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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Trump's Iran policy is deepening mistrust in North Korea, experts say
Analysis: One expert said that "from the North Koreans' perspective, the Americans just can't be trusted — full stop." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Speaking at a press conference in Osaka, US President Donald Trump said that if his border wall had been built the lives of migrants could be saved.
"The father and the beautiful daughter who drowned ... if they thought it was hard to get in, they wouldn't be coming up... Lives would be saved," Trump said.
Trump was referring to the viral picture of a father and his young daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande trying to get to the United States.
The US President again pushed for tougher border control policies, saying that illegal immigration was "very unfair."
"You have millions of people on line for years to get into a country. They take tests, they study ... and these people have worked hard, they've been on line for seven, eight, nine years, then someone walks in. Honestly it's very unfair," he said.
Watch the moment here: | null | 0 | -1 | null | 9 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (CNN) President Donald Trump was asked to clarify his sentiments to Russian President Vladimir Putin when he appeared to make light of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
"You have to take a look at the word. I did say it," Trump said during a news conference in Osaka.
On Friday, Trump lightheartedly told Putin , "Don't meddle in the election" when asked by a reporter if the topic would come up during their bilateral meeting. The offhand remark, perhaps an attempt at levity, drew swift criticism.
Trump said he had a "tremendous discussion" with the Russian leader, and suggested it came up again later in their meeting.
"I did say it, and I did discuss it a little bit after that, too," he said.
Read More | null | 0 | -1 | null | 8 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Trump says a squabble between two of his potential Democratic rivals was given too much attention.
Speaking at a news conference in Japan, Trump said Sen. Kamala Harris was overly praised for her rebuke of former Vice President Joe Biden for his opposition to federal mandated school bussing.
“I thought that she was given too much credit,” Trump said. “He didn't do well, certainly, and maybe the facts weren't necessarily on his side. I think she was given too much credit for what she did. It wasn't that outstanding and I think he was probably hit harder than he should have been hit.”
Asked if he viewed Harris as a tough challenger, Trump said it was too early to tell.
"You never know who's going to be tough. You never know,” Trump said. “The one that you think is going to be tough turned out to be not much.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 9 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE Years after Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election prompted investigations, President Trump asked Vladimir Putin not to do it again in 2020. USA TODAY
OSAKA, Japan — President Donald Trump on Saturday defended his exchange with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he appeared to joke about that country’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Asked if he was kidding with Putin when he leaned over and told the Russian leader not to interfere, Trump said, "I did say it."
“You’re going to have to take a look at the words,” Trump said, adding that he raised the issue again after reporters left the room.
Trump’s remarks came less than 24 hours after drew criticism in the U.S. for appear to joke with Putin about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. When reporters asked whether the two would discuss that issue, Trump turned to Putin and wagged his finger with a smile.
"Don't meddle in the election, president," Trump said as cameras clicked and reporters shouted questions.
When an interpreter translated Trump's "request," Putin laughed.
Minutes earlier, the president spoke approvingly of the fact that the Russian president does not have the same problems with the media that he has. Russia has an oppressive relationship with its press, and dozens of journalists have been killed in recent years.
"Fake news," Trump said during a meeting with Putin at the G-20 summit in Japan as journalists filled into the room to cover the leaders' remarks. "You don't have this problem with Russia…You don’t have it."
Putin responded in English, according to a raw video feed of the exchange.
"Yes, yes," he said. "We have, too. The same."
In discussing other world leaders during his news conference Saturday, Trump said he gets along with both autocrats and democrats.
"Some are stronger than others, some are better than others," Trump said.
"I don't really care about offending people," Trump added. "I get along with a lot of people."
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/29/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-election-meddling-russia-united-states/1604628001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A globally viral meme making my heart zing over recent years is the “Can I speak to the manager?” one, in which a generation X white woman called Karen escalates a minor consumer gripe to the highest level, from beneath a heaving two-tone choppy bob. The hair is an attempt to stay youthful, but appears to have been dyed and styled by ebullient badgers. More of Karen later.
Memes were once just people “dicking about on the internet”, yet are now one of the Earth’s most valuable forms of communication. They distil into a single image, or loop of video, an obscure yet still universally understood circumstance, often involving emotions that actual human words cannot quite nail.
Thus a blinking blond man channels the incredulity on reading a credit card bill. Donald Glover brings pizza cheerfully back into a room that is now on fire. A dachshund with a large ugly shoe on its head tells people, “It’s called fashion, Brenda, look it up.” Gen X “Karen” appeared back in 2014, wanting to speak to the manager. To my mind, this meme celebrated the chagrin of millions, nay, billions of millennial and generation Y frontline service-industry workers, for whom the scourge of their lives was a 45-year-old woman who might have waited more than 17 minutes to return a faulty five-blade spiralizer because their shop was understaffed.
When Karen doubts the sincerity of the server’s apology, she goes into some sort of red-mist meltdown. Later, she will cry in her VW up! in the car park, listening to Michael Bublé – but right now, she’s on fire. The altercation might also take place via a call centre, in a restaurant or at the gym. Basically, anywhere that people work doing jobs they don’t enjoy, earning wages that won’t buy homes, rubbing up against older women fighting spiralling oestrogen, a maze-like diary of thankless bloody chores and the underlying emotion that they’re as mad as hell and not going to take this any more.
I get this. On several occasions, Je suis Karen. And quickening like the quickening spring, you bright young thing will one day become Karen, too. Yes, you with your upright tits who, right now, would merely shrug meaningfully at, say, wasting 7am-6pm waiting for a refrigerator delivery (from a youth on £7.67 per hour), only to have it cancelled on some trumped-up balderdash. Oh, no. Not me, not Karen. All together now, clear throats, full hearts: “Caaaaaaaaan I speak to the maaaaaanager?”
On the surface, the Karen meme may well be about clashing generations: the useless Ys, the grumpy Xs, the selfish boomers and, of course, the millennials, who are the go-to punchbag when it comes to workplace fecklessness (despite some now being 36 years old, with greying hair and teenage children). But for me, the more interesting underbelly points to the essential brokenness of modern life: the corporate greed that fostered an I-Want-It-Now culture, and a low-paid, uninspired, gig economy. Longer days, busier lives, more uncertainty, less joy, more fighting with Karen. The unstoppable force of global consumerism, which leads to 22-year-olds running around an Amazon fulfilment centre, and an immovable mass of knackered gen-X women dealing with three jobs, sick parents and now a missing Where’s Wally? outfit on Amazon Prime one-hour specified delivery, the evening before World Book Day.
Gwyneth Paltrow is right - living apart from my partner is like having my cake and eating it | Grace Dent Read more
Karen, according to the meme, is ostensibly female and white – but is anyone these days above entering Deep Karen Mode? Has your Deliveroo dinner been left in a hedge? Did your Uber driver go awol then take his £6 for the trouble? Has your wifi been playing up for a week, and do the helpline staff seem unbothered? Can you feel a storm a-brewing? Is it time to use that special, sharp-elbowed voice? That voice so many of us learned from our mothers, usually in Marks & Spencer in 1983, watching them return substandard items, without a receipt, powered only by solid, weapons-grade older-lady ire. Is it time to speak to the manager?
Of course, long after the matter has been settled, a refund or an apology issued, I’m often reminded that nobody involved was a winner. We are all merely pawns in a bigger, complex game.
Last week I did speak to the manager, who says my fridge is definitely coming next Tuesday and he will refund the cost of the previous non-delivery. I plan to stay in all day, channelling Zen-like empathy, listening to my Calm App, remembering that my item is being delivered at breakneck speed by a person who feasibly has a back injury from delivering fridges. Someone who may have worked till 10pm yesterday, and without holiday for months, and who may not arrive that day, if ever. Someone who is also a human being. My perishable goods may be wilting, but for now, I am staying chilled. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 40 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Leeds’ managed zone for prostitution was meant to make life safer for women, but, amid a firestorm of opposition, who is benefiting from the radical approach? | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Dem no support media player for your device The girl now known as "Baby India" was found after nearby residents heard cries
Plenti families across di world dey "wait for line" to adopt pikin wey America police find inside plastic bag for Georgia according to one official.
Police bin find di baby wey her nickname be India after area pipo hear as di pikin dey cry come immediately call di police.
Dem carry her go hospital but doctors say she dey okay and she don even dey gain weight.
Three weeks afta, tori be say baby India dey "smile" and she dey "do well" for di hand of child services.
She go remain dia until dem find permanent home for her. Forsyth County Sheriff Office neva identify di mother of di pikin or di relatives.
Image copyright EPA Image example Forsyth County sheriff Ron Freeman say na "divine intervention" say dem find India for good condition.
For Facebook post, di County to say "dem no get any new information about baby India to share."
But according to Tom Rawlings wey be director of Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, families wey dey ready to adopt her plenti.
"We get pipo wey dey wait for line to provide di child with forever home," na so oga Rawlings tell ABC Good Morning America show.
Image copyright Reuters Image example Area pipo call police afta dem hear di pikin dey cry
Im describe di baby survival as one of di most "wonderful miracles" im don see for e life.
With her umbilical cord wey still dey her body, India possibly dey just few hours old wen pipo for area find her for bush for Forsyth County, north of Atlanta.
Forsyth County sheriff Ron Freeman say na "divine intervention" say dem find India for good condition. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 13 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Populist Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini has sent two patrol vessels to stop a pair of ships with migrants on board from entering Italian national waters.
Salvini ordered the two vessels to block the migrant ships, which were recently sighted near the coast of Malta, saying that he did not think the Maltese government would act to stop them, Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports.
“It is a matter of principle,” Salvini told television programme Porta a Porta. “Malta, as usual, will certainly not stop them and will let them pass in the direction of Italy. But this time I have arranged means to stop them,” he added.
It is likely the two migrant ships will make their way towards the island of Lampedusa where the NGO vessel Sea Watch-3 had been refused access for around 2 weeks before the captain of the ship, German national Carola Rackete, stormed the blockade on Wednesday.
It is unclear what actions the patrol boats will be able to take when they confront the two migrant ships as neither has any form of jurisdiction in international waters.
Head of Migrant Transport NGO Under Investigation for People Trafficking https://t.co/ULkq8SXvV7 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 4, 2019
According to Il Giornale, the reasoning for Salvini’s order could be seen as more of a symbolic act to warn migrant transport NGOs and others that Italy would not be accepting of a new surge of illegal migration in the summer months.
The move likely also comes in reaction to the situation with the Sea Watch-3 and the actions of Captain Rackete. The Sea-Watch NGO faces heavy fines and the possible confiscation of its vessel under the recently-passed security and migration decree.
While the fines could reach tens of thousands of euros, a report has claimed that alt-left extremist Antifa groups and others have already managed to raise 100,000 euros to assist the NGO.
The general Italian public, meanwhile, is very much against allowing the ship to land in Lampedusa, with a poll showing that 61 per cent of Italians do not want the Sea Watch-3 to dock.
Priest Praises Salvini on Border Policy and Defence of Christian Identity https://t.co/xc02ISLV2y — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 20, 2019 | null | 0 | -1 | null | 13 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | In a blow to the White House a federal judge issued a pair of rulings late Friday blocking the Trump administration from using billions of dollars in military funds to construct the southern border wall.
The move by Oakland-based Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. of the Northern District of California halts a total of $2.5 billion in funds and stops construction in sites in New Mexico, California, Arizona and Texas.
The Trump administration planned to break ground on the sites Monday, Bloomberg reported.
President Donald Trump “reprogrammed” military funds to wall construction after declaring an emergency at the border earlier this year — even though he announced publicly he didn’t really “need to do this,” but wanted to speed up construction.
The move was challenged by a lawsuit filed by the America Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Southern Borders Communities Coalition. It argued that Trump’s emergency declaration was “made solely out of disagreement with Congress” on funding — and that the wall would be devastating to the environment. Another suit to block the construction was filed by 19 states led by California.
He also noted that Trump’s emergency declaration was undercut by the fact that the government had failed to spend all available border funds the previous year.
He found Friday that the plaintiffs would suffer “irreparable harm” over border wall construction because it “will harm their ability to recreate in and otherwise enjoy public land along the border.”
Dror Ladin, an attorney with the ACLU who argued for the injunction in court, said in a statement that the decision “upholds the basic principle that the president has no power to spend taxpayer money without Congress’ approval.”
Gloria Smith, the managing attorney for the Sierra Club, applauded the court’s decision to “protect our Constitution, communities, and the environment. Walls divide neighborhoods, worsen dangerous flooding, destroy lands and wildlife, and waste resources that should instead be used on the infrastructure these communities truly need.”
California Attorney General Xavier Bercerra said that “all “President Trump has succeeded in building is a constitutional crisis, threatening immediate harm to our state.”
There was no immediate comment from Trump or the Department of Justice. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 10 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The anti-Brexit narrative on expected job losses at Ford’s facilities in Wales is unravelling as the car manufacturer announces further cutbacks in Continental Europe and Russia.
Mainstream broadcasters and Remain-leaning politicians and commentators made much of the U.S. firm’s announcement that it will likely be closing its Bridgend engine plant in South Wales, strongly suggesting that Brexit was to blame for the decision.
While not yet abandoned, this narrative appears increasingly untenable now that Ford has announced the axe will also be falling on Germany and France — which remain at the heart of the European Union and the European integration project — with the former set to lose thousands more jobs than Britain and the latter losing its Ford Aquitaine Industries Transmission Plant.
Ford will also be selling off the Kechnec Transmission Plant in Slovakia, and shuttering three plants in the Russian Federation.
Major expansion of the i54 South Staffordshire business park, home of Jaguar Land Rover's £1bn Engine Manufacturing Centre, set to create 1,700 jobs https://t.co/95zUG6ykwn #UKmfg #GBmfg pic.twitter.com/PRXwslb6zg — Jefferson Group (@Jefferson_MFG) June 28, 2019
“Ford will be a more targeted business in Europe, consistent with the company’s global redesign, generating higher returns through our focus on customer needs and a lean structure,” confirmed Stuart Rowley, who leads Ford in Europe.
“Separating employees and closing plants are the hardest decisions we make,” Rowley said, but added that the company would be “moving forward and focused on building a long-term sustainable future.”
“Ford’s cost-cutting moves in Europe have long been expected and are overdue,” explained Michelle Krebs, a senior Autotrader analyst, in comments to the Detroit Free Press.
“These cuts, while painful for employees, should help Ford’s bottom line, much as GM’s sell-off of European operations did,” she added, warning that “This is hardly the beginning” for the company, which lost hundreds of millions in the European market in 2018.
EU Brexit Negotiator Verhofstadt Rails at ‘Foreigner Bashing Pseudo-Patriot’ Boris Johnson https://t.co/OcrZlH8BjY — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 28, 2019
Far from being a boon to the British economy with respect to Ford jobs, the European Union was infamously implicated in the closure of a 40-year-old assembly line in Southampton — which employed close the 1,500 British workers — when the European Investment Bank gave Ford a loan worth £80 million to help it move its operations to Turkey, which is inside the EU’s customs union for manufactured goods, some years ago.
More recently, Land Rover Jaguar announced it would be building the new model of its iconic Defender — the original being killed off by EU emissions regulations — in Slovakia, with Britain powerless to punish the firm for shifting production to the lower-pay Central European country by EU Single Market rules on tariff-free trade between member-states.
The EU Commission also approved €125 million in investment aid from the Slovakian government to assist the move.
Brussels Prepares to Drag Britain into ‘Trade War’ with America https://t.co/r3Ny0pA5ax — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 2, 2018
Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (CNN) A New York woman accused of killing her two toddler daughters is in custody and faces two counts of second-degree murder, authorities said.
Tenia Campbell's mother called 911 on Thursday and said her daughter was "threatening to kill herself and her twin 2-year-old daughters,"Suffolk County Police said Friday.
The mother, Vanessa McQueen, told the operator that her 24-year-old daughter, a Long island resident, indicated the girls were already dead, Suffolk Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said.
"I killed them with my bare hands," Campbell said, according to a written statement by her mother, CNN affiliate WABC reported.
Campbell's mother wrote in the statement her daughter kept saying "she was sorry, but she didn't want to live anymore," according to WABC
Read More | null | 0 | -1 | null | 5 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | playbook birthday of the day BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Jordan Davis, senior adviser for House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans
How/where are you celebrating your birthday and with whom? “My wife and daughter are taking me to tonight’s D.C. United soccer match against Toronto FC.”
How did you get your start in politics? “I worked as a district office intern while in college at UCF. Eventually, I moved to DC and got my first Hill job in the freshman office of then-Rep. Thelma Drake in 2005. But my start in politics really began when I did my first tour of duty at the NRCC during the historic 2010 election cycle. It set me on a new trajectory in my career, of trying to help bridge the gaps between policy, politics, and messaging.”
Story Continued Below
What’s an interesting book/article you’re reading now or finished? And why? “It’s been out for a while, but I really enjoyed ‘But What If We’re Wrong’ by Chuck Klosterman. It explores how things can be considered absolute certainties in the present, but eventually proven wrong when viewed historically. So, what are the things we are convinced of today that will turn out to be wrong say, hundreds of years from now? It’s a fun thought experiment, and a good reminder to stay humble and maintain a healthy perspective on things.”
What is a trend going on in the U.S. or abroad that doesn’t get enough attention? “There’s a growing appreciation for good creative and quality visual design in political campaigns. But attention to detail matters. For instance, Joe Biden’s Twitter profile is just slightly off center and it’s driving me bonkers.”
How is the Trump presidency going? “I’m glad that the president has made combating the nation’s opioid crisis a top priority. It has ravaged my home state of Kentucky along with countless other communities across the nation. Last year, he signed the bipartisan SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act into law. I am very proud to have had a small part in that legislation in my role at Energy & Commerce.”
What’s a fun fact that people in Washington might not know about you? “I’ve been playing guitar since I was a kid and I was in a few not-so-good bands back in the day. These days I mostly just help out with music at Waterfront Church in Navy Yard.”
This article tagged under: Playbook Birthday of the Day | null | 0 | -1 | null | 20 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | playbook birthday of the day BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Christian Marrone, VP of civil and regulatory affairs at Lockheed Martin and former DHS COS
How/where are you celebrating your birthday and with whom? “I’m celebrating my birthday with my entire extended family down at our shore houses in Margate, N.J. Nothing like the beach, family, real food and ice cream cake. Wouldn’t have it any other way!”
How did you get your start in your career? “My father and later Coach Joe Paterno were really instrumental early in my life in choosing a career in public service. From the time I can remember, my dad, who was a committeeman in South Philly, would bring me along with him to canvass the neighborhood for candidates and to do constituent service. I was awestruck by the tremendous positive impact he had on our neighborhood and so I set off on a path to do the same. During my college years and young adult life, Coach Paterno served as a strong influence by further encouraging me to pursue a career in government service and as well as attending law school. Needless to say, their influence and encouragement has had a profound influence on my career and my life.”
Story Continued Below
What’s an interesting book/article you’re reading now or finished? And why? “I just finished reading David McCullough’s ‘The Great Bridge.’ McCullough without question is my favorite author and I have been methodically reading every book he has written to date. More important, like so many I am in complete awe of the beauty and grandeur of the Brooklyn Bridge. So, it was fascinating to read about the story behind how this icon structure was built in only the way David McCullough can tell it.”
What is a trend going on in the U.S. or abroad that doesn’t get enough attention? “A trend I remain deeply concerned about given the lack of focus and attention over the past decade is the danger and threat transnational criminal organizations pose to our country. From the heroin and opioid crisis that is killing thousands of Americans to inhumane sex trafficking to the smuggling of illegal goods and people at our country’s borders – the common denominator in all of it are transnational criminal organizations. As a nation, we need a bi-partisan, whole of government approach to combat these treacherous yet sophisticated organizations much like we have with international terrorist organizations.”
What’s a fun fact that people in Washington might not know about you? “Aside from being a Penn State Football alum, I’m also an avid sneakerhead. It’s a hobby I picked up over the past year that takes me back to my childhood. I grew up idolizing many Nike athletes like Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan. Growing up, my parents wouldn’t indulge me by buying me a $65 pair of Jordans (that was a lot of money in mid-80s) so I had to wait. Now, I have a modest collection of Jordans and few Bo Jackson trainers. I can’t tell you how many pairs and much they are worth because my wife is likely to read this.”
This article tagged under: Playbook Birthday of the Day | null | 0 | -1 | null | 22 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Robert Mueller's congressional testimony matters. Here's why.
Democrats out for blood need to understand that Mueller isn’t going to argue for impeachment, or anything close to that. But he doesn't have to. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 4 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Prime minister calls on others to embrace UK’s net zero emissions target to tackle crisis
Theresa May has urged countries to be more ambitious in tackling the climate crisis after Donald Trump reiterated his determination to ditch the Paris accord.
The prime minister led a session on the environment at the G20 summit in Osaka, which will be one of her final appearances on the world stage.
In the G20 communique, which was agreed after many hours of wrangling among the “sherpas”, who represent the group’s member states, 19 of the 20 reiterated their commitment to the Paris accord.
The final wording echoed a statement from the last G20 summit, in Buenos Aires, but government sources suggested some countries, including the US, India and China, had tried to water it down.
The US president had sought to excise the reference to the Paris agreement from the communique altogether, with the help of several other countries, reportedly including Brazil and Turkey.
May said she was pleased there was a communique at all.
At her press conference at the end of the summit, the prime minister said: “In recent months we have heard hundreds of thousands of young people urge us – their leaders – to act on climate change before it’s too late.
“I am proud that the UK has now enshrined in law our world-leading net zero commitment to reduce emissions. And I have called on other countries to raise their ambition and embrace this target,” she said.
The prime minister said the communique showed the 19 members’ continued support for the Paris agreement and she stressed the importance of cooperation with other countries.
“I firmly believe in the importance of international cooperation and compromise. In Osaka this week we have worked hard to bridge differences between G20 countries on some of the biggest challenges our nations face.
“That has not been easy but we have made progress. I continue to believe that we are stronger when we work together.”
May did not have a formal bilateral meeting with Trump at the summit, but said she had held discussions with him, and pointed out that he had visited the UK earlier this month.
Earlier, a senior UK official said of the communique: “I think it was a long night for the sherpas and I think it’s definitely a challenging process but work is ongoing in relation to the communique so we’ll have to see where we end up.”
He said the UK had pushed for “the strongest wording we can deliver”.
May has embraced the cause of tackling climate change as her three-year premiership draws to a close – telling journalists en route to Japan that she had been inspired on her walking holidays in Switzerland by seeing the rapid rate at which a glacier had receded over the past decade. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright Getty Images
Prime Minister Theresa May has pushed world leaders to make a stronger commitment on tackling climate change.
At the G20 summit in Osaka, she called on them to set targets for net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Mrs May has also raised the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Saudi Arabia.
And she pledged more than £1.4bn to help end global Aids, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics.
The UK has enshrined in law a 2050 target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero - or in the most difficult cases, to offset them by planting trees or absorbing CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Mrs May called on other world leaders to follow suit, aiming for the summit's joint statement to have "the strongest wording we can deliver" on climate change.
But only 19 of the 20 leaders signed up to the statement, which committed them to the "irreversibility" of the 2015 Paris agreement and pledged the full implementation of its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
US President Donald Trump declined to sign.
At the summit, Mrs May told her counterparts "we are running out of time to act" on climate change.
"I urge everyone here to push for ambition and consider setting their own net zero targets," she said.
Separately, in a 20-minute meeting with Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, she raised the case of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a British official said.
US intelligence concluded the crown prince directed the killing of the Washington Post columnist at the Saudi consulate in Turkey last year, but Saudi authorities have denied they were acting on his orders.
With 11 unidentified people put on trial behind closed doors, Mrs May told Prince Mohammed that the legal process must be "open and transparent", the official said.
Mrs May also called for other countries to follow the UK's pledge of £1.4bn to the Global Fund, an international organisation which fights three of the world's deadliest diseases.
The UK will contribute £467m a year for three years, providing tuberculosis treatment for more than two million people, 90 million mosquito nets to protect people from malaria, and treatment for more than three million people living with HIV - the virus which causes Aids.
Mrs May said the world needed "urgent international action and a truly collective response" to halt the spread of these illnesses.
The pledge follows an appeal by Sir Elton John and French President Emmanuel Macron for an £11bn cash injection for the Global Fund, which is expected to help save 16 million lives.
Sir Elton, whose Aids foundation works with the fund, said the UK's response set an "extraordinary example for others to follow". | null | 0 | -1 | null | 18 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Trump defends Biden after Democratic debate, says Harris got 'too much credit'
In Thursday’s debate, the former vice president was put on the defensive when California Sen. Kamala Harris challenged his record on desegregation and school busing. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The ever more politically minded Lancet medical journal has taken a pause from bashing Italy’s populist government to criticize U.S. immigration policy in an appeal for open borders.
In an editorial this week, the once respected Lancet asserted that the “blatant nature of the Trump administration’s transgressions towards the vulnerable people it is required to protect is breathtaking” as “the most basic human rights of individuals” are being denied at the U.S. border.
The UK-based journal has evolved into the mouthpiece of the global left, warning of an impending “climate Armageddon,” pushing gender theory, attacking the pro-sovereignty movement as “racist” and “xenophobic,” and committing itself to defending the “progressive agenda.”
The Lancet has now turned its sights on United States, attacking the Trump administration just as Democrat presidential debates get underway.
“It used to be the case that America was able and proud to demonstrate its record on refugee resettlement,” the editorial reads, while affirming that this is no longer the case.
“A leadership built on spiteful rhetoric towards those seeking a better life in a country of great opportunity and freedom has fallen further than anyone who brushed aside the xenophobia of the 2016 campaign trail could have thought,” it says.
“Even those who are only passingly familiar with the news will be aware of the perilous state of those detained in the so-called migrant camps, of the children separated from their parents at the border and lost in the system, and of migrants kept in solitary confinement and locked up without trial,” the article states.
Limitations on immigration are a mistake, the editorial suggests, while asserting that immigration is always a net good for the receiving nation.
“Immigration strengthens a country, but even among immigration-positive politicians, the argument is lost in a flurry of caps on numbers and a tacit agreement that the argument for immigration is already lost,” it said.
Black Tory Candidate for London Mayor: Multiculturalism Turning Britain into ‘Crime-Riddled Cesspool’ https://t.co/33aZBOZTD4 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 4, 2018
In its hunger to become politically relevant, the Lancet now engages weekly in unapologetic ideological propaganda as if George Soros, rather than Hippocrates, were the icon of the medical field.
Apparently, in the minds of the journal’s editors, leftist politics is sexier than medicine.
Follow @tdwilliamsrome | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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US President Donald Trump confirms that Washington will not be adding new tariffs on Chinese imports, following a discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the media at the G-20 summit in Osaka, western Japan, June 29, 2019. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS
OSAKA (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he had informed U.S. President Donald Trump about Russia’s actions in Syria, adding that the two countries had maintained contacts about the Middle East nation.
Asked about his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about Ukraine, Putin said he agreed that multilateral consultations should continue. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Trump vowed Saturday to “immediately” appeal a judge’s ruling blocking funding for his border wall, while reviving threats to proceed with stalled deportation raids as soon as a week from now.
The president discussed his immigration plans as part of a wide-ranging press conference following the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
HOUSE OKS BORDER BILL AFTER PELOSI REVERSES COURSE
His administration, just after notching a win with the passage of a $4.6 billion bill to address the humanitarian crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border, was dealt a blow Friday when a California judge barred Trump from tapping $2.5 billion in military funding to build high-priority segments of the border wall in California, Arizona and New Mexico. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. in Oakland acted in two lawsuits filed by California and by activists who contended the money transfer was unlawful and construction would pose environmental threats.
"We're immediately appealing it and we think we'll win the appeal," Trump said at his press conference, calling the decision a disgrace. "There was no reason that that should have happened.”
Meanwhile, the president made clear that despite the passage of the aid package in Congress, he plans to move forward with controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids absent a deal on reforming the asylum process, which he described as unlikely.
“We will be removing large numbers of people … starting in a week after, you know, sometime after July 4th,” Trump said.
Those planned raids have been the subject of intense debate and a source of immense turmoil inside the Department of Homeland Security. Before last weekend, The Washington Post reported on the closely held plan to target families in up to 10 cities across the U.S. for deportation raids. The plans prompted outrage from Democrats and, last Saturday, Trump said he would agree to their requests to delay the operation “for two weeks” to see if they can strike a deal on “Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border.”
But the past week was consumed by negotiations over the humanitarian aid bill, which Congress passed right before the start of the holiday break.
While Trump expressed gratitude to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for helping pass that package – she steamrolled the liberal wing of her party in order to move a bipartisan package that did not include restrictions on enforcement sought by that wing – the president suggested that bill does not make ICE raids less likely.
The raid plan, as well as national controversy over poor conditions at certain migrant detention centers, has been the backdrop to a major reshuffling at the top levels of the Department of Homeland Security. New leaders have been installed this past week at ICE and Customs and Border Protection -- as the DHS secretary himself faces questions about his future.
Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan has been accused of leaking those planned raids. But during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” he again denied it.
"I would not, have not, ever leaked details of a sensitive law enforcement operation," he said.
One senior administration official told Fox News on Thursday that after the alleged leak, "He’s lost the confidence and trust of both the workforce and his superiors, with no viable path to proceed with any confidence and credibility."
The official lamented the state of morale at the department, saying: “DHS has devolved into chaos and employee morale is abysmal.”
NEW LEADERS INSTALLED AT DHS AMID QUESTIONS OVER SECRETARY'S FUTURE
McAleenan, though, touted at a press conference on Friday that the flow at the border is reducing, saying he expects as much as a 25 percent reduction in border apprehensions in June – from soaring levels so far this year.
