Andrew L.Goodkind, Benjamin A. Jones, and Robert P. Berrens,writing in a paper: Cryptocurrency mining uses significant amounts of energy as part of the proof-of-work time-stamping scheme to add new blocks to the chain. Expanding upon previously calculated energy use patterns for mining four prominent cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero), we estimate the per coin economic damages of air pollution emissions and associated human mortality and climate impacts of mining these cryptocurrencies in the US and China. Results indicate that in 2018, each $1 of Bitcoin value created was responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in the US and $0.37 in China. The similar value in China relative to the US occurs despite the extremely large disparity between the value of a statistical life estimate for the US relative to that of China. Further, with each cryptocurrency, the rising electricity requirements to produce a single coin can lead to an almost inevitable cliff of negative net social benefits, absent perpetual price increases. For example, in December 2018, our results illustrate a case (for Bitcoin) where the health and climate change "cryptodamages" roughly match each $1 of coin value created. We close with discussion of policy implications.

The collapse of the Isis caliphate’s last stronghold in Syria is sending shockwaves across the region, changing the calculations of the major powers as they jockey for advantage. Triumphalism in Washington, Moscow and Damascus risks obscuring the human cost of a “victory” that may quickly prove transitory.Of immediate concern is the fate of civilians, mainly women and children, displaced from formerly Isis-controlled areas where many were held against their will. The independent International Rescue Committee says up to 4,000 people are fleeing towards the al-Hawl refugee camp in north-east Syria. “Most have suffered four years under the horrors of Isis and are now arriving at al-Hawl extremely hungry and dehydrated. Many have also incurred life-changing wounds. There are numerous reports of violence against women and girls and families being separated on the journey,” the IRC said.Also of urgent concern is what will be done with captured Isis jihadists. So-called “foreign fighters” and their supporters may seek to return to their countries of origin, confronting Britain and other governments with awkward choices.But fears are growing that large numbers of Syrian Isis fighters may move to Idlib Province in north-west Syria, the last big populated area not controlled by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. In the past two years Idlib has become a haven of last resort for retreating rebels and militant Islamists. It is also home to 3 million Syrian civilians, half of whom are internally displaced.“Distributing Syrian fighters among civilians in Idlib will mean the truth they hold about those they killed, kidnapped and disappeared will never be revealed. These fighters must be brought before courts to reveal what they know about the atrocities Isis committed,” said Laila Kiki of the Syria Campaign, a human rights group. “There is still a huge number of people unaccounted for. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, 8,349 people have been detained and forcibly disappeared by Isis in all its territories.”The transfer of Isis fighters would also complicate efforts to suppress the al-Qaida affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, that now controls most of Idlib. Activists say it could give Assad’s Russian and Iranian-backed forces a long-sought excuse to launch an offensive to retake the province, potentially triggering a mass refugee exodus north into Turkey.Turkey’s desire to prevent this outcome tempered celebrations in Sochi last week when Assad’s main backers met to discuss fallout from the caliphate’s defeat. Exploiting the moment with support from Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, Vladimir Putin demanded “concrete steps … to completely destroy this hotbed of terrorists [in Idlib]”. But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, has blocked a new military operation there, for now at least. Erdoğan’s focus lies elsewhere, on the borderlands of north-east Syria controlled by US-allied Kurdish forces, whom he regards as mortal enemies. The Isis rout has increased the chances of a Turkish military intervention similar to last year’s invasion of Afrin. Erdoğan wants to create “safe zones” inside Syria to push back the Kurds and supposedly secure his southern border.Assad, supported by Russia, wants, in contrast, to reassert sovereign control over all Syrian territory, including that vacated by Isis. But Erdoğan cares little. The main reason he has not already acted is Donald Trump. Against the advice of his generals and Nato allies, Trump has ordered US forces in Syria to leave by the spring. When they quit, Erdoğan will make his next move.The Isis collapse carries dire implications for Iraq, too. The Iraqi army, with international help, drove the jihadists out of Mosul and other cities in 2017. But they are now regrouping in Sunni areas and could soon pose a dangerous new threat, according to a Pentagon report published last month. “Isis is regenerating key functions and capabilities more quickly in Iraq than in Syria,” the report said., underscoring the case for continued counter-terrorism operations in both countries. “Absent sustained pressure, Isis could likely resurge in Syria within six to 12 months and regain limited territory in the [middle Euphrates river valley].”Iraq’s Shia leaders are meanwhile alarmed at Trump’s suggestion that US troops freed up in Syria could be redeployed in Iraq, not to prevent an Isis comeback but to “keep watch” on Iran. “Don’t overburden Iraq with your own issues … We live here,” Barham Salih, Iraq’s president, told Trump. Iraq’s pro-Iran Hizbullah Brigades warned the plan could make “American forces legitimate targets for the Iraqi resistance”.The idea that Iraq could be used as a launchpad for a new American war of choice, this time against Iran, worries Democrats in Washington, and European governments. They prefer to keep the focus on fighting jihadist terrorism, and think Trump risks dropping the ball. Iran, meanwhile, has bigger fish to fry, notably confronting Israel in western Syria, and Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Tehran fears covert American regime change, destabilisation and sabotage plots more than it fears Isis. “The Americans must leave Syria,” Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said this month – and preferably get out of the Middle East altogether. Topics Islamic State The Observer Middle East and North Africa Syria Turkey Arab and Middle East unrest Iran Iraq analysis

