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Category: Politics

Kids suing the U.S. over climate crisis are getting global support

Kids suing the U.S. over climate crisis are getting global support

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Quartz reports: In 2015, when a group of 21 children and teens first sued the US government over climate change, their claim in Juliana v. US was not totally new—youth in Uganda and the Netherlands had filed somewhat similar environmental suits—but it seemed a little strange. Shouldn’t these kids be playing video games or something, doing pretty much anything but litigating to save the planet? Now, the plaintiffs in Juliana v. US are part of an increasingly vocal global movement…

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Rory Stewart, a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia, shakes up Britain’s Tories

Rory Stewart, a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia, shakes up Britain’s Tories

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The New York Times reports: [Rory] Stewart has hijacked the Tory leadership campaign with a surprising argument: Britain must reapply its energy to compromise, between its own angry factions and with Europe, and return to Mrs. May’s withdrawal agreement. This is a frontal challenge to the Tories. The front-runner for the post, Boris Johnson, has vowed to exit the European Union on Oct. 31, even if no agreement is in place. This promise is tailored to a small audience of…

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Boris Johnson, favorite to become the UK’s next prime minister, is woefully unprepared for the job

Boris Johnson, favorite to become the UK’s next prime minister, is woefully unprepared for the job

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BuzzFeed reports: BuzzFeed News conducted interviews with seven senior US, European and British officials and diplomats at the highest level of government to interrogate Johnson’s time in office, and what it tells us about how he might perform as UK prime minister. All had first hand experience of dealing directly with him on the international stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity, in order to be candid when sharing their views and experiences. None of the people BuzzFeed News talked…

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Trump interferes in British politics and insults royal family ahead of state visit

Trump interferes in British politics and insults royal family ahead of state visit

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Bloomberg reports: Donald Trump weighed into Britain’s political turmoil by expressing his admiration for Boris Johnson, the pro-Brexit former Foreign Secretary who’s favored to succeed Theresa May as prime minister. Trump insisted to the Sun newspaper he wasn’t giving a full endorsement to any of the 12 candidates to become leader of Britain’s ruling Conservative party but said Johnson “would be excellent” and would do a “very good job” running the country. The newspaper called Trump’s comments, on the eve…

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No president is above the law

No president is above the law

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Elizabeth Warren writes: When Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released on April 18, I sat down and read it. All 448 pages of it. I started reading it that afternoon, and I read all through the night and into the next morning. And when I got to page 448, three things were clear to me. First, a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help candidate Donald Trump get elected. Second, candidate Donald Trump welcomed that help. Third,…

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Mueller’s punt keeps looking worse

Mueller’s punt keeps looking worse

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Andrew Prokop writes: Robert Mueller’s report makes the stirring claim that “a fundamental principle of our government” is that no person, not even the president, “is above the law.” But the special counsel’s ultimate legacy may well be the exact opposite — because of his controversial decision not to say whether Trump committed criminal obstruction of justice. “We concluded that we would not reach a determination, one way or the other, about whether the president committed a crime,” Mueller said…

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Trump’s tariff threat to Mexico may upend trade deal, undermine the economy

Trump’s tariff threat to Mexico may upend trade deal, undermine the economy

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The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s surprise announcement of an escalating series of new tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico is likely to upend hopes for early congressional action on his proposed North American trade deal and trigger economic upheaval on both sides of the border, according to trade analysts and business executives. Business leaders reacted with dismay to Trump’s statement Thursday that he would impose a new 5 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico beginning June 10…

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Merkel takes aim at Trump in ‘tear down walls’ speech at Harvard

Merkel takes aim at Trump in ‘tear down walls’ speech at Harvard

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“I want to leave this wish with you: Tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, for nothing has to stay as it is”. – Angela Merkel’s speech to students after receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Law Degree from Harvard University. pic.twitter.com/r144M2Qb6K — James Melville (@JamesMelville) May 31, 2019 Politico reports: Angela Merkel urged Harvard graduates Thursday to “tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness” in a speech laced with apparent jibes at Donald Trump and his policies. Though she did…

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For Brexit leaders ‘the empire was celebrated as a great thing’

For Brexit leaders ‘the empire was celebrated as a great thing’

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Der Spiegel reports: DER SPIEGEL: In your book “Rule Britannia,” you argue that the main reason for Brexit was that “a small number of people had a dangerous and imperialist misconception of Britain’s standing in the world.” Is Boris one of them? Danny Dorling: Yes, Boris and (member of parliament) Jacob Rees-Mogg are the more obvious ones. But there are many others. They’re almost all white men with similar backgrounds. Almost none of them were average or poor. They were…

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Italy is evicting Steve Bannon from the training camp for far-right ‘gladiators’ he’s trying to establish

Italy is evicting Steve Bannon from the training camp for far-right ‘gladiators’ he’s trying to establish

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Quartz reports: The Italian government has delivered a potentially fatal blow to Steve Bannon’s plans to transform a medieval monastery near Rome into a training academy for the far-right. Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian…

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New evidence of the Trump administration’s efforts to maintain GOP white supremacy

New evidence of the Trump administration’s efforts to maintain GOP white supremacy

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The Washington Post reports: Just weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether the Trump administration can add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, new evidence emerged Thursday suggesting the question was crafted specifically to give an electoral advantage to white Republicans. The evidence was found in the files of the prominent Republican redistricting strategist Thomas Hofeller after his death in August. It reveals that Hofeller “played a significant role in orchestrating the addition of the…

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Neither Congress nor the press did enough to tell the American people what they needed to know about the Mueller report

Neither Congress nor the press did enough to tell the American people what they needed to know about the Mueller report

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Quinta Jurecic writes: Mueller has remained silent for two years, and his first public statement was always going to be a significant event. Likewise, the underlying information communicated in both Mueller’s remarks and the report itself is appalling—and further discussion of its meaning can only be good. The question is why it took so long to happen. The difficulty in communicating the substance of the Mueller report began even before the report itself was released. When Barr first released his…

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