The California judge’s wall ruling on Friday created yet another front in the ever-expanding legal, political and physical battle over immigration.
"All President Trump has succeeded in building is a constitutional crisis, threatening immediate harm to our state," said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led a 20-state coalition of attorneys general in one lawsuit.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to take up the same issue of using military money next week.
At issue is Trump's February declaration of a national emergency so that he could divert $6.7 billion from military and other sources to begin construction of the wall, which could have begun as early as Monday.
Trump declared the emergency after losing a fight with the Democratic-led House that led to a 35-day government shutdown. The president identified $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion from Defense Department counterdrug activities and $600 million from the Treasury Department's asset forfeiture fund.
The judge Friday didn't rule on funding from the military construction and Treasury budgets.
In the second suit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition, the judge determined that the use of the $2.5 billion for two sectors of the wall was unlawful, although he rejected environmental arguments that wall construction would threaten species such as bighorn sheep.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson and The Associated Press contributed to this report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 27 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright PA Image caption This photo, taken in the aftermath of the explosion, shows the soldier cradling Ms Suehiro
A Czech woman injured in a bomb blast in Belfast in 1972 is on a mission to track down the soldier who "risked his life" for her.
Blanka Suehiro (then Blanka Sochor) fled Czechoslovakia to study in Northern Ireland in 1969.
Three years later she was caught up in the Provisional IRA attack in Donegall Street, which killed seven people.
A soldier gave her first aid and comforted her in the chaotic aftermath until medics arrived.
Ms Suehiro had fled Czechoslovakia three years earlier, a year after the uprising known as the Prague Spring was crushed by the Soviet Union.
An aspiring fashion designer, she was studying at Belfast's art college.
She was 22 years old when she was walking down Donegall Street to fetch materials for a project she was working on and a security alert - colloquially known as a "bomb scare" - began.
But there was conflicting information about where exactly the bomb was located, and in the confusion Ms Suehiro and crowds of shoppers and office workers ran directly towards it.
'Horrible pain'
"To be honest they say it's the way the brain works, but I don't remember much about it," she told BBC News NI.
"I don't remember hearing the bomb, I don't remember flying through the air. I just remember waking up in horrible pain and not really knowing what was going on.
Image caption Blanka Suehiro now lives in Canada
"It was 200lbs of gelignite in a narrow street. It was mayhem everywhere."
The injuries to her legs were so bad she spent a year in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast where doctors considered amputation, before her cousin Jenny Sochor intervened and pleaded with them to take a different course of action.
"I don't think I was completely together [in the aftermath of the explosion]. All I kept thinking was: 'Please don't cut my legs off'," Ms Suehiro said.
"I was very sporty, that was so important to me."
She has vivid memories of a soldier and another man who gave her first aid at the scene and stayed with her until medics arrived.
"They were just talking to me, holding my hand, putting pressure on the wounds, which were mainly on my leg.
"Just being there for me, even though they didn't know if there were snipers or other bombs about to explode.
"People were saying to run away, but they didn't - they basically risked their lives for mine," she said.
Image caption Seven people were killed by the explosion in Donegall Street
Over the year that followed, plastic surgeons managed to save Ms Suehiro's legs using pioneering techniques for the time.
Although her memories of her time in hospital are "blurry", staff told her the soldier who helped came to visit her while she was there., but she has no recollection of this.
"That's why I'd like to track him down now - to tell him how grateful I am for what he did," she said.
"To say thank you so much for coming to visit me and being a very kind soul."
In 1975, Ms Suehiro left Northern Ireland for Canada, where she still lives with her family.
'So kind'
This week, she returned to Northern Ireland and, speaking from her cousin's home in Belfast, opened up about her experience in Belfast 47 years ago.
"The hard part was that I couldn't be in touch with my family because I was illegally out of Czechoslovakia, there was the Russian occupation," she said.
"But I do remember the staff at the hospital being so kind and letting me call my mum."
But by that stage, the picture of her being comforted by the soldier had appeared in a Czech newspaper, and her mother recognised her instantly. and feared the worst.
Image caption The bomb exploded outside the offices of the News Letter
Her cousin Jenny Sochor told the BBC that in the immediate years following her ordeal, she found any unexpected loud noises difficult to deal with.
"Even the sound of a loud car would make her jump," she said.
But Ms Suehiro insisted it did not scar her emotionally and instead encouraged her live her life to the full, acutely aware of "how short life can be" and how close she came to death that day.
"In a way, it was good for me, because I learned at such a young age how precious life is. And how, despite all the people in the world who have hate in their hearts, there are so many more who have only kindness."
Now in a more settled time in her life, she feels that a meeting with the men who treated and comforted her on the most traumatic of days would bring her great comfort.
"I wouldn't know where to start to find this soldier, but I hope I can," she said. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 38 |
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Prime Minister Theresa May has pushed world leaders to make a stronger commitment on tackling climate change. At the G20 summit in Osaka, she called on them to set targets for net zero greenhouse gas emissions. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (AFP) — The Sea-Watch 3 charity ship carrying dozens of migrants picked up off Libya forced its way into the Italian port of Lampedusa on Friday night after a lengthy standoff, the charity said.
Sea-Watch spokesman Ruben Neugebauer told AFP the boat’s German captain Carola Rackete, 31, was arrested and that the 40 migrants were still on board after the vessel docked.
Rackete was cuffed by police for refusing to obey a military vessel, after manoeuvring the ship into port without permission.
The ship docked despite the best efforts of a coastguard boat to prevent her from doing so by sailing back and forth between the vessel and the pier, according to the Repubblica daily.
While five European countries on Friday agreed to take in the migrants, permission for the Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3 to enter port and disembark the migrants did not come.
Salvini Directly Accuses Sea-Watch Migrant Ferry NGO of Human Trafficking https://t.co/DFRKv9LY6K — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 23, 2019
Sources at the interior ministry, headed by Italy’s Matteo Salvini, said he was waiting for precise guarantees on “numbers, timelines and means” of the migrant redistribution before allowing them off.
“Even though in the afternoon the prosecution has opened an investigation against me, at the same time they notified us that they will not help to bring the rescued off the ship,” Rackete said in a video statement on Twitter.
“I have decided to enter the harbour, which is free at night, on my own,” she added.
Rackete had previously warned she was worried about the psychological condition of those rescued off crisis-hit Libya.
The ship and its captain were met by applause from a group of supporters standing on the pier on Lampedusa.
“It’s been almost 60h since we declared a state of emergency. No one listened. No one took responsibility. Once more it’s up to us, to Cpt. #CarolaRackete and her crew, to bringing the 40 people to safety,” the charity said on Twitter.
Hungary’s Orban Praises Italy’s Salvini: NGO Crews Are ‘White-Collar People-Smugglers’ https://t.co/9teFT0vmCT — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 19, 2018
With Italy restricting port entry, the Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3 has been stuck in the Mediterranean, during a heatwave, since picking up 53 migrants drifting in an inflatable raft off the coast of Libya on June 12th.
The most vulnerable people onboard were evacuated, but Salvini insisted the rest were unwelcome.
On Wednesday, after over two weeks at sea, and as tempers on the small boat frayed, Rackete decided she had no choice but to enter Italian waters illegally to bring the remaining migrants to safety. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 18 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | They’re all friends with the working class. They all really admire MLK. So who’s who?
Donald Trump rode to national fame on a swashbuckling business book. Barack Obama built his early reputation on an elegant memoir. The two books had little in common besides being bestsellers, as distinct as the two men who wrote them.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have books, too—lots of books, a whole shelf’s worth of books designed to project the values and personalities of the largest and most diverse pool of candidates in American history.
And … they all read oddly the same.
We read nine books published by the leading candidates so far—Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and more. (For Biden, we got the 2008 presidential campaign book rather than his more recent 2017 memoir about his son’s death.) In structure, in tone and in their veneration for both the American dream and Martin Luther King Jr., the books of the 2020 candidates are surprisingly hard to tell apart. You could use them to build a write-by-numbers model of the contemporary political sales pitch—or you could just turn them into a quiz, which we did here.
Fancy yourself a political savant? See if you can tell who wrote what. And if you just want the highlights, scroll down for a TL;DR digest of each book.
1 . Modest childhood home “One of those little houses thrown up in the years right after World War II. One living room, two bedrooms, and a single bathroom, which was in high demand by our family of six.” Whose house? Elizabeth Warren Bernie Sanders Joe Biden Amy Klobuchar 2 . Growing up working class (or at least having met the working class) “In all the moves the __ family has made, we’ve never once hired a moving company. We do it on our own.” Who carried their own furniture? Joe Biden Amy Klobuchar Pete Buttigieg Julián Castro 3 . Scrappy first-campaign story I used an ironing board as a standing desk while campaigning outside of a Bayview grocery store. Whose campaign? Kirsten Gillibrand Kamala Harris Cory Booker Elizabeth Warren 4 . Bipartisanship brag I worked with Sen. John Hoeven on so many issues that at one event, “we were asked to tie ‘friendship bracelets’ on each other’s wrists.” Whose brag? Kamala Harris Cory Booker Amy Klobuchar Pete Buttigieg 5 . Guilty pleasure food “I was at IHOP. I was indulging in my favorite of the deadly sins: gluttony.” Who loves pancakes? Cory Booker Elizabeth Warren Pete Buttigieg Julián Castro 6 . Inspirational quote or praise for MLK Jr. “His life’s work and vision have greatly inspired me and influenced my political thinking.” Who said it? Kamala Harris Cory Booker Elizabeth Warren Bernie Sanders | null | 0 | -1 | null | 32 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE
If Florida is a bellwether for the 2020 presidential election, the predominantly Haitian community of North Miami is a bellwether for the Democrats.
When several Democratic presidential candidates answered questions in Spanish during the debates in Miami on Wednesday and Thursday, it was a clear overture to the Latino voting bloc — a message of inclusiveness from a party that needs strong turnout to win the White House in 2020.
But for some in the growing Caribbean American community of South Florida, it came across as a snub.
“They never mention black immigrants,” said Francesca Menes, a 34-year-old of Haitian descent who in December resigned from her post as treasurer for the Florida Democratic Party.
“They make us feel invisible,” Menes said of the Democratic hopefuls.
Not one of the 20 candidates on stage in Miami uttered a word in Creole, which would have connected with South Florida’s Haitian population of more than 330,000 — the majority of whom were born here or are naturalized citizens. Nor did any of the candidates directly address the impact of immigration policy on Caribbean Americans and their families.
The oversight wasn't surprising, but it is notable. And it could influence 2020 enthusiasm among a growing bloc of Florida voters.
Disillusionment keep building
Francesca Menes (Photo: Provided)
"The party keeps playing from the same playbook, and doesn’t understand that the black community is not monolithic — especially in a state like Florida," Menes said. "You have to come from all of the different angles and you have to meet people where they’re at."
She saw missed opportunities to reach Haitian Americans and other voters of Caribbean descent via ads on radio stations and other media platforms when she worked with the Democrats during Andrew Gillum's campaign for governor.
Menes’ disillusionment has been building for years, culminating with her decision to leave her post with the state Democrats in December. At the same time, she resigned as state committeewoman for the Miami-Dade County Democratic Executive Committee.
“My hope is that the party takes this time to seriously reflect on this past election cycle and don't just talk about what was done wrong, but prepare for 2020 with clarity and not repeating the mistakes of the past,” she wrote in her resignation message posted on Facebook.
I met Menes on Wednesday in the lobby of the contemporary art museum in North Miami, the city where I grew up. I asked for her read on the crop of 2020 candidates. In a nutshell: she's underwhelmed. She likes what Elizabeth Warren has to say, but she doesn't hear any of the candidates speaking directly to her community.
The debates in Miami didn't change that.
To her, it's not about finding another Obama. It's about authenticity.
“At this point I don’t think people are looking for inspiration anymore," Menes said. "I think people are looking for realness.”
Where Florida goes, so goes the ele
North Miami is home to about 60,000 residents, many of whom are of Haitian descent and follow politics closely. In 2001, it became the largest city in the U.S. with a Haitian-American majority on its city council. Today, North Miami still holds that distinction.
Voters in the community turned out huge for Obama in 2008 and 2012 — but enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton was more tepid in 2016. Some Haitians were disenchanted with the Clinton Foundation’s involvement in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. Hillary Clinton’s late brother, Tony Rodham, drew scrutiny for deals he struck as co-chairman of Haiti’s recovery commission.
Donald Trump has been a flashpoint in the community. In 2016, he campaigned in Little Haiti, a neighborhood south of North Miami, telling Haitian Americans in attendance: “I really want to be your biggest champion.” After the event, in private, he called Haiti a “sh--hole” country.
Menes and other Democratic leaders in the community were left in a difficult position in 2016.
“We literally had to push a campaign where a vote for her is a vote against him. That’s a hard campaign to push … and it didn’t really work because our community was very split,” Menes explained.
Turnout among Democrats suffered.
If Florida is a bellwether for the 2020 general election, North Miami could be a bellwether for Florida's Democratic primary in March.
Scott Galvin, who has served on the North Miami City Council since 1999, is very pragmatic about the upcoming election. He wants a Democrat who can win.
“We’re not trying to get anyone who can replicate what Obama did," Galvin, who is white, told me when I met him at the public library in North Miami on Wednesday. "Obama was a generational candidate.”
He believes former Vice President Joe Biden has the best chance of that. He wasn't swayed by California Sen. Kamala Harris' strong criticism of Biden's record on segregation on Thursday night.
Biden's base is larger, Galvin said, and "it won't flee based on a debate 500 days before an election."
The next debates are July 30-31 in Detroit.
We, and the field of candidates, have a long way to go.
Eve Samples is opinion and engagement editor for the USA TODAY Network-Florida, which includes FLORIDA TODAY, the Naples Daily News, The News-Press (Fort Myers), the Pensacola News Journal, the Tallahassee Democrat, and Treasure Coast Newspapers/TCPalm, where this column originally appeared. Follow her on Twitter @EveSamples.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to [email protected].
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/29/democratic-debates-spanish-beto-cory-booker-column/1599058001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 49 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The researcher planning a four-day working week
‘We need to reduce our capacity and urge to consume’
Month after month, there is research showing that climate change is happening faster than we thought. We’re in a car hurtling towards the edge of a cliff, we’ve got our foot on the accelerator, and we’re just talking to each other, faffing about. If anything, some of us are even putting the foot further down. What we need to do is stop the car and get out. That has become increasingly clear to me in the last couple of years, which is why I’ve made changes to my own lifestyle.
These all come from the research we’ve been doing at my work, and it’s all based on climate science. The first – and the hardest for many people – is flying. The evidence is clear that, as far as the climate is concerned, we should keep to one return short-haul flight every two to three years. So it’s not that I can’t see the world – I could still go abroad at least another 10 times in my life – it’s just that I can’t go to Istanbul for the weekend.
I’ve been vegetarian since I was about 15, and pretty much vegan for a year. It’s important that everybody goes close to vegetarian, and ideally vegan. Not just that: it’s also important that we stop eating so much. The average European eats 3,500 calories a day, which is too much. The planet has had to provide all those unnecessary calories. It’s not just about climate change: if you look at land use change, biodiversity loss, fertilisers in the ocean creating dead zones, the massive extinction and loss of insects due to pesticides – these problems are all driven by food.
I’ve also reduced the volume of new clothing that I buy. The average European buys 24 new items every year. That needs to come down – based on my team’s research, I’m aiming for three. I can still keep my wardrobe alive through secondhand, recycled, upgraded, swapped or rented clothes.
C40 is a network bringing together the world’s biggest cities, helping them do the best they can on climate. About a year ago, we conducted some research looking at the impact of consumption. Our ever-growing economy in turn requires never-ending growth in consumption. One of the best things you can do to address climate change is go down to a four-day working week. This would take some of the heat out of our ever-expanding economies, reduce our capacity and urge to consume, and create space to live a more balanced life. I plan to do this in the near future. If it means I’m earning a bit less and spending a bit less, but I’ve got a bit more time on my hands, then that’s great.
Photograph: Shutterstock
The massive caveat is that many people in Britain and around the world don’t have enough; but those of us with high consumption lifestyles need to balance it out. The main responsibility will always be with large business and governments to fix the mess we’re in, but we’re now at a point where it’s so late that we need action from everyone. You’re not disempowered just because you’re small, and politicians won’t move until we do. Each person can make change happen, so why not do it?
• Tom Bailey, head of sustainable consumption at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
The academic who doesn’t fly
‘It would be hypocritical for me to carry on flying to conferences’
I’ve worked on climate change for nearly 25 years. My first degree was in marine biology and I went on to study warming in the Southern (Antarctic) Ocean, simulating future climates. Now my specialism is land use, agriculture and climate change – not just in terms of emissions from the food that’s produced, but also the impact of climate change on our food system, and the uptake of carbon from the atmosphere by soils, trees and vegetation. But it was when I started doing a lot of research on household emissions and individual action that I began to make changes on a personal level.
Our holidays now tend to be in Scotland and northern England. We went to Amsterdam, travelling by train and ferry
I gave up flying in 2004. I’d just published a paper looking at the carbon emissions that come from climate scientists like me attending conferences, which academics do a lot. It would have been hypocritical for me to flag up flying as the major part of my carbon footprint, and then carry on doing it.
I have two children. Our holidays now tend to be in Scotland and northern England. We went to Amsterdam the year before last, travelling by train and ferry, and the kids have enjoyed those longer trips. Maybe they’ll gripe at me when I’m in my rocking chair, saying, “Dad, you never took us to Disney World, Florida and I’m in counselling for it now”, but I suspect they won’t.
Photograph: Shutterstock
My youngest, Molly, who is 12, has been involved in the school climate strikes. She was proud to go on the march. For a lot of kids these days, you stand out if you’re not taking action. As a family, we’ve been vegetarian for about six months. We’d already been cutting down on meat, but Molly was the one who pushed it further – she’s pretty much vegan. Of course, some vegetarian food has high food miles, but as a rule of thumb, a vegetarian meal is going to have a substantially lower carbon footprint than a meat one.
I’ve never said “never” to flying. If I get an email from Donald Trump’s office saying that if I fly over and talk to him, he’ll be convinced to take action against climate change, then I’ll be straight on that flight. So it’s always about weighing up the cost-benefit. For me, nothing in the last 15 years has justified flying.
• Prof Dave Reay, chair in carbon management and education at the University of Edinburgh | null | 0 | -1 | null | 53 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | David Oks and Henry Williams may only be in their teens, but they are seeking to rock the boat of the Democratic Party in the 2020 presidential race by working from within -- and running a campaign.
It all started when the two 18-year-olds from New York were listening to their favorite podcast, Chapo Trap House, and heard the hosts discuss the positions of former Alaska Democratic Sen. Mike Gravel and their love for Gravel during the 2008 Democratic presidential debates.
Oks and Williams thought it would be "really cool" to draft a candidate for the 2020 Democratic primary and instantly knew Gravel would be the perfect candidate for the job. So they reached out to the 89-year-old senator.
"Do you realize how old I am?" Gravel told ABC News he responded to them. Oks and Williams, however, had done their research to appeal to his interests.
“ ” We're making a sort of point, especially to young people on the left, that your politics can be more than this, and that where Mike Gravel is now might be where the center of the party is in another decade.
"They really had a sense of what really floats my boat, which is direct democracy," said Gravel, who is writing a book on bringing about a "legislature of the people" that would allow Americans to create their own laws through popular referendum.
The teens also told him there was "more of a market today for his ideas" citing a "substantially more energized, very online, very young leftist movement that would work to see him in politics."
An Rong Xu, New York Times via Redux, FILE
Gravel made it clear he would only run if they agreed to make it as easy as possible for him. The duo reassured him he "wouldn't have to go anywhere" and it would be a "front porch campaign" through which he could get his message out to the public on direct democratic reforms and non-interventionism.
Now, they manage everything from day-to-day operations to a notorious Twitter account filled with fiery roasts and memes.
"I think I'm pretty confident saying that we probably have the best social media game of any campaign," said Oks, claiming they "have a more authentic voice than most other campaigns."
Gravel agrees with the Twitter content for the most part, and, he said, "They assured me that I had veto power, and I've only used it once in asking them to tone down the F-language."
Keep It Simple Stupid.#AbolishICE — Sen. Mike Gravel (@MikeGravel) June 28, 2019
Oks, a rising first-year at University of Oxford, and Williams, a rising sophomore at Columbia University, met in high school through Model UN and debate. Williams proclaimed that Oks is a "savant when it comes to history and politics."
"He can probably tell you the exact electoral totals and every candidate who ran and every presidential election since the beginning of American history," Williams said. As for himself, he said, politics is "more of an interest than it is an obsession."
The two are known to test unconventional ideas. Previous plans have included a "future bike" with a camera so "parents could watch their kids" and Oks' 2017 mayoral run in his hometown of Ardsley, New York, for which Williams served as chief-of-staff.
"I did run for mayor. I remember that. That was that was a disaster. That did not go well," Oks said.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters, FILE
In terms of why they're running this campaign, Williams said, "We're making a sort of point, especially to young people on the left, that your politics can be more than this, and that where Mike Gravel is now might be where the center of the party is in another decade."
"[Gravel] was probably the furthest left senator when he was in Congress," Williams said. "At that time, he was the only Democrat to support gay marriage, he was the only Democrat to support ending nuclear testing in the Pacific, to paying reparations to victims of our wars, to reading the Pentagon Papers in the Russian record."
While Oks and Williams supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race, they don't believe Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren are taking a strong enough stance on foreign policy.
"Bernie and Warren aren't perfect. They are especially lacking on foreign policy and on being genuinely anti-imperialist, and you need someone calling that out," said Williams.
Still, Gravel, Oks and Williams all mentioned Sanders as part of their "ideal ticket" in the case Gravel does not win the nomination. Gravel told ABC he also supports Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, "because she's got the courage to challenge the military industrial complex."
Initially, Gravel said, "I was not running for president to be president; I was running for president to get into the debates."
But now, he said, he is running seriously as his teen advisers informed him it "would help our efforts if you really said you're going to run for president."
Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters, FILE
"I mean, we're wanting to win as seriously, as, you know, Andrew Yang or Seth Moulton," Williams claimed. "Most of them in reality -- and they won't tell you this honestly -- they're running to raise their speaking fees, they're running to run for another office down the line, you know, they're not serious."
So far, Gravel has not made it into the debates. He was one of three candidates to not qualify for the first debates, which were held in late June, as he fell short of the 65,000-donor threshold. Oks said the campaign has over 40,000 donors.
Gabbard invited Gravel as her guest to the first debates, and while he couldn't attend due to surgery recovery, Oks and Williams went.
Brynn Anderson/AP
Despite missing the first round of debates, Gravel praised the "kids." He said he speaks with them every day and joked sometimes he thinks "they're just checking to make sure I'm still alive."
"I have a sense of how precocious the two kids were. I refer to them as kids and that's not derogatory. That's honorary from my point of view because they truly are very talented. They know the issues up and down," Gravel said. "I'm just proud to be associated with them, and obviously, they're proud to be associated with me."
Gravel has yet to attend an official campaign event in person due to his old age and limited mobility.
"I'm reluctant to travel. I'm 89 years old. I use a cane," he said, chuckling. "Well, I sit on my patio. And so I've got a patio campaign being conducted primarily by the kids."
If Gravel were to qualify for a debate in the future, however, he said he would most "certainly" attend in-person.
The campaign will make a big push to qualify for the July debate, but one thing is for certain: this venture has already proved much more successful than many may have thought for two teenagers. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 56 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The imprisoned British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has ended her hunger strike after 15 days.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who had been holding his own hunger strike outside the Iranian embassy in London in solidarity, said on Saturday his wife had eaten some porridge and fruit.
“I’m relieved because I wouldn’t have wanted her to push it much longer,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “I had a phone call this morning and it’s good news. She’s decided to stop her hunger strike, which means that I’ll be stopping it.
“It was getting hard for me but I’m sure it was much harder for her. She said that she’d had some breakfast this morning.”
Timeline Imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran Show Hide Arrest in Tehran Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is arrested at Imam Khomeini airport as she is trying to return to Britain after a holiday visiting family with her daughter, Gabriella. Release campaign begins Her husband, Richard Radcliffe, delivers a letter to David Cameron in 10 Downing Street, demanding the government do more for her release. Sentenced She is sentenced to five years in jail. Her husband says the exact charges are still being kept a secret. Hunger strike Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's health deteriorates after she spends several days on hunger strike in protest at her imprisonment. Appeal fails Iran’s supreme court upholds her conviction. Boris Johnson intervenes Boris Johnson, then Foreign Secretary, tells a parliamentary select committee "When we look at what [she] was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism". Four days after his comments, Zaghari-Ratcliffe is returned to court, where his statement is cited in evidence against her. Her employers, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, deny that she has ever trained journalists, and her family maintain she was in Iran on holiday. Johnson is eventually forced to apologise for the "distress and anguish" his comments cause the family. Health concerns Her husband reveals that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has fears for her health after lumps had been found in her breasts that required an ultrasound scan, and that she was now “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”. Hunt meets husband New Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt meets with Richard Ratcliffe, and pledges "We will do everything we can to bring her home." Temporary release She is granted a temporary three day release from prison. Hunger strike Zaghari-Ratcliffe is on hunger strike again, in protest at the withdrawal of her medical care. Diplomatic protection Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt takes the unusual step of granting her diplomatic protection - a move that raises her case from a consular matter to the level of a dispute between the two states. Travel warning The UK upgrades its travel advice to British-Iranian dual nationals, for the first time advising against all travel to Iran. The advice also urges Iranian nationals living in the UK to exercise caution if they decide to travel to Iran. Hunger strike in London Richard Ratcliffe joins his wife in a new hunger strike campaign. He fasts outside the Iranian embassy in London as she began a third hunger strike protest in prison. Hunger strike ends Zaghari-Ratcliffe ends her hunger strike by eating some breakfast. Her husband also ends his strike outside the embassy.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen, has been detained in Tehran since April 2016 accused of espionage.
More than 100 MPs visited Ratcliffe over the last two weeks to show their support for his cause, including the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the Conservative House of Commons Speaker, John Bercow.
During prime minister’s question on Wednesday, Corbyn and dozens of other Labour MPs wore “Free Nazanin” badges.
Free Nazanin (@FreeNazanin) 1/2 Richard got a phone call from Nazanin from Evin prison this morning - to announce that she has broken her hunger strike. She had broken her strike with banana and apple and a small bit of porridge. Richard’s strike will also end today and we will be packing down our camp.
Free Nazanin (@FreeNazanin) 2/2 Thanks to everyone who has supported us so overwhelmingly these past 2 weeks - friends, family, all the MPs, but most of all, the lovely people who have come from around the country to sign our visitors book or bring flowers or send messages of care. #FreeNazanin
During Ratcliffe’s hunger strike, the pavement outside the embassy turned into a hub of protest, with hundreds of cards and messages decorating a large corrugate iron barrier erected in an attempt to block him off.
Ratcliffe said his wife had been feeling nauseous over the last few days.
“She’d obviously been under quite a lot of pressure from the Revolutionary Guards, so [it was] quite stressful to break it. I think she’ll go to the clinic as soon as possible – there’s a clinic inside prison which isn’t open today – to do a blood test,” he said.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at an airport in 2016 as she headed back to the UK with her daughter, Gabriella, after visiting relatives. She was sentenced to five years in prison.
It is thought the couple’s daughter, who is five and living with her grandparents in Iran, has been deprived of weekly visits to her mother because the authorities have been angered by the high-profile protest.
Of his own experience, Ratcliffe said he had been more fragile but had got through it.
“My experience has been sitting on a doorstep with lots of people coming up with flowers and cards and messages of support, so it’s been emotionally great but physically challenging.”
He said Gabriella knew her parents were on hunger strike, and knew they could drink but not eat. “She took it at face value really. She liked the tents, she liked the fact that people had brought presents. She knows now that mummy and daddy are stopping.”
On Friday, Ratcliffe’s mother, Barbara, said she had been told to “get him into a taxi and go straight to A&E” as soon as the strike ended. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 46 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Obama-era White House photographer Pete Souza delivered a scathing response to President Donald Trump’s palling around with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on Friday.
Trump sparked anger after he joked with his Russian counterpart about election meddling and getting “rid” of journalists.
Souza showed his displeasure at the exchange on Instagram, where he shared his 2014 picture of former President Barack Obama talking with Putin at the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France.
“Given what just transpired between Comrade minus and Vladimir Putin, I thought it would be a stark reminder to post this photograph again,” Souza captioned the image, below:
“The shot shows the kind of interaction President Obama had with President Putin during his tenure,” Souza told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in February, and was taken during a “particularly tense time between the two countries.”
“You can see in the facial expressions and gestures that this was a very serious conversation,” added the photographer, who frequently uses the pictures he took covering Obama’s time in office to take shots at the Trump administration.
“There are interpreters stood behind them, but I get the impression from Putin’s face that he understood exactly what was being said in English,” he added.
Souza told the Guardian he couldn’t recall “specifically” what was said, but it was about “some of Russia’s actions in the world.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 6 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A Democratic candidate for Florida’s House reportedly has ended her campaign after being challenged on her detailed and graphic claims she treated victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.
“I personally removed 77 bullets from 32 people … It was like an assembly line,” candidate Elizabeth McCarthy had claimed at a gun safety event earlier this year.
