Assad in a ‘good mood’ after U.S.-led strikes in Syria show no sign of threatening his hold on power

Assad in a ‘good mood’ after U.S.-led strikes in Syria show no sign of threatening his hold on power

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The Washington Post reports: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad praised Russian weaponry on Sunday as his government celebrated victory over rebels in the town where an alleged chemical attack took place, triggering U.S. airstrikes over the weekend. Assad made the comments during a meeting in Damascus with Russian lawmakers, who later told reporters that he was in a “good mood,” according to Russian news reports. Footage of the meeting broadcast by state television showed an animated Assad smiling and laughing as…

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Michael Cohen and the terminal phase of the Trump presidency

Michael Cohen and the terminal phase of the Trump presidency

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Adam Davidson writes: There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his…

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The battle to ban plastic bags

The battle to ban plastic bags

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A plastic bag floats in the ocean in this 2016 photo. Creative Commons By Sylvain Charlebois, Dalhousie University and Tony Robert Walker, Dalhousie University There are increasing concerns about the use of plastics in our day-to-day lives. Single-use plastics of any kind, including grocery bags, cutlery, straws, polystyrene and coffee cups, are significant yet preventable sources of plastic land-based and marine pollution. In Canada, bans on plastics have so far been left up to municipalities, and some are taking action….

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Ocean heat waves are becoming more common and lasting longer

Ocean heat waves are becoming more common and lasting longer

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The Washington Post reports: Heat waves over the world’s oceans are becoming longer and more frequent, damaging coral reefs and creating chaos for aquatic species. A study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications found a 54 percent increase in the number of days in which heat waves have cooked the oceans since 1925. The rise in these marine heat waves has occurred while ever more heat is stored in the ocean because of accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere….

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Has Assad’s survival made him dispensable?

Has Assad’s survival made him dispensable?

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Ewen MacAskill writes: The US-led operation against Syria, which included the contributions from the UK and France, was a modest one, limited to a short, sharp attack against targets alleged to be linked to chemical weapons. It is intended as a one-off, with no further strikes planned unless Syrian president Bashar al-Assad conducts chemical attacks in the future. There had been speculation in advance of the attack that there was a risk it could lead to world war three. It…

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The death toll in Syria

The death toll in Syria

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The New York Times reports: The last comprehensive number widely accepted internationally — 470,000 dead — was issued by the Syrian Center for Policy Research in 2016. The group, which was based in Damascus until that year, was long seen as one of the most reliable local sources because it was not affiliated with the government or aligned with any opposition group. But now, just getting a death certificate is problematic in Syria, let alone a collective tally of the…

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Collusion: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier

Collusion: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier

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McClatchy reports: The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election. It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in…

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Key evidence ‘went missing’ from police records during investigation into Russian whistleblower’s death, court hears

Key evidence ‘went missing’ from police records during investigation into Russian whistleblower’s death, court hears

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BuzzFeed reports: Vital evidence disappeared from police custody during their investigation into the death of Russian whistleblower Alexander Perepilichnyy, a court has heard. When Perepilichnyy died, authorities scoured his computer and discovered that he had been receiving threats. They also found a bank statement showing a mysterious payment worth half a billion dollars from an unknown company called “Precious Metal”. But that and much of the other evidence from a forensic imaging of his computer “went missing” from both police…

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A suspect tried to blend in with 60,000 concertgoers. China’s facial-recognition cameras caught him

A suspect tried to blend in with 60,000 concertgoers. China’s facial-recognition cameras caught him

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The Washington Post reports: The 31-year-old man, wanted by police, had thought playing a numbers game would be enough to allow him to fade into anonymity. The population of China is a staggering 1.4 billion people, give or take a few million. More than 45 million of them live in Jiangxi province in southeast China, and 5 million of those people are concentrated in Nanchang, the province’s capital. On the night of April 7, nearly 60,000 people — or roughly…

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Trump is infecting our culture with the traits of organized crime, says James Comey

Trump is infecting our culture with the traits of organized crime, says James Comey

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In a review of A Higher Loyalty, by James Comey, Michiko Kakutani writes: A February 2017 meeting in the White House with Trump and then chief of staff Reince Priebus left Comey recalling his days as a federal prosecutor facing off against the Mob: “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above…

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The oceans’ circulation hasn’t been this sluggish in 1,000 years. That’s bad news

The oceans’ circulation hasn’t been this sluggish in 1,000 years. That’s bad news

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The Washington Post reports: The Atlantic Ocean circulation that carries warmth into the Northern Hemisphere’s high latitudes is slowing down because of climate change, a team of scientists asserted Wednesday, suggesting one of the most feared consequences is already coming to pass. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has declined in strength by 15 percent since the mid-20th century to a “new record low,” the scientists conclude in a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature. That’s a decrease of 3…

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Environmental Defense Fund is launching satellite to measure methane from oil and gas operations

Environmental Defense Fund is launching satellite to measure methane from oil and gas operations

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The Washington Post reports: When the Environmental Defense Fund told commercial space guru Tom Ingersoll that it wanted to launch a satellite to measure methane from oil and gas operations, he says his reaction was “Whoa! You guys want to do what?” Yet that’s what the EDF is doing. It is well on its way toward raising about $40 million. It has tapped into the work of Harvard University researchers to fine tune sensors. And it has reached out to…

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Former coal lobbyist becomes second in command at the EPA

Former coal lobbyist becomes second in command at the EPA

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BuzzFeed reports: The Senate just confirmed Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, to be the second in command at the Environmental Protection Agency. The Thursday vote was largely along party lines — 53-45. Sens. Joe Donnelly from Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota, and Joe Manchin from West Virginia were the only Democrats to vote in favor of the confirmation. Wheeler is one of only a handful of President Donald Trump’s picks for the EPA confirmed so far, and he…

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Assad has used chemical weapons consistently, deliberately, and with a conscious consideration of their qualitative effects

Assad has used chemical weapons consistently, deliberately, and with a conscious consideration of their qualitative effects

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John Bew and Shiraz Maher write: Assad has not simply eroded what academics call “the chemical weapons taboo”; he has shattered it. And his confidence has returned, especially compared to the high watermark of the war in 2014-15, when his authority had crumbled. Kurds dominated the north-east of Syria, while broader parts of the east had fallen to Islamic State. Meanwhile, an alphabet soup of various militias – jihadist and otherwise – rampaged across northern and southern parts of the…

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On Syria, uncharacteristic deliberation inside the White House quickly disrupted by Trump’s characteristic impulsiveness

On Syria, uncharacteristic deliberation inside the White House quickly disrupted by Trump’s characteristic impulsiveness

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The Washington Post reports: In a White House known for chaos, the process of developing the U.S. response to the Syrian government’s alleged latest gas attack was proceeding with uncharacteristic deliberation, including several national security briefings for President Trump. But then Wednesday morning, Trump upended it all with a tweet — warning Russia, the Syrian government’s backer, to “get ready” because American missiles “will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ ” White House advisers were surprised by the missive and…

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Israel and Iran are headed for a collision in Syria

Israel and Iran are headed for a collision in Syria

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Avi Issacharoff writes: Israel has stated clearly that it will not allow an Iranian military entrenchment in Syria. That is a red line as far as Israel is concerned, and, rather unusually, the military brass and the political leadership are in lockstep about the need to robustly enforce it (in stark opposition to the disagreements about the Palestinian issue). But meanwhile the Syrian reality has come knocking hard at Israel’s door. The Iranians are not showing any signs of curtailing…

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