It was the summer before Margaret Thatcher resigned, a very different Britain. The Berlin Wall had just come down, and there was a sense of proper optimism. I was an Indian citizen and it didn’t matter. It wasn’t an issue. What mattered was that I lived in the UK, was part of the UK art community. Would that still be true? Our psychic state as a country has changed so much.The art world was unbelievably different, too, not so market-driven as it is now. This was before the so-called YBAs (Young British Artists); they were just leaving art school. Exposure on this scale, in my mid-30s, was extraordinary. As an artist, you have a certain kind of language you are trying to get into the world. At Venice, I had the experience, for the first time, of people reflecting back to me the work – telling me, if you like, what I was doing.At the pavilion we gave out – can you believe it? – the first-ever bag with my name on it. It was the first time I’d seen such a thing, perhaps the first time it had been done. Now, of course, it is absolutely ubiquitous.If one were doing it again, would one deal with the current moment? I’m not interested in making direct commentary on quotidian questions, political or otherwise. But it’s a great time to be controversial, perhaps the best time ever, because in politics and elsewhere there are so many entrenched positions. You could stick your finger up at all that and say: “I’m not playing the game.”It was just after Labour had been elected. There was a bit of optimism, briefly. In my life, there were all sorts of things going on: I was in the middle of a political storm in Vienna as I was trying to complete the Holocaust memorial there, which was a huge deal.The biennale opened in June and I had been to look at the pavilion in February. It was the first time I’d been to Venice and I cried – it was so beautiful. Then I went to the Giardini, the gardens where most of the national pavilions are, and thought: “What a bizarre place this is, with the British pavilion, that imperial building, up on a hill at the end of the avenue.”It was high-stress and what I made reflected my mental state. One work, called Untitled: 10 Tables, was a brutal piece cast from interlocking tables. I also made a library sculpture, directly connected to the Holocaust memorial, which has cast bookshelves as its exterior. I was just trying to get the memorial into the world somehow. We were installing for three weeks, carrying vacuum cleaners on our heads through St Mark’s Square and things like that – fabulous.When it opened, I was completely unprepared for the circus, but I got to meet the abstract painter Agnes Martin, which was a joy. And Marina Abramović did an extraordinary performance, Balkan Baroque, where she sat among a huge pile of bones, washing them and singing folk songs – a response to the war in the Balkans.It was amazing to be able to be involved with the biennale at such a young age. It holds some of my fondest memories.The time we spent installing the show was one of my favourite parts. There was a feeling of camaraderie, with all the other artists in their funny little pavilions. We used to share pizza on the porch. Plus, the British pavilion is the only one around there that has toilets – it was a magnet.The buildings in the Giardini are vestiges of the world order at the end of the 19th century – and it was typical of Britain at the time to have put its pavilion at the top of the only hill in Venice. The show was partly about all of that, playing with different kinds of identities and the hoops we go through to feel part of something, the illusions of faith and identity.The first thing you encountered was my work Facade, a huge trompe l’oeil photograph, printed on fabric, of the pavilion, which we erected in front of the building. So to enter, you had to pass through the illusory doorway. We had one day to install it, in an amazing storm. It was epic, like putting a spinnaker up in a tempest.Outside, I flew my Oxymoron flag: the red and blue of the union jack represented in its complementary colours, which make it become the green and orange of the Irish tricolour. The show addressed the particularities of the time, but I didn’t want to make it didactic. I hope it was playful, but serious. I like to think the works I showed would still be pertinent.I spent three months living in Venice with my family making my show, working with assistants, who were also my friends, and a team of Italian builders. It was a fantastic time, a real privilege, living in the city – one of the happiest times of my life.We took the roof off the Italianate, turn-of-the-century British pavilion and rebuilt the interior as an Ottoman caravanserai, inserting the traces of an earlier work I had made for the Istanbul Biennial in 2003. So it was one biennale within another, the Ottoman empire within the British empire, with all the potential implications for the politics of that time – the Arab spring was under way. I was very happy with the work, unusually for me.The opening week was kind of horrific, indigestible, let’s say. I’d made work at the Venice Biennale before, but I hadn’t ever been in the centre of things. It was a bit of a turning point. I realised that the way I had been working, my desire to confound a certain type of consumption both in the art world and the world at large, was being read as spectacle, as an “experience”. It was being co-opted by immersive theatre, even by pop-up restaurants. It became difficult for people to read it as sculpture. Since then, my work has become more minimal, more sculptural.If I were doing it again, I’d still approach it in the same way – it’s just the ugly boil of the times has risen higher now. Problems don’t just arrive from nowhere.I was happy to be the artist representing Britain. There was a lot I wanted to get off my chest about the UK – aspects of the country I liked and didn’t like. I was interested in making new mythologies. I had giant animals, giant humans, destruction, in the show. As you entered there was a mural of a giant harrier hawk swooping down to take a Range Rover in its claws. There was another mural of William Morris as a colossus throwing Roman Abramovich’s yacht into the Venice lagoon. The show was called English Magic. It was important to use that contentious word “English”.Looking back, it feels as if some of the exhibition’s elements have really come home to roost. For me, Englishness and the crisis in our identity was a major cause of Brexit. In the exhibition, I showed drawings made by prisoners who had been in the army, serving in the Iraq wars. Their subjects were people who had been involved in getting us into the second war, including Tony Blair.I’ve been filming the rightwing protests in Parliament Square recently, and a lot of those people are worried about homeless veterans. They also have this deep patriotic respect for authority, the army, the royal family, alongside a sense that these systems have let them down – yet the blame is redirected to Europe.In 2019, you could make a much more visceral version of what I did in 2013. It was relatively polite. It looked like a functioning art exhibition.Being invited to represent Britain was an enormous thrill, but that was quickly replaced by a sense of foreboding. I’m not particularly patriotic. My love of London is one thing, but what does it mean to me to be English? And then am I English – or British? These feelings were hugely amplified by the result of the Brexit referendum in 2016. Politically, everything seemed to be like a Chinese box, one mistake revealing another revealing another. What would it mean to represent a country that was in such an exposed, vulnerable place?The actual biennale was extraordinary, though. It’s easy to dwell on its theme-park qualities, but the fact that it brings together so many people and nations, with every nook and cranny of the city filled with art, is extraordinary. It’s a hope-filled experience, showing that there is a way nations can come together.Would it be different two years on? Yes and no. I’ve found the Brexit process excruciating – and I was finding it excruciating back then, as though something had been sabotaged. The idea of being European seemed so important to me. Suddenly Brexit seemed to be shrinking things down to this safe little haven called the UK.I think what has changed is that more and more has been exposed, both about the reality of what it means to leave, and how problematic the EU is. But leaving it doesn’t seem to solve any of that. Things have destabilised from an already destabilised position. Topics Venice Biennale Venice Biennale 2019 Installation British identity and society Art Exhibitions Sculpture features

As and American with a libertarian bent, I disagree with most of what you say, including many of your fundamentals.The deficit is caused by the government not collecting as much in taxes as it spends money.You mention both causes of deficit, but your angle focuses on collection rather than reining in spending. Abuse of either/both these angles is a huge problem, but tax cuts do ignite further economic activity. A lot of gov't spending is little more than a wealth incinerator. But yes, both are a problem.So the rich now make even more money, while the state collects even less taxes and spends more money that it doesn't have so it has to take more debt.Let's be clear: paying less taxes is not "making more money" - it is being shaken down for less. Viewing taxation or lack of taxation as "making money" is fundamentally wrong because there is no wealth creation occurring, only wealth redistribution.This focus on 'handouts' in american economic discussion has always baffled me as a European leftist. Why is it that the government using money to make sure American citizens have their basic needs met and do not die in the streets or from preventable illnesses (something no-one living in a first world civilized country should have to face) is deemed a 'handout' or 'socialism', while at the same time the government allowing some of the richest people and corporations [itep.org] on the planet to pay next to no taxes is deemed A-OK?It's a handout if you take wealth from people who've created it and hand it to people who did not. Also, no one likes watching Google, Amazon, etc pay little or no taxes - no working class people, at least. It's a problem that we do not expect to see fixed. That said, if a huge corporation gets a tax break to come to town and create some jobs, the people receiving those jobs are curiously okay with that particular tax break for the wealthy.I mean hell, worker productivity has gone up by like 70 % since the 70s, while wages have gone up only 9 %. The american (and in the larger picture Western) worker in general is more productive than ever thanks to technological advancements, but they're not getting compensated for that efficiency.So if I hire you to shuck corn by hand and pay you an agreed upon wage we're good. Then I invest in a corn shucking apparatus and allow you to operate that instead of do the job manually, increasing production by 70%, now you should get a 70% pay increase? Sorry, bro. Maybe if you'd invented the machine. Maybe if there weren't plenty of honest workers looking to do the same job, which requires little training. Maybe if you'd invested in half the outlay for the apparatus. See how that works?...what's the argument used against these systems? 'We can't afford them".Yes, yes you can. You have more money than any country in the history of human civilization. This notion that you couldn't put in place systems that the rest of the West already has in place to improve the lives of everyday americans without crashing the economy is entirely bullshit...False. The US has more debt than any entity in the history of human civilization. That you could breezily ignore the inter-generational theft that our budget has become is a serious red flag about your economic judgment. These "systems" the rest of the West put in place happened during a decades long military welfare system that guaranteed recipient nations' safety from the red menace, allowing them to spend huge sums of money on elaborate programs. It doesn't mean all social programs are bad, or not viable - there's probably a reasonable middle ground - but let's not ignore a huge international welfare factor that contributed to their success.Weirdly enough, Trump is a