HARRIS TAKES CRITICISM FOR POST-DEBATE SHIRT SALE
But FloridaPolitics.com published a report earlier this month challenging her claims she worked as a cardiologist at Orlando Regional Medical Center
The report listed the following discrepancies: the Florida Department of Health did not have a record of her being a licensed doctor; the parent company of the medical center said there’s no record of any doctor by that name; another company the candidate claimed to be working for denied she worked there; and University of Central Florida officials said they couldn't find a record of the medical degree she claimed.
The report said that officials confirmed she was a registered nurse until 2005, and that she later started a medical company that was in business through 2014.
At first, the candidate maintained she is a doctor when asked about the conflicting details.
“Yes, I did work the night of Pulse,” she said, according to FloridaPolitics.com. “It hurts me … why would I make something like this up? … I was an RN for 25 years. I’ve been in the medical field all my life.”
But the same news outlet reported Friday that she’s now dropping out.
“After thoughtful contemplation, due to professional obligations, I am withdrawing as a Democratic candidate seeking the nomination and election in Florida House District 28,” McCarthy reportedly wrote in an email.
She had previously appeared at events alongside U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., who had touted her medical background and work the night of the Pulse shooting.
But after her resume and personal narrative were questioned, party leaders had called on her to prove her medical credentials or drop out.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
The leader of the Seminole County Democratic Party told The New York Post they were suspending support “until she provides transcripts, diplomas, licenses, letters from employers and proof of her involvement in the Pulse tragedy.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 13 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | U.S. intelligence agencies have advised American universities to monitor certain Chinese students and visiting scholars amid concerns of China’s threat to the U.S.
FBI officials reportedly visited at least 10 Americans universities since 2018 and encouraged them to take extra precaution when it comes to Chinese students or scholars affiliated with Chinese state-affiliated research institutions.
IMPACT OF TRADE TENSIONS WITH CHINA BEING FELT IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES
According to NPR, the officials said the universities should actively monitor the Chinese nationals and review ongoing research that involves Chinese individuals and could have defense applications.
“We are being asked what processes are in place to know what labs they are working at or what information they are being exposed to,” Fred Cate, vice president of research at Indiana University, told the outlet.
“We are being asked what processes are in place to know what labs they are working at or what information they are being exposed to. It’s not a question of just looking for suspicious behavior — it’s actually really targeting specific countries and the people from those countries.” — Fred Cate
“It’s not a question of just looking for suspicious behavior — it’s actually really targeting specific countries and the people from those countries.”
The FBI requests aren’t mandatory and universities will face no penalties for refusing to follow the advice of the bureau.
CHINESE ACCUSED OF STEALING BIOMED RESEARCH FROM U.S. LABS, UNIVERSITIES
Universities that were advised didn’t reportedly implement measures to monitor the Chinese individuals and have pushed back against it as the FBI wasn’t specific how such monitoring would work, NPR reported.
But the FBI visits have apparently created second thoughts among U.S. academics who are now wary of accepting federal grants that could involve Chinese scholars.
“We don't say you can't, because we don't have any legal authority to say they can't,” Cate told the outlet. “But we say you should be aware there may be some sensitivity about this.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The FBI first raised concerns about the presence of Chinese scholars on U.S. campuses since at least 2018.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said during a Congressional hearing last year that China is “exploiting the very open research and development environment that we have, which we all revere, but they’re taking advantage of it.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 10 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
OSAKA (Reuters) - Russia’s president said on Saturday that Moscow would do all it could to improve relations with the United States that have been strained by years of diplomatic conflicts over Ukraine and alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections.
Vladimir Putin was speaking at the G20 summit in Osaka where he met U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss issues ranging from trade to disarmament. He also invited Trump to visit Moscow in May next year.
Putin described the talks in Osaka as a “good meeting, business-like, pragmatic” and said the two leaders agreed that bilateral economic ties required improvement.
Related Coverage Putin says informed Trump about Russia's actions in Syria
“I think we both understand that we need to somehow resolve the current situation,” Putin said, adding that the two nations needed to “somehow find the strength to turn the page and move forward.”
Asked during a news conference at the summit about the probability of more U.S. sanctions against Russia, Putin said it was up to Washington to decide how best to build relations with Moscow.
Putin said he and Trump had discussed the election meddling allegations and the situation in Venezuela. He provided no details. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 8 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright AFP PHOTO / FREE NAZANIN CAMPAIGN Image caption Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, pictured here with their daughter Gabriella, is serving a five-year sentence in Iran
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran for alleged spying, has ended her hunger strike after 15 days.
Her husband Richard told the BBC he was "relieved", saying he "wouldn't have wanted her to push it much longer".
He said his wife had eaten some porridge with apple and banana.
Mr Ratcliffe, who has been sleeping in a tent outside the Iranian Embassy in London, said he had also ended his own hunger strike.
A joint British-Iranian citizen, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from London, was jailed for five years in 2016 after being convicted of spying, which she denies. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 5 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The number of states that require doctors to tell patients their abortions can be reversed with an experimental treatment more than doubled this year.
The rise of so-called “abortion reversal” bills has alarmed leading medical groups that say such legislation forces physicians to give misleading, unscientific and potentially dangerous advice to women, undermining the trusted doctor-patient relationship.
So far this year, five states ― North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arkansas — have passed legislation mandating that physicians counsel women that a medication abortion, a safe and common method for ending a pregnancy before 10 weeks, can be reversed. Similar laws already exist in South Dakota, Utah and Idaho.
How A Medication Abortion Works
Although it’s colloquially called the “abortion pill,” medication abortion is actually a combination of two prescription drugs. First, a patient takes mifepristone, which stops the pregnancy’s progress by blocking the hormone progesterone. One to two days later, the patient takes misoprostol, which causes cramping and bleeding to empty the uterus.
When taken correctly, the drugs result in an abortion 97% of the time.
Proponents of “abortion reversal” ― a term used that pro-life groups use even though it’s inaccurate, as by definition once an abortion has occurred, a woman is no longer pregnant ― claim that medication abortions can be reversed halfway through. They counsel women who have taken mifepristone to forgo the second drug, misoprostol, and instead take high doses of progesterone, often for months.
Leading medical groups, including the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, oppose this experimental practice, as it has not been clinically tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
They note that medication abortion is most effective when patients take both drugs, and about half of women who take only mifepristone will continue their pregnancies. Taking progesterone to offset the effects of mifepristone has not been evaluated for safety.
The AMA filed a lawsuit Tuesday to challenge the constitutionality of North Dakota’s “abortion reversal” law, which is set to go into effect Aug. 1. Joining the country’s largest association of doctors is Red River Women’s Clinic, the only abortion clinic in the state, and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Under state law, physicians must tell patients that it may be possible to reverse an abortion “if she changes her mind, but time is of the essence.” They must also give patients printed materials directing them to medical professionals who support “abortion reversal.”
Corroding Trust
HuffPost Canada Bottles of the abortion-inducing drug Mifegymiso, a two-drug combination using mifepristone and misoprostol.
North Dakota’s law violates the First Amendment rights of physicians by requiring them to spread false and nonscientific information, according to Molly Duane, a staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“The notion of ‘abortion reversal’ is based on junk science,” Duane said. “This law effectively forces physicians to lie to their patients, and it forces them to violate their medical ethics to do no harm.”
This can compromise the patient-provider relationship, which is built on trust. “Physicians need to be able to have the ability ― without interference from the state ― to provide their patients with accurate information,” she said.
Kathryn Eggleston, the medical director of the state’s last remaining abortion clinic, wrote in an affidavit that she could not ethically recommend the treatment.
“For one thing, the impact on patients of mifepristone combined with high doses of progesterone is virtually unstudied,” she wrote in the affidavit obtained by HuffPost. “Scientists thus do not know what impact, including potential birth defects, the administration of these drugs could have on the children.”
Eggleston also worried that the law could have the perverse effect of encouraging patients to consent to receive an abortion before they’re ready, under the mistaken belief that abortion can be reversed.
“Before I proceed with any abortion, I ask my patients if they are confident in their decision to have an abortion,” she wrote in the affidavit. “Telling patients that they may ‘reverse’ an abortion will dilute the fundamentally important message I need to deliver that a patient must be certain before deciding to start a medication abortion.”
History Of ‘Abortion Reversal’
The first person to come up with the idea of “abortion reversal” is a doctor named George Delgado. In 2009, Delgado received a call from a sidewalk counselor who said she was in touch with a woman who had started a medication abortion but then changed her mind. Was there anything they could do?
He knew that mifepristone blocked progesterone, and that progesterone was also sometimes prescribed during early pregnancy to women at risk of miscarriage.
“It was one of those Holy Spirit moments where he put two and two together in my mind,” Delgado said at an event in March. “I thought, maybe if we give her extra progesterone we can save the baby.”
He described the window of time between the first and second pill as “a second chance at choice.”
The woman went on to give birth to a baby girl, according to Delgado, who did not immediately respond to an interview request from HuffPost.
Since then, he has coauthored a small case study of six women on his experimental protocol. The study is cited regularly by anti-abortion state legislators. He also launched Abortion Pill Reversal, a website with a 24-hour hotline to connect women with doctors who will prescribe progesterone in accordance with his unapproved treatment. More than 500 women have given birth using his protocol, he said at the event.
“This law effectively forces physicians to lie to their patients.” Molly Duane, a staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights
But experts said Delgado’s research is anecdotal and deeply flawed, and his reversal method may have unrealized medical risks. There is no evidence that his protocol is effective or safe, according to Daniel Grossman, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.
“It hasn’t been studied in a rigorous way at all,” Grossman told HuffPost. “The reports that have been published are incomplete and of very poor quality. They have not been done under the supervision of an ethical review board or an IRB, and it’s really an experimental treatment.” Patients deserve to know if there are any safety risks, he added.
The Latest Frontier For Abortion Restrictions
Anti-abortion groups are focusing on “abortion reversal” bills because medication abortion has become such a popular method, said Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute.
In 2014, medication abortions accounted for nearly a third of all abortions.
“Every single time we do a survey of abortion providers, the proportion of abortion that is medication abortion keeps growing,” Nash said. “Opponents are looking for ways to curtail it.”
Additionally, “abortion reversal” bills are part of a longtime strategy among anti-abortion groups to paint providers as dishonest people who purposely deceive patients, she added.
“They’re trying to make the case that providers are unscrupulous and don’t provide the information that patients need,” Nash said. “But really, it is abortion opponents who rely on flawed and misleading information to push their agenda.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 45 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | ROME — Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini cried victory Saturday morning after police arrested the captain of the migrant transport vessel Sea-Watch 3 for disobeying military orders not to dock at a port in Lampedusa.
Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini cried victory Saturday morning after police arrested the captain of the migrant transporting vessel Sea-Watch 3 for disobeying military orders not to dock at a port in Lampedusa.
The 31-year-old German captain of the NGO ship, Carola Rackete, had been defying Mr Salvini, insisting that she would dock at Lampedusa together with the 42 African migrants she was carrying despite lacking permission to do so.
Salvini has not ceased calling out the renegade captain as a “criminal” and a “pirate”, vowing he would make sure she was brought to justice for her defiance of the Italian state. On Saturday, he tweeted out a video of the arrest with the caption: “Captain Arrested, Vessel Impounded.”
For days Italian security forces “have been defending Italian rule of law and borders, forced into extraordinary measures by a pirate ship and some left-wing MPs (including a former minister) who instead of standing with the law enforcement and Italy have chosen to side with a German NGO,” Salvini said.
Moreover, in attempting to dock her craft, Ms Rackete crushed a patrol boat, the minister noted, while “left-wing MPs applauded the outlaw commander.”
Police cuffed Rackete for disobeying a military vessel, after docking the ship into port without permission. A coastguard boat had sought to prevent her from docking by sailing back and forth between the vessel and the wharf.
As Rackete descended from the vessel, she was met with applause and whistles, with a number of onlookers shouting: “We want to see the handcuffs.”
As pundits noted this week, in reality Ms Rackete was challenging not only the authority of Mr Salvini, but also the president and the parliament of the Italian republic.
According to analyst Giorgio Gandola, Ms Rackete’s interest in the 42 migrants aboard her vessel was marginal, while her true objective was creating an international incident by confronting Mr Salvini and drawing attention to herself.
Rackete had already said that “for me, Lampedusa is the only option,” discarding a priori any other port to disembark her passengers, including Spanish ports that would have shortened her 1400-km journey considerably and an offer from nearby Tunisia to receive the migrants there.
“It is clear that a German NGO vessel flying a Dutch flag, which picks up immigrants in Libyan waters and does not go to Tunisia or to Malta, but heads straight for Italy, disobeying the finance police, the Government, the Navy, everyone, does so for reasons of a political battle,” Mr Salvini said on Twitter.
Follow @tdwilliamsrome | null | 0 | -1 | null | 12 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Now comes the made-up lie from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the Department of Justice that the reason for the new citizenship question on the 2020 census is to enforce the Voting Rights Act. What is shocking and outrageous about the 5-4 Supreme Court decision is that the four conservative justices in the minority were willing to countenance such a blatant lie in order to further a racially motivated power grab by Republicans. That decision should have been 9-0. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | To the editor: The Supreme Court has given politicians license to act undemocratically. “Of all times to abandon the court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan. It will now be open season on gerrymandering. This means instead of voters choosing their leaders, the leaders choose their voters. Five radical conservatives voted “no decision” on an issue at the very basis of our Constitution: democracy. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 5 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | To the editor: What I took away from the Democratic debates was not so much who broke out of the pack or who upstaged whom, but a sense of hope and pride that our system could provide a field of candidates so well qualified for the high office they seek. Most have legislative and/or executive experience that will serve the American people well. They have visions for our country that will help to pull us out of the morass of governing by tweet and foreign policy by whim. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The 1% are going to try during the coming election campaign to panic the citizenry with the dishonest cry that this is Bolshevism. A more just economic system is just common sense. It is good for the economy, because market demand comes from the spending of the 99% and can help businesses, small and large, and grow the middle class. And it is the right and fair thing to do. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 4 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE
A 70-year history proves that the United States doesn't know what it is doing in the Middle East. We can't insert ourselves when we don't understand it.
There are lessons for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from the tragedy that was Muhammad Morsi of Egypt. Specifically, the importance of humility and patience, and the virtue of disengagement.
Egypt was rocked by the Arab Spring in 2011. Long-term strongman Hosni Mubarak was forced out. The Obama administration provided a nudge. True elections were held for the first time.
Morsi was the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. Democratic secularists failed to rally behind a single candidate. Morsi ultimately won a run-off election against a former Mubarak regime official. He became Egypt’s first democratically elected leader.
The Brotherhood, and other similar organizations in the region, are opaque and somewhat inscrutable. They oppose secular autocracy, and so the despots of the region regard them as an enemy and suppress them. The despots have convinced many in the West that they are terrorist organizations.
In reality, the kind of governance such Islamist parties favor is unclear. As is if their commitment to democracy is more than just a temporary means of seizing power.
Morsi was thwarted from the beginning
Egypt is actually ruled by a military junta, which also has extensive economic holdings in the country. From the beginning, they sought to cabin Morsi and snuff out the flowering of democratic governance. The courts, staffed with Mubarak regime holdovers, were particularly active in stifling Morsi.
Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi gestures during a trial session on charges of espionage in Cairo on June 18, 2016. (Photo: Mohamed Hossam, European Pressphoto Agency)
To combat that, Morsi needed to reach out to the Democratic secularists to help staff his government and broaden his base. He also faced an upcoming election, which he would likely lose if he didn’t greatly expand his governing coalition. That would be a test of the Brotherhood’s commitment to democracy and willingness to allow a peaceful transition if they lost.
These were important tests and a point of useful discovery.
But Egyptians, and the world, weren’t to learn the answers. Before Morsi could compete his term, he was ousted by a military coup in 2013.
A return to autocracy in Egypt
Initially, the military, led by current strongman Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, conned some in the West by claiming that they were acting to save democratic reform from Morsi and the Brotherhood’s predations. No one believes that anymore.
Flying blind:: On Donald Trump's foreign policy, there is no method to his apparent madness
Last week, Morsi died, supposedly of a heart attack, in a courtroom. He had been on trial for six years for mostly trumped up charges. Meanwhile, charges against Mubarak were dropped and he is now living a peaceful retirement.
There is no reason to assume that Morsi would have flunked the tests he faced. In Tunisia, after the toppling of an autocrat, an Islamist party won the first election. It lost the second and participated willingly and peacefully in a transition of power. Tunisia is shaky, but it is the only democratic remnant left from the Arab Spring.
After the coup, the U.S. momentarily suspended aid to Egypt, but quickly restored it. So, the United States is once again complicit in the suppression of the Egyptian people.
When will Americans learn?
Candidate Donald Trump seemed disinclined to get involved in the snake pit of Middle Eastern geopolitics, other than to pledge eternal love and support for Israel. But President Donald Trump has bought fully into the neoconservative view that combating and containing Iran needs to be the orienting objective of an active U.S. role in the region. And now the United States seems to be a misstep or a miscalculation away from a shooting war with Iran.
On the cusp of war: Trump is wrong about Iran. He needs approval from Congress for a military strike.
And Trump wants to become the latest American president to fail to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
There is now a 70-year history that should prove incontrovertibly that we don’t know what we are doing in the Middle East. We cannot with confidence say that our actions will cause more good than harm.
Other than Israel, there are no good guys in the region. However, it is not in our interest to be the guarantor of Israel’s security. And it is certainly not in our interest to get so deeply involved in the squabbles between the bad guys.
The United States would know how to deal with a Middle East populated with democratic governments. But we don’t know how to maneuver between the region’s autocrats. And we don’t know how to provide a helping hand to a democratic transition.
The tragedy of Muhammad Morsi should be a haunting reminder that we don’t know what the consequences of a U.S. nudge in the region might be.
Robert Robb is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, where this column originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @RJRobb.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to [email protected].
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/29/muhammad-morsi-tragedy-egypt-lesson-us-foreign-policy-column/1596190001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 59 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | After two nights, and four hours, of Democratic debates, it is now up to the pundits and spin doctors to convince Americans – the majority of whom did not watch the debates – which candidates won or lost.
Harris attacks Biden's record on race in Democratic debate's key moment Read more
Clearly, this was not your parents’ Democratic party. The stars of both debates were largely “non-traditional” candidates – women and ethnic and sexual minorities. The first debate was won by Elizabeth Warren, who combined facts with passion. There were also breakout performances by Julián Castro and Cory Booker. The second debate was won, hands down, by Kamala Harris, with strong performances by Pete Buttigieg and Kirsten Gillibrand. We also saw (older) white men boast about their parenting, and a non-white woman and a gay man leverage their military experience.
Still, there was some traditional gendered behavior too. There was a lot of interrupting and shouting over each other – predominantly, but not exclusively, by older white men. More than half an hour of the combined four hours of debate was wasted on mediocre white guys who poll less than one percent, and I’m not even counting the time wasted by moderator Chuck Todd pontificating rather than asking questions.
The clear losers on stage were “traditional” candidates – white men again – most notably Beto O’Rourke and Joe Biden. The main loser off stage was NBC News – not just for an embarrassing technical glitch with the microphones in the first debate, but also for the format of the debates. Together with the Democratic National Committee, NBC decided to invite far too many candidates and divide them by lot rather than support in the polls.
This mainly hurt Warren, who ended up in Wednesday’s second-tier debate, in which the candidates represented less than 25% of the Democratic vote in current polls (most of that support is for Warren). This denied her the opportunity to face her key opponents, Biden and Sanders, head-on.
That said, the large field also had some positive side-effects. It provided comic relief (Marianne Williamson), put climate change front and center in the first debate (Jay Inslee), and, thanks to Eric Swalwell, introduced the slogan – “pass the torch” - that will haunt Biden throughout the campaign.
Moreover, somewhat paradoxically, having 20 candidates made the Democratic party look less divided than the three (really two) candidates in 2016. Rather than being ideologically divided, let alone polarized, the Democratic party today is fragmented – devoid of a clear leader.
Partly for that reason, there was another unofficial, offstage winner: the Republican party, and Trump in particular. The debates saw Trump’s main challengers falter (Biden) or fade (Sanders), the second-tier perform strongly (Warren, Harris, Buttigieg), and some new challengers emerge (notably Castro and Booker). This increases the chances for a long, internally divisive, Democratic primary – allowing the Republican party to look stable and united in contrast as well as benefit from free opposition research as the Democratic candidates try to tear each other down.
The debates also gave disproportionate attention to the plight of non-Americans, notably asylum seekers at the southern border and undocumented immigrants throughout the country. While this is understandable and even morally admirable, given the Trump administration’s inhumane immigration policies and the salience of the issue at this moment, it provides an easy opening for Republicans.
Rather than being ideologically divided, let alone polarized, the Democratic party today is fragmented
This was only made worse by the moderators’ fondness for stupid “raise your hand” polls, like the one which asked candidates to raise their hands if their preferred healthcare system would cover undocumented immigrants. All did, and within seconds the internet exploded with rightwing pundits claiming that this proved Democrats care more about “aliens” than Americans. One of the people to weigh in, of course, was President Trump, who breezily tweeted: “All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!”
The other reason Republicans are probably pleased with the Democratic debates is that, except for healthcare, very few topics were seriously discussed that could challenge Republicans in the heartland or mobilize Democratic voters outside of the traditional progressive base. The debate barely touched on the opioid crisis, for example, and the issue was largely reduced to punishment of big pharma rather than discussion of how to help addicts and their families. It is depressing to see the Democratic party once again ignoring this clearly progressive issue, which affects almost half of all Americans in a personal way.
There was also no serious discussion of America’s crumbling infrastructure - a particularly ripe issue for big-government Democrats like Sanders and a huge missed opportunity, given that it is an election promise on which Trump has clearly failed to deliver. More generally, neither moderators nor candidates really addressed the broader issue of work, from the threat of automation (only Andrew Yang) through the highly salient issue of minimum wage to the explosion of the precariat in the wake of the Great Recession.
Finally, with the exception of Ohio congressman Tim Ryan’s pseudo-populist appeal to Trump voters in the rust belt, there was no discussion of the ever-growing urban-rural divide and the plight of rural America. Republicans will undoubtedly exploit this by continuing to accuse the Democrats of being the party of coastal elites and minorities, while presenting themselves as the voice of the implicitly white “real America”.
If the Democrats want to defeat Trump in 2020, they need to expand beyond relatively narrow progressive causes and start planning their messaging for the general election. Nothing less than the White House is at stake. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 37 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image caption
The Times leads with claims that civil servants are becoming increasingly concerned about Jeremy Corbyn's health. It reports that he may be forced to stand down as Labour leader because he is not "physically or mentally" up to the job. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Donald Trump on Saturday hit back at former President Jimmy Carter, after Carter suggested Trump was an illegitimate president because of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Carter on Friday told a panel event hosted by The Carter Center that Trump “lost the election and was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.”
Trump responded at a press conference at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
“Jimmy Carter, look, he’s a nice man, he was a terrible president,” said Trump.
“He’s a Democrat and it’s a typical talking point,” Trump added. “He’s loyal to the Democrats and I guess you should be, but as everybody now understands, I won not because of Russia, not because of anybody but myself.”
Check out the clip here:
"He's a nice man, he was a terrible president."
Trump says he won the U.S. elections not because of Russia, in response to Carter's recent comments #G20 #G20大阪サミット #G20Summit pic.twitter.com/Nn8gOLUzoN — TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) June 29, 2019
“I went out, I campaigned better, smarter, harder than Hillary Clinton,” added Trump, who said he was “surprised” that Carter would make such a statement.
Former special counsel Robert Mueller found in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible Trump campaign collusion that the Kremlin had systematically attempted to boost Trump’s candidacy.
Carter on Friday also called the Trump administration’s immigration policies “a disgrace to the United States.” “Every day we send a disgraceful signal around the world, that this is what the president of the United States government stands for,” he said. “And that is torture and kidnapping of little children, separation from their parents and deprivation of those who are incarcerated.”
Watch Trump’s full press conference here:
Pres. Trump holds a press conference following the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. https://t.co/usp5PsNsth https://t.co/vuqzI0soAw — ABC News (@ABC) June 29, 2019 | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Trump seizes back the spotlight with Kim Jong Un cliffhanger Presented by
U.S. President Donald Trump, center, walks off with fellow leaders after a family photo session at G-20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, Friday, June 28, 2019. | Kim Kyung-Hoon/Pool Photo via AP
DRIVING THE DAY
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has arrived in Seoul, per poolers Seung Min Kim and Victoria Kim. He dined at Blue House, South Korea’s presidential palace, where he was greeted by President Moon Jae-in, his wife and K-pop sensation Exo, before heading back to his hotel.
The big question, with the usual reality-show drama: Will Trump be able to meet with Kim Jong Un at the DMZ for an impromptu third summit with the repressive North Korean leader? Will he step across the line into North Korea? And what, if anything, can possibly be accomplished? So far, the president has little to show for his nuclear diplomacy with Kim.
Last we heard, North Korea said it had not received an “official proposal” but a meeting “would serve as another meaningful occasion.” Earlier this week, North Korea’s state news agency posted a photo of Kim reading a letter from Trump, which it described as “interesting content." The photo
Victoria’s latest pool report, from Blue House:
“They were greeted on the lawn by members of the K-pop boy band Exo, South Korean foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha and former LPGA champion Se-ri Park at a cocktail reception where wine and orange juice were served. Potus said as he was introduced to the band that they’re ‘Very famous,’ and asked, ‘Where’s Ivanka? ... Ivanka was just talking about them.’ ...
“Asked about his plans to meet with Kim Jong Un at the DMZ tomorrow, he said: ‘We're gonna see. They’re working things out right now.’ He said he’d heard back from North Korea but did not elaborate.”
-- “Potus and Moon entered the tea house for dinner around 8:30 p.m. Per embassy staff, POTUS was joined by Ivaknka, Jared Kushner, Secretaries Pompeo and Mnuchin, Ambassador Harry Harris for the meal, a traditional royal feast with 12 ‘banchan’ or side dishes. On the South Korean side, Pres. Moon was to be joined by foreign minister Kang, national security advisor Chung Eui-Yong and others.” Photo via Seung Min
HE JUST … TWEETED IT OUT? -- @realDonaldTrump: “After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!”
-- The Hill’s Jordan Fabian and Saagar Enjeti: “Asked if he would meet Kim there if the North Korean leader offered to do so, the president said, ‘I might, yeah.’ The Hill delayed publishing news of the trip earlier in the week at the request of the White House, which cited security concerns about publicizing the president’s plans that far in advance.” The Hill
POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Happy Saturday from Blake and Daniel, who are at the wheel today, tomorrow and Monday.
WHAT HAPPENED IN JAPAN -- “Trump announces negotiations with China are ‘back on track,’” by Doug Palmer and Anita Kumar in Osaka, Japan: “President Donald Trump on Saturday stepped back from an escalation of his trade war with China that threatened to damage his 2020 reelection chances. During a 80-minute meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump agreed not to proceed with plans to impose a 25 percent duty on another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods.
“‘We’re holding on tariffs, and they’re going to buy farm product,’ Trump told reporters during a press conference after his meeting with Xi at the annual G-20 leaders summit here in Osaka. ... The United States will keep in place a 25 percent duty on $250 billion of Chinese goods that Trump imposed earlier. It will also give China a list of U.S. products to buy, Trump said.” POLITICO
-- “Trump Allows U.S. Sales to Huawei as Trade Talks Resume,” by WSJ’s Bob Davis, William Mauldin and Lingling Wei in Osaka: “President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a cease-fire in their trade battle, as Mr. Trump said he would allow U.S. firms to sell high-tech equipment to Huawei Technologies Co.” WSJ
-- “A Breakfast Invitation Helps Rebuild a Crown Prince’s Standing,” by NYT’s Peter Baker in Osaka: “Barely a week ago, he was in theory a marked man, fingered by the United Nations as the probable mastermind behind one of the most grisly and sensational murders of recent years. But Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has been wandering around the world stage in Japan the last couple of days hobnobbing with presidents and prime ministers as if he were just another leader deliberating on economics and energy.
“No one is more important to Saudi efforts to rehabilitate their de facto ruler after the bone-saw killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi than President Trump, who joshed around with the crown prince during a summit photo session on Friday and hosted him for a personal breakfast on Saturday morning where he lavished praise on the prince as a reformer opening up his society.” NYT
-- “Trump says he is ‘very angry’ over murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi but again defends Saudi crown prince in the case,” by WaPo’s David Nakamura and Seung Min Kim in Osaka.
-- @kaitlancollins: “When a reporter asks Trump if he will address the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with the Saudi crown prince -- who the CIA concluded ordered his killing -- Trump says, ‘Uh...thank you very much.’”
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2020 WATCH … “Biden tries to stanch the bleeding with full Obama embrace,” by Natasha Korecki in Chicago: “When Joe Biden spoke to a mostly African American audience here Thursday, he was a different person than presidential candidate who was thrashed over the issue of segregation at a nationally televised debate the night before.
“This time, Biden was fiery, concise and clear as he ticked off his work with hometown hero Barack Obama and defended his civil rights record, which came into question after his high-profile clash with Kamala Harris, the only black woman in the Democratic primary. In a more controlled environment, with the help of teleprompters, Biden laid out his record on civil rights in a way that didn’t resonate the night before.
