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The seductive myth of Britain standing alone against its oppressors is driving support for a no-deal Brexit

The seductive myth of Britain standing alone against its oppressors is driving support for a no-deal Brexit

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John Harris writes: Some support for no deal closely echoes the specious stuff repeatedly uttered by leading Brexiteers, about the EU needing Britain more than we need them, a country set free from Brussels diktats and trading again with its former colonies. But the most fascinating element of popular no-dealism is altogether more complicated, and built on a defiant rejection of all the warnings about falling off a cliff edge, so passionate that the refusal of advice feels more relevant…

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No-deal Brexit would mean hard Irish border, EU confirms

No-deal Brexit would mean hard Irish border, EU confirms

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The Guardian reports: The EU has confirmed it will enforce a hard border on the island of Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit, despite the risk it would pose to peace. In comments that will be highly uncomfortable for Dublin, Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief spokesman told reporters it was “pretty obvious” that border infrastructure would be necessary if the UK were to leave without deal. Both the Irish and British governments have been wary about speculating on the repercussions…

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Greenland’s ice melting faster than scientists previously thought

Greenland’s ice melting faster than scientists previously thought

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The Guardian reports: Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought, with the pace of ice loss increasing four-fold since 2003, new research has found. Enormous glaciers in Greenland are depositing ever larger chunks of ice into the Atlantic ocean, where it melts. But scientists have found that the largest ice loss in the decade from 2003 actually occurred in the southwest region of the island, which is largely glacier-free. This suggests surface ice is simply melting as global temperatures…

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Nuclear weapons and the legacy of Dr. King

Nuclear weapons and the legacy of Dr. King

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Vincent Intondi writes: On February 6, 1968, Dr. King, stepped up to the pulpit to warn against the use of nuclear weapons. Addressing the second mobilization of the Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, King urged an end to the war and warned that if the United States used nuclear weapons in Vietnam the earth would be transformed into an inferno that “even the mind of Dante could not envision.” Then, as he had done so many times before, King…

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The 26 richest people possess as much wealth as half the world’s population

The 26 richest people possess as much wealth as half the world’s population

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The Guardian reports: The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population. In an annual wealth check released to mark the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the development charity Oxfam said 2018 had been a year in which the rich had grown richer and the poor poorer. It…

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Israel and Iran are on a collision course in Syria – and the U.S. and Russia don’t care

Israel and Iran are on a collision course in Syria – and the U.S. and Russia don’t care

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Anshel Pfeffer writes: The escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran in the skies over Syria in the past 24 hours has brought their secret war of the last two years well and truly into the open. On Sunday, Israel carried out a rare daylight series of airstrikes in the Damascus area, followed by an Iranian attempt to fire a mid-range missile toward northern Israel. Overnight Monday, at 1 A.M., Israel not only launched a second, much wider series…

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The cerebellum is your ‘little brain’ — and it does some pretty big things

The cerebellum is your ‘little brain’ — and it does some pretty big things

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Diana Kwon writes: For the longest time the cerebellum, a dense, fist-size formation located at the base of the brain, never got much respect from neuroscientists. For about two centuries the scientific community believed the cerebellum (Latin for “little brain”), which contains approximately half of the brain’s neurons, was dedicated solely to the control of movement. In recent decades, however, the tide has started to turn, as researchers have revealed details of the structure’s role in cognition, emotional processing and…

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‘If giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in the law of this country?’

‘If giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in the law of this country?’

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The Washington Post reports: During the summer of 2017, when temperatures reached triple digits in Arizona, four women drove to a vast desert wilderness along the southwestern border with Mexico. They brought water jugs and canned food — items they later said they were leaving for dehydrated migrants crossing the unfriendly terrain to get to the United States. The women were later charged with misdemeanor crimes. Prosecutors said they violated federal law by entering Cabeza Prieta, a protected 860,000-acre refuge,…

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Waiting for a shutdown to end in disaster

Waiting for a shutdown to end in disaster

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McKay Coppins writes: As the longest government shutdown in American history lurches toward its fifth week, a grim but growing consensus has begun to emerge on Capitol Hill: There may be no way out of this mess until something disastrous happens. This is, of course, not a sentiment lawmakers are eager to share on the record. But in interviews this week with congressional staffers on both sides of the aisle (whom I granted anonymity in exchange for candor), I heard…

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Protecting the work of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, isn’t the Attorney General’s only job

Protecting the work of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, isn’t the Attorney General’s only job

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Jeffrey Toobin writes: When William Barr testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee as President Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, he gave the impression that he would be an aberrational figure in the Administration. Unlike many members of the President’s Cabinet, Barr is experienced, knowledgeable, and clearly qualified, in any formal sense, for the job, which he has held before, under President George H. W. Bush. In addition, he has a reputation for integrity and straight dealing. Most of…

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What boys are learning from men

What boys are learning from men

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Melinda Wenner Moyer writes: No one who saw the new Gillette ad “The Best Men Can Be” thought it would be universally embraced. It establishes the state of masculinity today with various scenes of men acting sexist, boys physically and mentally terrorizing each other, and dads accepting a “Boys will be boys” mentality, before dramatically pivoting. The wide range of reactions was, of course, the point: to create a conversation starter. To rile people and get them talking about Gillette….

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The age of surveillance capitalism

The age of surveillance capitalism

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John Naughton writes: We’re living through the most profound transformation in our information environment since Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of printing in circa 1439. And the problem with living through a revolution is that it’s impossible to take the long view of what’s happening. Hindsight is the only exact science in this business, and in that long run we’re all dead. Printing shaped and transformed societies over the next four centuries, but nobody in Mainz (Gutenberg’s home town) in, say, 1495…

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The plot against George Soros

The plot against George Soros

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Hannes Grassegger writes: The glass tower that houses George Soros’s office in Manhattan is overflowing with numbers on screens, tracking and predicting the directions of markets around the world. But there’s one that’s particularly hard to figure out — a basic orange chart on a screen analyzing sentiment on social media. The data, updated regularly since 2017, projects the reactions on the internet to the name George Soros. He gets tens of thousands of mentions per week — almost always…

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