All the laws, rules and procedures that govern our politics cannot disguise a simple truth. Democracy can’t simply be enforced by the courts, imposed with ballot boxes, fulfilled by the marking of a cross. It relies on an honour code: the tacit agreement by those who take part that they will cherish and abide by its principles; that the majority, if not all, of its participants will act in good faith, criticising their opponents on points of substance but not seeking to undermine democracy’s constitutional underpinnings.What is happening in Britain today shows how extraordinarily quickly the rot can set in. Our political honour code is breaking down, unleashing a race to the bottom that the good men and women who sit in parliament can only watch unfold with horror. The most frightening thing is that we do not yet know where this road ends; it is entirely conceivable that things will get worse before they get better. What started with the 2016 European referendum campaign, which unleashed a decades-long Conservative civil war into the open, has culminated in that party imposing a prime minister on Britain who thinks nothing of adopting the delegitimisation of our sovereign parliament as a political campaign strategy.The Leave campaigns were infected with an insidious populism right from the start. Leave politicians denied there would be any trade-offs in leaving the EU and voters were told they could have it all: a more sovereign UK, a burgeoning economy, revitalised public services funded by a cash injection from the money saved on EU membership and lower levels of immigration. Boris Johnson put his name to a letter that spoke of the “rapidly accelerating pace” of Turkey’s accession negotiations, despite the fact it is no closer to joining the EU than it was 10 years ago, while the Vote Leave campaign, of which he was a key figurehead, produced a poster claiming “Turkey, population 76 million, is joining the EU”. Earlier this year, he told the barefaced lie that he did not mention Turkey in the campaign. Vote Leave also broke the law on campaign funding.That campaign has had serious and lasting consequences for the conduct of British politics. It is responsible for the political mess we now find ourselves in; Leave politicians have over the past three years conclusively demonstrated the extent to which what they promised voters was a unicorn and they have been unable to negotiate a deal that can win the support of our elected representatives in parliament. And it also seeded a political culture in which our prime minister seeks to avoid taking any responsibility for this situation by blaming all his misfortunes on parliament.Anonymous government sources have stooped as low as briefing that there would be lynchings and killings if there were a confirmatory referendum. They have briefed out blatant untruths that have been reported as government lines, including that No 10 had ordered an investigation into collusion with foreign powers by MPs such as Hilary Benn and Oliver Letwin (it had not); that Operation Yellowhammer documents had been leaked by a former minister, implicitly pointing the finger at Philip Hammond (the documents were dated after he left government); and that Amber Rudd was given ample opportunity to see the government’s legal advice on the prorogation of parliament before she resigned (she was not).The prime minister and his official spokesperson have also been responsible for misleading parliament and voters. Johnson has claimed that parliament approved his deal, which he knows it has not. He said he would not prorogue parliament and then tried to shut it down for five weeks. He said he would deliver Brexit “do or die” by 31 October, but almost certainly will not. He said he would pull the withdrawal agreement bill altogether if MPs voted against his ridiculous three-day timetable for scrutiny of hugely complex legislation, and he did not. He has proffered pledges to Labour MPs and to voters that he will maintain worker rights, consumer protections and environmental standards, even as leaked government documents reveal that he plans to do no such thing, as his stated public position of wanting the UK to diverge in a regulatory sense from the EU always implied.Johnson is openly undermining parliament in order to avoid democratic scrutiny for his actions. He cancelled his appearance in front of select committee chairs at the House of Commons liaison committee for a third time in a row last week. When MPs voted for more time to scrutinise the withdrawal agreement bill, he accused them of acting in bad faith to scupper his plans. And on Thursday his spokesperson made a childish threat that the government would go “on strike” and withhold all legislation if MPs did not back his call for a general election, only to withdraw it hours later. He has threatened to table an election motion every day that parliament sits until MPs accede, even though this would not be allowed under parliamentary conventions. The prime minister is making a petulant joke of our democratic institutions. Instead of answering to parliament, he makes announcements in short media clips that offer little opportunity for grilling him on the inconsistencies in what he says.This goes beyond Brexit. Every committed democrat should be appalled at the prime minister’s tactics. They risk undermining trust in democracy far more than the implementation of a bad Brexit deal that lacks a democratic mandate because it is supposedly what the country voted for in 2016. Unless we somehow pull ourselves back from the brink and find a way to rekindle a respect for the democratic norms and constitutional principles we once held dear, who knows where this will end? Topics Boris Johnson Opinion Brexit European Union Foreign policy Conservatives editorials

Fifty US states and territories, led by Texas, announced an investigation into Google’s “potential monopolistic behavior”.The Monday announcement closely followed one from a separate group of states on Friday that disclosed an investigation into Facebook’s market dominance. The two investigations widen the antitrust scrutiny of big tech companies beyond sweeping federal and congressional investigations and enforcement action by European regulators.The Nebraska attorney general, Doug Peterson, a Republican, said at a press conference held in Washington that 50 attorneys general joining together sends a “strong message to Google”.California and Alabama are not part of the investigation, although it does include the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Tara Gallegos, a spokeswoman for the California attorney general, Xavier Becerra, declined to confirm or deny any state investigation and would not comment on the announcement by the other states.The news conference featured a dozen Republican attorneys general plus the Democratic attorney general of Washington DC.Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has a market value of more than $820bn and controls so many facets of the internet that it’s fairly impossible to surf the web for long without running into at least one of its services. Google’s dominance in online search and advertising enables it to target millions of consumers for their personal data.Google expects the state authorities will ask the company about past similar investigations in the US and internationally, the senior vice-president of global affairs, Kent Walker, wrote in a blogpost on Friday.Critics often point to Google’s 2007 acquisition of the online advertising company DoubleClick as pivotal to its advertising dominance.Europe’s antitrust regulators slapped Google with a $1.7bn fine in March for unfairly inserting exclusivity clauses into contracts with advertisers, disadvantaging rivals in the online ad business.One outcome antitrust regulators might explore is forcing Google to spin off search as a separate company, experts say. Regulators also could focus on areas such as Google’s popular video site YouTube, an acquisition Google scored in 2006.Google has long argued that although its businesses are large, they are useful and beneficial to consumers.“Google is one of America’s top spenders on research and development, making investments that spur innovation,” Walker wrote. “Things that were science fiction a few years ago are now free for everyone – translating any language instantaneously, learning about objects by pointing your phone, getting an answer to pretty much any question you might have.”But federal and state regulators and policymakers are growing more concerned not just with the company’s impact on ordinary internet users, but also on smaller companies striving to compete in Google’s markets.“On the one hand, you could just say, ‘well Google is dominant because they’re good,”’ said Jen King, the director of privacy at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. “But at the same time, it’s created an ecosystem where people’s whole internet experience is mediated through Google’s home page and Google’s other products.”Experts believe the investigation could focus on at least one of three areas that have caught regulators’ eyes.A good first place to look might be online advertising. Google will control 31.1% of global digital ad dollars in 2019, according to eMarketer estimates, crushing a distant second-place Facebook. And many smaller advertisers have argued that Google has such a stranglehold on the market that it becomes a system of whatever Google says, goes, because the alternative could be not reaching customers.“There’s definitely concern on the part of the advertisers themselves that Google wields way too much power in setting rates and favoring their own services over others,” King said.Another visibly huge piece of Google’s business is its search platform, often the starting point for millions of people when they go online. Google dwarfs other search competitors and has faced harsh criticism in the past for favoring its own products over competitors at the top of search results. European regulators also have investigated in this area, ultimately fining Google for promoting its own shopping service. Google is appealing against the fine.Google’s smartphone operating system, Android, is the most widely used in the world.European regulators have fined Google $5bn for tactics involving Android, finding that Google forced smartphone makers to install Google apps, thereby expanding its reach. Google has since allowed more options for alternative browser and search apps to European Android phones.The US justice department opened a sweeping investigation of big tech companies this summer, looking at whether their online platforms have hurt competition, suppressed innovation or otherwise harmed consumers. The Federal Trade Commission has been conducting its own competition probe of big tech, as has the House judiciary subcommittee on antitrust. Topics Google Facebook news

LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union agreed to a Brexit delay of up to three months on Monday, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would push on with his bid to end Britain’s political paralysis with an election on Dec. 12. With the United Kingdom’s scheduled Oct. 31 departure from the EU now virtually certain to be postponed, Brexit hangs in the balance, with British politicians still arguing over how, when or even whether the divorce should take place at all. Johnson, who had loudly promised to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31, “do or die”, has repeatedly demanded an election to end what he casts as a nightmare political deadlock that is sapping public trust by preventing any Brexit outcome at all. Hours after the 27 countries remaining in the EU backed his reluctant request for a delay, Johnson attempted to force a snap election on Dec. 12 in the hope of finally winning a majority to pass the divorce deal he has negotiated with Brussels. But his third attempt to call such an election gathered only 299 votes in parliament, short of the 424 - or two-thirds of the house - that he needed. After the vote, Johnson said he would try again, by a legislative route that would only require a simple majority. Related CoverageUK lawmakers reject PM Johnson's early election bidBritish PM Johnson says government will move bill for December 12 election“We will not allow this paralysis to continue and, one way or another, we must proceed straight to an election,” Johnson told parliament. “This House cannot any longer keep this country hostage.” To follow this route, Johnson will need the support of opposition parties such as the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Liberal Democrats. These have been pushing for a Dec. 9 election, aiming to ensure that Johnson cannot try again to rush his divorce deal through. The BBC’s political editor said Johnson’s office had confirmed that the government would not bring the deal back to parliament - potentially opening the way for the SNP and LibDems to back a snap poll on Johnson’s preferred date of Dec. 12. After almost four years of tortuous discussion, the United Kingdom remains divided over a divorce that removes what was once considered to be one of the West’s most stable democracies from the European project. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives to the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, October 28, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay While almost all British politicians agree that an election is needed, they want to inflict maximum political damage on Johnson - who leads in opinion polls - by preventing his last-minute deal from being ratified before the poll. Johnson, in turn, is trying to shift the blame for failing to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31 onto parliament. “We have a great new deal, and it’s time for the voters to have a chance to pronounce on that deal, and to replace this dysfunctional parliament with a new parliament that can get Brexit done so the country can move on,” Johnson said. Britain’s departure has already been delayed twice - from March 29 and April 12 - after Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, failed three times to get her deal ratified by parliament. In a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, Johnson reluctantly accepted the delay agreed in Brussels, saying he had no choice under British law. “This unwanted prolongation of the UK’s membership of the EU is damaging to our democracy,” he said. “I would also urge EU member states to make clear that a further extension after 31st January is not possible. This is plenty of time to ratify our deal.” Slideshow (9 Images)If no EU country objects within 24 hours - by Tuesday afternoon - the delay will have been formally adopted. The EU, forged from the ruins of World War Two as a way to prevent another ruinous conflict in Europe, is fatigued by Britain’s protracted crisis but keen not to be held responsible for an economically tumultuous “no-deal” rupture. Additional reporting by Kate Holton, Alistair Smout, Andrew MacAskill, Costas Pitas and Paul Sandle; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Kevin LiffeyOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson has two options to call an early election in his quest for a majority that could break Britain’s Brexit deadlock. One of them is likely to fail later on Monday, the other could be put to the test as early as Tuesday. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a meeting with fundraisers for the Royal British Legion outside Downing Street in London, Britain October 28, 2019. REUTERS/Toby MelvilleBritain has laws setting out a fixed schedule for an election every five years, with provisions for holding an early election. The next election is scheduled for 2022, so how can one be called before then? TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY An early election is possible under existing law if 434 lawmakers in Britain’s 650-seat parliament, a two-thirds majority, vote to hold one. This is the route the government was pursuing on Monday, although it is not expected to be successful because Johnson does not have the backing of the main opposition Labour Party. This will be Johnson’s third attempt to call an early election. He failed with two similar votes in September because opponents said they wanted to first make sure Britain could not exit the European Union without a transition deal. If Johnson is unsuccessful on Monday, he is prepared to attempt to pass a law which bypasses the rules, introduced in 2011, on holding an early election. This would only need a simple majority of, at most, 320 supporters, rather than the 434 votes required under existing rules. The short piece of legislation would state that parliament had decreed an election will take place on a certain date. This route has not been used before because prior to the 2011 electoral reforms, the prime minister had much greater freedom to call an election without consulting parliament. The Scottish National Party (SNP) and Liberal Democrats say they will support a law to hold an early election under certain conditions. Their combined 54 votes, plus the 287 voting Conservative Party members, should be enough for the simple majority support needed to pass this law. The Liberal Democrats and SNP have made their support conditional on three things: 1. No-deal Brexit is ruled out. 2. The government agrees not to pursue ratification of its Brexit deal before an election. 3. The date of the election must be stipulated in the bill. The two sides have not agreed on a date yet. The SNP/Liberal Democrat proposal is for Dec. 9. The government’s opening suggestion was for Dec. 12. - Timing. The legislation would need to be passed very quickly, in three days this week, to meet the timetable for a Dec. 9 election. This requires approval from both houses of parliament. - Amendments. The opposition Labour Party could try to amend the election bill to make it conditional on a second referendum, or change the minimum voting age. Given the tight timetable, these would likely end up wrecking the election bid if passed. Reporting by William James; Editing by Mark HeinrichOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Two British opposition parties on Sunday proposed an even earlier election date than Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered, trying to force his government to delay a final decision on its European Union divorce deal. The chess move by the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party reflects the volatile political landscape now in Britain. The ruling Conservatives desperately want a new election to bolster their numbers in Parliament, but they face resistance from the main opposition Labour Party, which fears the country will be unwittingly tricked into crashing out of the European Union without a deal. The latest election proposal is an effort to force Johnson to delay debate in Parliament on his Brexit withdrawal bill until after any election, depriving him of a possible victory on his trademark issue going into the campaign. It makes Johnson's government choose between holding an election to improve its position in Parliament and its goal of securing Brexit before that election takes place. "The challenge is absolutely on (the prime minister), because if he is serious about wanting an election and if he's genuine about having an election before Christmas, then he can back this bill," Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson told the BBC on Sunday. Looming over the political maneuvering is what Johnson and Parliament are going to do about his Brexit deal and how long an extension EU leaders will give Britain to the current Brexit deadline, which is Thursday. The EU in principle has backed extending the Brexit deadline but officials were meeting again this week to figure out how long it should be. The Liberal Democrats and the SNP plan to introduce legislation on Tuesday that calls for an early national election on Dec. 9, three days earlier than Johnson proposed and years earlier than Britain's next scheduled vote in 2022. Because U.K. law requires Parliament to be dissolved 25 working days before an election, the date of any poll will dictate how much time is available to debate Johnson's Brexit withdrawal deal. The Liberal Democrats expect a vote on their proposal Thursday, just days before Parliament would be suspended. That would effectively leave no time for lawmakers to consider Johnson's Brexit deal. In contrast, Johnson announced last week he will ask lawmakers on Monday to authorize a Dec. 12 election, then use the rest of the legislative term to push through his Brexit deal. Under this plan, Parliament would be dissolved on Nov. 7, giving lawmakers about seven days to debate the withdrawal agreement that Johnson and EU leaders agreed upon. The two sides have effectively been debating Britain's departure from the 28-nation bloc — which has never seen a member leave — since British voters in June 2016 chose to leave the EU. But Johnson's deal was cemented only 10 days ago — and British lawmakers fear rushing through a document that has enormous economic and political consequences for the country. The problem for Johnson is that his proposal requires a two-thirds vote of the House of Commons and it is opposed by opposition parties who fear it could lead to an economically damaging no-deal Brexit. In contrast, the Liberal Democrat plan only needs a simple majority in the 650-seat House of Commons due to laws governing elections. The Liberal Democrat plan would be conditional upon the EU agreeing to extend the Brexit deadline until to the end of January. Johnson has sought a shorter Brexit extension to keep alive the possibility of a no-deal departure, which in turn keeps the pressure on British lawmakers to approve his deal. Economists say a no-deal departure would be very damaging to both the British and EU economies. Conservative Party chair James Cleverly dismissed the new election proposal as "clearly a gimmick" designed to delay Brexit because it only moves the election date ahead three days. If the Liberal Democrats and SNP really want an election, they should vote for the Dec. 12 date proposed by Johnson, Cleverly said. "We're not going to listen to two parties who explicitly said they want to stop Brexit from happening," he told the BBC. "We're not going to be complicit in them stopping Brexit." The move by the Liberal Democrats and the SNP is also a challenge to the Labour Party, which has repeatedly vacillated on whether to call an early election in which they could lose seats. Diane Abbott, a senior Labour spokeswoman, said Sunday that Labour will wait to see what kind of Brexit extension the EU offers before deciding whether to support the latest domestic election proposal. She also repeated the party's position that it will back an early election only after Johnson explicitly says there won't be a no-deal Brexit. "He could come to Parliament and categorically give Parliament an undertaking that he's not going to come out without a deal, but he won't do that, because coming out without a deal is something that people around him ... would want," she said. ——— Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit and British politics at https://www.apnews.com/Brexit