“‘Before I start, I’d like to say something about the debate we had last night. And I heard and I listened to and I respect Senator Harris. We all know that 30 seconds to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange can’t do justice to a lifetime commitment to civil rights,’ Biden said. ‘I want to be clear about my record and position. On racial justice, including busing — I never, never, never ever opposed voluntary busing as a program that senator Harris participated in.’” POLITICO
BACKSTORY -- CHRIS CADELAGO, “Kamala’s attack on Biden was months in the making”: “Kamala Harris’ campaign is spending the next three days trying to extend the best two hours of her political career. Harris’ surprise cross-examination of frontrunner Joe Biden produced the third-biggest fundraising bonanza since her launch. The Democratic senator is working to capitalize ahead of a crucial second quarter fundraising deadline: She blanketed news shows with nearly a dozen TV appearances, and her digital team is pumping out clips and other reminders of her interrogating Biden, hoping that Democratic voters will envision her doing the same thing to Donald Trump. ...
“The debate coincided with a new level of comfort she’s described feeling in recent weeks with opening up about her upbringing and personal life, more than a half-dozen aides and allies told POLITICO, something they’ve been gently urging her to do as a way to forge a connection with many voters who don’t know her. ... Her campaign had spent months fixated on Biden, whose support from black voters has kept him atop all of the early polls. They gamed out several scenarios in which she could use her personal story as a point of contrast with his decades-long record, including over his opposition to busing.” POLITICO
HISTORY LESSON -- “Joe Biden called busing a ‘liberal train wreck.’ Now his stance on school integration is an issue,” by WaPo’s Michael Kranish and Laura Meckler: “Joe Biden walked into a packed school gymnasium in Delaware in the 1970s, facing an angry crowd that urged him to take the toughest possible stance against school busing. As he later wrote in his autobiography, he heard people in the crowd say, ‘There he is. ... Goddam Biden. ... Kill the sonofabitch.’ And these, he wrote, ‘were my voters — working-class Democrats.’
“Fearing that the crowd would turn violent, Biden assured them he strongly opposed busing as a way to integrate schools. As long as schools weren’t deliberately imposing segregation, students shouldn’t be forced to attend school in a different part of town, Biden said. The assurances worked, and Biden won reelection. Now the issue of busing — one of the most contentious of Biden’s long career — has resurfaced in a way that could threaten his presidential bid.” WaPo
CASH DASH -- “Dem debates spark fundraising gusher for breakout stars,” by Maggie Severns and Zach Montellaro: “The Democratic digital fundraising platform ActBlue raised $6.9 million on Thursday alone — the party’s biggest day in more than two months and a sign of fresh energy coursing through 2020 campaigns after this week’s debates. … California Sen. Kamala Harris raised more money on Thursday than any other day since her first-week campaign rally in Oakland, spokeswoman Lily Adams said.
“A campaign aide for Cory Booker said the New Jersey senator brought in more donors Wednesday than on any day except his launch and the last day of the first quarter. And Julián Castro scored a big payday after touting his immigration positions and clashing with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke on Wednesday, raising three times more money than his previous record day, according to the campaign.” POLITICO
-- RECODE’S TEDDY SCHLEIFER: “Can Joe Biden pull off a Barack Obama with Silicon Valley’s wealthiest donors?”
-- From Biden pooler Carla Marinucci at “the spectacular oceanfront Seacliff neighborhood home of attorney Dawn Ross and Doug Hickey, a Silicon Valley executive in the telecom, internet and space tech arena, who for more than a decade has been a major partner in the SF-based venture capital firm of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners”:
“He raised the issue of race, telling the crowd that ‘I got involved in the civil rights movement as a kid,’ and then described what he was a defining moment which he said pushed him to run in the presidential race and related to race issues.”
“Among the attendees: Richard Blum, who co-hosted the event and is the husband of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Silicon Valley insider Wade Randlett and attorney Joe Cotchett, both major Democratic bundler in the Bay Area, and SF publicity guru Lee Houskeeper, who has worked closely with local Democratic politicians including former SF Mayor Willie Brown, current Mayor London Breed and civil rights attorney John Burris.”
DEMS IN DISARRAY -- “‘A betrayal’: Inside the bitter rift between Pelosi and Schumer over border bill,” by WaPo’s Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her colleagues in a private meeting Thursday that she thought she had a deal this week with her longtime ally, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer: She would ensure passage of a more liberal border funding bill in the House, and he would back her up by persuading Democratic senators to fight for it. Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, she was blindsided. Nearly all Senate Democrats voted for a Republican-backed bill that kneecapped the House and marked the most embarrassing defeat for Pelosi in the six months since Democrats took over the chamber.
“‘Schumer destroyed all our leverage on Wednesday by not being able to hold his people,’ said a senior House Democratic aide. Schumer (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, believed Pelosi failed to deliver on a deal of her own. After House moderates revolted Thursday, Democrats had to discard a plan to send the bill back to the Senate before an end-of-month deadline. ‘They’re blaming everyone but themselves,’ said a senior Senate Democratic aide. Contrary to Pelosi’s private assertions, the aide said, House leaders never asked Schumer to withhold votes in the Senate.” WaPo
-- A Senate dem aide emails: “Everyone was on board with the strategy of the Senate passing their bill to have a quick conference. There was never a House Dem request or any agreement to withhold votes in the Senate and they know that.”
YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO LOOK -- The White House has released its annual list of employee salaries.
PLAYBOOK READS
PHOTO DU JOUR: World leaders attend a family photo session at G20 summit on June 28 in Osaka, Japan. | Kim Kyung-Hoon - Pool/Getty Images
THE DON JR. FACTOR: “Donald Trump Jr. Shares, Then Deletes, a Tweet Questioning Kamala Harris’s Race,” by NYT’s Katie Rogers and Maggie Haberman
A HEADLINE THE PRESIDENT WON’T LIKE: “Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China,” by WSJ’s Tripp Mickle and Yoko Kubota: “The $6,000 desktop computer had been the company’s only major device assembled in the U.S.” WSJ
-- FLASHBACK, SEPT. 18, 2018 … @realDonaldTrump: “Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China -- but there is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive. Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now. Exciting! #MAGA”
AT THE BORDER -- “McAleenan Says Arrests of Migrants on Border Expected to Decline by 25 Percent in June,” by NYT’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs: “Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, said on Friday that arrests of migrants at the southwestern border are expected to decline by 25 percent in June. He attributed the drop to Mexico sending security forces to crack down on undocumented immigrants crossing the border and the expansion of a Trump administration policy that forces migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases are processed.
“Mr. McAleenan, meeting with reporters to discuss the final passage of a $4.6 billion emergency border bill, said the decrease from May, when 144,200 migrants were taken into custody — the highest monthly total in 13 years — showed the deployment of the security forces and the policy known as ‘Remain in Mexico’ are successfully deterring migration.” NYT
-- “The Trump Administration Is Readying Plans To Deny Asylum To Central Americans And Speed Up Deportations,” by BuzzFeed’s Hamed Aleaziz: “The Trump administration is readying two policies that could dramatically reshape the immigration system — both within the U.S. and at the border — by speeding up deportations inside the country and denying asylum to immigrants who traveled through Mexico to the southern border, according to multiple sources close to the administration.
“The policies, if implemented, would come in the form of regulatory changes — one an interim final rule and the other a notice — and become the latest in a series of attempts by the Trump administration to not only deter asylum-seekers from reaching the border but to increase deportations of unauthorized immigrants within the U.S.” BuzzFeed
BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- “DeSantis signs election overhaul; civil rights groups prepare lawsuit,” by Gary Fineout in Tallahassee
COMING ATTRACTIONS -- “Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes to Face Trial Next Year on Fraud Charges,” by WSJ’s Abigail Summerville in San Jose: “Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of disgraced blood-testing startup Theranos Inc., will face trial in federal court in August 2020 alongside her former deputy on charges that they lied to doctors and patients about test results and deceived investors about the company’s finances. U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila scheduled the trial for Ms. Holmes and her former deputy, Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani, at a hearing here on Friday. Jury selection will start the week of July 28, 2020. The trial is scheduled to start Aug. 4 and will last about three months, he said.” WSJ
MEDIAWATCH – “Vindicator announces it will stop production,” by WFMJ’s J. Breen Mitchell and Danielle Cotterman: “After more than a century, The Vindicator [of Youngstown, Ohio] will permanently cease production. 144 employees and about 250 carriers will lose their jobs on August 31, 2019, after the papers last publication. According to the Vindicator’s General Manager, Mark Brown, he has been trying to find a buyer for the paper since December 2017. ... The announcement came Friday afternoon, just days after the newspaper marked its 150th anniversary.” WFMJ
-- Colin Wilhelm will be a senior reporter on the Hill team for Bloomberg Tax. He most recently was an economic policy reporter at the Washington Examiner and is also a POLITICO alum.
CLICKER – “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker -- 13 keepers
GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:
-- “Trump Keeps Talking About the Last Military Standoff With Iran — Here’s What Really Happened,” by ProPublica’s Megan Rose, Robert Faturechi, and T. Christian Miller: “In 2016, 10 sailors were captured by Iran. Trump is making it a political issue. Our investigation shows that it was a Navy failure, and the problems run deep.” ProPublica
-- “The Wild Ride at Babe.Net,” by Allison P. Davis in The Cut: “The Aziz Ansari controversy was just the beginning of the trouble for the website.” The Cut
-- “What Does Putin Really Want?” by Sarah A. Topol in the N.Y. Times Magazine: “Russia is dead set on being a global power. But what looks like grand strategy is often improvisation — amid America’s retreat.” NYT
-- “The 2020 Dems Have Oddly Similar Memoirs. Can You Tell Them Apart?” by POLITICO Magazine’s Katelyn Fossett: “They’re all friends with the working class. They all really admire MLK. So who’s who? A POLITICO quiz.” POLITICO Magazine
-- “The Impossible Dream,” by David Wootton in Lapham’s Quarterly: “How have we come to build a whole culture around a futile, self-defeating enterprise: the pursuit of happiness?” Lapham’s Quarterly (hat tip: ALDaily.com)
-- “When Myspace Was King, Employees Abused a Tool Called ‘Overlord’ to Spy on Users,” by Vice’s Joseph Cox: “Several employees were caught abusing the tool, which let them read users’ messages and passwords.” Vice
-- “Cain and Abel and Oil,” by Ian Frisch in NYMag – per Longreads.com’s description: “This might strike you as a wildly self-serving theory: that the epic rift tearing apart this preposterously wealthy family was the fault not of the lifelong ne’er-do-well, who’d spent four decades partying his way through a family fortune, but of his outwardly much more responsible and sober brother, who had run the family business for over a decade. More than that: that the responsible, sober one was actually reckless, vindictive, manipulative, and untrustworthy even with those who knew him best.” NY Mag
-- “The Hidden Cost of GoFundMe Health Care,” by The New Yorker’s Nathan Heller: “When patients turn to crowdfunding for medical costs, whoever has the most heartrending story wins.” The New Yorker
-- “Aggression Detectors,” by ProPublica’s Jack Gillum and Jeff Kao: “The unproven, invasive surveillance technology schools are using to monitor students.” ProPublica
-- “Nicetown,” by Elizabeth Greenspan in Places Journal: “For decades a working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia has struggled to repair the damages inflicted by postwar urban renewal.” Places Journal
-- “King of the Snitches: The Fashion Photographer Who Duped Drug Lords and the DEA,” by Zeke Faux in Bloomberg Businessweek: “Baruch Vega ran a scheme that ensnared Colombian cocaine kingpins and gave him a life of luxury. Then one put a price on his head.” Bloomberg Businessweek (h/t Longform.org)
-- “Can Emmanuel Macron Stem the Populist Tide?” by The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins: “France’s young President is now Europe’s most forceful progressive. But violence at home and the success of right-wing parties throughout the Continent threaten his ambitions.” The New Yorker
PLAYBOOKERS
SPOTTED: Beto O’Rourke on Friday at the Hyatt Regency in Austin.
BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Kristen Ellingboe, comms manager at Alliance for Gun Responsibility
BIRTHDAYS OF THE DAY: Christian Marrone, VP of civil and regulatory affairs at Lockheed Martin and former DHS COS, is 44. What he’s been reading recently: “I just finished reading David McCullough’s ‘The Great Bridge.’ ... [L]ike so many I am in complete awe of the beauty and grandeur of the Brooklyn Bridge. So, it was fascinating to read about the story behind how this icon structure was built in only the way David McCullough can tell it.” Playbook Plus Q&A
-- Jordan Davis, senior adviser for House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans. He’s celebrating by going to tonight’s D.C. United soccer game against Toronto FC -- Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: The Daily Beast’s Hanna Trudo is 3-0 ... Macon Phillips, chief digital officer at CARE, is 41 … Laura Rozen (h/ts Ben Chang) … Cindy Simms ... Andy Duberstein, principal at Sard Verbinnen ... Josh Meyer ... CNN’s Evan Perez (h/ts Tim Burger) ... Carl Forti, political director of American Crossroads super PAC and a founding partner at Black Rock Group, is 47 ... Ben Jarrett ... Jennifer Pett, manager of public affairs and communications at Independent Petroleum Association of America, is 3-0 ... Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) is 76 ... Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) is 75 ... Christina Pearson ... former Solicitor General Don Verrilli, a partner with Munger, Tolles & Olson, is 62 ... POLITICO Playbook’s own Garrett Ross ... Jeff Jones is 59 …Robin Colwell, chief counsel for the comms and technology subcommittee for E&C Republicans … Max Virkus, associate director of legislative affairs at NAFCU, is 31 ...
… Emily Spain, COS for Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) ... ESA’s Kaya Singleton is 32 (h/t Kathryn Lyons) ... Rob Duffey ... Samantha Tartas ... photojournalist Gabriella Demczuk ... Jason Ostrander ... Cathy Rought, VP at BerlinRosen ... Tamera Luzzatto, managing director at Pew Charitable Trusts (h/ts Jon Haber) ... David Wolf ... WaPo’s Danielle Paquette ... Hal Brewster is 36 ... Katie Breen, account supervisor at Havas Formula ... Brian Gabriel ... Amy McDonald ... Amish Shah ... Tom DeVor ... Harry Hartfield … Katie Zirkelbach, principal at Zirkelbach Strategies ... Owen Kilmer … Caroline Eisen ... Jacob Levine ... Kia Motors’ Christopher Wenk is 43. He’s celebrating at the Women’s World Cup in France ... Bobby Watson is 62 ... Eric Washburn ... Ed Black ... Bruce Soll is 62.
THE SHOWS, by @MattMackowiak, filing from Austin:
-- NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) ... Julian Castro … Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, Cornell Belcher, Al Cardenas and Kasie Hunt
-- ABC’s “This Week”: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ... Julian Castro. Panel: Chris Christie, Yvette Simpson, Donna Brazile and Rich Lowry
-- CBS’s “Face the Nation”: Larry Kudlow ... Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Panel: Shannon Pettypiece, Ramesh Ponnuru, Antjuan Seawright and Edward Wong
-- CNN’s “State of the Union”: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) ... Julian Castro. Panel: Jess McIntosh, David Urban, Bakari Sellers and Mary Katharine Ham
-- “Fox News Sunday”: Larry Kudlow … Tom Perez. Panel: Jason Chaffetz, Donna Edwards, Gillian Turner and Juan Williams … “Power Player of the Week”: Archbishop of Washington Wilton Gregory
-- Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) … Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) … Rep. Chuck Fleishmann (R-Tenn.) … Mike Pillsbury
-- Fox News’ “MediaBuzz”: Sara Fischer … Emily Jashinsky … Mo Elleithee ... Sharyl Attkisson … Gayle Trotter … Cathy Areu … Britt McHenry
-- CNN’s “Inside Politics”: Michael Shear, Eliana Johnson, Nia-Malika Henderson and Sahil Kapur (guest host: Manu Raju)
-- CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS”: Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Majid Takht Ravanchi … Panel: Ian Bremmer, Tom Friedman and Sam Vinograd
-- CNN’s “Reliable Sources”: Panel: Katie Rogers, Bianna Golodryga and Frank Bruni … E. Jean Carroll … Elora Mukherjee … Alex Metcalf and Jason Blum
-- Univision’s “Al Punto”: photographer Abraham Pineda … José Miguel Vivanco … Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … Fabian Núñez and Jesús Marquez … Diego Fernández de Cevallos … Chyno Miranda
-- C-SPAN: “The Communicators”: David Chavern and Matthew Schruers … “Newsmakers”: Carrie Severino, questioned by Alex Swoyer and Simone Pathe … “Q&A”: Heather McGhee
-- MSNBC’s “Kasie DC”: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) … Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) … Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) … Julian Castro… Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) … Al Cardenas … Michael Steele … Karine Jean Pierre … Sam Stein … Ken Vogel … Tamara Keith
-- Washington Times’ “Mack on Politics” weekly politics podcast with Matt Mackowiak (download on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or Stitcher or listen at MackOnPoliticsPodcast.com ): Ryan Crocker.
A message from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association: Generic drugs are up to 85% cheaper than brand name medicines and have saved American consumers $1.67 trillion over 10 years. Explore the bipartisan solutions that can be enacted right now to bring more lower-cost generics to patients.
Follow us on Twitter Anna Palmer @apalmerdc
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Follow Us | null | 0 | -1 | null | 113 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The most surprising rationale the 9th Circuit panel gave for lifting the injunctions was that keeping them in place — while court cases slog on — harmed the government more than it harmed the clinics subjected to it. That’s not true. The most dramatic element of the new rule requires recipients of Title X funding to completely separate any abortion services they provide from the other healthcare services they offer — both financially and physically. This is not something the government has required for the last two decades. Health and Human Services had allowed clinics to carry out their Title X services and abortion services in the same locations — with shared waiting rooms, staff, light bills, etc. — as long as the funds were properly pro-rated. Now, clinics will suddenly be forced to overhaul their entire infrastructures, find new space, change their administrative practices. That’s unquestionably harmful. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 8 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Global Fashion Group (GFG) (GFG.DE) raised less than half the sum it had originally targeted in an initial public offering of new shares that drew weak investor demand and ended up being mostly backed by its existing shareholders.
GFG said it placed 40 million new shares at a price of 4.50 euros, raising 180 million euros ($205 million).
Swedish investor Kinnevik (KINVb.ST), which owns 36.8% in GFG, and Germany’s Rocket Internet(RKET.DE), with 20.4%, bought shares worth 60 million euros and 50 million euros respectively.
A further 4 million existing shares were allocated to cover an over-allotment option for banks running the deal. If taken up, proceeds would rise to 198 million euros, GFG said in a statement.
Capital market conditions had weighed on investor sentiment toward the deal, with truck maker Traton (8TRA.DE) and telecom firm Africa Airtel (AAF.L) both slipping in their stock market debuts on Friday.
In a last-ditch effort to salvage the stock market listing, GFG cut the price of its offering on Wednesday to 4.50 euros a share, from an initial price range of 6 to 8 euros.
GFG had extended the offer period to June 28 and sources told Reuters that cancelling the listing had also been discussed.
The sources said investors had expressed scepticism about investing in the company, which focuses on emerging markets in Latin America and Asia, and operates The Iconic, Zalora, Dafiti and Lamoda platforms.
Investors have been shying away from buying assets backed by Rocket, which is known as a fast follower of successful internet companies rather than as an innovator. Most have lost value after listing, one person familiar with the GFG deal said.
GFG shares are due to start trading in Frankfurt on July 2. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 12 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Migrant aid ship captain detained after trying to forcibly dock at Italian port
Carola Rackete, the 32-year-old ship captain from Germany, had been engaged in a standoff with Italian authorities that reignited a fierce debate over the country’s draconian migration laws. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Trump was greeted in South Korea by its president - and one of the country’s most popular K-pop bands.
Trump landed in South Korea Saturday following the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan and said he will visit the heavily-fortified demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea.
But before that, Trump was treated with some K-pop diplomacy. After meeting with President Moon Jae-in at the Blue House, he was greeted by EXO, a pop group whose members gave the president a book.
AS G-20 CONCLUDES, TRUMP TELLS REPORTERS HE 'MAY OR MAY NOT' MEET WITH KIM IN NORTH KOREA
The group also gave a signed copy of their album to White House adviser Ivanka Trump and chatted with the president’s son in law Jared Kushner.
This wasn’t the first time Trump’s daughter met the group. Harry Harris, U.S. ambassador to South Korea, shared a group picture from Saturday, adding that the first time she met the group was during the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
Trump floated the possibility of meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his visit to the DMZ, a trip he unexpectedly announced on Friday.
“After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!” he wrote in a tweet.
TRUMP-XI MEETING AT G-20 'WENT BETTER THAN EXPECTED,' US PRESIDENT SAYS
During a press conference in Japan earlier today, Trump said that he would be “very comfortable” to cross into North Korea after the meeting with Kim, a move which would make him the first U.S. president to cross the border while he’s at the DMZ.
He said his offer to meet Kim was a “feeler” and was a spontaneous plan who recently came up with.
“I just put out a feeler, because I don't know where he is right now, he may not be in North Korea,” Trump told reporters.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“We may be meeting with Chairman Kim. We get along. There’ve been no nuclear tests, no long-range nuclear tests and they returned our hostages,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 18 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE U.S. Customs and Border Protection is opening a new facility for migrants in Yuma, Arizona, near the Mexico border. The 500-person tent will house migrant families and children. (June 28) AP, AP
U.S. Border Patrol officials in Arizona hosted tours Friday of a new facility where detained undocumented migrants will be temporarily housed.
The "soft-sided" facility in Yuma, as it was described by officials, can hold up to 500 people in U.S. Border Patrol custody, according to a press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The tent-like structures are weatherproof and climate-controlled, the press release states.
The $15 million contract for the facility also calls for showers, toilets, sinks and sleeping mats, among other resources. Heating and cooling is also included, along with kitchen and storage facilities, and custodial services.
Yuma Border Patrol hosted tours Friday of its new temporary facility to house migrants. (Photo: Jerry Glaser/U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
Construction on the new facility began June 15 in response to overcrowding at the Border Patrol's current facilities in the Yuma sector.
By May, the number of migrant apprehensions surged to more than 50,000, most from Central America and many traveling as families, agency officials said.
"Temporary facilities like this one were previously opened in Donna and El Paso, Texas to help with the overflow of migrants," states the press release. "They successfully addressed the challenges of providing care for family units in custody."
The Yuma sector can hold around 400 migrants at its processing center and three stations, however, the facilities have been beyond capacity in recent months.
In March, Arizona Border Patrol officials began releasing migrants into the Yuma community to alleviate overcrowding.
Follow Chelsea Curtis on Twitter: @curtis_chels
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/29/yuma-border-patrol-hosts-tours-new-facility-housing-migrants-arizona/1604810001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | If you thought the EU’s demand for £39 billion of British taxpayers’ money was off the scale then be prepared for a shock. There’s a further huge contingent liability to the EU in the event of a Eurozone crisis of hundreds of billions pounds more, that Theresa May agreed to keep us on the hook for and which Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson have not yet commented on.
The secret has been revealed, however, in a new 40-page report written by City banking specialist Bob Lyddon and published by the economic think tank Global Britain. The unpalatable truth that Remainers don’t want to acknowledge – and which you’ll never hear on the BBC or broadcast news channels – is that huge financial liabilities associated with EU membership cannot be avoided without a quick, clean Brexit.
Lyddon has established that a maximum possible liability of €207 billion could be escalated to €441 billion – or even more, if our exit is drawn out into the period of the next EU Multiannual Financial Framework.
The liability would be triggered if there was a renewed Eurozone crisis – which could come at any time and would require a “re-set” or sharing of the costs, via the large and solvent EU member-states borrowing in the named of indedebted states and institutions and paying off their debts.
Not being a member of the Euro currency area is not enough for the United Kingdom to avoid contributing towards the rescue costs even though we will have had no responsibility for any economic decisions. The UK needs to both leave and sever its contractual connections with the EU in order not to be caught up in this “re-set”.
Germany's Centre for European Policy says euro brought a net gain of €2tn (€21,000 per capita) to Germans over 20 years to 2017. But it cost France €3.6tn (€56,000/capita) and Italy €4.3tn (€74,000/capita). Amazing disparities. € undervalued for Ger, o/valued for Fr, It. — Andrew Neil (@afneil) February 26, 2019
Britain’s likely share of such a “re-set” would exceed €200 billion, a horrendous outcome that would set the country back many years in its efforts to escape from austerity. This would be all the more unacceptable considering we voted to leave the EU three years ago, and the best our negotiators have managed is a half-baked Withdrawal Agreement – in reality a new UK-EU treaty that leaves us exposed to risk for at least another twenty years.
Lyddon argues the Eurozone financial system is drinking in the last chance saloon — a saloon that is a hall of mirrors in which each participant appears solvent only because it accounts for its claims on the other participants at face value.
Behind this nightmare façade lies a black hole of €1 trillion – the financial hangover built up over twenty years from banks and investors acquiring assets in the “Club Med” countries and Ireland for far more than they are worth now after the financial crisis trashed a wide range of asset values.
The apparent recovery of the Eurozone since 2012/13 is an illusion, kept up by the ECB and the other Eurozone national central banks buying up government bonds in trillions, reducing yields, and enabling Eurozone governments to issue new debt at subsidised rates of interest — and flooding financial markets with cheap money.
In turn this enables bankrupt borrowers – known in financial parlance as “zombies” – to remain alive, and for lenders to these “zombies” to rank their loans as “Performing” even though the borrower cannot repay the capital or sustain a rise in interest rates.
This turns the lenders into zombies themselves, kept animate by European Central Bank money and creative accounting. Lending banks continue to be allowed to under-assess the risks in their businesses via “Internal Risk-Based” methodologies, and in turn to claim that they are well-capitalised when they are not. Non-Performing Loans are either massaged back into “Performing” status without borrowers paying any debt service, or are sold off in bogus securitisations where the bank continues to carry a high risk of loss.
#LeaveEU Ambassador Jim Mellon backs @BorisJohnson & Gove on Eurozone concerns. Thanks to ImaginExit for the videohttps://t.co/5Nk1Pm97Ka — Leave.EU (@LeaveEUOfficial) June 6, 2016
Financial markets recognise and admit implicitly the size of the problems in the Eurozone’s banks by valuing bank shares at a considerable discount to their book value, while the European Central Bank’s supervision department has quantified bad loans as being 3.6 per cent of all loans that banks still hold on their balance sheet: both these indicators point towards a Eurozone-wide “black hole” of €1 trillion.
Lyddon points out that a meltdown could be triggered in any number of ways, but the “longstop” is a realisation in 2020/2021 – only a few months away – that it is economically and politically impossible to achieve compliance with the EU Fiscal Stability Treaty by 2030.
Not only Greece, Italy and Portugal, but Cyprus, Spain, France and Belgium have Debt-to-GDP ratios over 90 per cent, and only Greece’s ratio is falling. Failure to hit the Treaty targets will underline that the Euro is not really a single currency and that the countries using it are diverging economically rather than converging, as they should be.
Only a transfer of debt from the shoulders of these countries onto those of the stronger ones to achieve a consistent 87 per cent Debt-to-GDP ratio across the Eurozone and EU can avoid the crisis. The amount of debt to be transferred is again on the order of €1 trillion.
Because the UK remains tied into the Eurozone institutions – and is expected to do so under the Withdrawal Agreement – it will be called upon to help balance the books. The UK needs urgently to distance itself from involvement and the way to do that is to leave the EU as soon as possible and without a “deal”.
The mainstream media’s aversion to these unpalatable truths aside, the important question for now is, “What do Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson say to Eurozone contingent liabilities?”
Support for the Withdrawal Agreement meant supporting the UK being on the hook for a huge share of contingent liabilities – and that’s what Hunt and then latterly Johnson signed up to when they voted for May’s deal in Parliament.
Do they still support it now? In terms of scale, cost and importance to the UK’s economic future this issue is far bigger than the backstop.
Surely one of the candidates for Prime Minister must recognise that the UK cannot be left in a position where we could be liable for hundreds of billions of debt that we had no part in creating and sustaining?
Brian Monteith is a Member of the European Parliament for the Brexit Party | null | 0 | -1 | null | 35 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | When Sydney Chaffee was named the winner of the 2017 National Teacher of the Year award, fellow educators and advocates warned her that because she taught in a charter school, other teachers might not feel like she represented them.
After all, charter schools are often accused of siphoning resources away from traditional public schools and cherry-picking students.
She recalls one time, after giving a talk about the importance of social justice in education, an audience member asked: If you believe in these causes, then why do you work in a charter?
While Chaffee thinks of teaching as inherently political, she never viewed her choice to work in a charter as a political statement ― she went to work and graded papers, planned lessons and mentored students like everyone else. But suddenly her life choices were under scrutiny, especially from those with similar belief systems.
In recent years and even more so in the lead-up to the 2020 election, charter schools have become a political talking point, especially in progressive and Democratic circles. Many charter school educators, like Chaffee, are also progressive. But as the election cycle ramps up, they are watching from the sidelines as their livelihoods have become more politicized.
HuffPost spoke to over a dozen left-leaning charter school educators and advocates to hear how it feels to be under scrutiny from fellow Democrats. Some teachers said they’re paying close attention to Democratic candidates’ rhetoric on this issue and will remember politicians’ specific stances when they go to the ballot box. But others are happy to see their employers under fire and expressed ambivalence about their own involvement in education reform causes. Most started working at charters by happenstance and got into education for reasons of social and racial justice ― some of the same reasons the charter school sector is under scrutiny.
Charter schools, a type of public school that is privately managed, include small nonprofit institutions and large for-profit chains. While they have been controversial since the first one opened in 1992, for many years they were able to retain a rare bipartisan sheen, gaining the endorsement of Democrats like President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and Republicans like George W. Bush.
But the sheen has started to fade among both Democratic voters and politicians. Polls from pro-charter groups show that support for charter schools among white Democrats has plummeted, though it has held steady for black and Hispanic Democrats.
