Trump’s G7 performance suggests he’s either a ‘Russian asset’ or a ‘useful idiot’ for Putin, say U.S. spies

Trump’s G7 performance suggests he’s either a ‘Russian asset’ or a ‘useful idiot’ for Putin, say U.S. spies

Business Insider reports: “It’s hard to see the bar anymore since it’s been pushed so far down the last few years, but President Trump’s behavior over the weekend was a new low.” That was the assessment an FBI agent who works in counterintelligence gave Insider of President Donald Trump’s performance at this year’s G7 summit in Biarritz, France. The agent requested anonymity because they feared that speaking publicly on the matter would jeopardize their job. Trump’s attendance at the G7…

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Bolton sidelined from Afghanistan policy as his standing with Trump falters

Bolton sidelined from Afghanistan policy as his standing with Trump falters

The Washington Post reports: As the president’s top aides prepared for a high-stakes meeting on the future of Afghanistan earlier this month, one senior official was not on the original invite list: national security adviser John Bolton. The attendance of the top security aide would normally be critical, but the omission was no mistake, senior U.S. officials said. Bolton, who has long advocated an expansive military presence around the world, has become a staunch internal foe of an emerging peace…

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Former Tory prime minister to join legal fight to stop Boris Johnson suspending parliament

Former Tory prime minister to join legal fight to stop Boris Johnson suspending parliament

The Guardian reports: John Major has said he will seek the high court’s permission to join a legal fight to prevent the government from suspending parliament before the Brexit deadline, in an unprecedented legal battle that could pit a former prime minister against the incumbent. The Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson, and the Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, also said they were seeking to join the case brought by the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller aiming to prevent Boris Johnson from…

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Myths about the Stone Age

Myths about the Stone Age

By Stephen E. Nash When most members of the general public think of the Stone Age, they probably envision an adult male hominin wielding a stone tool. That picture is laughably incomplete. It assumes that only adult males made and used stone tools, and that stones were the only materials in these ancient people’s everyday tool kits. Both assumptions are at best questionable; at worst, they are simply wrong. First, let’s tackle the stereotype about raw materials. Recent discoveries in…

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EPA to remove regulations on methane, a potent greenhouse gas

EPA to remove regulations on methane, a potent greenhouse gas

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration laid out on Thursday a far-reaching plan to cut back on the regulation of methane emissions, a major contributor to climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency, in its proposed rule, aims to eliminate federal requirements that oil and gas companies install technology to detect and fix methane leaks from wells, pipelines and storage facilities. It will also reopen the question of whether the E.P.A. even has the legal authority to regulate methane…

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Trump pushes for new logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

Trump pushes for new logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

The Washington Post reports: President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago, according to three people briefed on the issue, after privately discussing the matter with the state’s governor aboard Air Force One. The move would affect more than half of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, opening it to potential logging, energy and mining projects. It would undercut a sweeping Clinton administration policy known…

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Hurricanes and the climate crisis: What you need to know

Hurricanes and the climate crisis: What you need to know

Climate Reality reports: Carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas is warming our planet and driving climate change. It’s throwing natural systems out of balance – to often devastating effect. One result among many is that average global sea surface temperatures are rising – and when sea surface temperatures become warmer, hurricanes can become more powerful. “For a long time, we’ve understood, based on pretty simple physics, that as you warm the ocean’s surface, you’re…

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The man who got economists to take climate worst-case scenarios seriously

The man who got economists to take climate worst-case scenarios seriously

Bloomberg reports: What if climate change turns out to be worse than we think? That anxiety is now commonplace, but a decade ago it took an influential paper by a Harvard professor to convince the insular world of climate economists to focus more of their attention on worst-case scenarios. Martin Weitzman, who passed away this week at the age of 77, forever connected the notion of “fat tails” to the economics of climate risk. Before his 2009 paper overturned standard…

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How did the U.S. go from being the most egalitarian country in the West to being one of the most unequal?

How did the U.S. go from being the most egalitarian country in the West to being one of the most unequal?

Liaquat Ahamed writes: In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, at the age of twenty-five, was sent by France’s Ministry of Justice to study the American penal system. He spent ten months in the United States, dutifully visiting prisons and meeting hundreds of people, including President Andrew Jackson and his predecessor, John Quincy Adams. On his return to France, he wrote a book about his observations, “Democracy in America,” the first volume of which was published in 1835. Many of the observations…

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The search for China’s missing million Uyghurs

The search for China’s missing million Uyghurs

Morgan Meaker writes: When Aiziheer Ainiwaer talks about his father, Ainiwa Niyazi, he paints him as a comedian and the joker of his friendship group. He describes how the 57-year-old teacher always had the room in stitches with his impersonations of famous pop stars. But at home, the father-of-two would be more serious. “My father constantly used to tell us we should study and be well educated,” says Aiziheer. Throughout Aiziheer’s childhood, that mantra resulted in regular trips to the…

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Barr feathers Trump’s nest with $30,000 hotel booking for holiday party

Barr feathers Trump’s nest with $30,000 hotel booking for holiday party

The Washington Post reports: Attorney General William P. Barr is planning a holiday treat for his boss. Last month, Barr booked President Trump’s D.C. hotel for a 200-person holiday party in December that is likely to deliver Trump’s business more than $30,000 in revenue. Barr signed a contract, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, for a “Family Holiday Party” in the hotel’s Presidential Ballroom Dec. 8. The party will feature a buffet and a four-hour open…

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The loss that precedes extinction matters as much as extinction itself

The loss that precedes extinction matters as much as extinction itself

Ed Yong writes: Imagine if every animal and plant on the planet collapsed into a single population each, says ecologist Gerardo Ceballos. If lions disappeared except from one small corner of Kenya, the prey they keep in check would run amok everywhere else. If sparrows were no more except in one Dutch forest, the seeds that sparrows disperse would stay in place everywhere else. If honeybees became isolated to one American meadow, the flowers that they pollinate would fail to…

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Boris Johnson’s parliament shutdown is unconstitutional

Boris Johnson’s parliament shutdown is unconstitutional

Shami Chakrabarti writes: One of the gravest dangers to any society is “outrage fatigue”. The symptom of this condition is when so many people have been so angry for so long that terrible abuses of power now seem almost normal. Over a decade since the financial crash, after nine years of crippling public spending and tax cuts, and three years on from the bitterly fought EU referendum, poor leadership leaves our country in a state of polarised peril. This is…

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Boris Johnson’s move to prorogue parliament ‘a constitutional outrage’, says Speaker

Boris Johnson’s move to prorogue parliament ‘a constitutional outrage’, says Speaker

The Guardian reports: The Commons Speaker, John Bercow, issued a stinging criticism of Boris Johnson’s intention to prorogue parliament, describing it as a constitutional outrage aimed at preventing MPs from debating Brexit. In a furious statement he said he had not been consulted by the prime minister, who he said risked undermining his democratic credentials. Bercow is expected to ensure the Commons has a chance to discuss the move, and table legislation to combat no deal, as soon as it…

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