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs a book of condolence during a visit to Thurrock Council Offices in Grays, Britain October 28, 2019. Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERSGRAYS, England (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Monday in a book of condolences for the 39 people found dead in a truck on Oct. 23 that the whole nation was shocked by the tragedy. “The whole nation and indeed the world has been shocked by this tragedy, and the cruelty of the fate that has been suffered by innocent people who were hoping for a better life in this country,” Johnson wrote in the book. “We mourn those who have lost their lives. our thoughts are with their families far away,” he wrote. “In condemning the callousness of those responsible for this crime we in the government of the United Kingdom resolve to do everything in our power to bring the perpetrators to justice.” Reporting by Peter Nicholls; editing by Guy Faulconbridge/Estelle ShirbonOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The developers of a female-focused sex toy are alleging gender bias at the International Consumer Electronics Show after organizers revoked an innovation award honoring the company and prohibited it from showcasing its product.Lora Haddock, founder and CEO of Lora DiCarlo, said her team had been overjoyed when the company’s Osé personal massager was selected as the CES 2019 Innovation Awards honoree in the robotics and drone product category.It’s the company’s first product – a hands-free device developed by an almost entirely female team of engineers using “new micro-robotic technology that mimics all of the sensations of a human mouth, tongue, and fingers, for an experience that feels just like a real partner”, Haddock wrote in an open letter on the company’s website.“My team rejoiced and celebrated,” she wrote. “A month later our excitement and preparations were cut short.”Administrators with the Consumer Technology Association, the organization behind at the annual Las Vegas-based trade show, had contacted the company and told them that not only were they rescinding the award, the company would not be allowed to showcase the product at CES 2019.Haddock wrote that immediately after she asked why the award was revoked, CTA told the company that entries “deemed by CTA in their sole discretion to be immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with CTA’s image will be disqualified”. In a statement, CTA officials said the product “should not have been accepted for the Innovation Awards Program” because it “does not fit into any of our existing product categories”.“CTA has communicated this position to Lora DiCarlo,” the statement reads. “We have apologized to the company for our mistake.”Haddock called this “an even more insulting and frankly ridiculous assertion”. She noted that her team of engineers designed the Osé in partnership with Oregon State University, whose robotics lab is ranked as one of the best in the nation.“Osé is the subject of eight pending patents and counting for robotics, biomimicry, and engineering feats,” she wrote. “Osé clearly fits the Robotics and Drone category – and CTA’s own expert judges agree.”“Men’s sexuality is allowed to be explicit with a literal sex robot in the shape of an unrealistically proportioned woman and VR porn in point of pride along the aisle,” she wrote. “Female sexuality, on the other hand, is heavily muted if not outright banned. You cannot pretend to be unbiased if you allow a sex robot for men but not a vagina-focused robotic massager for blended orgasm.”Haddock said it was important to call CTA out because “these biases smother innovation by blocking access to funding, exposure, and consumers that could take brands and products to the next level”.“You never know how technology can be used, the future of healthcare might well be in the patent for a sex toy,” she wrote. “But if CES and CTA are so intent on keeping women and sex tech out, we’ll never find out.” Topics CES Sex Gender news

The year’s biggest night in television saw a number of major showdowns, but no wins for Atlanta – and a big marriage proposal

The divisive final season of Game of Thrones is set to do battle for one last time this weekend as it heads into the Emmys with a record 32 nominations.HBO’s hit fantasy drama has already beaten Frasier to become the most awarded scripted television series in Emmys history, and after winning last year’s trophy for outstanding drama, it’s predicted to do the same again. Earlier this month, the show picked up 10 awards at the Creative Arts Emmys that reward technical achievement, a strong sign of Academy support.But America’s biggest night of television is also set to be one of its most competitive. While the final seasons of awards stalwarts Game of Thrones and Veep may well go out with a bang, they face off against an acclaimed set of newcomers, including Succession, Pose, Killing Eve, Fleabag, Schitt’s Creek and Bodyguard. Earlier this year at the Golden Globes, Killing Eve’s Sandra Oh and Bodyguard’s Richard Madden beat out their more established and frequently nominated competitors.Game of Thrones also enters the fray after arguably its most critically unpopular season. If the show does dominate Sunday’s ceremony it will represent a bittersweet victory for HBO, which has yet to replicate the show’s success with any of its blockbuster follow-ups. The network is currently in production for a prequel series starring Naomi Watts.This year’s nominees have also been criticised for their lack of diversity with just 24 above-the-line nominations for actors of colour, down from 2018’s record 38 nods. Three major categories, lead actress in a comedy, supporting actress in a drama and supporting actress in a comedy, contain only white nominees. Throughout its history, just 10% of Emmy winners in the major acting categories have been of colour. Diverse winners this year could include Oh as well as the cast of Ava DuVernay’s Netflix miniseries When They See Us.The Selma director’s acclaimed drama about the Central Park Five boasts 11 nominations but faces off in one of the toughest categories of the night, for limited series, against ratings hit Chernobyl. “The international reception to Chernobyl took many industry insiders by surprise,” nominated star Jared Harris said. “My hope is that its impact emboldens programmers to keep taking risks to not only delight, but also challenge their audiences.”After a mixed reception for last year’s hosts, Saturday Night Live duo Colin Jost and Michael Che, this year has followed on from many awards shows in the past year by going host-less. Producer Don Mischer has claimed the decision will allow the show, airing this year on Fox, to be “a little more unpredictable”. Presenters this year include Angela Bassett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Naomi Watts, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Viola Davis, Ben Stiller and the cast of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.“If you have a host and an opening, that’s 15 or 20 minutes you can‘t have to salute the shows,” Fox Entertainment’s chief executive, Dan Collier, said. “This is a pretty unique year for some of America’s favorite shows going away.” The night is set to include on-stage cast reunions for both Game of Thrones and Veep.In recent years, the red carpet has been enlivened with political fashion statements and on Sunday, many stars are reported to be showing their support for the Memphis-based non-profit St Jude children’s research hospital. Hollywood costume designer Arianne Phillips has created a gold pin which has been distributes to stars in attendance.Last year’s biggest winners were Game of Thrones and the Amazon comedy The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. The year also brought the ceremony’s lowest ratings to date, down 11% from 2017. Topics Emmys 2019 Emmys Awards and prizes Television US television news

Unless you actively enjoy excruciatingly drawn-out scenes of roundtable policy minutiae, the Game of Thrones finale was a bit of a disappointment. However, don’t be sad, because that was simply a fake-out. The real Game of Thrones finale will come during the Emmys, where eight different cast members will vie for supporting drama categories.In the supporting actor category, Alfie Allen, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Peter Dinklage are facing off against each other, while the supporting actress category has chucked Gwendoline Christie, Lena Headey, Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams into a pit together. Add to this the inclusion of Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke (in the lead actor and actress drama categories respectively) and Carice van Houten in the guest actress category, and the whole thing looks set to be brutal. I’d call it a Game of Noms, if that didn’t make me hate myself.However, this wasn’t necessarily the plan. Seven of these performers gained their nominations in the traditional manner, with HBO putting them up for consideration. But the other three – Christie, Allen and van Houten – failed to receive the same blessing. So, instead, they decided to go it alone. It’s understood that each submitted themselves for their awards, stumping up the $225 submission fee.The news has ruffled a few feathers in the world of TV, but submitting yourself for an Emmy is actually quite easy. Once you’ve passed the first two (admittedly large) hurdles of elbowing your way into the television industry and becoming a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, you can simply put forward your work on a website. Pick a category, upload a video, choose a payment method and you’re away.Because the bar to entry is so low, the Academy tends to be overwhelmed with entries – this year was a record breaker, with over 9,100 entries submitted in 124 categories – that its 24,000 voting members have to sift through, either en masse or in specific peer groups, before finally settling on the final nominations and then a winner.It isn’t uncommon for performers to self-submit, but it is rare that they end up with nominations. Why Allen, Christie and van Houten succeeded this year is likely down to a number of factors. There’s the pure blunt force of Game of Thrones as an entity, for starters. Even if you didn’t watch it, it was truly impossible to avoid this year, which will automatically shove these performers into the consciousness of the voters. In van Houten’s case, there’s a little canny category-gaming going on as well – whether or not she qualifies as a guest actress on a show where she plays a long-running character is a discussion for another time – but you have to admit that it worked.Most importantly, there’s the fact that the officially submitted cast members had a relatively weak year. Lena Headey in particular is a terrific actress, but Game of Thrones required her to do little more than peer over walls with a glass of wine in her hand. Sophie Turner did the best with what she could, which wasn’t much. Coster-Waldeau has had meatier years too. Perhaps, against the thin gruel of HBO’s submissions, the self-submitters of Game of Thrones stood out as a more tantalising choice.But now comes the fun bit: seeing what happens next. It’s thought that HBO chose against submitting Allen and Christie, in particular, because it was worried about splitting the vote. And certainly, if Allen’s inclusion draws votes away from Peter Dinklage, who almost single-handedly held the entire show together this year with a career-best performance, then it’ll be a crying shame.What’s more, there’s also the campaigning to consider. In 2016 it was reported that networks spend up to $80m on their Emmy campaigns to reinforce the credentials of their nominees. Now, HBO only submitted five of the eight actors nominated. Who is it going to throw its money behind? The people it submitted? Will there be For Your Consideration billboards featuring just Nikolaj Coster-Waldeau and Peter Dinklage, with Alfie Allen cropped out? Will Gwendoline Christie have to battle through her campaign alone, a David against her own network’s Goliath? Or will HBO risk weakening its firepower by including everyone, even the self-submitters?If any of the self-submitters actually win, this whole affair might end up changing the manner in which the Emmys are conducted. If individual performers know they can stand their ground against the might of the networks, we might start to see smaller and more interesting shows take home trophies.But that’s a big if. After all, don’t forget the best supporting actress category also includes Killing Eve’s Fiona Shaw. The Game of Thrones cast might have seen off dragons and a literal army of the dead, but whether they can stand up to the ruthlessness of Carolyn Martens is another matter entirely. Topics Game of Thrones Gwendoline Christie Alfie Allen features