So far in the 2020 cycle, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has offered an education plan that specifically targets charters, calling for a moratorium on their expansion and a ban on for-profit ones. Other front-runners like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Vice President Joe Biden have also offered measured criticism, attacking for-profit charter schools ― which only represent about 15% of the sector ― and in Biden’s case saying that these schools take resources from traditional schools. In general, around 6% of all public school students in the country attend charter schools, and they are disproportionately black and Hispanic.
Reuters Sydney Chaffee (center) being honored by President Donald Trump after winning the 2017 National Teacher of the Year award.
Twelve years ago, when Chaffee signed up to work in a charter school fresh out of graduate school, she didn’t even quite understand what it meant. She just knew she liked the Boston-based high school and its kids, and thought she could make a difference as a humanities teacher incorporating issues of social justice into her curriculum. But after serving as teacher of the year ― which required her to travel and act as a spokesperson for the profession ― she’s not surprised by the current discourse. She’s become experienced in finding common ground with other educators and advocates ― even those who may treat her with initial wariness ― and tells them that, for her, it’s less about the type of school you work in than the work you do in that school.
Now, she’s looking for a presidential candidate who will approach issues of education with the same degree of subtlety. She is most interested in candidates’ overall plans for education ― as opposed to their specific takes on charters ― and is watching their willingness to engage with parents and teachers.
“This conversation gets framed in really divisive ways … [as if] you have to be one camp or the other. If you support charters you must not support traditional public education, if you work at a charter you must be anti-union. It’s so much more nuanced than that,” said Chaffee, a ninth grade humanities teacher in Boston’s Codman Academy Charter School.
The conversation has only become more divisive. Since 2017, President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ support of charter schools has further painted charters as a conservative issue. At the same time, teachers unions ― long critical of charters, which are rarely unionized ― have seen a bump in influence. Even Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a presidential hopeful who has championed charters throughout his political career, has started to distance himself from the cause.
While Chaffee is optimistic about finding common ground with critics, seventh grade teacher Lucas Lyons is not so sure he disagrees with all the judgment. Lyons is a teacher at KIPP Infinity Middle School in New York City. He also attended a KIPP middle school as a student.
He believes a national conversation about the flaws of charter schools is overdue.
Back when Lyons was a student at KIPP ― one of the largest nonprofit charter school chains in the country ― rules were strict, pressure was high, and test scores were paramount. The school was constructed out of the “no excuses” model, which emphasizes harsh discipline and academic rigor above all else. The model is still a mainstay in many charters.
But for Lyons, the militant nature of the school ― which primarily served students of color ― felt discriminatory, even as teachers actively avoided the topic of race. Later, as Lyons went on to attend a predominantly white high school and college, he struggled with forging a sense of identity as a black man.
It’s not so much about taking from one and giving to the other. It’s about making sure everybody has. Abdul Wright, Minnesota’s 2016 teacher of the year
“I would be 100% down with KIPP’s mission if it did a better job focusing on the issue of race and deconstructing what it is to be black in this country so our children can have a voice and can advocate for themselves,” said Lyons, the school’s seventh-grade learning specialist and grade-level dean who takes pains to discuss race with his students.
Lyons never thought he would become a teacher ― let alone work for KIPP. Some of his friends question him about his decision. And while KIPP has taken active steps to incorporate anti-racism work, Lyons still feels unsure of his place in the organization. He tries to make change from the inside, but in explaining his conflict, he quotes well-known author and poet Audre Lorde: “Master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
So when people like Bernie Sanders call for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools while the impact of these schools is studied, Lyons isn’t sure he’s entirely opposed. There are a lot of bad charter schools out there that have opened quickly and without proper oversight, he concedes. But there are a lot of good ones too that specifically serve black children, and serve them well.
“As far as a moratorium goes, I’m not sure,” said Lyons. “I don’t think completely stopping is helpful ― it’s kind of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Some are doing well compared to others.”
Educators like Abdul Wright, the winner of Minnesota’s 2016 Teacher of the Year award, find Sanders’ framing of the issue utterly baffling. Sanders has presented the issue as one of racial justice, noting that the NAACP previously called for a moratorium on the expansion of these schools. Wright is in his eighth year of teaching at a charter school in Minneapolis that specifically preaches empowerment for students of color. Wright, who is black and from Chicago, got into education to give back to kids who are facing the same struggles he did, having grown up in a low-income family and surrounded by violence.
He says he sees a lot of unfair generalizations about charters ― and has a particular grievance with the idea that they’re racially segregated, saying it’s not a “charter thing, it’s system thing.” (Notably, Sanders’ education plan also includes provisions that would help decrease segregation in traditional public schools.)
To Wright, the whole debate seems circular. Candidates claim that charter schools are taking away resources from traditional public schools. So is the solution to then take away from charter school kids? Either way, someone loses.
“They are painting a picture that doesn’t articulate the real message that needs to be communicated in education. It’s not so much about taking from one and giving to the other. It’s about making sure everybody has,” says Wright, who teaches eighth grade English language arts.
But when push comes to shove, even if this issue becomes more visible, he doesn’t expect teachers to have much of a say in the matter.
“We’re the tokens, we’re in pictures. But we don’t get to influence policy,” he says. “And we should have a seat at that table.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 70 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2018. His self-aggrandizing vision from 1996 has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Mandel Ngan/Getty Images
I don’t remember exactly when I first saw the photo. I just know it was when Donald Trump wasn’t yet president—that’s why it was still funny. The Republican nominee had been photographed in a three-piece white suit, his arm around his 14-year-old daughter Ivanka, who is bizarrely stroking his face, and the two of them are both perched, somehow, on a sculpture that looks like it depicts two parrots having sex.
The parrots are not, in fact, having sex, as Slate’s Matthew Dessem discovered. There are actually three parrots in the sculpture, and none of them are in flagrante delicto—it just looks like they are because of the angle. This is, if anything, weirder: If the parrots aren’t having sex, how strange that a photograph of Trump and his teenage daughter was taken from an angle that made it look like they were sitting next to copulating birds. Did no one notice?
For as long as I’ve been obsessed with this photo, I hadn’t known its exact origin until Thursday’s episode of The Daily. In that episode, E. Jean Carroll, Lisa Birnbach, and Carol Martin discuss Carroll’s alleged assault by Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. Carroll and Birnbach both said the attack occurred when Birnbach was in the midst of interviewing Trump for a magazine story about Mar-a-Lago. That story ran in New York magazine in February 1996, and the opening photo is the one of Trump with Ivanka perched atop the parrots. The caption reads: “A personal moment: Donald with his daughter Ivanka, poolside. You’re welcome to join them.”
The odd image fits perfectly with Birnbach’s story, which also includes a photo of a landscaped, silvery-gold Mar-a-Lago fire hydrant (caption: “All that glitters”). Trump had recently transformed Mar-a-Lago from a private estate to a pricey golf club, where one of the perks of membership was proximity to the Trump family. The piece is structured as a near-verbatim transcript of Trump leading Birnbach on an elaborate tour, one in which the future president appears to be in on the joke. Yes, we may mock his parrot sculpture, but that’s the price he’s willing to pay for free publicity. And New York magazine was certainly willing to play along. The subhead of Birnbach’s story: “Donald Trump spends the weekend with our lucky reporter inside Palm Beach’s Mar-a-Lago Club, his first-classiest, best-people-iest, most-exclusive (and yet unrestricted) vacation home–cum–not quite hotel.” In 1996, if not today, these Trumpian superlatives surely read as a harmless way for a magazine to mock its bombastic subject.
Reading Birnbach’s story, and time-warping back to 1996, helped me contextualize the essay that Carroll published in New York last week.
The rest of the piece offers up more of the same, and all of it reads eerily now. After Trump jokes that a top golfer will play at his club, his PR guy adds that observers will be moved to say that the player “hit it almost as good as Trump.” (No wonder Trump has delusions about his golf skills.) In another section, Trump goes on a familiarly nonsensical self-aggrandizing rant: “I deal with architects all the time. They have zero talent. I can draw better than they can. And you know, drawing is an important part of being an architect, in my opinion.” What is he talking about? He doesn’t really know himself—when Birnbach asks him why the corners of Mar-a-Lago’s pool and tennis courts are cut off, Trump says these are chaffered corners, going as far as spelling the word for her. Trump was wrong about this—it’s actually chamfered, Birnbach clarifies. But the real point is to laugh and fantasize with this silly guy who is pouring ungodly amounts of money into making his club (memberships started at $25,000 but by November 1996 had jumped to $75,000) as “gorgeous” and “perfect” as possible. “There’s never been anything like it. There never will. You could never do it again,” he explains.
Reading Birnbach’s story, and time-warping back to 1996, helped me contextualize the essay that Carroll published in New York last week. When I first read her piece, I was taken aback by her admission that she’d been worried that she would “mak[e] him more popular by revealing what he did.” I initially thought that she was referring to Trump’s victory in 2016, which came after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape—a sequence of events that suggests that his voters are willing to excuse if not embrace the president’s willingness to have his way with women. But upon reflection, I think Carroll is saying that her description of what happened at Bergdorf’s—Trump forcing himself on her in a dressing room—would make him seem “lusty” and “powerful.” As Birnbach’s profile shows, that’s exactly the persona Trump has sought to craft for himself. It’s an image of a cartoonish (and cartoonishly successful) man who gets whatever he wants, a self-aggrandizing vision that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. What’s jarring to admit is that the man Carroll encountered at Bergdorf’s was desirable—she writes that “perhaps it is the dusky light but he looks prettier than ever.” For Carroll, shopping with Trump for a gift for another woman genuinely seemed like a fun game. He was flirting, and she was flirting back, because that’s how you were supposed to interact with the rich and powerful but also kind of ridiculous Donald Trump of 1996.
The line between 1996 Trump and 2019 Trump is certainly not straight. But it is clear. Trump is still as addicted to hyperbole as he was two decades ago, and still as obsessed with the notion that everything he touches is unparalleled in its greatness. In 1996, he presided over a golf club. In 2019, he’s lording over the United States. In the past 20-plus years, he’s gone from being defined by his charm to being defined by his anger. He’s no longer in on the joke. It’s disturbing to remember that not so long ago, we were all in on it together, at the expense of women like E. Jean Carroll. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 47 |
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From Mueller, to Harvard, to Democratic Debates, our readers react to recent headlines.
Mueller will challenge 'no collusion' claim
Letter to the editor:
In his statement on Russian interference during the 2016 election, special counsel Robert Mueller said he “would not go beyond our report.” Now, he will testify before Congress on July 17.
Although the report states the investigation didn’t find evidence of conspiracy from the Trump campaign, Russian interference was seemingly rampant. As reported by The New York Times, 140 contacts existed between Trump’s team, Russians and WikiLeaks.
Mueller speaks on report (Photo: Dave Granlund/ PoliticalCartoons.com)
Among the possible obstructions of justice, one stands out: Donald Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller. In 2017, Trump allegedly called then-White House counsel Don McGahn and “directed him to have the special counsel removed,” according to Mueller’s report. Trump denied the account, suggesting McGahn lied under oath.
Mueller’s testimony may not be the silver bullet Democrats want, but it will shoot holes in the false narrative of “no collusion, no obstruction.”
Jim Paladino; Tampa, Fla.
Harvard revokes Kashuv acceptance, prompts debate
Harvard University revoked former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Kyle Kashuv’s admission on the basis of past racial slurs made online.
Letter to the editor:
In Larry Strauss’ June 20 column, “Harvard should have stuck with Kashuv. We can’t educate only students who need us least,” he suggests Harvard is a lower quality university because of its rescission. His premise is off-base. It isn’t Harvard’s job to teach basic morality, just as it isn’t its job to teach basic arithmetic. When my children attend college, I expect they will be among peers with basic morals and prosocial skills, much like I expect their classmates will be able to read and write. A racial bigot doesn’t deserve to learn how to treat people of color with human dignity on my children’s time.
Harvard passed the test: Harvard right to dump Kyle Kashuv for racist remarks: Today's talker
Harvard doesn’t owe Kashuv anything, nor do his peers of color. It’s a ruthless oversimplification to make this into an acceptance of different values.
Corinne Fiagome; Mansfield, Texas
Letter to the editor:
Originally I considered both sides of the matter, until I read Strauss’ article. As an educator, I agree with his closing statement, that by rescinding Kashuv’s admission, Harvard isn’t among the world’s best educators. How do we educate someone if we turn people away?
Parkland survivor and gun rights supporter Kyle Kashuv said that his Harvard University acceptance had been revoked on June 17, 2019 on the basis of racial slurs. (Photo: Michael Conroy, AP)
Those on the correct path don’t need the same help that a brilliant Harvard educator could offer.
College is more than just what we learn intellectually. This young man needed the chance to grow in other ways, and Harvard has robbed him of that opportunity. I, too, find it a shame.
Suretta Bronstein Must; Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
Slavery built America: Pay reparations
Letters to the Editor:
America was built on slavery. It helped create the white middle class, as companies profited off the slave trade.
Yet it’s clear that Republican leadership, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is against reparations for the atrocities perpetrated on descendants, some of whom are their constituents. Although no living white person is responsible for slavery, they all have benefited, just as all living black people wear the scars of slavery.
Sen. Cory Booker spoke before Congress about slavery reparations on June 19, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Yehyun Kim, USAT)
By dismissing reparations, Republicans show they don’t intend to be on the right side of history. As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”
William J. Booker; University Park, Ill.
Reparations debate: We need a debate over reparations until inequality is no longer with us: Today's talker
Letter to the editor:
Questions remain about reparations. First, will future generations of slave descendants receive reparations? If not, why? Is it only the current generation of living slave descendants who will receive reparation? Do our leaders think money will magically fix the long-lasting handicaps that have been put on African Americans?
Reparations key to ending inequality?: How to shrink the wealth gap for minorities and everyone else while we study reparations
Second, thousands of Union soldiers, of various backgrounds, died in order to end slavery. With so many soldiers from the North dying, in addition to those suffering from postwar casualties and diseases, families were struck with economic challenges. Should their descendants receive compensation, too?
It’s easy to look at this issue and think money will fix it. There must be a better answer.
Greg Bachmann; Parker, Ariz.
Supreme Court undermines transparency
Letter to the editor:
Monday’s Supreme Court ruling expanded the classification of “confidential,” a bad direction for transparency and accountability. The Freedom of Information Act, which allows people to request government documents, holds public officials accountable.
Supreme Gerrymander (Photo: Pat Bagley/The Salt Lake Tribune/PoliticalCartoons.com)
The ruling increases secrecy through, as Justice Neil Gorsuch writes, “assurance of privacy” for private businesses that give records to the government. The government can keep these documents confidential. For now, public records are open to request, but this ruling may limit their accessibility. This is a step backwards for transparency when Americans are demanding more.
Bill Miller; Las Vegas
Opposing view: Gerrymandering ruling a constitutional victory
Photo of border deaths fuels continued disagreement on immigration policy
Salvadoran migrant Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande near Matamoros, Mexico on Monday.
Letter to the editor:
No one is for open, insecure borders, but we can provide a humane process for these innocent people while they’re vetted, and granted or denied entry.
Mexican authorities seen in Matamoros, Mexico, along the Rio Grande, after the bodies of Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria were found on Monday. (Photo: Julia Le Duc, AP)
I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. I’m an American, a citizen of a country that I believe uplifts people so that we may have the opportunities of freedom. I hope we continue to be a beacon of light, the hope that Martínez sought for his family. Have we become so ungodly that we can’t speak up for what is right? Our inaction did this to migrants. We are the monsters! Our country has reached a moral crossroad. Speak up now!
Latham Staples; La Jolla, Calif.
Letter to the editor:
Desperate people will do desperate things, seen in the gut-wrenching photo. Parents shouldn’t risk their or their children’s lives. As loved ones grieve, let’s hope this doesn’t happen again.
JoAnn Lee Frank; Clearwater, Fla.
Rosa Ramirez shows her late granddaughter's toys from her home in San Martin, El Salvador on June 25, 2019. (Photo: Antonio Valladares, AP)
The importance of the photo: Why we must look at the photo of a drowned migrant father and daughter: Today's talker
Letter to the editor:
I am perplexed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asking President Donald Trump to withhold action on the deportation of illegal immigrants. She has said, “No one is above the law.”
She now appears to do just that. I’m not looking for emotional verbiage; why won’t our leaders follow the laws?
Tom Tyschper; Gilbert, Ariz.
Letter to the editor:
The washed out bodies of father and little daughter face down floating on the banks of the Rio Grande, with empty beer cans littered on the side, speak volumes about the ‘ebbing banks of humanity and compassion on the American side.
Why we published the photo: Photos of drowned father and daughter are gut-wrenching. Why we decided to publish them.
I can visualize drops of tears rolling down from the Statue of Liberty and flooding its pedestal with the iconic inscription that defines the spirit of America. How ironic that the "golden door" inscribed on Lady Liberty has now been replaced by a shut door.
Trump Rape Allegations (Photo: Kevin Siers/The Charlotte Observer/PoliticalCartoons.com)
If letting America be an open sanctuary is not the way to address this humanitarian catastrophe, the least we can do is deal with the migrant issue with a measure of compassion and care.The rest will be a part of the world’s history, perhaps a dark chapter in this unfolding and unprecedented border crisis.
Atul M. Karnik; Woodside, NY
What people want to hear at the first Democratic debates
Tweets to the editor:
I want to know each candidate's plan for doing two things: shutting down the detention centers at the border and reestablishing and enforcing anti-corruption norms in the government.
@MichaelArtz
I'm looking for sound progressive policies and a clear plan to defeat President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
@akobilarov
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Sen. Kamala Harris face off during the second night of the Democratic presidential debate on June 27, 2019 in Miami. (Photo: SAUL LOEB, AFP/Getty Images)
I want to know what unilateral actions a potential president is willing to take to curb climate change, as I don’t trust Congress to move fast enough unless there is a shift in Senate control. I would also like a commitment to take marijuana off Schedule 1 status
@iamScottInman
I'm hoping we narrow the field to 10 candidates or less. Sheesh!
@ThePattyB
Debate hopes: What people want to hear at the first Democratic debates: Readers sound off
Dems 2020 candidate debates (Photo: Dave Granlund/PoliticalCartoons.com)
I want debates to not occur 17 months before the election, but I'm used to never getting my way politically.
@LanceStorm6
I'm looking for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Vice President Joe Biden to stumble in comparison to the brighter stars on stage, so they can finally move out of the way to allow for real change and leadership.
@BetterGop
I am looking forward to hearing actual policy talk from someone other than Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., or Sanders.
@bemusedchunk
To join the conversations about topics on USA TODAY, email [email protected], comment on Facebook, or use #tellusatoday on Twitter.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/29/mueller-testimony-congress-harvard-kashuv-readers-sound-off/1551125001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 81 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The musical stylings of Weird Al Yankovic rarely offer clarity about the state of legislation in Congress.
But Weird Al’s 1984 hit “Eat it” (a parody on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”) was inadvertently invoked this past week to crystallize the conundrum facing House Democrats after the Senate approved a crucial border spending bill 84-8.
HOUSE OKS BORDER BILL AFTER PELOSI REVERSES COURSE
House liberals were either going to hold out against the Senate measure in favor of their own – or accept the Senate bill.
Amid these deliberations, former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, a veteran of such impasses, ambled by the Speaker’s Office late Wednesday afternoon as a coterie of reporters stood watch in the hallway. Lott advised that if he were still running the Senate – where the overwhelming 84-8 vote spoke volumes – there would be only one clear path.
“I’d say ‘Eat it, House,’” Lott said with a laugh.
It’s exactly what they did.
But not without a fiery fight first within the House Democratic Caucus – and one that threatens to keep burning for weeks and months to come.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced a huge challenge as she sought to both assuage the concerns from her left flank and engineer a bill that could actually pass.
The House had approved its own version of the border legislation Tuesday night, 230-195. But the Senate devised a different, more bipartisan piece of legislation. Not as many controls and consequences for those charged with caring for children. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., wrote the measure alongside Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the panel. The committee approved the bill 30-1. The Senate then followed suit with a staggering roll call tally of 84-8.
TRUMP REVIVES ICE RAID THREAT
“The administration opposes what the House is going to do,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We believe they support what we’re going to do.”
The House and Senate were out of alignment, approving competing bills. The front-runner for final passage, though, was fairly evident: The Senate bill secured more than 60 yeas, making it filibuster-proof, while the White House threatened to veto the House measure.
The House still held out hope, engineering a revised bill on Thursday as the plan came back across the Capitol from the Senate.
But the administration wouldn’t budge. McConnell wouldn’t budge. Things looked bleak for the House bill, even as it was apparent the House could approve the Senate version with most Republicans and many Democrats.
But Democrats faced a more immediate problem as the House began a pre-debate on the revamped measure Thursday afternoon. House rules allow members to vote on something called “adopting the previous question.” In short, it’s known as a “PQ.” If the House approves the PQ, things continue as normal. However, if the House defeats the PQ, the minority seizes control of the floor for an hour and gets to call up whatever legislation it wants. The majority rarely loses a PQ vote. The House hasn’t defeated a PQ (thus, turning over the floor to the other side) since 2010. If Republicans defeated the PQ, they would bring up the Senate bill. Losing control of the floor in such a fashion would be a major embarrassment for Democrats. But this was a distinct possibility. There was near unanimity on the GOP side for the Senate plan and dozens of Democrats were prepared to join them.
So, the House Democratic brain trust changed course. Pelosi dashed off a letter to her colleagues.
“The children come first,” wrote Pelosi. “We have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available. Therefore, we will not engage in the same disrespectful behavior that the Senate did in ignoring our priorities. In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill.”
So, the Senate jammed the House. And Pelosi relented because the math simply wasn’t on her side.
The House ultimately moved the Senate package 305-102. Pelosi lost 95 Democrats. But there were 129 Democratic yeas. So, despite the sniping from the liberal wing of the Democratic caucus, Pelosi still marshaled a majority of the majority. But Pelosi couldn’t get to 217 yeas (the magic number in the House right now to pass bills) exclusively on the Democratic side.
That’s the same issue that tormented former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan. They couldn’t quite move some bills with only GOP support when Republicans were in the majority. This was mostly due to protestations from the House Freedom Caucus. So, Boehner and Ryan often turned to the other side for assistance to pass major legislation. Pelosi did the same Thursday.
In a statement, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said “what happened today is unacceptable and we will not forget this betrayal.”
A number of moderate Democrats privately vented their frustrations about the internecine warfare among Democrats. One Democrat said it would be “shameful” and “immoral” not to do “something.” Another moderate Democrat groused about liberals placing a premium on “ideological purity.” One Democrat noted that a yes vote on the more tempered Senate bill was a good vote for moderate and conservative Democrats who face tough races in 2020. After all, members from swing districts are why Democrats won the House.
One senior House Democratic leadership source told Fox News that some liberals will understand why Pelosi did what she did. But the source noted that many far-left Democrats “won’t get it. They’ll keep pushing.” The source said some Democrats will take notice of Pelosi fighting for the original House bill and only losing four Democrats. But the leadership source also suggested that Pelosi should have taken one more run at the issue. Perhaps pass the re-retooled bill, forcing McConnell to flush it back to the House and then accepted the Senate package.
This could be a seminal moment for Democrats. Is their tent big enough to accept both liberals and moderates? This is a distillation of what’s going on nationally in the presidential sweepstakes. Democrats may control the House. But they don’t have the Senate, or the White House. And while the bill may not be perfect, it was the right measure for most Democratic districts. By the same token, a no vote was likely the proper disposition for lawmakers representing the most liberal of districts.
Earlier in the week, Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., was asked if the “perfect was the enemy of the good” in the border bill negotiations.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
“I hate that expression,” said Cardenas. “You don’t want to settle for less than what you’re capable of.”
Many liberal Democrats may agree with Cardenas’s assessment. Otto von Bismarck famously compared passing law to making sausage. And as both Weird Al, Trent Lott and many House Democrats now know, you sometimes just have to eat it. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 67 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright Getty Images Image example Nigeria Presodo Muhammadu Buhari go handover pawa to new ECOWAS Chairmo
ECOWAS leaders gada for Abuja, Nigeria capital for di 55th ordinary meeting to elect new chairman plus chook mouth on top how di sub-region go get dia own common currency.
Di 15-member regional organization bin don set target to get dia own uniform moni for year 2020.
And because of dis ogbonge target, ministers of finance and CBN governors from di region recently meet to prepare di technical framework for di creation of uniform moni and di exchange rate wey dem go use for di sub-region.
For dis meeting wey dey happun so, 13 heads of state and goment go sharparly chook eye for di draft and work wey di finance ministers don do.
Aside di single currency, di leaders dem go elect new chairman for di community.
At di moment na Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari be di current chairmo of di Ecowas authority of heads of state and goment.
Dem go do di election for inside close door.
Anoda tin wey dey top of di agenda for di meeting na di political gbege for Guinea Bissau. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 8 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Donald Trump has dismissed former President Jimmy Carter’s swipe at the legitimacy of his presidency, calling it nothing more than a “Democrat talking point” while offering his own digs at the 94-year-old Carter.
US-China trade talks back on track, says Trump Read more
Speaking to reporters at a press conference at the G20 summit in Japan, Trump said he was surprised by the former president’s comments alleging that Russian interference in the 2016 election was responsible for putting him in the White House.
And he punched back – though with a somewhat muted response, at least for Trump.
“Look, he was a nice man. He was a terrible president. He’s a Democrat. And it’s a typical talking point. He’s loyal to the Democrats. And I guess you should be.”
Trump added: “As everybody now understands, I won not because of Russia, not because of anybody but myself.”
He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf Jimmy Carter
Carter, speaking during a discussion on human rights at a resort in Leesburg, Virginia on Friday, had said there was “no doubt that the Russians did interfere” in 2016.
He also alleged that that interference, “though not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.”
Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3m ballots but won the White House in the electoral college.
The US intelligence community asserted in a 2017 report that Russia worked to help Trump during the election and to undermine Clinton, a finding discussed at length by special counsel Robert Mueller in his report on such Russian efforts, links between the Trump campaign and Moscow and potential obstruction of justice by the president.
But the intelligence agencies did not assess whether that interference had affected the election or contributed to Trump’s victory.
On Friday Trump met Vladimir Putin met at the G20. Trump jokingly raised the issue. Asked if he would tell Putin not to meddle in the 2020 election the US president, without looking at his Russian counterpart, said: “Don’t meddle in the election, please.’” He then repeated the phrase with a mock finger wag.
Trump insisted during his Saturday press conference that he beat Clinton because he worked harder and was smarter. And he claimed that he’d “felt badly” for Carter because of the way he’d “been trashed within his own party.”
“He’s been badly trashed,” said Trump. “He’s like the forgotten president. And I understand why they say that. He was not a good president.”
Carter was the 39th president, in office between 1977, after beating Gerald Ford, and 1981, after losing to Ronald Reagan in a landslide. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 22 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia has released a recording of the state militia commander it says led a failed coup attempt last week in which dozens of people, including five top officials, were killed.
A state militia commanded by Brigadier General Asamnew Tsige attacked government buildings in Bahir Dar, the state capital of Ethiopia’s Amhara region on June 22.
Asamnew, who was killed in a shoot-out on Monday, felt the central government was not doing enough for the Amhara people, who have been embroiled in border disputes with other regions and tit-for-tat killings with other ethnic groups.
The violence on June 22 has been followed by more than 250 arrests, potentially deepening resentment against national authorities in the Horn of Africa nation.
The prime minister’s press office said the recording released on Friday was of a phone conversation between Asamnew and the head of the state-run Amhara Mass Media Agency. Reuters was not able to independently verify its authenticity.
“Don’t be scared. Tell the people the of the region especially (Amhara state capital) Bahir Dar to stay in their homes and also tell the regional security and the militia to remain calm,” the voice identified as Asamnew’s said.
“We have taken measures against the leaders because the regional ruling party leaders have sabotaged the peoples’ demands,” he said.
Amhara, home to Ethiopia’s second largest ethnic group, is controlled by the Amhara Democratic Party, which is part of Ethiopia’s ruling coalition.
Ethnic violence has spiked since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took power in April 2018 and rolled out a series of reforms, unbanning political parties, releasing political prisoners and welcoming home exiled rebel groups.
Loosening the state’s grip has won him applause abroad but has also empowered local powerbrokers who are winning support by demanding more power and resources for their own groups.
On the same night that Asamnew’s forces launched their attacks, the chief of the army staff and another general were killed in a separate attack in the national capital Addis Ababa.
Authorities previously said the two attacks were part of the same plot but on Thursday said a taskforce that includes members of the federal police and national intelligence is investigating whether the two are linked. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 14 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Sen. Kamala pressed former Vice President Joe Biden on his alliances with segregationists and his opposition to busing for desegregation during the Democratic debate. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images 2020 elections Kamala Harris raises $2 million in 24 hours after debate
Sen. Kamala Harris raised $2 million in 24 hours after her first presidential debate, her biggest fundraising day of the campaign, her campaign said Saturday.
Donations flowed to Harris from 63,277 people, nearly 60 percent of which were first-time donors. The average donation was $30. Her previous largest day was $1.5 million after launching.
Story Continued Below
By comparison, former HUD secretary Julián Castro had roughly 16,000 new donors and Sen. Cory Booker had almost 4,000 new donors after their Wednesday debate, their campaigns said Friday.
Harris’ haul comes in the final days of the second fundraising quarter. She also is holding five fundraisers over the weekend in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The California Democrat has invested significantly in her digital infrastructure since rising to the Senate, in large part to diversify her fundraising base but also to capitalize on sudden, viral moments.
