Music: Mansur Brown — ‘Motions’
A fair and welcoming immigration system
Elizabeth Warren writes: Immigrants have always been a vital source of American strength. They grow our economy and make our communities richer and more diverse. They are our neighbors, our colleagues, and our friends — and every bit as much a part of America as those who were born in the United States. President Trump sees things differently. He’s advanced a policy of cruelty and division that demonizes immigrants. He’s axed programs that protect young Dreamers and asylum seekers fleeing…
Boris Johnson shows ‘lack of leadership that is lamentable’
The Guardian reports: Boris Johnson has been heavily criticised by fellow Tory MPs over his role in Sir Kim Darroch’s decision to resign as the UK ambassador to Washington, with one backbencher saying the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest should come to the Commons to apologise. An urgent question in the Commons about Darroch’s departure, which followed the leak of diplomatic cables critical of the Donald Trump White House, saw repeated condemnation of Johnson, and only one Conservative MP…
Illusions of sovereignty: As the UK retreats from the EU it will face increasing pressures from the U.S.
Patrick Wintour writes: A chain of events has been triggered that is increasingly exposing the UK diplomatically and militarily in the Gulf. The UK has put British shipping on maximum alert in the Gulf, just as the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is forced to admit that – due to successive defence cuts – the UK does not have the resources to defend British vessels. Simultaneously, the UK is battling diplomatically to keep the nuclear deal with Iran alive – a…
How fake news could lead to real war
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon write: Who really bombed the oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman three weeks ago? Was it Iran, as the Trump administration assured us? Or was it Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Israel—or some combination of the three? Here’s a confession from two former senior government officials: For days after the attacks, we weren’t sure. Both of us believed in all sincerity there was a good chance these actions were part of a…
Jeffrey Epstein’s wealth may not be as vast as claimed
The New York Times reports: When federal prosecutors announced sex-trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein this week, they described him as “a man of nearly infinite means.” They argued that his vast wealth — and his two private jets — made him a flight risk. Mr. Epstein is routinely described as a billionaire and brilliant financier, and he rubbed elbows with the powerful, including former and future presidents. Even after his 2008 guilty plea in a prostitution case in Florida, he…
In a first, 22 nations condemned China’s repression of Uigher Muslims. Without the U.S.
Rick Noack writes: More than 20 nations signed a letter this week forcefully condemning China’s apparent systematic detention of minority Uighurs and other Muslims — a landmark step toward holding Beijing accountable for what human rights groups and the United States have described as a policy of mass incarceration based solely on ethnicity. The letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was also notable for another reason: that it was written at all. The United States has…
Oldest human skull outside Africa identified as 210,000 years old
Nicolas Primola/Shutterstock By Anthony Sinclair, University of Liverpool A 210,000-year-old human skull could provide new evidence that our species left Africa much earlier than previously thought. A new study published in Nature of two fossils found in Greece in the 1970s shows that one of them is the oldest Homo sapiens specimen ever found outside Africa by more than 50,000 years. This exciting discovery adds to a list of recent finds that shows the story of humanity’s spread across the…
Music: Yussef Dayes ft. Rocco Palladino & Charlie Stacey — ‘Yesterday Princess’
What happened to ‘the party of family values’?
Peter Wehner, who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and as a senior aide to George W. Bush, describes the hypocrisy of a party that has yet to demand the resignation of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and that has aligned itself with a president who is a sexual predator. The Guardian reports: Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated…
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein’s mutual appetite for wealth and women
The New York Times reports: It was supposed to be an exclusive party at Mar-a-Lago, Donald J. Trump’s members-only club in Palm Beach, Fla. But other than the two dozen or so women flown in to provide the entertainment, the only guests were Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The year was 1992 and the event was a “calendar girl” competition, something that George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise, had organized at Mr. Trump’s request. “I arranged…
‘American Carnage’ reveals how conflict between Republicans led to their peace with Trump
Jennifer Szalai writes: “American Carnage” isn’t just another drop in the deluge of Trump books; in fact, it isn’t really a Trump book at all. Instead it’s a fascinating look at a Republican Party that initially scoffed at the incursion of a philandering reality-TV star with zero political experience and now readily accommodates him. [Tim] Alberta, a political correspondent for the conservative magazine National Review before moving to Politico, brings more than a decade of reporting and a real understanding…
Kim Darroch’s resignation signals that Boris Johnson is now carrying out orders for Donald Trump
Patrick Wintour writes: The resignation of Sir Kim Darroch followed the failure of the probable next prime minister, Boris Johnson, to say he supported him staying in post, despite being given repeated chances to do so during his TV debate on Tuesday night with Jeremy Hunt. As the current Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan put it, by six times refusing to back the ambassador, Johnson had thrown him under a bus. Without the backing of the US president or his…
UN human rights chief ‘deeply shocked’ by migrant detention center conditions in Texas
The Washington Post reports: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Monday that she is “appalled by the conditions” being forced upon migrants after they cross the southern U.S. border and admonished the federal government for failing to find noncustodial alternatives. “Any deprivation of liberty of adult migrants and refugees should be a measure of last resort,” she said, adding that where detention is necessary, it should be for the shortest period and under conditions that satisfy…
Elizabeth Warren shuns conventional wisdom for a new kind of campaign unshackled from self-serving consultants
Politico reports: When Elizabeth Warren said earlier this year she was swearing off fundraisers, many Democratic strategists saw it as a sign of desperation from a flailing candidate. But that gamble against conventional wisdom — which is paying off handsomely, given the $19.1 million she raised in the second quarter — is far from the only way Warren is defying the traditional playbook for running a modern presidential campaign. The campaign has gone without an outside polling firm, and says…
Ancient humans used the moon as a calendar in the sky
Rebecca Boyle writes: The sun’s rhythm may have set the pace of each day, but when early humans needed a way to keep time beyond a single day and night, they looked to a second light in the sky. The moon was one of humankind’s first timepieces long before the first written language, before the earliest organized cities and well before structured religions. The moon’s face changes nightly and with the regularity of the seasons, making it a reliable marker…