After its absence from last year’s ceremony, Game of Thrones returned to the 70th annual primetime Emmys to take home the night’s biggest award: outstanding drama series. HBO’s sprawling fantasia, whose upcoming eighth season will be its last, won six other awards for its makeup, costumes, music composition and stunt coordination.The television academy did manage to spread the love in the drama categories, awarding The Americans for its writing and lead actor (Matthew Rhys), The Crown for directing and lead actress (Claire Foy), Peter Dinklage for his supporting work in Game of Thrones, and Thandie Newton for her role in Westworld. “I don’t even believe in God but I’m going to thank her tonight,” said Newton, who plays the robot mutineer Maeve Millay in HBO’s sci-fi hit.Before anyone began doling out awards, the night was shaping up to be a two-way horse race between HBO and Netflix, with 108 and 112 respective nominations. Accounting for wins at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmy’s, HBO began the night with a slim 17-16 lead. Netflix, however, briefly took the lead on the shoulders of strong showings for the limited series Godless (for which Jeff Daniels and Merritt Wever won as supporting actor and actress) as well as The Crown, Black Mirror, Seven Seconds and John Mulaney’s standup special, Kid Gorgeous.When Thrones took home the night’s last award, HBO pulled even, matching Netflix with 23 awards. Hulu, which last year became the first streaming service to win best drama award for The Handmaid’s Tale, had a disappointing night, leaving the live broadcast empty-handed (Samira Wiley, though, did win for the award for best guest actress in a drama series).FX, a longtime incubator for prestige television often passed over at the awards shows, made considerable inroads, with The Americans star Matthew Rhys winning best lead actor in a drama series for his work in the show’s final season.Another FX series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, captured several gongs: the show itself won best limited series, while Darren Criss won best actor in a limited series for his tortured turn as the serial killer Andrew Cunanan. Showrunner Ryan Murphy was recognized for directing the show’s pilot, dedicating the award to “Jeff and David and Gianni”, a reference to three of Cunanan’s real-life victims.Amazon’s period-comedy breakout The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, which follows a Jewish housewife turned standup comic played by Rachel Brosnahan, took home the big kahuna, outstanding comedy series, and swept the awards for lead actress, supporting actress (Alex Borstein), comedy writing and comedy directing in a year where Emmys juggernaut Veep was ineligible. Surprisingly, FX’s critically acclaimed satirical comedy Atlanta, for which Donald Glover won best actor last year, won just two awards on 13 nominations (for guest actor Katt Williams and cinematographer Christian Sprenger).Brosnahan, referencing her character Midge Maisel’s journey in the show, used her acceptance speech to encourage viewers to get to the polls this November. “One of the most important ways to find and use your voice is to vote,” said the first-time Emmy winner, who was also awarded for her work on the show at this year’s Golden Globes. In a bit of history-making, showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino became the first woman to ever win the awards for both writing and directing a comedy series.HBO’s black comedy Barry swooped in to take home two awards where Maisel either faltered or wasn’t nominated – Bill Hader, playing the titular hitman, won for lead actor, while his co-star Henry Winkler finally won an Emmy after being nominated five times before.Claire Foy, having finished her run as Queen Elizabeth in Netflix’s The Crown, took home best actress in a drama series, upsetting co-favorites Elisabeth Moss and Sandra Oh, plus Keri Russell, who many expected to be recognized for her last season as Elizabeth Jennings in The Americans. The Crown won one other award, for the direction of the second season’s ninth episode, Paterfamilias. In the category of lead actress in a limited series or movie, Regina King, nominated for her role in the Netflix crime drama Seven Seconds, came away with a shock victory over Laura Dern, who was heavily favored to win for her turn in the HBO movie The Tale.Before hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che began proceedings, the show opened with a song and dance courtesy of Kate McKinnon, Kenan Thompson, Kristen Bell, Tituss Burgess, Ricky Martin, Sterling K Brown, John Legend and RuPaul, who joked about Hollywood having “solved” its diversity problem with this year’s crop of nominees.The night was short on overt Trump barbs but heavy on politics: in their opening monologue, Jost and Che remarked that the first Emmy awards took place all the way back in 1949, “when we all agreed Nazis were bad”. Invoking the cancellation of the ABC sitcom Roseanne after its eponymous star tweeted racist remarks about former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett, Che quipped: “Roseanne cancelled herself but got picked up by white nationalists.” The duo, who together host SNL’s Weekend Update, recruited Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen to share nuggets of information about Emmys history, a task they were (deliberately) woefully unprepared to meet.Che also appeared in a prerecorded segment called the Reparation Emmys, in which he gave out belated awards to the stars of black sitcoms overlooked by the Academy such as Marla Gibbs (The Jeffersons), Jimmy Walker (Good Times), and Kadeem Hardison (A Different World).Eight-time Emmy winner (and 24-time nominee) Betty White made an appearance at the ceremony, reminiscing on a career whose high-water marks, like the sitcoms The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, have cemented the 96-year-old as a titan of comedy. “It’s incredible that I’m still in this business, and you are putting up with me,” she said to a standing ovation, with SNL stars Kate McKinnon and Alex Baldwin to her left. “All I can say is, it’s such a pleasant business to be in, and how lucky can I be?”But perhaps the most heartwarming moment of the ceremony came when Glenn Weiss, honored for directing the 2018 Oscars broadcast, used his acceptance speech to recognize his mother, who recently passed away. Weiss then proposed to his girlfriend, Jan Svendsen, who sat in the crowd unassumingly before taking to the stage as Weiss got on one knee. “You wonder why I don’t call you my girlfriend?” he asked as the crowd cheered him on. “It’s because I want to call you my wife.”Elsewhere, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver won outstanding variety talk series for a third consecutive year. RuPaul’s Drag Race, in its 10th season, was finally recognized by the Academy for outstanding reality competition program, leading to the evening’s most rousing acceptance speech. “Listen, if you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” said RuPaul, surrounded by castmates and crew. “Can I get an amen in here?” Topics Emmys 2018 Game of Thrones The Handmaid's Tale Netflix HBO Amazon Television news