Harris’ debate performance in Miami was considered the strongest of both nights. In her memorable exchange with Joe Biden, she pressed the former vice president on his alliances with segregationists and his opposition to busing for desegregation. Castro and Booker also raised their national profiles with high-energy performances.
Within moments of the debate ending, Harris’ campaign was selling T-shirts with a picture of her as a girl in Berkeley, Calif., and the phrase she used in the debate to personalize her own journey attending the second class in her school to integrate.
“That little girl was me,” she said. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 14 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | McKay defeats Chris Minns, winning 63% of the vote of of 11,000 rank-and-file members
More than three months after New South Wales Labor’s bruising state election defeat, the party has regrouped to appoint Jodi McKay its new opposition leader.
State Labor MPs cast their secret votes for the contenders Chris Minns and Jodi McKay, both from the party’s right faction, at a tense meeting on Saturday.
McKay secured 29 votes in the caucus room to Minns’ 21 votes. She also won 63% of the vote of 11,000 rank-and-file members.
Tensions boiled over as MPs cast their votes, amid reports of a row between two members at the count.
It’s the first time the NSW party has elected a leader using the rules former prime minister Kevin Rudd introduced at the federal level in 2013. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 6 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Trump plans an elaborate July 4th party in D.C. Critics say spare us another campaign rally.
Democrats charge the president is politicizing the celebration of a nonpartisan holiday meant to honor the nation. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by diego_cervo/iStock/Getty Images and Ziviani/iStock/Getty Images Plus.
To get advice from Prudie, send questions for publication to [email protected]. (Questions may be edited.) Join the live chat every Monday at noon. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the live discussion. Or call the Dear Prudence podcast voicemail at 401-371-DEAR (3327) to hear your question answered on a future episode of the show.
Dear Prudence,
My boyfriend’s family lives about an hour from us, and he likes to make weekend visits every other month. They are kind, welcoming, generous people. Their house is … not clean. When we open the front door, we are greeted with a wave of the smell of urine. They have a lot of pets in a very small home and rarely clean up. The bathroom floor is covered in cat litter and excrement. One dog pees on the carpet fairly often, and the most I’ve seen anyone do is dab at it with a paper towel. Shelves, dressers, and picture frames have dust an inch thick. Dead bugs are stuck in cobwebs in corners.
I include these details not to shame them, but to illustrate that this is not just a messy house. I am hardly a clean person, and I’ve lived with animals all my life, but this is to a level I haven’t seen before. I have a mild dust allergy, and while my allergy medication helps, I usually spend the entire visit with my eyes and nose running. I dread overnight trips where I’ll be sneezing the entire time and going to sleep on the same musty-smelling, visibly dirty sheets that have been on the guest bed every time we’ve visited over the years. But I worry cleaning up on my own will insult them or seem rude. His mother already gets upset when I try to help her wash dishes or take out the trash.
I feel so ungrateful thinking this when they’ve opened their home to us and treat us so well while we’re there. Is this just something I have to suck up and deal with? Or can I say something to my boyfriend? He’s fairly clean in our own home and has made the occasional joke like “their old gross place” but doesn’t seem bothered by it. I think he can tell something is up with me, because he’s started asking if I don’t like going to his family’s house or if something’s wrong while we’re there (which I’ve just been denying).
—Partner’s Family Makes Me Sick
You definitely do not have to get over this! I understand that you feel self-conscious because your boyfriend’s parents are lovely and you haven’t said anything before, so it would seem a bit arbitrary to raise the issue now. But even if you didn’t have allergies, staying overnight in that house sounds pretty unbearable. This is not a situation where you need to sacrifice honesty for tact. You can have both, but if you need to stress one over the other, choose honesty. Talk to your boyfriend: “I know we’ve only talked tentatively around this before, and I think it’s because we both really love your parents and don’t want to hurt their feelings, but the condition of their house is unhealthy enough that I can’t keep staying there. I’m sorry that I denied it when you asked me what was bothering me before. I just didn’t know how to talk about it. The house is covered in animal waste and dust, and I have a hard time breathing when I’m there. I don’t want to come across as judgmental or harsh, but I won’t be able to stay there overnight anymore. I wanted to talk with you first so we could think about how to talk to them.”
I also think you should talk with your boyfriend about how or when he might feel a duty to intervene more strenuously—the house may be a hazard to their health—and how you two can offer help to his parents without activating their defensiveness. In the meantime, please remind yourself that you’re not being snobby or a passive-aggressive princess who can’t stand a little dirt. The environment you’re describing sounds upsetting, and you’re deeply concerned with the feelings of the people you love. Give yourself permission to tell your boyfriend what’s wrong and ask him for help in figuring out how to kindly but firmly tell his parents you can’t stay with them anymore. I hope they’re able to receive this as a form of love and care rather than of judgment.
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Dear Prudence,
I’m a lesbian who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian community with a very controlling, overprotective family. As a result, I shifted between denial and praying desperately for God to fix me for years. Then I started resigning myself to the idea that my homosexuality was a test from God, but I could still be a good Christian if I never “acted on it.” I started making myself sick and starving myself during this period, and I didn’t get help for years. I’m not proud of any of this, but those beliefs were all I knew for so long. It’s only recently, with a lot of therapy, that I’ve been able to start coming to terms with my sexuality. Coming out over the past few months has been so freeing; it feels like a physical weight has been lifted off of me. At the same time, I feel like I’ve already missed out on so much that I should have done by 21. I don’t even know how to start dating or how to (or even if I should) address my inexperience. Is there a way to say, “Hey, I don’t want to make a big deal of this, but I have about as much romantic/sexual experience as your average 13-year-old, so it would be nice if we could take things slowly” without sending girls running?
—Late-Blooming Lesbian
As an advice columnist, I know I’m supposed to say: Be relaxed and upfront about it, screen women who might be uncomfortable out of your dating pool sooner rather than later, own it, and go forth. And I do think that’s good advice, not least because you are far from alone. I get letters every week from people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond who are coming out for the first time and feel inexperienced and worried that every other gay person has a solid 20 or more years of sexual experiences. I get a lot of these letters from women, so I feel confident in promising you that you are likely to meet other women who didn’t start dating other women as healthy, self-accepting teenagers. I understand that it’s hard to feel pride in the years you spent convinced you were being tested by God, but I hope you can offer your past self the sort of compassion and tenderness that you would offer a friend. That past self is the woman who got you to where you are today. She fought for you, and she survived, and that’s an achievement worthy of respect and admiration. But you shouldn’t feel like you have to apologize for coming out later or prefacing every first date with your deepest insecurities about your unworthiness as a lesbian.
If acknowledging your history feels important to you, then by all means you can work on a basic script: “I’m really looking forward to our date, especially because I feel like I arrived a little late to the dating scene. I grew up in a really religious home and spent a long time trying to come to terms with myself.” This gives your date a sense that you probably don’t have a lot of ex-girlfriends, without making her feel like you’re trying to put all your lesbian hopes for the future on her or making you feel like you’re apologizing when you haven’t done anything wrong. But if you don’t want to bring it up right away, you absolutely don’t have to. I hope you have a lot of wonderful first dates and meet many fantastic women. My guess is that at least some of them will be able to relate to your experience, because my inbox tells me that you’re not alone.
Catch up on this week’s Prudie.
More Advice From How to Do It
I am a fairly happily married 50-year-old man who’s been with my wife for 23 years. I have been obese for most of my life with the exception of the time I was in college, and I became morbidly obese over time, reaching more than 370 pounds. Sex between my wife and me had gone from two to three times per week early in our marriage, before we had children, to about twice per month. I decided something must be done about my weight. I became an active person who runs races, eats totally differently, etc. I am down to 230 pounds with plans to lose more.
I thought this would change things in the bedroom. It has, in some ways: My stamina has improved dramatically, as has my libido. But I expected this would alter my wife’s perception of me and we would have sex more often—I thought my appearance was the problem. That hasn’t happened. Part of it is kids living with us; when we do have sex, it’s always late at night and when we are both very tired. This, combined with my wife getting older and associated hormonal issues, means that we have about a 10-day window where she has any libido, and even then she insists sex should be spontaneous and romantic. I still find her immensely attractive and sexy, even more so now than when we got married. But my concern here is that the lack of regular sex is causing me to maybe become susceptible to temptation. If an opportunity came up, I’m not sure I would have the strength to say no—in fact, I’m almost sure that I wouldn’t. I have found myself being emotionally available to people I shouldn’t be and sort of hoping that they respond. This makes me feel a mixture of guilt, anger, and shame. I don’t want to blow up my marriage over this, and I’ve suggested that we may need to have some couples therapy or just talk in detail about it, but she has refused. She says it’s not her problem, it’s mine, and she says as a guy I should be able to “take care of it,” meaning masturbation. (I might also mention that if she catches me masturbating, she’s furious about it and compares it to being unfaithful.) I’m not sure what to do here. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 91 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (CNN) Houston police arrested five men in a human trafficking investigation for allegedly holding 18 Latin American immigrants for ransom, police said.
The suspects face multiple charges, including engaging in organized crime by kidnapping, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Friday.
The investigation started June 5 after a family told police a relative was being held against his will. Kidnappers were demanding $4,700 for the man's release, in addition to $300 that had been paid to someone in Mexico to help bring him into the country, police said in a criminal complaint.
The kidnappers told the family that the man would be killed if the money was not paid, the complaint said.
Officers responded to where they believed the victim was held, and they arrested several suspects and rescued two victims, Acevedo said.
Read More | null | 0 | -1 | null | 7 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Sign up for the Week in Patriarchy, a newsletter on feminism and sexism sent every Saturday.
‘The world is not yet ready for DeepNude’
Want to see Taylor Swift naked? There’s an app for that. It’s called DeepNude and it uses AI to “undress” photos of women and produce a realistic nude image.
Or rather, there was an app for that: the creators of the horrifying program took it down on Thursday after a Vice article about DeepNude catalyzed widespread outrage. “We created this project for user’s entertainment a few months ago,” the app’s creators tweeted. “We never thought it would become viral and we would not be able to control the traffic. Despite the safety measures adopted (watermarks) if 500,000 people use it, the probability that people will misuse it is too high. The world is not yet ready for DeepNude.”
The world certainly isn’t ready for DeepNude, but we’d better start getting ready. One creator may have had a crisis of conscience and taken his program offline, but apps like this are going to continue to pop up – and they will only grow more sophisticated. Not to mention, DeepNude is far from the only program that lets you create realistic fake nudes. Plenty of women are already being digitally inserted into porn photos or videos without their consent – a problem we’re not talking about nearly enough.
“The harm done to women when it comes to this kind of sexual objectification is happening now,” Mary Anne Franks, president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, told the Huffington Post earlier this year. “It’s almost like people have forgotten that this is what this technology really started out as, and the conversation around women has fallen away.”
In recent months there’s been increasing concern about “deepfake” technology, which allows people to produce realistic-seeming photos or video content. But, as Franks noted, a lot of this discussion has revolved around the implications for politicians and powerful people. It ignores the fact that the motivation behind a lot of this tech is to control and humiliate women. DeepNude, for example, didn’t let you undress dudes; the app was specifically focused on women. When Vice tried to use it on a man it apparently “replaced his pants with a vulva”.
If you become the victim of a deepfake there’s very little you can do; our laws simply haven’t caught up to the technology. It’s also basically impossible to protect yourself from becoming the subject of a deepfake. As Franks told the Huffington Post: “There’s nothing you can really do to protect yourself except not exist online.”
The internet can be an incredibly toxic place for women. According to Amnesty International, 29% of American women have experienced threats of physical or sexual violence online. Amnesty International also found that an abusive or problematic tweet is sent to a woman every 30 seconds, on average, with black women being 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets. Social media platforms have done very little curb to their abuse problem – leading women to censor themselves online or leave social media altogether. The rise of deepfake technology is going to make the internet exponentially more difficult for women. Unless we start taking online misogyny seriously, we are going to face a future where women may not be able to exist online.
Alabama is waging a full on war against women
Marshae Jones, a 27-year-old Alabama woman, was shot in the stomach last year; she lost her five-month-old fetus as a result. On Wednesday, Jones was indicted on a manslaughter charge for the death of her unborn baby. “The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,’’ a police officer said. “She had no choice in being brought unnecessarily into a fight where she was relying on her mother for protection.” Meanwhile, the shooter went free. This case is nothing short of terrifying; it treats women as nothing more than walking wombs. What next? A woman who trips and has a miscarriage gets sent to prison? It’s a very real possibility.
Florida woman arrested for turning in her husband’s guns
A 33-year-old woman from Florida was afraid her husband, who had attempted to run her over, was going to kill her. So she took his guns to the police. The police then promptly arrested with her grand theft of a firearm and armed burglary. Remember when Brian Stelter told women they were being hysterical for saying America was a few steps away from The Handmaid’s Tale? Guess what, Brian? We weren’t.
Two women go on record to corroborate Trump rape allegations
After initially downplaying E Jean Carroll’s account of Trump raping her in the 1990s, the New York Times is now taking it seriously. On Thursday it spoke to two of Carrol’s friends who corroborated her allegations. So, yeah, just a reminder that the most powerful man in the world has credibly been accused of rape and is seemingly not facing any repercussions.
Could cervical cancer be eradicated?
Some good news! Scientists believe that the success of the HPV vaccination means there’s a chance cervical cancer could be eradicated in the next few decades. That’s assuming the anti-vaxxers don’t take over the world, of course.
Praying for a hot Dalai Lama
In 2015 the Dalai Lama told the BBC that a female Dalai Lama would have to be good looking or she wouldn’t be “much use” as nobody would want to see her face. He apparently still holds these views; in an interview with the BBC this week, the 83-year-old reiterated that a female Dalai Lama would have to be attractive. Never thought I’d say this, but I guess the Dalai Lama is cancelled. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 50 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Police received reports of two men in the River Clyde at Bothwell
Police divers have recovered the body of a man from the River Clyde in South Lanarkshire.
Emergency services were alerted to reports of two men in the river near Blantyre Mill in Bothwell at about 22:10 on Friday.
One man managed to get out of the water himself and did not require medical treatment.
A search was launched for the second man. Police divers found the body of a 30-year-old man at about 03:00.
Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious and a report was being sent to the procurator fiscal. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 6 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A guilty verdict in a 32-year-old cold case in Washington state is being hailed as the first of its kind in the nation.
William Talbott II was identified as a suspect in the case last year through DNA and genetic genealogy. No other case like it had ever before gone to trial.
The jury verdict returned Friday in Everett found Talbott guilty of murder in the 1987 deaths of a young couple from Canada, Jay Cook, 20, and Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, who was also raped.
Talbott, 56, appeared stunned when the verdict was announced, Q13 Fox reported.
MURDER CHARGES FILED AGAINST MAN LINKED TO SEATTLE AREA 1987 DOUBLE HOMICIDE THROUGH DNA
“It may have been justice delayed but not justice denied for Tanya and Jay,” said Tanya’s brother, John Van Cuylenborg, the station reported.
Talbott was identified as a suspect after DNA from the crime scene was uploaded to the public genealogy website GEDMatch. The DNA led to two second cousins of Talbott with similar DNA and then to Talbott after a family tree was constructed.
Detectives obtained Talbott’s DNA after they saw him discard a coffee cup. His DNA matched the crime scene DNA, police said.
“This would not have been solved had it not been for the DNA evidence,” said Cook’s sister, Laura Baanstra, the station reported. “The use of GEDMatch, I hope more people will be willing to allow their DNA on websites so this world can be safer.”
MAN ON TRIAL IN KILLINGS ARRESTED THROUGH GENETIC GENEALOGY
Talbott’s lawyers argued that the DNA evidence against their client did not make him a killer, the Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors said the verdict should serve as a warning to other killers, the station reported.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
“Folks aren’t going to get away with murder anymore when we have this information,” prosecutor Adam Cornell said. “If you’re a killer and you’re out there, then this office and other law enforcement around the country may be coming for you.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Osaka, Japan — In a move that will certainly thaw the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, President Trump and China's Xi Jinping agreed to restart trade talks on Saturday at the G20 conference, averting an escalation feared by financial markets, businesses and farmers. "We're going to work with China where we left off," Trump said.
Mr. Trump said existing U.S. tariffs would remain in place against Chinese imports while negotiations continue, but additional tariffs he's threatened to slap on other Chinese goods will not go forward for the "time being."
Mr. Trump spoke after a lengthy meeting with Xi on the margins of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka. The U.S. president pronounced relations with China "right back on track," but doubts persist about the two nations' willingness to compromise on a long-term solution.
The apparent truce continues a pattern for talks between Mr. Trump and Xi, who have more than once professed their friendship and hit pause on protectionist measures, only to see negotiations later break down over contentious details.
Eleven rounds of talks have so far failed to end the standoff. The U.S. has imposed 25% import taxes on $250 billion in Chinese products and is threatening to target another $300 billion — a move that would extend the tariffs to virtually everything China ships to the U.S.
China has lashed back with tariffs on $110 billion in American goods, focusing on agricultural products in a direct and painful shot at Mr. Trump supporters in the U.S. farm belt.
Trump wraps up G20, says he'd be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un
Saturday's meeting between the two leaders was the centerpiece of four days of diplomacy in Asia for Mr. Trump, whose re-election chances have been put at risk by the trade war that has hurt American farmers and battered global markets. Tensions rose after negotiations collapsed last month.
Mr. Trump said the talks with Xi went "probably even better than expected."
Seated across a lengthy table flanked by top aides, both leaders struck a cautiously optimistic tone after they posed for photographs.
"We've had an excellent relationship," Mr. Trump told Xi as the meeting opened, "but we want to do something that will even it up with respect to trade."
Xi, for his part, recounted the era of "ping-pong diplomacy" that helped jump-start U.S.-China relations two generations ago. Since then, he said, "one basic fact remains unchanged: China and the United States both benefit from cooperation and lose in confrontation."
"Cooperation and dialogue are better than friction and confrontation," he added.
China and the U.S. are sparring over the Trump administration's allegations that Beijing steals technology and coerces foreign companies into handing over trade secrets. China denies it engages in such practices. The U.S. has also tried to rally other nations to block Chinese telecom firm Huawei from their upcoming 5G systems, branding the company a national security threat and barring it from buying American technology.
Mr. Trump said Saturday he would allow U.S. companies to sell their products to Huawei, but he was not yet willing to remove the company from a trade blacklist. The move could draw pushback from Democrats and congressional leadership. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | More than half of the young people in the Arab world are looking to leave the area and migrate elsewhere, according to a survey by BBC Arabic and the Arab Barometer.
The survey revealed that an average of 52 per cent of those aged 18 to 29 said that they were looking to migrate abroad. With some countries surveyed the proportion is much higher, such as Morocco, where 70 per cent — more than two-thirds — claiming to be considering emigrating, The Jerusalem Post reports.
Dr Mohammed Masbah, director of the Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis in Rabat, commented on the data saying: “The number itself is alarming and has several components.
“Politically, there is a lack of confidence in the government as youth believe the government cannot solve their problems,” he said, adding: “Socioeconomically, youth unemployment is high; the belief is it will get worse.”
The most sought after destination for migration, according to the BBC, is Europe, followed by North America.
Gallup: More Than 750 Million People Globally Now Wanting to Migrate https://t.co/SzYn1Dq85N — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 10, 2018
While the survey shows a rise in the number of non-religious people in the Arab world, it also suggests more respondents in countries like Morocco and Algeria believe that honour killings are more acceptable than homosexuality.
Experts have previously predicted huge waves of migrants coming to Europe, mainly from Africa, with French-American journalist and professor Stephen Smith claiming that within 30 years Europe could have a population of 150 to 200 million Africans.
In 2017, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declared that Europe had a “clear need” for mass migration from Africa, stating that Europe “will clearly need immigration in the coming decades”.
Globally, the number of people wanting to migrate is thought to be around 750 million, according to research published by Gallup. The research firm found several countries where more than half of the adult population wanted to move abroad, such as Sierra Leone — where 71 per cent said they would like to leave their country.
Europe Needs ‘New Blood’: Spain Expects 50,000 Migrants from North Africa https://t.co/EZbTgGQu4F — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 1, 2018 | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Osaka, Japan (CNN) President Donald Trump said Friday he was "extremely angry and very unhappy" about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but claimed that "nobody has directly pointed a finger" at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite the conclusions of the CIA and a United Nations report.
"I'm extremely angry and unhappy about a thing like that taking place," Trump said when asked by CNN's Jim Acosta about Khashoggi.
Earlier Saturday, during a working breakfast with the prince, Trump brushed off a question about whether he would raise the subject of Khashoggi's murder.
"Uh," Trump said, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sat frowning next to him, "thank you very much."
his own CIA, according to a senior US official and a source familiar with the matter, concluded the Saudi ruler authorized the brutal murder, And despite Trump's claim that "nobody has directly pointed a finger" at bin Salman,his own CIA, according to a senior US official and a source familiar with the matter, concluded the Saudi ruler authorized the brutal murder, CNN reported in November 2018 . A United Nations report released last week also implicated bin Salman.
Read More | null | 0 | -1 | null | 7 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | "I have two groups of people," President Trump told NBC’s "Meet the Press" Sunday. "I have doves, and I have hawks."
News of a planned foray against Iran, which Trump canceled at T-minus 10 minutes, suggests that he is torn between some advisers who recommend restraint and others who advocate aggression. His next move should be a defensive armed action that promises the benefits of these two approaches.
President Trump should stage a flamboyant, Teddy Roosevelt-style show of force. Specifically, he should organize an American-led naval convoy to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. This would provide a deterrent military response to Tehran’s destruction of a $130 million U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk drone over international waters and its suspected attacks against four cargo vessels on May 12 and two more on June 13 — all in the Gulf of Oman. Such a naval convoy would display U.S. power without actually drawing blood. This would be akin to a police department deploying squad cars in a tough neighborhood, but without cops opening fire, which could kill innocents and needlessly prompt criminals to retaliate.
SENATE FAILS TO APPROVE IRAN RESOLUTION, AFTER LONGEST VOTE IN CHAMBER'S HISTORY
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation,” Trump wondered via Twitter on Monday. “All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey. We don’t even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become (by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world!”
Trump is right. The United States should not bear this burden alone. However, as leader of the West and the industrialized world, America should recruit a multinational naval force to help calm the waters that Iran has roiled.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS OPINION PIECE IN NATIONAL REVIEW
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY DEROY MURDOCK | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)! | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Obama was dishonest while empowering Iran. President Trump is incoherent while squeezing Iran. Obviously, the latter is better. But can it work in the long term?
Trump wisely renounced Obama’s non-binding nuclear deal with the mullahs, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Even if its murky terms were followed, the JCPOA would put Iran on a glide path toward becoming a nuclear-weapons power. Besides permitting the regime to continue enriching uranium and operating advanced centrifuges, the JCPOA infused Tehran with desperately needed funding (mainly in the form of sanctions relief) while obliging the United States to support its development of an industrial strength nuclear energy program (purportedly for civilian purposes only).
Moreover, Obama lined Iran’s pockets with $1.7 billion in cash and other curious money transfers that could easily be diverted to the regime’s support for international terrorism. Simultaneously, he incentivized the regime to abduct more Americans by making these cash payments a ransom for hostages. Yet, the JCPOA did not even make a pretense of curbing Iran’s promotion of jihadist violence (Iran remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism), nor did it abate Iran’s ballistic-missile programs.
HUSBAND OF AID WORKER JAILED IN IRAN SAYS HIS WIFE IS BEING USED AS 'BARGAINING CHIP'
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Trump has reimposed sanctions on Iran and deftly pressured other nations (in particular, foreign corporations and financial institutions) to resist dealing with Iran for fear of being cut off from the U.S. financial system. Increasingly a pariah, Iran has seen its oil and gas export revenues shrivel and its economy contract, and it has been forced to tap its fast-diminishing foreign-currency reserves in order to finance its basic needs as well as its military aggression.
Put succinctly, the "Death to America" regime is facing an existential crisis. The intense economic pressure from without is intensifying the political opposition from within. The restive population, whose 2009 uprisings drew no meaningful support from Obama, is stirring again.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS OPINION PIECE IN THE NATIONAL REVIEW
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY ANDREW MCCARTHY | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | In one potentially controversial area, Trump said he wanted to loosen a trade ban that was recently imposed on Huawei because of national security concerns. | Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images G-20 POLITICO Pro's G-20 Report: Huawei to get a break as China trade talks resume
With help from Anita Kumar, Kristin Huang, Catherine Wong and Liu Zhen
This newsletter is a joint production of POLITICO and the South China Morning Post.
QUICK FIX
Story Continued Below
— President Donald Trump avoided an escalation of the tariff war with China and even said he would relax restrictions on U.S. companies selling to telecommunications giant Huawei.
— Europe and China hit back against Trump’s attempts to further undermine the Paris climate agreement, ensuring that the U.S. is the only country opting out in the final communiqué issued by G-20 leaders.
— G-20 leaders issued a watered-down call for reform of the World Trade Organization, dropping language saying the issue should be urgently addressed.
World leaders are leaving the G-20 today with little to show for the three days they spent in Osaka. Though the U.S. and China reached a détente, the larger group failed to move forward on WTO changes or on carbon reduction targets. Trump’s now heading off to the Korean peninsula — after issuing a Twitter invitation to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to meetup in the Demilitarized Zone to shake hands and say “hello.” No word yet on whether Kim will accept.
Sayonara: This is it from your team from POLITICO Europe, POLITICO and the South China Morning Post. We’ve certainly enjoyed it. See you again soon.
Sign up for Morning Trade A speed read on global trade news — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
DRIVING THE DAY
U.S.-CHINA TRADE TALKS RETURN FROM HIATUS: Negotiations aimed at resolving a damaging trade war between the world’s two largest economies are “right back on track,” Trump declared Saturday after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The talks had been on hold for nearly two months after Trump accused the Chinese of changing their mind about some things they had previously committed to do.
Trump told reporters that a 25 percent tariff on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods would stay in place. But he agreed in the meeting with Xi that he would not impose a 25 percent duty on another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, as he previously intended to do. For its part, China agreed to step up purchases of U.S. farm goods and other products. Trump didn’t mention any specific volume of purchases, but said the U.S. side would give China a list of goods to buy.
A reprieve for Huawei: The White House did not issue a fact sheet on what the two sides agreed, opting to leave that to Trump to explain in a nearly 75-minute press conference. In one potentially controversial area, Trump said he wanted to loosen a trade ban that was recently imposed on Huawei because of national security concerns.
Trump indicated he thought the ban was too restrictive because Huawei is a major customer for many U.S. technology firms. In another area, Trump indicated he wanted to reform immigration policy to make it easier for Chinese students to work and stay in the United States after they complete their education.
A top Chinese official sent to brief the Chinese press in Osaka declined to offer details on Trump’s Huawei announcement. “If they do it, we will certainly welcome it,” said Wang Xiaolong, the director general of the Department of International Economic Affairs of the Foreign Ministry.
Timeline TBD: Neither side released details on a deadline for completing the negotiations or when U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would next meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. Both chief negotiators were part of the U.S. and Chinese delegations in Osaka. Read more details on POLITICO Pro .
THE CLIMATE LEVEES HOLD: It went down to the wire, but Europe and China fought off a big push by Trump to water down global climate ambitions. The U.S. had wanted Brazil, Australia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to join Washington in rowing back on the Paris climate accord. In the end the G-20 was reduced, yet again, to the 19+1 format, in which the U.S. kept a special carve-out. Two senior EU negotiators said they had fought with the United States over the climate chapter until 4 a.m. on Saturday, when they decided to pause talks as they saw no way out of the deadlock. Around 11 a.m., things started moving again as lower-level officials handed over the baton to heads of state.
Green allies: Europe’s tussle against the U.S. was helped by the fact that the Chinese, for whom pollution is a hugely sensitive political issue, rallied to the climate call. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian said they “agreed on the importance for all countries to fully fulfil their commitments in the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement to the letter,” in a statement . Both countries promised to increase their emission reduction targets and said they would “publish their long-term mid-century low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies by 2020.”
G-20 DECLARATION TONES DOWN CALL FOR WTO REFORM: G-20 leaders agreed on the need for WTO reform, but the final declaration seems less alarmed about the current world situation than an earlier draft seen by POLITICO. That version said the rules-based multilateral trading system was at “a critical juncture, facing unprecedented challenges.” It also called for “a sense of urgency” in pursuing reform in the lead-up to the Twelfth WTO Ministerial Conference in Kazakhstan next year. The final version drops that language in favor of a more measured tone.
Another section calling on countries to “fight protectionist practices that impede fair competition” was also expunged, apparently at the insistence of the United States.
One sentence that did survive concerned the ongoing crisis over the WTO’s dispute settlement system as a result of the U.S. blocking the appointment of new appellate body judges. The final language seems to reflect U.S. concern that the appellate body has exceeded its mandate by making new international law. Reflecting that, the G-20 leaders agreed “that action is necessary regarding the functioning of the dispute settlement system consistent with the rules as negotiated by the WTO Members.”
TRUMP CALLS PELOSI ON USMCA: Trump had 19 other world leaders to talk to over the past several days. But he took time out of his schedule Friday night in Osaka to make a phone call to the person who holds the fate of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in her hands: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi . “I said view this as a bipartisan deal because a lot of the Democrats want it,” Trump said at his press conference.
Trump did not indicate whether he plans to formally submit implementing legislation for USMCA in coming days. Democrats have said that would be premature because of concerns they have about labor, environment, pharmaceutical and enforcement provisions of the pact. Trump did express confidence Congress would pass the agreement. “I think you’ll get a great vote” in both the House and the Senate, he said.
