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Three days of chaos bring uncomfortable echoes of the past to Northern Ireland

Three days of chaos bring uncomfortable echoes of the past to Northern Ireland

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The Guardian reports: A fireball outside a courthouse. Hijackings and bomb alerts. Sealed-off streets, evacuations and arrests. Speculation about the next attack. It can seem as if Derry has stepped into a time machine. Television pictures in the past few days have shown images redolent of the Troubles, an era supposedly consigned to the city’s museums and murals. Ice and snow blanketed the scorch marks outside the Bishop Street courthouse on Tuesday as police with body armour and rifles patrolled…

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Biden’s paid speech buoyed the GOP in Midwest battleground

Biden’s paid speech buoyed the GOP in Midwest battleground

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The New York Times reports: Joseph R. Biden Jr. swept into Benton Harbor, Mich., three weeks before the November elections, in the midst of his quest to reclaim the Midwest for Democrats. He took the stage at Lake Michigan College as Representative Fred Upton, a long-serving Republican from the area, faced the toughest race of his career. But Mr. Biden was not there to denounce Mr. Upton. Instead, he was collecting $200,000 from the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan to…

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Record number of Americans are worried about climate change

Record number of Americans are worried about climate change

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The New York Times reports: A record number of Americans understand that climate change is real, according to a new survey, and they are increasingly worried about its effects in their lives today. Some 73 percent of Americans polled late last year said that global warming was happening, the report found, a jump of 10 percentage points from 2015 and three points since last March. The rise in the number of Americans who say global warming is personally important to…

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Corporate America sees opportunities to profit from diseases and disasters caused by climate change

Corporate America sees opportunities to profit from diseases and disasters caused by climate change

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Bloomberg reports: Climate change isn’t all downside for the largest U.S. companies. Many of those that filed reports with CDP [formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project] said they believe climate change can bolster demand for their products. For one thing, more people will get sick. “As the climate changes, there will be expanded markets for products for tropical and weather related diseases including waterborne illness,” wrote Merck & Co. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment. More…

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Trump’s lawyer claimed there were ‘no plans’ for Trump Tower Moscow, but here they are

Trump’s lawyer claimed there were ‘no plans’ for Trump Tower Moscow, but here they are

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BuzzFeed reports: The plan was dazzling: a glass skyscraper that would stretch higher than any other building in Europe, offering ultra-luxury residences and hotel rooms and bearing a famous name. Trump Tower Moscow, conceived as a partnership between Donald Trump’s company and a Russian real estate developer, looked likely to yield profits in excess of $300 million. The tower was never built, but it has become a focal point of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump’s relationship…

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Don’t doubt what you saw with your own eyes

Don’t doubt what you saw with your own eyes

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Laura Wagner writes: Two days ago, video was posted online that pretty much everyone who saw immediately recognized for what it was—footage of white teens taunting and harassing a Native American elder named Nathan Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. What was happening was clear and unmistakable, not just resonant but immediately recognizable as iconic. If you wanted to compress the history of relations between the powerful and the powerless in America, or the dynamics of the current…

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The Covington teenage mob that Trump gladly supports

The Covington teenage mob that Trump gladly supports

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Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good – maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2019 The New York Times reports: The school last faced negative scrutiny a month ago, when a 2018 graduate…

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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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