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The energy behind Farage and his Brexit party leaves his rivals in the shadows

The energy behind Farage and his Brexit party leaves his rivals in the shadows

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Paul Harris writes: Last Sunday, I went to a Brexit party rally in Frimley, Surrey. The venue was the Lakeside Hotel and Country Club complex, well known as the setting for international darts contests. Inside, 1,200 or so people had gathered to hear Nigel Farage and most of the party’s other would-be MEPs for the south-east region. The atmosphere was roughly as I had expected: highly charged, defiant, often strangely celebratory. But what was most striking was the slickness of…

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It’s not entirely up to school students to save the world

It’s not entirely up to school students to save the world

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Bill McKibben writes: In the past several months, people around the world have watched in awe as school students, led by the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, have taken their concerns about the climate crisis to a new level, with a series of one-day strikes. The latest took place on Friday, and drew what is estimated as more than a million participants in a hundred and twenty-five countries. The strikes have been the biggest boost yet for the global climate movement,…

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The seeds of Trump, Brexit and Modi’s success were sown by endemic racism and unfairness

The seeds of Trump, Brexit and Modi’s success were sown by endemic racism and unfairness

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Gary Younge writes: The morning after both Donald Trump’s victory and the Brexit referendum, when a mood of paralysing shock and grief overcame progressives and liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, the two most common refrains I heard were: “I don’t recognise my country any more,” and “I feel like I’ve woken up in a different country.” This period of collective disorientation was promptly joined by oppositional activity, if not activism. People who had never marched before took to…

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Latest charges against Assange are an assault on press freedom

Latest charges against Assange are an assault on press freedom

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Brian Barrett writes: On Thursday, the Department of Justice unsealed new charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Unlike the previous indictment—which focused narrowly on an apparent offer to help crack a password—the 17 superseding counts focus instead on alleged violations of the Espionage Act. In doing so, the DOJ has aimed a battering ram at the freedom of the press, whether you think Assange is a journalist or not. The indictment, which you can read in full below, alleges that…

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Amend the Espionage Act: Public interest defenses must be allowed

Amend the Espionage Act: Public interest defenses must be allowed

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In an editorial, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says: It has been almost 102 years since the Espionage Act was signed into law by Woodrow Wilson. Initially conceived as a means by which to “punish acts of interference with the foreign relations,” the act has since become a tool of suppression, used to punish whistleblowers who expose governmental wrongdoing and criminality. It is time that the law be amended to accommodate those who share information vital to the public interest. Daniel Everette…

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Trump’s witch hunt against his investigators raises national security concerns

Trump’s witch hunt against his investigators raises national security concerns

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The New York Times reports: President Trump’s order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that sparked the opening of the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the C.I.A., including over the possible implications for a person close to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia who provided information to the C.I.A. about his involvement in Moscow’s 2016 election interference. The concern about the source, who is believed to be still alive, is one of several…

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Could a lack of humility be at the root of what ails America?

Could a lack of humility be at the root of what ails America?

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What happens when everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else? Ljupco Smokovski/Shutterstock.com By Frank T. McAndrew, Knox College There are a lot of reasons behind the political polarization of the country and the deterioration of civic discourse. I wonder if a lack of humility is one of them. In his recent book, “The Death of Expertise,” national security expert Tom Nichols described a type of person each of us probably knows: “They are young and old, rich and poor, some…

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The fast food of coral reefs

The fast food of coral reefs

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Ed Yong writes: Although coral reefs are home to bustling communities of gaudy marine life, half the fishes that live there are hardly ever seen. Aptly known as cryptobenthics—literally “hidden bottom-dwellers”—these species are mostly shorter than two inches and usually hidden in crevices. If you snorkel past, they’ll scurry away. But Simon Brandl of Simon Fraser University has made a career of studying them. And he and his team have now shown that cryptobenthics are a crucial component of healthy…

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Humans are killing off most large wild animals as sixth mass extinction advances

Humans are killing off most large wild animals as sixth mass extinction advances

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The Guardian reports: Humanity’s ongoing destruction of wildlife will lead to a shrinking of nature, with the average body size of animals falling by a quarter, a study predicts. The researchers estimate that more than 1,000 larger species of mammals and birds will go extinct in the next century, from rhinos to eagles. They say this could lead to the collapse of ecosystems that humans rely on for food and clean water. Humans have wiped out most large creatures from…

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Why carbon credits for forest preservation may be worse than nothing

Why carbon credits for forest preservation may be worse than nothing

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Lisa Song reports: The state of Acre, on the western edge of Brazil, is so remote, there’s a national joke that it doesn’t exist. But for geochemist Foster Brown, it’s the center of the universe, a place that could help save the world. “This is an example of hope,” he said, as we stood behind his office at the Federal University of Acre, a tropical campus carved into the Amazon rainforest. Brown placed his hand on a spindly trunk, ordering…

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Young people have led the climate strikes. Now we need adults to join us too

Young people have led the climate strikes. Now we need adults to join us too

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Greta Thunberg and 46 youth activists write: Tomorrow, schoolchildren and students will be out on the streets again, in huge numbers, in 150 countries, at over 4,000 events, demanding that governments immediately provide a safe pathway to stay within 1.5C of global heating. We spent weeks and months preparing for this day. We spent uncountable hours organising and mobilising when we could have just hung out with our friends or studied for school. We don’t feel like we have a…

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I’m an evolutionary biologist – here’s why this ancient fungal fossil discovery is so revealing

I’m an evolutionary biologist – here’s why this ancient fungal fossil discovery is so revealing

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Do fungi like this Penicillium mold, which produces the the antibiotic penicillin, trace their origins to an ancestor that lived a billion years ago? Rattiya Thongdumhyu/Shutterstock.com By Antonis Rokas, Vanderbilt University Biologists don’t call them “the hidden kingdom” for nothing. With an estimated 5 million species, only a mere 100,000 fungi are known to scientists. This kingdom, which includes molds, yeasts, rusts and mushrooms, receives far less attention than plants or animals. This is particularly true for fossils of fungi,…

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Why some Palestinians are backing Trump’s peace push

Why some Palestinians are backing Trump’s peace push

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Politico reports: Some prominent Palestinian activists and politicians are quietly rooting for Jared Kushner as he prepares to unveil the first part of his Middle East peace plan next month. That’s not because they think the plan will resolve their decadeslong conflict with Israel. It’s because they hope it will hasten the onset of a “one-state” solution they are coming to support. The push for one state with equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis has gained steam in recent years…

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