After last year’s absence, Emmys stalwart Game of Thrones returns to an outstanding drama series category that’s more competitive than when it last won the award in 2016. Now, HBO’s sprawling, big-budget fantasia, leading all shows with 22 nominations, will have to fend off The Handmaid’s Tale, which last year made Hulu the first streaming service to take home this award. The stars aligned for Handmaid’s Tale in 2017, its bleak, dystopian premise making for an appropriate victor in a year that saw Donald Trump take office and the #MeToo movement take off. The question, now, is whether Emmy voters see it fit to award the show for its second outing, which was better but also, somehow, more upsetting than its first.This category isn’t necessarily a two-way race: The Americans, FX’s brilliant Russian spy drama, ended its run about as powerfully as one could hope, and Emmy voters would be well-advised to honor the show for its six stellar seasons in total. There’s also The Crown, This Is Us and Stranger Things, none of which suffered any real dips in quality this past year. The same can’t be said of our seventh nominee, Westworld, whose second season, though visually enchanting and undeniably ambitious, was a convoluted mess.Should win: The Handmaid’s TaleWill win: Game of ThronesOne need not worry about the quality of the 2018 comedy nominees in Veep’s stead: this year’s category is stacked with debut entrants (Barry, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Glow), reboots (Curb Your Enthusiasm), indie fare (Atlanta), and yearly comedy category bridesmaids (Silicon Valley, Black-ish, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). It’s easily the tightest race of the evening, even as some of the best comedies on television, such as The Good Place, Better Thing, and Insecure, didn’t make the cut.The second season of Atlanta was extraordinary and deserves recognition, though the historically conservative Emmys may shy away from honoring a show whose laughs don’t come easy. If that’s the case, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, winner of this year’s Golden Globe, or Glow, on the heels of a delightful second season, could sneak out a victory. Even the critically acclaimed Barry, which traffics in a similar sort of black comedy as Atlanta, is a contender. The others don’t stand much of a chance, especially my beloved Curb Your Enthusiasm, whose 10th season had little of the wit or perspicacity as its first nine.Should win: Atlanta or GlowWill win: AtlantaWait, no, this is the night’s most competitive race. Joining last year’s head-to-head between Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Claire Foy (The Crown) is Sandra Oh, the neurotic, intrepid, and thorny MI5 spy of the year’s breakout show Killing Eve (her equally brilliant co-star Jodie Comer was unfortunately snubbed). Moss, last year’s winner, is most deserving: what she’s doing with the character of June in The Handmaid’s Tale is remarkable and, frankly, without peer (see season two, episode 11, a mostly silent installment that proves yet again that Moss has the most expressive face on television). But I’d hardly wring my hands over a win for Oh, a simply magnetic force on screen, or Keri Russell, who has been nominated for her work in The Americans twice before.Fellow nominees Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld) are long shots, though their work, too, is formidable. The Emmys have never had a problem with repeat winners – see Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Kate McKinnon, Modern Family and The Daily Show – so I’m inclined to predict another win for Moss. If they choose, understandably, to mix things up, Oh would be an unassailable choice.Should win: Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale or Sandra Oh, Killing EveWill win: Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s TaleIf the Emmys see it fit to honor The Americans in some way (and they ought to), it’ll likely be in the category of outstanding lead actor, which is a bit thin. Through six seasons Matthew Rhys has consistently turned in one of the best performances on TV as Philip Jennings, the KGB officer living in the States with his wife and fellow spy, Elizabeth. This last season, a gripping but understated denouement, may have been his best work yet. His only real competition comes from Sterling K Brown, who last year became the first black man to win the Emmy in this category. It would not be a surprise to see him win again, especially given This Is Us’s popularity.The other nominees – Ed Harris and Jeffrey Wright in Westworld (bleh), Milo Ventimiglia in This Is Us and Jason Bateman in Ozark – are fillers in what’s ultimately a two-way horse race. If one of them has any chance at making inroads, it will be Ventimiglia, and probably because his character Jack died a gruesome death-by-slow-cooker this past season. But that’s not reason enough to deny Rhys what’s rightfully his.Should win: Matthew Rhys, The AmericansWill win: Matthew Rhys, The AmericansAfter years of joke wins for Jim Parsons and Jon Cryer, the Emmys finally began to right its wrong in this category a few years ago, awarding Jeffrey Tambor’s performance in Transparent and, last year, Donald Glover’s in Atlanta. Glover is back this year, with his stiffest competition coming from Bill Hader, whose portrayal of the zany, emotionally stunted titular hitman was one of the year’s freshest. Neither Glover nor Hader are especially funny in their shows, at least not in the way fellow nominees Ted Danson (The Good Place) and Anthony Anderson (Black-ish) are in theirs, but they bring to their characters (or, in the case of Glover’s wild turn in Atlanta’s Teddy Perkins episode, other characters) so much depth and complication that it’d be unjust to award a more conventionally comic performance instead.Should win: Donald Glover, AtlantaWill win: Bill Hader, BarryFor the first time since 2011, someone not named Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is guaranteed to win this one since Veep’s seventh and final season hasn’t aired yet. That speaks less to a lack of deserving winners (there are a handful) than it does JLD’s dependably, spectacularly funny tenure as Selina Meyer. Assuming the mantle this year will be either Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel), Pamela Adlon (Better Things), Issa Rae (Insecure), Lily Tomlin (Grace and Frankie), Tracee Ellis Ross (black-ish), or Allison Janney (Mom).It’s not quite a toss-up, though a win for Rae, Adlon, Ross, or Brosnahan would be well-deserved. After winning the Golden Globe, Brosnahan, as the charming and exuberant titular stand-up comic, is the favorite. But I’d personally like to see a win for Adlon, who’s on triple duty writing, directing and starring in a show whose insights into mother-, sister-, and daughter-hood are indelible and touching, rendered by its star with the brutal clarity of a consummate auteur.Should win: Pamela Adlon, Better ThingsWill win: Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs MaiselLast year this category was populated almost entirely by the cast of Big Little Lies and Feud: Bette and Joan, which meant it looked uncannily like an Oscars race. But no Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Susan Sarandon or Jessica Lange puts Laura Dern, nominated for her role in the HBO movie The Tale, in pole position. Playing Jennifer Fox, who wrote and directed this bracing autobiographical tale of her own experience of childhood abuse and its ripple effects, Dern is sensational, angry and nuanced, a total force.Also in this category are a host of first-rate actors: Jessica Biel (The Sinner), Regina King (Seven Seconds), Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story: Cult), Edie Falco (Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders), and Michelle Dockery (Godless), whose performance in Netflix’s seven-episode feminist Western was one of the year’s best. Unfortunately, she finds herself up against a force even stronger than the mutinous cowboys who threaten to overtake her ranch in Godless: Laura Dern.Should win: Laura Dern, The TaleWill win: Laura Dern, The TaleI was not as enamored with Darren Criss’ performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace as others. Playing the repressed serial killer Andrew Cunanan, an admittedly difficult task, Criss often resorted to that well-trodden, limp-wristed portrayal of gay men that suggested mindless camp more than it did latent sociopathy. As the series progresses Criss does improve and loosen up considerably, but it never quite rang true. But, I digress, since he’s going to win anyway.A deserving winner would be Benedict Cumberbatch in the four-episode Patrick Melrose, a sleek, decadent and unflinching look at addiction adapted from Edward St Aubyn’s part-autobiographical novels. Jeff Daniels, who plays FBI counterterrorism expert John O’Neill in Hulu’s The Looming Tower, is another great choice from a gripping, true-to-life miniseries that got far less fanfare than it merited.Should win: Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Melrose or Jeff Daniels, The Looming TowerWill win: Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni VersaceOutstanding limited seriesThe AlienistThe Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – Should win/will winGenius: PicassoGodlessPatrick MelroseOutstanding variety talk seriesThe Daily Show with Trevor NoahFull Frontal with Samantha Bee – Should winJimmy Kimmel Live!Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – Will winLate Late Show with James CordenLate Show with Stephen ColbertOutstanding supporting actor in a comedy seriesLouie Anderson, BasketsAlec Baldwin, Saturday Night LiveTituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy SchmidtBrian Tyree Henry, Atlanta – Should winTony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs MaiselKenan Thompson, Saturday Night LiveHenry Winkler, Barry – Will winOutstanding supporting actor in a drama seriesNikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of ThronesPeter Dinklage, Game of ThronesJoseph Fiennes, The Handmaid’s TaleDavid Harbour, Stranger Things – Will winMandy Patinkin, HomelandMatt Smith, The Crown – Should winOutstanding supporting actor in a limited series or movieJeff Daniels, GodlessBrandon Victor Dixon, Jesus Christ SuperstarJohn Leguizamo, WacoRicky Martin, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime StoryEdgar Ramirez, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – Will winMichael Stuhlbarg, The Looming TowerFinn Wittrock, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – Should winOutstanding supporting actress in a comedy seriesZazie Beetz, AtlantaAlex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs MaiselAidy Bryant, Saturday Night LiveBetty Gilpin, Glow – Should winLeslie Jones, Saturday Night LiveKate McKinnon, Saturday Night Live – Will winLaurie Metcalf, RoseanneMegan Mullally, Will & GraceOutstanding supporting actress in a drama seriesAlexis Bledel, The Handmaid’s TaleMillie Bobby Brown, Stranger ThingsAnn Dowd, The Handmaid’s Tale – Will winLena Headey, Game of ThronesVanessa Kirby, The CrownThandie Newton, WestworldYvonne Strahovski, The Handmaid’s Tale – Should winOutstanding supporting actress in a limited series or movieSara Bareilles, Jesus Christ Superstar Live in ConcertPenelope Cruz, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – Will winJudith Light, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – Should winAdina Porter, American Horror Story: CultMerritt Wever, GodlessLetitia Wright, Black Museum (Black Mirror) Topics Emmys 2018 The Handmaid's Tale Atlanta Elisabeth Moss Donald Glover US television Television features

