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Is this a constitutional crisis?

Is this a constitutional crisis?

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Dahlia Lithwick writes: It is probably safe to say that this is not how we imagined America’s little fling with representative democracy would end. But on Wednesday morning, New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler described the battle unfolding between the Trump White House and Congress thusly: “The ongoing clash between congressional Democrats and President Trump over the Mueller report has turned into a full-blown constitutional crisis.” On Thursday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used the same turn of phrase, warning that…

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Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happen

Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happen

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Charles Leerhsen writes: The banks seemed to accept the version of him depicted in his first book, “The Art of the Deal,” which we now know from his previous ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, was entirely invented. They believed it over what they saw on his balance sheets or heard coming out of his mouth, and they never said no to his requests for more money. Often they came up with things he could say yes to before he could think of…

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The Hungarian prime minister’s war on intellect

The Hungarian prime minister’s war on intellect

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Franklin Foer writes: On a relentlessly gray Budapest morning, Michael Ignatieff took me to the rooftop of Central European University’s main building. The newly erected edifice is all glass, sharp angles, exposed steel, and polished wood. Its roof had been landscaped with billowing grasses and fitted with iron benches, as if a section of New York City’s High Line had been transported to Hungary. “This is probably my favorite place on the campus,” Ignatieff told me. He wore a newsboy…

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Russia and Turkey landgrab ‘behind fresh Syria bombardment’

Russia and Turkey landgrab ‘behind fresh Syria bombardment’

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The Guardian reports: Renewed bombardment in north-west Syria that has displaced 200,000 people and destroyed 12 healthcare centres could have been sparked by Russia and Turkish moves to entrench their zones of influence as the seven-year conflict winds down, according to regional diplomats. The bombardment in Idlib province began two weeks ago and has intensified in recent days, prompting rescue workers to describe an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”. The violence has sparked fears of a final, devastating, showdown in the most…

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Humans are not off the hook for extinctions of large herbivores — then or now

Humans are not off the hook for extinctions of large herbivores — then or now

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Hippos at Gorongosa National Park. Brett Kuxhausen, Author provided, Author provided By René Bobe, University of Oxford and Susana Carvalho, University of Oxford What triggered the decline and eventual extinction of many megaherbivores, the giant plant-eating mammals that roamed the Earth millions of years ago, has long been a mystery. These animals, which weighed 1,000kg or more and included the ancient relatives of modern elephants, rhinos, hippos and giraffes, reached a peak of diversity in Africa some 4.5m years ago…

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Climate change suddenly matters in the 2020 race. Are the candidates ready?

Climate change suddenly matters in the 2020 race. Are the candidates ready?

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Bill McKibben writes: For three decades in American politics, climate change has been the issue that wasn’t. Even as the temperature steadily rose, and evidence mounted that it was human behavior—and human policies—that were driving this change, candidates mostly deflected. And it wasn’t hard: During the 2016 general election, no journalist even asked the presidential candidates a debate question on the topic. But that’s not the case this time. Climate change matters for Democratic voters: A Monmouth University poll last…

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U.S. fossil fuel subsidies exceed Pentagon spending, says IMF

U.S. fossil fuel subsidies exceed Pentagon spending, says IMF

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Rolling Stone reports: The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion. The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices…

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Nearly half white Republicans bothered by ‘foreign’ languages spoken in the land named after Amerigo Vespucci

Nearly half white Republicans bothered by ‘foreign’ languages spoken in the land named after Amerigo Vespucci

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The Washington Post reports: A new survey finds white Republicans are far more likely to be put off by foreign language speakers than their Democratic counterparts. According to Pew Research Center, 47 percent of such Republicans say it would bother them “some” or “a lot” to “hear people speak a language other than English in a public place.” Just 18 percent of white Democrats said they would be similarly bothered. Aside from politics, age and education are the major predictors…

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Trump, Cohen, Falwell, and the pool attendant

Trump, Cohen, Falwell, and the pool attendant

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Reuters reports: Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters. Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy “personal” photographs — the sort that would typically be kept “between husband and wife,” Cohen said in the taped conversation….

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Face it: A farmed animal is someone; not something

Face it: A farmed animal is someone; not something

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Lori Marino writes: We’ve all heard them and used them – the common references to farmed animals that appeal to the worst part of human nature: ‘pearls before swine’, ‘what a pig’, ‘like lambs to the slaughter’, ‘bird brain’. These phrases represent our species’ view of farmed animals as not particularly bright, uncaring about their treatment or fate, and generally bland and monolithic in their identities. My team of researchers asked: ‘What is there to really know about them?’ Our…

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The Art of Failure: Trump tax figures reveal over $1 billion in business losses

The Art of Failure: Trump tax figures reveal over $1 billion in business losses

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The New York Times reports: By the time his master-of-the-universe memoir “Trump: The Art of the Deal” hit bookstores in 1987, Donald J. Trump was already in deep financial distress, losing tens of millions of dollars on troubled business deals, according to previously unrevealed figures from his federal income tax returns. Mr. Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. He has attributed his first run of reversals…

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Children change their parents’ minds about climate change

Children change their parents’ minds about climate change

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Lydia Denworth writes: Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg became famous this spring for launching a student movement to compel adults to take action on climate change. Instead of going to school, Greta has been spending her Fridays in front of the Swedish parliament with a sign reading: “School Strike for Climate.” Students in more than 70 countries have since followed her lead. But before she started trying to convince the world to take action, Thunberg worked on her parents. She showered…

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Trump team kills Arctic accord after cheering on sea ice melt

Trump team kills Arctic accord after cheering on sea ice melt

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Joe Romm writes: On Tuesday, the United States killed an accord with other Arctic nations on how to address regional challenges. Why? The Trump delegation, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, would not accept an agreement that stated climate change seriously threatened the polar region, Reuters reported. Yet, just last year, the White House released a 1,000-page report by top U.S. scientists explaining that Trump’s anti-climate policies would devastate the Arctic. So, for the first time since its creation…

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Once again, the U.S. embarrasses itself on climate change

Once again, the U.S. embarrasses itself on climate change

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Joel Clement writes: The Trump administration is so fearful of acknowledging the reality of climate change that White House negotiators are trying to erase all mention of it and the Paris Agreement from a multinational statement about the Arctic region, The Post reported last week. In doing so, the Trump administration has demonstrated its cowardly denial that the region is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the planet, putting its own people in harm’s way and…

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