radio host and a former Republican leader in the state’s general assembly.

The seat is not considered competitive for the Democrats in the general election.

In Arizona’s 1st District, Republican David Schweikert, who was first elected in 2010, is considered one of Democrats’ top targets as they seek to gain control of the House. Schweikert narrowly won his reelection bid in 2022.

Among the half-dozen Democrats in the race to take him on are a first-time candidate who works in finance, a former White House speechwriter and former chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, and a doctor and state lawmaker.

Arizona’s primary elections are on July 30.

First-term Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state is seeking reelection, after initially edging out her opponent by 1 percentage point.

Hoping to face off against Perez is Joe Kent, who was the lawmaker’s opponent in 2022 and who was endorsed by the state Republican Party in August. Kent has challenged the results of the 2020 election and raised conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Also seeking the Republican nomination is Leslie Lewallen, a former prosecutor and member of a local city council.

Washington’s primaries will be held on Aug. 6.

Republican lawmaker Mike Gallagher, who had been considered a rising star in his party, retired from Congress on April 25.

Wisconsin scheduled a special election to fill Gallagher’s seat through the end of his term for Nov. 5, the same day as the general election. A primary for the seat is scheduled for Aug. 13.

So far, four people have filed to replace Gallagher in the general election: three Republicans and one Democrat. They include a state lawmaker and a former state Senate president.

It is considered a safe seat for Republicans.

Republican Scott Perry, one of the key lawmakers involved in Donald Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat, has been a key target for Democrats, who say he is far too conservative for his Pennsylvania district.

Janelle Stelson, a television journalist, won a crowded Democratic primary on April 23 to challenge him. Democrats are expected to make what they characterize as a threat to democracy a central part of their pitch to voters in November.

Citigroup (C.N), opens new tab urged a judge to dismiss a lawsuit by a former managing director who accused the bank of firing her in retaliation for her refusal to lie to regulators about its risk management practices.

The third-largest U.S. bank said it terminated Kathleen Martin in November because she lacked leadership and engagement skills for her job as interim data transformation chair, according to a Thursday night filing in Manhattan federal court.

Citigroup also said Martin’s allegations were not true, and that even if they were her whistleblowing was not protected activity under the federal Sarbanes-Oxley governance law.

Martin’s lawyer Valdi Licul, from the Wigdor law firm, rejected Citigroup’s defense.

“It is astounding that Citi can take the position that they are legally permitted to fire an employee who has made complaints about false statements to regulators,” Licul said.

Chief Executive Jane Fraser told investors on June 18 that the bank was stepping up efforts to “modernize” its automation and data reporting to address regulatory concerns, and acknowledged that “progress has been too slow” in some areas.

Martin said Citigroup hired her to “clean up its unlawful data maintenance practices and avoid further legal liability” in 2021, a year after the bank agreed to pay $400 million to federal regulators because of risk management shortfalls.

But she said Chief Operating Officer Anand Selva wanted her to falsify and hide key information about the bank’s metrics from one of its regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), because it would “make us look bad.”

In seeking a dismissal, Citigroup said Martin did not explain which Sarbanes-Oxley provision she believed it violated, and the law does not protect employees who simply “push back” against supervisors.

Citigroup also said Martin made no allegations that it committed fraud or intended to deceive shareholders.

The New York-based bank declined additional comment on Friday. Selva is also a defendant, while Fraser is not.

Martin is seeking reinstatement, back pay and benefits, and damages for reputational and emotional harm.