TRUMP SEES ‘FANTASTIC’ TRADE POTENTIAL WITH RUSSIA: The U.S. leader also said he was keen to explore opportunities for increased trade with Russia. “They have great product, great land. They have very rich land. They have a lot of oil, a lot of minerals and the things that we like,” Trump said.
Two-way U.S. trade with Russia has bounced back in recent years to about $26 billion in 2018. But it still remains below the levels reached prior to Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. Trump did not say whether he discussed lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday at the G-20 summit.
TRUDEAU RAISES ISSUE OF DETAINED CANADIANS WITH XI, BUT RELATIONS STILL FROSTY: It doesn’t appear that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made any headway with Xi in securing the release of two Canadians imprisoned in Canada.
The contact between the two was the first since diplomatic and trade relations turned sour since last December when Canadian police arrested Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant.
China has charged Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor with spying, a move widely seen by those outside China as retaliation for Meng’s arrest.
Trudeau described talks with Xi as constructive but, video footage appeared to show frosty interactions. During a lunch on Friday, Trudeau and Xi did not shake hands or look at each other and did not engage in conversation even though they sat next to each other thanks to alphabetical seating. Canadian reports said there was no interaction because Xi’s translator was not with him at that time.
In the evening, just before the culture performance was about to start, Trudeau and Xi were seen talking briefly with each other.
MEGA TRADE DEAL: The Europeans in Japan were keen to parade their newly minted trade deal — their biggest — with the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The “Mercosaurus” finally hatched on Friday night in Brussels, after 20 years of stop-start talks. Here’s a video of the big moment .
THAT'S ALL FOR THE G-20 REPORT! See you again soon! In the meantime, drop the team a line: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected].
Follow us @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Trade . | null | 0 | -1 | null | 70 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | OSAKA, June 29 (Reuters) - Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Saturday that Russia and other oil producers have all supported a proposal to extend the global oil output cut deal, adding it would be better to extend production cuts by 9 months.
“I think the decision on extension is rather consolidated,” Novak said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan’s Osaka ahead of OPEC and non-OPEC meeting in Vienna due next week.
Novak also said that the crisis over contaminated crude in a Russian-owned pipeline network was over. He said Russia now needs to deal with tainted crude oil that is kept in storage. (Reporting by Katya Golubkova Writing by Andrey Ostroukh Editing by Alexander Smith) | null | 0 | -1 | null | 5 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 18,098,492 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Video
President Trump has said US technology companies can resume selling their products to the Chinese telecom firm, Huawei.
The move is a major concession to China and US companies, which opposed the ban when it was introduced in May.
Mr Trump has also confirmed that the US will not impose new tariffs on Chinese imports -- at least for the time being, saying the two sides will continue negotiations to try resolve their trade dispute.
His comments came at a news conference following a meeting with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka in Japan. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 4 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Salmonella linked to papayas imported from Mexico have infected dozens of people in at least eight states in the last six months, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The 62 cases stem from a strain called Salmonella Uganda, which were reported from Jan. 14 to June 8, but mostly concentrated in April, according to a statement the agency released Friday.
"Whole, fresh papayas imported from Mexico and sold in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are a likely source of this outbreak," the statement read.
De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images
Twenty-three people have been hospitalized, according to the CDC. No deaths have been reported.
Consumers should not eat papayas or fruit salads containing papayas from Mexico, the agency advised. And if the origins are unknown, don't eat it, it warned.
In studying the path of the outbreak, the CDC discovered that two people in different homes in Connecticut reported being sick after eating papayas from the same grocery store. One Florida resident who was infected had traveled to Connecticut the week before becoming sick.
NOTIMEX via Newscom, FILE
The agency is still investigating an infection in Texas.
Salmonella symptoms include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps, usually within 12 to 72 hours after exposure, according to the CDC. It usually lasts four to seven days, and most people recover on their own.
However, Salmonella can spread from the intestines to the bloodstream and then to other places in the body, according to the CDC. As with other illnesses, children who are 5 years or young, pregnant women, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems are more vulnerable. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 14 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright PA Media Image caption The freight plan aims to take the pressure of the crossing from Dover to France
Transport companies are being asked to bid to provide extra freight capacity to be used in the event of a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.
The hurried ferry procurement process as the UK prepared to leave the EU on 29 March cost taxpayers more than £85m.
That included £34m in a settlement and legal fees with Eurotunnel - which said it was not considered for the contract.
This time the government is undertaking a full public tendering process before awarding the new contracts.
The government had previously awarded Seaborne Freight, DFDS and Brittany Ferries contracts worth more than £100m - all of which were eventually cancelled.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling faced calls to resign after he was forced to axe a £13.8m contract with Seaborne Freight, a company with no ships or trading history.
All three previous contracts - intended to offer extra capacity and relieve potential congestion at ports like Dover - had been awarded without a full public tender process and prompted legal action from Eurotunnel.
The government also had to pay more than £51m to cancel agreements with DFDS and Brittany Ferries when the UK asked the EU for an extension to the withdrawal process meaning it did not leave as planned on 29 March.
This time, the Department for Transport is pursuing an open process, inviting bids from all "suitably qualified freight operators".
Andrew Dean, a former government lawyer who is now director of public law at Clifford Chance, said: "The department has played a straight bat, having opted to follow a relatively low-risk procurement approach that is open to suppliers from across the EU and beyond."
BBC business correspondent Joe Miller said that Eurotunnel would be able to bid this time around, as the notice invites applications "regardless of transport mode", as long as they offer "roll-on, roll-off capacity" for lorries.
Seaborne Freight confirmed it would not be bidding again, while Britanny Ferries said it would "carefully consider" what capacity it could offer the government. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 12 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | MONTERREY, Nuevo Leon – A drug boss wanted in the U.S. for his role in a cartel execution in Dallas is now suspected of ordering the murder of his ex-girlfriend from behind bars. The victim, a local attorney, had been threatened in the past by her ex.
This week, a gunman walked up to 28-year-old Carolina Guerrero Garza outside her home and shot her five times before fleeing the scene. Law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart News that the victim was shot with a .380 caliber handgun in the back. Officials said she was a former love interest of Luis Lauro “La Mora” Ramirez Bautista. Police say Ramirez is a drug lord, wanted in the U.S. He also made a most wanted list. Relatives confirmed to law enforcement that the victim had ended her relationship with Ramirez and he, in turn, threatened several times to kill her.
The drug boss is currently being held at a federal prison in Mexico where he is fighting his extradition to Texas in connection with his role in a cartel execution Dallas as well as multiple drug trafficking charges. As Breitbart News reported exclusively, La Mora is considered to be a key leader of an independent crime syndicate that broke off from the Beltran Leyva Cartel. Prior to his arrest, Ramirez served as the right-hand man of Jose Rodolfo “El Gato” Villarreal, a former top leader with the Beltran Leyva Cartel who has since broken off and established a criminal empire in the ritzy suburb of San Pedro.
Last year, Breitbart News exclusively published the first known image of La Mora’s boss El Gato, who is wanted in the U.S. for ultimately ordering the 2013 murder of Gulf Cartel attorney-turned-government informant Jesus Guerrero Chapa. While El Gato allegedly ordered the murder, La Mora is the cartel boss who put the plan in motion. Guerrero Chapa lived in the Dallas suburb of Southlake when gunmen murdered him after a long-term surveillance operation. Villarreal had a personal vendetta against Guerrero Chapa who he blamed for the murder of his father.
In December, Breitbart News exclusively reported on an operation where Mexican federal authorities arrived at a state courthouse in Monterrey to arrest La Mora for extradition purposes. State authorities previously arrested him after Ramirez tried to run through a security checkpoint in the popular Barrio Antiguo neighborhood. Authorities caught him after a short chase where he resisted arrest and pointed a weapon at a police officer.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart News traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Tony Aranda from Nuevo Leon. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 22 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Luis Alvarez, a former NYPD detective who testified on Capitol Hill for the 9/11 Victim Compensation fund, died on Saturday, his attorney said. He was 53.
"It is with peace and comfort, that the Alvarez family announce that Luis (Lou) Alvarez, our warrior, has gone home to our Good Lord in heaven today. Please remember his words, 'Please take care of yourselves and each other,'" family attorney Matthew McCauley said in a statement.
"We told him at the end that he had won this battle by the many lives he had touched by sharing his three year battle. He was at peace with that, surrounded by family," the statement added. "Thank you for giving us this time we have had with him, it was a blessing!"
The former U.S. Marine spent weeks down at Ground Zero searching for victims and was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2016. He was one of more than 50,000 people whose illness had been linked to their exposure to toxins that were released after the towers collapsed.
Earlier this month, Alvarez joined comedian Jon Stewart to demand that lawmakers pass a new compensation bill for first responders. The fund administrator said he could run out of money next year and has had to cut benefits.
Retired FDNY Lieutenant and 9/11 responder Michael O'Connelll, left, FealGood Foundation co-founder John Feal, center, and former Daily Show Host Jon Stewart, right, applaud following testimony from Retired New York Police Department detective and 9/11 responder Luis Alvarez during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on reauthorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund on Capitol Hill on June 11, 2019 in Washington, DC. / Getty Images
"My message to Congress is: We have to get together and get this bill passed as quickly as possible," Alvarez said in an interview with "CBS Evening News" earlier this month. "I would love to be around when it happens. The government has to act like first responders, you know, put politics aside and let's get this bill done, because we did our job and the government has to do theirs."
"My purpose now is, regretfully, I can't throw the bomb suit on anymore and run around and do my job. As long as God gives me the time, I'll be here, advocating, because guys are dying now," Alvarez said.
Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to vote on legislation to reauthorize the Victims Compensation Fund later this summer. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 18 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Luis Alvarez, a former New York City police detective who fought for the 9/11 Victim Compensation fund, died on Saturday, his attorney said. He was 53.
"It is with peace and comfort, that the Alvarez family announce that Luis (Lou) Alvarez, our warrior, has gone home to our Good Lord in heaven today. Please remember his words, 'Please take care of yourselves and each other,'" family attorney Matthew McCauley said in a statement.
"We told him at the end that he had won this battle by the many lives he had touched by sharing his three year battle. He was at peace with that, surrounded by family," the statement added. "Thank you for giving us this time we have had with him, it was a blessing!"
The former U.S. Marine spent weeks down at Ground Zero searching for victims and was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2016. He was one of more than 50,000 people whose illness had been linked to their exposure to toxins that were released after the towers collapsed.
Earlier this month, Alvarez joined comedian Jon Stewart to demand that lawmakers pass a new compensation bill for first responders. The fund administrator said he could run out of money next year and has had to cut benefits.
Luis Alvarez testifies on June 11, 2019 in Washington, D.C. Zach Gibson via Getty
"My message to Congress is: We have to get together and get this bill passed as quickly as possible," Alvarez said in an interview with "CBS Evening News" earlier this month. "I would love to be around when it happens. The government has to act like first responders, you know, put politics aside and let's get this bill done, because we did our job and the government has to do theirs."
"My purpose now is, regretfully, I can't throw the bomb suit on anymore and run around and do my job. As long as God gives me the time, I'll be here, advocating, because guys are dying now," Alvarez said.
Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to vote on legislation to reauthorize the Victims Compensation Fund later this summer. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping signed an order for a prisoner amnesty on Saturday, to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, though many exceptions will apply.
Nine categories of prisoner will be pardoned, including convicts who fought against the Japanese in World War Two, those aged over 75 and with serious physical disabilities, or convicts who had previously been named model workers, state news agency Xinhua said.
But convicts who have committed serious crimes such as embezzlement, taking bribes, endangering national security and so on will not be covered by the amnesty, Xinhua added.
The report did not say how many people may be eligible for release. State television said the last time this was done, in 2015, 31,527 convicts were pardoned.
The People’s Republic of China will celebrate its 70th birthday on Oct. 1, probably with a mass military parade through central Beijing. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 6 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Angela Merkel has the shakes. Emmanuel Macron has the collywobbles. And still Europe has no idea who will be in charge as it contemplates a stormy autumn strewn with political booby traps. In Britain, the Brexit deadline of 31 October is the only date that matters. But the EU, fragmented, disputatious and wounded to an extent unusual even by its fractious standards, is taking one day at a time.
Sunday’s special summit is a case in point. It was convened by an exasperated Donald Tusk, the outgoing European council president, after this month’s regular heads-of-government meeting failed to agree on his successor or who will fill other key posts, including European commission president and president of the European central bank. Now they are having another try.
EU makes last-ditch effort to keep Iran from leaving nuclear deal Read more
Arguments over who gets what plum job are nothing new. But this time, the standoff reflects some more basic, structural problems. Perhaps the biggest is that the Franco-German motor – the axis that has traditionally powered the EU – is stalling. Macron and Merkel are at odds over much more than who can best fill Jean-Claude Juncker’s boots.
Since becoming modern France’s youngest president in 2017, Macron, 41, has lobbied hard for a “European renaissance”, meaning a more integrated EU that acts as a bulwark against reactionary populist-nationalist forces at home and wields strategic influence globally. His open letter to Europe’s citizens in March called for enhanced budgetary, financial and defence cooperation – and an “internal security council” overseeing borders, migration and a common asylum policy.
Merkel, 64, who was a government minister when Macron was still at school, is much more cautious. The German chancellor and her Christian Democrat-led coalition are wary of grand French ambitions, partly because her business supporters worry Germany would end up paying. Merkel, brought up in East Germany under Soviet domination, is wedded to Nato and the transatlantic alliance in a way French leaders rarely are.
Europe’s apparent inability to rescue the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran from Donald Trump’s ravages illustrates the limits of its bid to be a global playerambition. The EU has sought ways to circumvent American oil and trade sanctions, and so prevent the deal’s collapse. But it was castigated last week by Iran for not trying hard enough, and by the US for trying at all.
To defy Washington in this way, albeit unsuccessfully, was unusual for EU leaders. Yet the main reason for their failure was economic, namely the pre-eminence of the dollar as the international currency of choice. Any company or bank that wants to keep on doing business round the world, or in America itself, simply cannot risk US treasury reprisals for breaching sanctions.
“The brute reality, as things stand, is that Europe does not yet have the tools – or the will – to project its power,” wrote Tom McTague in Atlantic magazine. “The euro cannot be a credible alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency until it is radically reformed, and without a credible reserve currency, Europe’s financial might cannot match that of the US.” On this analysis, it could be argued Macron’s European vision is the right one.
Europe’s ambitions on the global stage will be further constrained by a clutch of pressing internal problems. EU parliamentary elections last month revealed a continent experiencing extreme political volatility. Rightwing nationalists, such as Alternative für Deutschland, made advances, but so, too, did Greens and Liberals. The losers, overall, were traditional mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 29 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Moroccan workers in the Huelva fields have made new allegations about their treatment
Moroccan women say they have faced exploitation and abuse this year in the strawberry fields of southern Spain, which supplies fruit to supermarkets and restaurants across the UK.
International human rights lawyers warn the allegations could amount to “state-sponsored human trafficking” between Morocco and Spain and say the Spanish authorities have a legal duty to ensure the claims are properly investigated by the courts.
Two months ago, the Observer reported on the case of 10 Moroccan women who had fought for over a year to get their claims of rape, exploitation and abuse investigated by the Huelva police and justice system. They, with thousands of other Moroccan women, had travelled to Spain in 2018 to work in the strawberry harvest via a bilateral visa arrangement between the two countries.
This year, after multiple reports of widespread sexual and labour abuses in the strawberry industry surfaced in local and international media, both governments and industry bodies said they had put measures in place to prevent potential problems. This includes an industry-wide protocol to ensure ethical working practices. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 6 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A bestselling novelist says he has been dropped from two literary events in the UK in recent weeks because he is Jewish.
Richard Zimler, whose latest book The Gospel According to Lazarus was published in April, said two cultural event coordinators had terminated negotiations on publicising his new novel because they feared a backlash from anti-Israel campaigners. Zimler has no connections with or family in Israel.
The author’s personal publicist, who asked not to be named, confirmed that two literary organisations had pulled out of initially enthusiastic discussions about events with Zimler. They feared his Jewishness would alienate Palestinian sympathisers among their clientele and could result in protests, the publicist said.
Zimler was “deeply shocked and upset” at the change of heart, saying he could hardly speak after being told. He is now questioning whether an “atmosphere of fear” and increasing antisemitism means that Jewish artists and professionals are being denied work.
Writing in the Observer, the New York-born author, says: “I never expected my career in the UK would be prejudiced by my being Jewish. It made Britain seem like a place I didn’t know and maybe never knew. Even just asking about my religious affiliation struck me as outrageous.”
The author’s publicist had proposed talks by Zimler, followed by question-and-answer sessions about his book or about historical fiction generally. When the author was dropped, said the publicist, “I was very shocked and surprised. People in the literary world are not usually narrow-minded. Everyone who knows Richard knows he is his own person.”
Zimler, who lives in Portugal, has published 11 novels in 22 years, and his work has been translated into 23 languages. He has won many awards and been nominated five times for the International Dublin Literary Award, one of the most lucrative prizes in the English-speaking world.
The Gospel According to Lazarus re-imagines the relationship between Jesus and his friend Lazarus, whom he brought back from the dead. A review in the Observer in April said: “This is no attack on institutional Christianity, but, rather, a reverent and subtle meditation on the ways in which the dead can interact with the living. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this brave and engaging novel, though, is that Zimler manages to make the best-known narrative in western culture a page turner. I simply had to keep going to the very end in order to know on earth what would happen.”
In his Observer article, the author says the actions of the literary organisations were ironic because he has “long endeavoured in my novels to give voice to people who have been systematically silenced by prejudice and bigotry”.
Friends in the UK had suggested that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and the reluctance of the Labour party to take a firm stand against antisemitic discourse had contributed to an “atmosphere of fear”.
Zimler says: “If cultural organisations are afraid of hosting events for Jewish writers, then Britain has taken a big step backwards.”
He points out that his most well-known books are set in Portugal and Poland. His latest novel is set in the Holy Land, but 2,000 years before the creation of the state of Israel.antisemitism in the UK – I’d say it was entirely possible.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Erik Frobom
An architecture professor who studies space settlements responds to “Space Leek” by Chen Quifan.
In 1975 at the NASA Ames Research Center, two groups of experts had a disagreement about the purpose of bringing plants to space. NASA had brought together a team for something that it referred to informally as a “Summer Study.” These short, intense sessions with academics, engineers, and designers were intended to address specific issues in space exploration. One, in 1971, was about the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, or SETI. Another, in 1980, was about using self-replicating machines for space manufacturing. The 1975 study was on the design of large-scale space settlements. These would be located, like the Yutu-3 space station in Chen Qiufan’s story, at the Earth-moon Lagrangian points where gravity between these two bodies allows for stable orbits. Unlike the Yutu-3 (or as the characters in the story call it, the Roast Garlic), these were not intended to be purely research stations. They would be home to about 10,000 people engaged in the work of building solar-powered satellites.
The team realized that these people would need to bring, or make, all of the things they needed themselves. Everything about the habitat would have to be planned. The urban planners recognized that these habitats would be as densely populated as cramped cities. So people would need open planted spaces, like parks and plazas, to help relieve the stress. The agriculturalists knew that it was important for these habitats to grow their own food. The planners thought that residents could use the farms as parks, places to unwind and relax. But in order to maximize crop yields, the agricultural scientists wanted their farms to have 24-hour sunlight, constant high heat, and atmospheres overloaded with humidity and CO2. A plant paradise is a human hell, not a relaxing garden. In these designs, there are two different attitudes about the purposes of plants and planted spaces, and they’re not easily reconciled. In space, everything humans bring or make has to have some specific reason to be there, but as Chen’s story shows, sometimes those reasons are more complicated and unknown than we think.
Animals and plants have been in space for longer than humans have. Americans sent seeds to space in the 1940s, to test the effects of radiation exposure. The second successful artificial satellite launch ever, the Soviet-made Sputnik-2, carried an animal passenger, the famous Russian dog Laika. Sadly, her mission was not designed for her to survive more than a few hours, and she became the first earthling to die in space. Since then, other, more careful attempts have been able to launch all kinds of animals and plants, and to bring them home safely. The next set of problems to solve were about reproduction and growth. Several experiments in the early 21st century have shown that it is possible for plants to germinate, sprout, and even flourish in the high radiation, zero-gravity conditions aboard the International Space Station. Russian crews on the ISS have been growing and, to take things to the next step, eating their own crops since 2003, but it wasn’t until 2015 that the Americans tried it too, with a head of space-grown romaine lettuce.
But long-term living in space will depend on more than salad. Beyond the survival and growth of individual plants and animals, living in space would require, as the team that worked on the 1975 summer study knew, whole ecosystems. For purposes of efficiency and variety, some plants in the 1975 scheme would feed agricultural animals, and the waste from these farm animals would, along with human waste, become fertilizer for the next generation of plants. In this plan, humans and their animals would be part of a circle of life that could endlessly recycle CO2, oxygen, nutrients, and water in a self-sustaining way. In 2019, Chinese space scientists landed the Chang’e 4 lander on the moon’s far side. This lander contained an important experiment—one of the first attempts to create a closed ecosystem in space. The Lunar Micro Ecosystem module on the lander contained planted seeds, yeast, and fruit fly eggs. The ecosystem was maintained for nine days, and it only failed when a heating system was unable to keep the interior temperature high during the two-week long lunar night.
It’s difficult to make closed artificial environments that are comfortable for different types of organisms.
Chang’e is the name of the moon goddess that is accompanied by the rabbit Yutu, in the same mythology that gives the space station in Chen’s story its name. And Chang’e 4 also brought along a rover, Yutu-2. At the time of this writing, a real rabbit in the moon is exploring the lunar surface. The 1975 summer study recommended bringing rabbits to outer space as well. They, along with chickens and fish, would be a crucial protein supply in this closed cycle ecosystem for the space settlement’s residents. Altogether, in the plans from the summer study, there would be 37 times as many animals as humans in these habitats. The disagreement between the botanists and the urban designers in the summer study story, and the breakdown in the Chang’e 4 Micro Ecosystem, shows how difficult it can be to make closed artificial environments that are comfortable for different types of organisms.
Chen’s Space Leek, and the resonant mythology that informs it, are an illustration that there will always be other reasons to bring other life to space, whether we know it or not. In the story, the botanist Shengnan has an emotional attachment to her leeks, even though it has been brought to space as a research subject, while the chemist Jing has her eye on the leek for other, more culinary reasons. The true value of the leek crop’s presence turns out to be more than scientific or gastronomical—it has chemical and material properties that can save the station, and their lives. This life-saving potential is only revealed through the sentimental power of the mythology that animates the story. Like Yutu, the rabbit in the moon, Shengnan grinds the leek with a mortar and pestle, and makes it into an elixir of life. The value of the leek, and the value of the myth, had not been measurable or predictable in advance.
In any space settlement scenario, human existence will depend on more than just the number of square meters devoted to park space or farmland, or the mass of protein and carbohydrates available from agriculture. The things we bring and make will have value that’s not immediately quantifiable. People will have houseplants, almost definitely, and even pets. Pets, like rabbits, enrich human life in ways that are other than nutritious. The first rabbit in space was Russian, named Marfusha. She orbited and returned back to Earth two years before Yuri Gagarin’s historic human flight. As the sometime-caretaker of pet rabbits, I would no more want to see them become food than I would one of Laika’s kin. As humans figure out how to live in space and embed themselves in complex sensitive biological systems, the nature of the environments, their contents, and the parameters within them will have to be closely studied and carefully specified. Stories like Chen’s are good reminders that it’s sometimes necessary to remember the myths and the sentiments along with the numbers.
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 59 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | FILE PHOTO: Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak gestures as he arrives for the official photo at the G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
OSAKA (Reuters) - The BRICS bloc, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has discussed how it might help to broker a resolution to the political crisis in Venezuela, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Saturday.
Sergei Storchak told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, that the BRICS would like to “bring the sides in dispute to the negotiating table”. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Carola Rackete had reached Sicily with 42 people on Sea-Watch 3 in defiance of Salvini’s ban
The captain of an NGO rescue ship carrying 42 people has been arrested for breaking a naval blockade by an Italian military vessel that was trying to stop the vessel from disembarking in the Sicilian port of Lampedusa.
After a two-week standoff with Italian authorities, Carola Rackete, captain of the German NGO rescue boat Sea-Watch 3, reached Sicily on Saturday in defiance of a ban by the country’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini.
Rackete said she was determined to risk entering the port because the situation on board the ship was “now more desperate than ever”.
Salvini, who has closed Italian waters to NGO rescue vessels, leaving several boats stranded at sea for weeks, said in a Facebook video that his patience had run out. “We will use every lawful means to stop an outlaw ship, which puts dozens of migrants at risk for a dirty political game.”
Sea-Watch rescued a group of people drifting in an inflatable raft off the coast of Libya on 12 June, but declined to have them disembark in Tripoli, and instead went towards Lampedusa.
“Libya is not a safe country,” said Giorgia Linardi, a spokeswoman for Sea-Watch, in Italy. “Forcibly taking rescued people back to a war-torn country, having them imprisoned and tortured, is a crime that we will never commit.’’
After two weeks at sea, with no options left and 42 people exhausted and trapped on board in torrid conditions, Rackete decided to enter Italian waters, facing the consequences.
Italy’s rightwing government introduced rules on 14 June that closed Italian ports to rescue ships and threatened them with fines of up to €50,000 (£44,800) and an impounding of the vessel.
In a video released by Sea-Watch, Rackete said: “I know this is risky and that I will probably lose the boat, but the 42 shipwrecked on board are exhausted. I will bring them to safety.”
However, once in Lampedusa, Sea-Watch 3 was still not allowed to disembark, as a military patrol boat tried to obstruct the entrance of the vessel into the port, moving back and forth to prevent it from docking. But Rackete decided to break through the blockade and continued the manoeuvre, risking ramming into the military boat.
“Captain Carola had no other choice,” said Giorgia Linardi, spokeswoman for Sea-Watch Italia. “For 36 hours she had declared a state of necessity, which was ignored by Italian authorities.”
The lawyers of the German NGO said: “It was a desperate decision, given the delay to disembark the migrants who were exhausted after being stranded at sea for 17 days.”
“The behaviour from the captain of the pirate ship was criminal,” Salvini tweeted on Saturday morning. “She tried to ram a military patrol boat, putting the lives of the officials at risk. They are criminals.”
After the docking, Rackete was greeted by lengthy applause from about a hundred people who had arrived on the quay to support her.
The 42 people were eventually disembarked and Rackete was arrested by the police on charges of resistance and violence against warships. She is now under house arrest, Sea-Watch lawyers have confirmed to the Guardian. The day before, prosecutors in Agrigento had placed Rackete under investigation for aiding illegal immigration.
In recent days, a group of activists have launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay the legal fees of Sea-Watch. In just a few days, the initiative has reached more than €350,000. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 20 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Sen. Kamala Harris’ campaign reported its best online fundraising day yet in the 24 hours after Thursday’s primary debate where she put Joe Biden on his heels over his civil rights record – while the former vice president found himself embroiled in yet another race controversy as he sought to clean up from his Miami performance.
The campaign said in a brief statement Saturday that they raised more than $2 million online in that period from 63,277 people, with the majority of them new contributors.
HARRIS CAPITALIZES ON DEBATE PERFORMANCE
“We have momentum,” Harris communications director Lily Adams said. “After her dominant debate performance, where she proved she is the candidate best suited to prosecute the case against four more years of Donald Trump, supporters across this country are fueling our campaign because they saw her empathy, her passion, and her direct focus on the issues that keep people up at night.”
The campaign boasted a particular surge in donations from the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
This, after Harris stole the spotlight with her questioning of Biden about his opposition four decades ago to federally mandated desegregation busing – during which she recalled her own story of being bussed as a child.
Her campaign deftly sought to capitalize on the clearly planned confrontation -- tweeting moments afterward a picture of Harris as a child featuring her onstage quote, “That little girl was me,” and selling $30 shirts emblazoned with the same – though the latter move generated some online criticism that it made her powerful moment seem less authentic.
Biden, meanwhile, adamantly defended his civil rights record both in Miami and the following day in Chicago.
“I heard and I listened to and I respect Senator Harris. But we all know that 30 to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange can't do justice to a lifetime commitment to civil rights,” Biden said at an event organized by Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Speaking directly to Jackson, he said: “I know you know I fought my heart out to ensure civil rights and voting rights and equal rights are enforced everywhere.”
Biden then insisted he “never, never, never ever opposed voluntary busing.”
But even while defending his own record, Biden still tempted controversy. He said he envisioned a society in which everyone realizes the "kid in the hoodie might be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger."
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a 2020 Democratic presidential rival, challenged Biden on his word choice, saying in a tweet that the issue was about more than just a hoodie.
"It's about a culture that sees a problem with a kid wearing a hoodie in the first place. Our nominee needs to have the language to talk about race in a far more constructive way," said Booker, who along with Harris had pushed back against comments made by Biden a week earlier in which he nostalgically referenced the "civility" he maintained during his time in the Senate with two segregationist Democrats in the 1970s despite their vast distance in ideology.
It remains unclear whether Biden, who has weathered numerous controversies during his front-running Democratic presidential primary campaign, will take a hit in the polls or fundraising from his performance.
But for Harris, the breakout moment could be critical. In recent months, she’s been overshadowed by Biden and other top-tier rivals such as Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and by the meteoric rise of South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN DEFENDS FORMER VP AFTER DEBATE
Asked after the debate what her follow-up act would be, Harris told Fox News’ Peter Doocy, “prosecute the case against Donald Trump.”
The former California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney went into the debate hoping to make the case to a national audience that thanks to her prosecutorial skills, she would be the best Democratic contender to go toe-to-toe with Republican President Trump.
The Biden campaign quickly defended its candidate.
“If you want to put Vice President Biden’s record on civil rights up against anybody else on that stage, he’ll stand the test of time,” senior adviser Symone Sanders told reporters right after the debate.
Biden – who is cherished by many Democrats for his tireless efforts to help fellow party members on the campaign trail, his eight years as former President Barack Obama’s right-hand man, and his history of overcoming devastating personal tragedies – appeared shocked when questioned by Harris.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
His top aides characterized the contentious moment as a “low blow.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Kelly Phares and The Associated Press contributed to this report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 24 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image caption Des Parkinson will stand for the Brexit Party on 1 August
The Brexit Party has named Des Parkinson as its candidate in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election.
Tory chief whip Julian Smith moved the writ in the Commons to trigger the contest after Conservative MP Chris Davies was unseated by a petition.
Mr Davies was re-selected and will face Mr Parkinson along with Jane Dodds, Welsh Liberal Democrat leader, and Labour's Tom Davies on 1 August.
It follows Mr Davies's conviction for a false expenses claim.
Mr Parkinson, a retired police chief superintendent, said the by-election was a "matter of integrity" and people had been "let down" by the Conservatives.
Nathan Gill MEP launched him as the party candidate in Crickhowell on Saturday.
Meanwhile the Green Party announced it will not be fielding a candidate in order to "maximise the chances" of the party most likely to beat the Brexit supporting parties, the Conservatives and the Brexit Party.
Plaid Cymru said it was in talks with other parties about whether or not to stand in the by-election.
Parties have until 5 July to propose nominations. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 9 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | IfNotNow said the first 2020 contender it plans on questioning is Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is campaigning this weekend in New Hampshire. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images 2020 elections Progressive Jewish group IfNotNow expands forces for 2020
A progressive group of young Jewish activists opposed to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is expanding its organization in hopes of making a major impact on the Democratic race for the White House.
IfNotNow has launched a 501(c)(4) and is training organizers in the early primary state of New Hampshire, the group told POLITICO. Its goal is to raise $100,000 in its first fundraising quarter.
Story Continued Below
“Our focus is going to be trying to push the candidates past giving lip-service to a two-state solution,” said IfNotNow co-founder Emily Mayer, “without recognizing the underlying dynamics and explicit moves by the Israel government that are creating a one-state reality where Palestinians are denied basic rights.”
The organization is also taking a page out of the playbook of groups such as Black Lives Matter and the American Civil Liberties Union: It plans to "bird-dog" presidential candidates at public events to create viral moments and prod the Democratic Party leftward on the issue of Israel.
IfNotNow said the first 2020 contender it plans on questioning is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is campaigning this weekend in New Hampshire. Sanders has called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “racist.” In addition to pushing the candidates to adopt more progressive positions on Israel, the group said it is hoping to draw public attention to the Democratic Party’s changing attitudes on the topic and clarify candidates’ stances on particular issues.
IfNotNow said that the time is ripe to put Israel at the center of the primary debate. | IfNotNow
Other activists have already had success in influencing the 2020 news cycle by confronting candidates on the campaign trail and asking them candid questions: Former Vice President Joe Biden was caught on camera telling an ACLU volunteer he supported repealing the Hyde Amendment. His campaign later said he actually backed the ban on using federal dollars for abortion services, only to reverse his position again after being rebuked by abortion rights groups.
“The Democratic base is quite far politically in their views on the issue from where the Democratic establishment is,” said Mayer, who named Biden and Sen. Cory Booker as presidential candidates who are particularly out of sync with liberal voters.
IfNotNow believes that the time is ripe to put Israel at the center of the primary debate: Only 26 percent of Democrats view the government of Israel favorably, according to a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center.
Until now, IfNotNow has focused on trying to change the way Jewish people and institutions, such as Jewish summer camps, discussed the issue of Israel. The group's move into electoral politics has earned them praise from the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress.
“It is about time we realize the status quo is not working to bring peace to the region," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). "IfNotNow is one of the organizations that gives me hope that we are making progress towards a just and lasting peace.”
The organization may not stop at the 2020 race: IfNotNow's local chapters are also in talks about potentially endorsing candidates in congressional races and doing field work for them. It does not expect to endorse a candidate in the presidential primary, however. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE Stephanie Grisham, who also serves as the first lady's deputy chief of staff, will become President Trump's third press secretary in three years. USA TODAY
Many people heard of Stephanie Grisham, President Donald Trump's new White House press secretary, for the first time Tuesday.
What they don't know is the bumpy ride — much of it in Arizona — that preceded her move into the national spotlight.
Grisham, 42, was born in Washington state and began her professional career in Arizona, records show.
She declined to comment about her path to one of the most high-profile jobs in government. Those who know and worked with Grisham describe a woman who brought professionalism and dogged advocacy to her jobs, even as she faced personal challenges behind the scenes.
Jobs with increasing pressure, financial problems and drunken-driving arrests shaped her life before she became the new voice of the White House.
New WH press secretary: President Trump hires Stephanie Grisham to replace Sarah Sanders as press secretary
If Trump seems under siege from his many critics, he has tapped a spokeswoman who has helped manage high-profile embattled officials before.
Grisham’s mother, Ann Schroder of Nebraska, told The Arizona Republicshe is "excited and thrilled" for her daughter, but otherwise declined to discuss Grisham's life.
Similarly, Grisham’s ex-husband Dan Marries told The Republic he’s happy for Grisham.
Marries, a former firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management, is an evening news anchor for KOLD News 13 in Tucson. Marries said he and Grisham married in 1997. Court records show the couple filed for divorce in 2004.
Marries called the divorce amicable. They have a son. She has a second son.
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Grisham began voting in Arizona as a registered Democrat in 1997, when she was in her early 20s, according to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office. She didn't become a Republican for at least a decade.
There is no record she voted in the 2016 election in which she was heavily involved.
Grisham rose from Arizona State Capitol to the White House
Grisham's rapid rise within Arizona Republican politics can be traced to her meeting Republican Tom Horne, who was the state's superintendent of public schools. At the time, he said, she was working with the Arizona Charter Schools Association.
According to Horne, Grisham saw how Horne handled historical trivia questions from students and decided to work with him after he was elected Arizona attorney general in 2010.
She also worked for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, for AAA Arizona, and had formed Sound Bite Public Relations LLC.
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Grisham's tenure as Horne's press secretary, who served one term as attorney general, thrust her name into the Arizona news. Horne wound up the target of an FBI investigation into allegations of campaign-finance wrongdoing. Grisham tried to cast him and the office as functional even as Horne's political career was unraveling.
Stephanie Grisham watches as President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet people during the annual Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn on June 21, 2019, in Washington D.C. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP)
After Republican Mark Brnovich defeated Horne in the 2014 GOP primary, Grisham landed as a spokeswoman for the Republican caucus for the Arizona House of Representatives.
Then-House Speaker David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, soon found himself under public scrutiny for charging $12,000 in personal and campaign travel expenses to taxpayers.
During Grisham's tenure at the state House, Gowan issued a new rule in 2016 that required reporters to undergo extensive background checks in order to access the floor of the chamber.
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The unprecedented order was widely viewed as retribution for hard-hitting coverage by the Arizona Capitol Times’ Hank Stephenson, who broke the story of Gowan’s use of state vehicles while running for Congress.
Gowan, who said the measure was for security reasons, relented after reporters refused to submit to background checks and after criticism by state lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. No other state required a criminal background check for reporters to be issued a press credential or obtain access to the legislative floor.
Stephenson described Grisham as "very firm with her opposition or complaints" about his coverage.
The stories triggered apparent retaliation, he said.
"I still don’t know how much of it was her brainchild or her job to deliver orders from her bosses," he said.
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The newspaper's access to the House floor was revoked — but later reinstated — for opening day ceremonies.
Then came the background checks, which were widely seen by the Arizona press corps as retaliation for Stephenson's reporting, a view he shared.
"There's no question in my mind that's what that was about," Stephenson said.
Former Democratic state Rep. Ken Clark of Phoenix said Grisham was "the constant apologist" for Gowan's "terrible" leadership during his tenure as speaker.
Former state Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler, said Grisham didn't deserve the blame.
“Look, I'm not interested in tearing someone down. She's a qualified individual who has accomplished some really amazing stuff, and I sincerely wish her all the best and only congratulations are going to come from me.” State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale
"She was very good at getting out the message that she was asked to get out," he said. "She performed very well at a time with a lot of turmoil, quite candidly. I think she was blamed for a lot of things she didn’t do. … She took … the hit."
Sometimes hits came from her own party.
State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a Scottsdale Republican who served in the House in 2015, tangled with Grisham publicly at a party after a political awards show, according to a June 24, 2015, write-up of the altercation that relied on anonymous sources in the Yellow Sheet Report, a political insider newsletter published by the Arizona Capitol Times.
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Grisham won the "Best PR Person" award from the Arizona Capitol Times that year.
There were no signs of bad blood this week.
"Look, I'm not interested in tearing someone down," Ugenti-Rita said. "She's a qualified individual who has accomplished some really amazing stuff, and I sincerely wish her all the best and only congratulations are going to come from me."
Not long after the incident, Grisham connected with Trump's nascent presidential campaign in 2015 as he was set to make an early appearance in downtown Phoenix.
State Rep. Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert, dealt with Grisham as she helped organizea later Trump event in the hangar of a Mesa business that Grantham owned at the time.
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"She helped set up the stage, set up the angles, made sure the event ran smoothly," Grantham said in an interview from Afghanistan, where he is deployed. "She did a great job. ... We were very happy with how the event turned out."
So was Trump.
He kept Grisham on the campaign and brought her into the White House after his surprise victory. On the campaign, she helped manage the traveling press corps. In the White House, she was named deputy press secretary before becoming first lady Melania Trump's spokeswoman.
Even as Grisham's professional success grew, she grappled with personal problems at home.
Grisham got into legal trouble while working for Horne, Trump campaign
On Jan. 9, 2013, when she was working for Horne, Gilbert police arrested Grisham on suspicion of driving under the influence and driving faster than reasonable, records show.
She planned to go to trial and the matter dragged out for more than a year before she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless driving in August 2014. She spent a night in jail and was placed on two years' probation.
The case returned to court twice over Grisham's failure to pay the $779 in fines and her not completing a session with Mothers Against Drunk Driving about the impact of impaired driving.
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Horne said Tuesday he wasn't aware of Grisham's run-in with the law.
"I don’t know about it, but I don’t think it’s really relevant," Horne said of Grisham's DUI case. "She did a fabulous job. She was a great colleague, very friendly, conscientious, great advocate, had a good relationship with the press, and she’ll do a great job."
On Dec. 5, 2015, months after joining the Trump campaign, Grisham found trouble again.
Scottsdale police arrested her that night on suspicion of DUI and driving without her headlights on shortly after midnight.
She failed to show in court on Jan. 19, 2016, a day when Trump received the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in Ames, Iowa. Her absence in court cost Grisham her driver’s license for a month.
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Grisham pleaded guilty to misdemeanor DUI in July 2016, days before her attendance at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where Trump officially became the GOP nominee.
As part of that case, she had to pay nearly $1,600 in fines and fees, records show.
Two weeks after Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, Grisham failed to appear in Scottsdale court again. That was the day Trump convened a meeting with national media figures at Trump Tower in New York to shred them for coverage of his campaign.
“I knew (the arrests) were there, but I didn’t think they inhibited the job. There are people that work with DUIs in newspaper reporting. It’s unfortunate, but that stuff will happen. Human frailty has to be dealt with.” Former state Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler
Grisham finished paying her debt in the case on Jan. 9, 2017, less than two weeks before Trump was sworn into office.
She disclosed the DUI arrests to the White House during the transition, according to the Washington Post.
Grisham had another debt to settle at that time.
In March 2017, Capital One Bank sued Grisham in Maricopa County Superior Court over an unpaid debt totaling about $1,700. Three days later, Melania Trump named Grisham her communications director.
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The debt wasn't settled until April 2018, according to court records.
Her co-workers said her work never suffered.
Robson recalled Grisham as a professional who worked with the dozens of GOP lawmakers to arrange media interviews, write opinion columns and posts for social media.
"I knew (the arrests) were there, but I didn’t think they inhibited the job," he said. "There are people that work with DUIs in newspaper reporting. It’s unfortunate, but that stuff will happen. Human frailty has to be dealt with."
Arizona Republic reporter Jeannette Hinkle contributed to this report.
Reach Ronald J. Hansen at [email protected]. Reach Yvonne Wingett Sanchez at [email protected]. Follow them on Twitter @ronaldjhansen and @yvonnewingett.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/29/stephanie-grisham-path-new-white-house-press-secretary/1604930001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 99 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | OSAKA, Japan (AP) — For many he’s an international pariah, but you wouldn’t know it by the lavish reception Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has received at the G-20 summit this week.
He beamed as he stood front and center, sandwiched between President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for a group photo. He exchanged an impish grin as he sat down next to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He posed with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and a group of flag-waving kids ahead of an earlier signing ceremony for $8 billion in deals.
Even as rebukes pile up elsewhere — a U.N. expert has called for an investigation of his alleged role in the killing of a prominent journalist, and a growing number of Americans are questioning their nation’s support for his kingdom and its role in the war in Yemen — some leaders in Osaka have gone out of their way to make sure the prince feels comfortable.
It’s not clear if he was pressed privately over concerns about the killing last October of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who had criticized the Saudi heir in columns for The Washington Post. But the prince seemed completely at ease in public on Friday and Saturday.
These high-profile gatherings can often have a club-like feel to them, with well-dressed leaders standing around and talking — sometimes intensely, sometimes convivially — before and after the photo-ops and public statements. In the absence of many details about what’s happening behind closed doors, observers are forced to spend a lot of time parsing body language. And, at least when the cameras were rolling, that language has been overwhelmingly positive for the prince.
In addition to standing next to Trump in the center part of the front row for the first group photo, the prince was seated next to the summit’s host, Abe, at the official opening ceremony, possibly a reflection of Saudi Arabia’s role as host of next year’s G-20 gatherings.
As the prince — easily one of the tallest leaders, and striking in his flowing, ankle-length robes — strode from meeting to meeting, or wandered among the other leaders before the summit’s set-piece ceremonies, he often flashed a broad smile. At Saturday’s panel on women’s empowerment, for instance, he sat in the front row, chatting amicably with other leaders.
Trump, who has long been loath to scold authoritarian leaders for human rights abuses, seemed to go out of his way at times to shepherd Prince Mohammed, at one point patting him on the back as they walked together.
As the two sat down over breakfast Saturday, Trump praised his “friend” for taking steps to open up the kingdom and extend freedoms to Saudi women.
Trump initially ignored reporters’ questions about the prince’s alleged role in Khashoggi’s death, but when pressed later at a news conference he called the killing “horrible” while claiming that “nobody so far has pointed directly a finger at the future king of Saudi Arabia.” A White House statement said the two leaders discussed “Saudi Arabia’s critical role in ensuring stability in the Middle East and global oil markets, the growing threat from Iran, increased trade and investments between the two countries, and the importance of human rights issues.”
The U.S. president sees a close relationship with Saudi Arabia as a lynchpin to Washington’s Middle East strategy to counter Iran. Trump has brushed aside Khashoggi’s killing and said it has already been investigated. A Saudi pledge to spend billions of dollars on U.S. military equipment, Trump said, “means something to me.”
Following a monthslong inquiry, Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, recently said she’d concluded that Khashoggi was a victim of a “deliberate, premeditated execution, an extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible.”
Saudi Arabia denies the 33-year-old crown prince had any knowledge of the killing of Khashoggi. The kingdom has put on trial 11 suspects, some of whom worked directly for the prince. But his closest former adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, who was sanctioned by the United States after the killing, is not among those on trial.
Business concerns may have colored Prince Mohammed’s warm welcome this week.
Take South Korea, for instance. In Seoul before the summit, Saudi Arabia and South Korea signed 10 memorandums of understanding and contracts that would be worth $8.3 billion, according to Seoul’s presidential office. Moon, the president, hosted a luncheon at his mansion that was attended by some of South Korea’s most powerful businessmen.
South Korea gets more than 70% of its crude oil from the Middle East. Seoul is the world’s fifth largest importer of crude oil and Saudi Arabia has been its biggest supplier. Prince Mohammed, during his meetings with Moon, promised to help with possible fuel shortages in case of supply disruptions caused by Middle East turmoil.
Not everyone was happy about his reception.
Some South Koreans criticized the country’s two major English newspapers — The Korea Herald and The Korea Times — for using their front pages Wednesday to publish identical full-page ads by S-Oil, a South Korean oil refining company that is a subsidiary of the giant Saudi oil company Aramco. The ads printed the national flags of Saudi Arabia and South Korea side by side and contained the message, “We welcome HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minster, Minister of Defense.”
There was also criticism of a massive photo of the prince unfurled on the Seoul headquarters of S-Oil.
The worries about the abuse claims may not resonate in the G-20 meetings. But there’s mounting concern about the ties between the kingdom and the many Western nations that have relied on its natural resources and political position.
In a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, David Wearing, the author of “AngloArabia: Why Gulf Wealth Matters to Britain,” said strategic bonds between Saudi Arabia and the Atlantic powers may survive, “but the existential threats are now plain to see, and if anyone in Riyadh, Washington or London has a serious plan to preserve the status quo, they are keeping it a closely guarded secret.”
___
Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 33 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The German captain of a ship that rescued 53 migrants off the coast of Libya was arrested and accused of trying to sink a police boat after reaching landfall in Italy.
The vessel, named Sea-Watch 3, had reached the Italian port of Lampedusa on Saturday after a two-week standoff with police.
Captain of the migrant ship, Carola Rackete, 31, was arrested upon arrival and subsequently accused by Matteo Salvini, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister, of trying to sink a police boat during the ordeal, according to the BBC.
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"She tried to sink a police launch with officers on board at night," Salvini said. "They say 'we're saving lives', but they risked killing these human beings who were doing their job, it's clear from the videos."
Salvini added that Rackete's actions could be classified as an act of war.
"A vessel weighing hundreds of tonnes tried to ram... a police launch with officers aboard, who managed to get out of the way to save their lives. That's a criminal act, an act of war."
E.U. countries have agreed to take on 40 of the migrants, while the BBC reported that 13 have been taken into custody for health reasons.
Rackete was recorded walking off the ship into the hands of Italian police custody, who led her away without handcuffs and into a police vehicle.
She could face 10 years in prison if convicted of attacking a police boat.
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The Vessel carrying the migrants was operated by German charity, Sea-Watch, which conducts civil search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. The non-profit says Sea-Watch 3 was forced to enter Italian waters because they were out of options in making sure the migrants reached land safely.
Before joining Sea Watch, Rackete had previously taken part in missions for the environmental group Greenpeace as well as other research organizations.
After the incident, some on Twitter spoke out on behalf of the Captain, with some calling her a hero.
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The Sea Watch chairman Johannes Bayer expressed support for Rackete and tweeted that he was "proud of our captain". | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Watching the first set of Democratic presidential candidate debates last week, I thought about comedian Mort Sahl.
Sahl, still going strong at 92, started doing comedy during the Eisenhower administration. He may be the only person who both wrote jokes for John Kennedy and socialized with Ronald and Nancy Reagan, while telling jokes about them.
As Sahl put it: “A conservative doesn't want anything to happen for the first time; a liberal feels it should happen, but not now.”
Something of a comedian’s comedian, the shock radio jock Don Imus talked about how he was going to attend a Mort Sahl gig at New York’s Bottom Line and said “I’m only ordering grapefruit juice, I don’t want to miss a word.”
I was taking notes during the Democratic debates and was only drinking grapefruit juice — and kept imagining Mort Saul, on stage at the Hungry I in San Francisco, looking up from his folded newspaper, and asking: “Is there anyone I haven’t offended?”
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Over 30 million Americans watched at least one of the debates via television or video stream, and even more saw clips of the debates on news programs. What they heard was at least one Democrat articulating opinions clearly outside the mainstream of public opinion — and the kind of positions that the Trump campaign wants to pin on the back of whichever Democrat becomes the nominee.
Indeed, the Democrats seemed to be tag-teaming to prove Republican talking points.
One example was "socialized medicine." Many of the candidates support "Medicare-for-all," which, according to proponents, involves getting rid of private medical insurance. Not every Democratic candidate supports this — and several attacked their opponents for taking this position.
While the consensus Democratic position appears to be allowing people to buy into a Medicare-type insurance program, enough Democrats are pushing “Medicare-for-all” that they run the risk of the public thinking that is their overall approach.
Another example was "open borders." Trump and the Republicans often speak about how the Democrats are for "open borders," or allowing anyone to enter the country, regardless of need for asylum or ability to contribute to society.
I’m not sure that’s the consensus Democratic view — which is more about opposition to the way the Trump administration has been capturing folks at the border, separating families and holding them in detention.
But when asked about what they would do about people crossing the border, no Democrat seemed to take the position that the U.S. should be able to decide (fairly) who needs to be offered asylum and who could be – safely and fairly – refused entry.
Similarly, almost all the Democrats were caught taking the position that they would provide health insurance to illegal immigrants. In the second debate, each candidate raised his or her hand in support of that position. No one sought to finesse the issue by pointing to the fallacy of that question: All hospitals (today) will treat anyone who shows up in need of care.
Someone needs to pay for that care. We can either do what we do today (hospitals set prices for the rest of us to cover that cost) or figure out an equitable way that pays hospitals for the care they provide, regardless of agreed approach to immigration.
On gun control, most of the Democrats take the position of "commonsense gun control," arguing that states have seen reductions in gun violence and suicides without violating the Second Amendment. But others take the position that the government should buy back assault weapons. Again, they are potentially playing into the hands of Trump, who has argued that "Democrats want to take away your guns."
On climate change, there is increasing consensus that the climate is changing and that it is a clear crisis for the planet. But the Democratic articulation of what they want to do seems to play into the hands of people (especially Republicans) who claim that the only way to address climate change is to hurt the economy significantly. Some Democrats argue that the opposite is true, but that view was not on clear display in either of the first two presidential candidate debates.
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In the current environment, one candidate appears in position to defeat Donald Trump, and that’s Donald Trump. The polls indicate that, as of today, if voters are asked to choose between Trump and "not Trump," a clear majority will vote "not Trump."
The strategic implication is that the Democrats should look to nominate someone who will keep the focus of the election on Trump. But in the way they are running for the nomination, Democrats appear to be working to ensure that every swing voter finds one or more things that he or she really doesn’t like about the Democrats.
Rather than stealing a line from Mort Sahl, they should look to the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY ARNON MISHKIN | null | 0 | -1 | null | 32 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Pete Buttigieg returned to South Bend on Saturday to attend events in memory of Eric Logan, an African American man shot dead by a white police officer in the small Indiana city.
Pete Buttigieg: police killing exposes mayor's troubled history with minorities Read more
It will be the Democratic presidential candidate’s first visit to the city he runs as mayor since a contentious town hall event last weekend threw a national spotlight on the shooting, Buttigieg’s record in office and his relationship with black voters.
After consulting with people close to Logan’s family, Buttigieg will not attend the funeral. He will instead participate in a peace walk and a community event including faith leaders and police representatives.
Logan, 54, was shot dead on 16 June, after police responded to a call about someone breaking into cars. Sgt Ryan O’Neill, the officer who shot Logan, said he came at him with a knife. O’Neill had not turned on his body camera. He was placed on leave. An independent prosecutor will investigate.
Early in his term in office Buttigieg, 37, demoted South Bend’s first black police chief. In a city that is 27% black and 15% Latino, 90% of officers are white.
In Thursday night’s Democratic debate, Buttigieg was asked about his failure to bring greater diversity to South Bend police. He said he “couldn’t get it done”.
He also said he “could walk you through all of the things that we have done as a community, all of the steps that we took, from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn’t save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother’s eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back.”
The gay Afghanistan veteran and Rhodes scholar has proved to be the surprise package of the Democratic presidential primary so far, constantly polling in the top five candidates at state and national level. The realcleapolitics.com polling average places him fifth, behind Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.
Speaking to CNN on Friday, the mayor said: “These are issues that America hasn’t solved, that no city has solved, but where we’ve made progress. Sometimes it’s three steps forwards and two steps back. I’m not going to present myself as the person who is going to resolve racial tension and racial inequality in this country. That’s not the story I’m telling.
“What I am saying is that we have addressed these issues in my community. We have learned from that.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 22 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A man has died after being found injured in an Aberdeen street.
Police were alerted to the man in Claremont Street at about 04:20 on Saturday. He was pronounced dead a short time later.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: "Inquiries are ongoing; however, there are no apparent suspicious circumstances and the death is being treated as unexplained."
A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 5 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 4,317,868 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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162989 4829910
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A group of First and Second World War military graves that were discovered smashed on the D-Day 75th Anniversary have been restored by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), which vowed to maintain the graves “today, tomorrow and forever.”
The six graves found smashed on the day people from around the world gathered to remember the sacrifice made by allied troops on D-Day were in a cemetery that locals said had been a regular target for vandalism. A local speaking to the Telegraph and Argus highlighted how symbols of the cross had been the main focus of the attacks, with crosses marking graves being destroyed while others “disappeared altogether”.
Commonwealth War Graves people have put temporary markers in to replace the vandalised head stones. They will eventually replace them with permanent stones. pic.twitter.com/h3bHUJL7Td — Hirstwoodrg (@hirstwoodrg) June 7, 2019
The CWGC, which is responsible for honouring “the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the First and Second World Wars” has now replaced the six stones which were engraved and installed this week. The body is responsible for over one million graves across 150 nations worldwide.
Andy Stillman, CWGC’s UK operations manager, said: “When these war graves were smashed by vandals they weren’t just destroying a piece of stone – they were showing complete disrespect for the people buried there and what they did for their country.
“Each CWGC headstone represents the life of someone we have promised to never forget. Though we were appalled to learn about the damage that took place in Shipley we are pleased to have been able to right this wrong so quickly.
“The huge outpouring of support we received in the wake of this senseless act has proved just how much the public continues to value the memory of the men and women of the wartime generations.”
The new stones being put in place was attended by the surviving relatives of Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve Air Gunner Sergeant Peter Bilsborough, who was killed age 21 on November 27th 1941. His grave was one of those destroyed and subsequently restored.
Julie Watson, the niece of Sergeant Bilsborough, said: “I was horrified to see what had been done to my uncle’s grave and to think that someone would destroy the headstone of someone who died in the war. But through all that negativity I’ve been so impressed by the professionalism and respect which everyone has shown in trying to fix this, including the police for investigating and the press for their careful coverage.
“I’m grateful to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for acting with care and so quickly to restore my uncle’s grave and give us as a family somewhere to continue to pay our respects.”
Just 14% of Military Age Brits Would Volunteer, 39% Would Dodge Draft if Another World War Came https://t.co/FZYCbzREkw — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 9, 2018
The headstone smashing comes amid a steady stream of such vandalism against graves and churches in Europe. Breitbart London reported earlier this month when a memorial to French freedom fighters was vandalised with far-left graffiti. And this week, a memorial to allied forces in Scotland was found to have been attacked with a “knife, or other sharp instrument”, The Courier reports. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 2,001,726 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority has arrested a Palestinian businessman who attended the U.S.-led economic conference in Bahrain this week, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper and Kan public broadcaster reported on Saturday.
The businessman was identified as Salah Abu Miala from the Palestinian city of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. Kan and Haaretz said he was arrested overnight between Friday and Saturday.
“Salah attended a wedding party for a family member yesterday and then he disappeared. We haven’t seen him since,” the man’s brother, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. He said that police forces had not shown up at Abu Miala’s home.
The Palestinian Authority’s security service did not respond to requests for comment, but Palestinian businessman Ashraf Jabari, who attended the conference in Manama, said by phone: “Salah’s son spoke to me by phone and he told me his father was arrested.”
A phone call from Reuters to Abu Miala’s mobile phone was answered by the same son, who said his father could not come to the phone.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could not be reached for comment.
The handful of Palestinian businessmen who attended the Bahrain workshop have been branded as “collaborators” by some in the Palestinian leadership, which boycotted the conference.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Haaretz and Kan said that another Palestinian businessman who had attended Manama managed to evade arrest.
Abbas’s Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have refused to deal with the Trump administration for 18 months, accusing it of bias toward Israel.
Trump’s team, headed by his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, launched its $50 billion economic outline for Israeli-Palestinian peace on Tuesday in Bahrain, saying the investment program for the Palestinians would be followed by a political plan to end the decades-old conflict.
But their peace bid has been met with broad rejection among the Palestinians and the Arab world, mainly because Trump has so far not embraced the Palestinian quest for statehood.
Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab states that have peace agreements with Israel, attended the conference. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who also attended, said they would not endorse a plan that fails to meet Palestinian core demands. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 59,568,167 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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162992 4760206
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Until now the Taliban have refused to meet directly with Ghani's government but have held several rounds of talks with a collection of Afghan personalities from Kabul, including former President Hamid Karzai, several prominent opposition leaders and government peace council members. Both those meetings were held in Moscow earlier this year. The Taliban say they will meet with government officials but as ordinary Afghans and not representatives of the government __ at least not until an agreement with the U.S. is finalized, saying the U.S. is the final arbiter on the Taliban's biggest issue of troop withdrawal. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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