The rapper and producer 50 Cent has said he thinks Power being overlooked by the Emmys over the years was racially motivated, despite the success of the popular Starz series that has a prominently black cast.“I like to say it’s racial,” he said during a panel discussion on Friday at the Television Critics Association Press Tour. “That’s the easy way to get out of things. People who are running and connected to these ceremonies are not necessarily cool people.”After 50 Cent’s comments, Power’s creator Courtney Kemp, who accompanied him on stage, sarcastically said: “So now, we’ll never get one.”Power, on which 50 Cent is an executive producer, stars Omari Hardwick as a man trying to leave behind life as a drug kingpin. It has become one of Starz’s most popular shows but that has not translated into Emmy nominations.50 Cent said he experienced being overlooked before during his music career, especially when his debut studio album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was released in 2003.“This project is the same material I used for my music,” he said. “I didn’t receive an award for best new artist when I had the largest debut for a hip-hop album. I sold more records for a first album today. I look at it the same. I’m going to make the numbers. The viewership before we’re done with it, they’ll be looking around saying ‘Yeah, we fucked up again.’”Power will air its sixth and final season in two parts, Starz said. The first half, of 10 episodes, will begin as previously announced on 25 August. The concluding five episodes will start airing in January.Kemp said the Emmy snubs were “disappointing” but she was happy the show has gained recognition from a “core audience”, including the NAACP Image Awards.“I thought we were doing something new and fresh,” Kemp said. “I was hoping that the Emmy voters would take notice, and they didn’t. You just accept it and move on.“But we’ve been winning Image Awards now for quite some time. It feels as though our core audience does love and respect the show. Not every show gets the attention it deserves.” Topics 50 Cent Television US television industry Television industry Emmys Awards and prizes news

Slide 1 of 74,Regina King, who won for lead actress in a limited series or movie for her role in “Seven Seconds.”Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Jordan Strauss/Invision/Ap

Did you hear the one about the Emmys’ being super diverse this year?[Read about what happened at the Emmys and at the after-parties.]It was the running theme of the night, while curiously the discussion around #MeToo at the first Emmys ceremony since The New York Times’s Harvey Weinstein story broke last year was noticeably muted. This was especially glaring in light of the recent downfall of the former CBS chief executive Les Moonves, long one of the most powerful men in television, who stepped down earlier this month after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. (Mr. Moonves has denied these accusations.)Here are some of the most memorable moments from the Emmy Awards. — AISHA HARRISThe ‘S.N.L.’-ification of the EmmysNBC turned over this year’s telecast to Lorne Michaels, and the ceremony at times felt like a glammed-up installment of “Saturday Night Live,” with a heavy dose of the show’s past and present stars. As with most episodes of “S.N.L.,” the results were decidedly mixed. Performers like Mr. Thompson and Leslie Jones enlivened the evening, but several bits, like a running gag featuring Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen as inept Emmy experts, fell flat.As the hosts, Mr. Jost and Mr. Che reprised the give and take of their “Weekend Update” segments on “S.N.L.,” cracking wise about subjects like Ronan Farrow, Roseanne Barr and the death of traditional television.“Our network NBC has the most nominations of any broadcast network,” Mr. Che said. “Which is kind of like being the sexiest person on life support.”As has become typical at Emmy telecasts, there were also plenty of Netflix jokes.“Netflix will spend $8 billion on programming. They now have 700 original series, which makes me realize that the show I pitched them must have really sucked,” Mr. Jost said. “It’s like being turned down for a CVS rewards card.” (Read the entire monologue here.)But if the writing and bits were hit and miss at best, “S.N.L.” got the last laugh. It won the award for the best variety sketch show for the second year in a row. — JEREMY EGNER‘Mrs. Maisel’ dominates comedyWith the perennial winner “Veep” out of the running this year, the Emmy Awards were guaranteed to crown a new top comedy. But the competition seemed like an even split between FX’s whimsically avant-garde “Atlanta” and Amazon’s period charmer “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”In the end, it wasn’t close. “Mrs. Maisel” dominated the category, taking home five awards Monday night, the most of any program. The haul included the top award as well as best comic actress for Rachel Brosnahan and best comedy writing and directing for the creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino. When Alex Borstein was announced in the supporting actress category, she ascended the stage in delightfully dramatic fashion:“Atlanta” did pull out one win, though: At the Creative Arts ceremony earlier this month, Katt Williams was named best guest actor in a comedy. — JEREMY EGNERThe Fonz finally winsHenry Winkler deserved the biggest thumbs up of all on Monday night. More than 40 years after his first Emmy nomination, he finally took home a statuette.“Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god!” said an ecstatic Mr. Winkler, 72, who’d leapt onto the stage to accept his award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series, bringing the audience to its feet. He played Gene Cousineau on HBO’s dark comedy “Barry.”“I wrote this 43 years ago,” he said of his acceptance speech. Mr. Winkler was first nominated in 1976 for his role as Arthur Fonzarelli, who exemplified midcentury American cool in a black leather jacket, on “Happy Days.”“I can’t stop yet,” Mr. Winkler said as his allotted speech time wound down. “My wife, Stacey, oh, my god. My cast and crew, and the kids! Kids! Jed, Zoe and Max, you can go to bed now! Daddy won!” — MAYA SALAM‘The Reparation Emmys’It has become commonplace for award shows to highlight the exclusion of minorities with a knowing wink at how far things have (sort of) come, and the Emmys were no different. In addition to the opening musical number, Mr. Che appeared in a pretaped bit in which he handed out “reparation Emmys” to veteran black performers who have been overlooked by the voting academy.Jaleel White (“Family Matters”), Marla Gibbs (nominated five times for her role as Florence on “The Jeffersons”), Tichina Arnold (“Martin,” “Everybody Hates Chris”) and Kadeem Hardison (“A Different World”) were among the famous faces who happily accepted Mr. Che’s acknowledgment of their impressive careers.The catch: The co-host “stole” the statues from the four-time winner Bill Cosby. But Mr. Cosby’s wins did not actually have anything to do with those performers not having their own awards. Rather, these actors remain unsung by Emmy voters because of a system that has largely overlooked black artists for decades.Even if that part of the sketch felt forced, it was nice to see the performers get some recognition. And Mr. Che is absolutely right: When it comes to sitcom actors, Ms. Arnold is, “pound for pound,” one of the best. — AISHA HARRIS‘The Americans’ gets a going-away presentGoing into the Emmy Awards, fans of “The Americans” could be forgiven for indulging in some quixotic wishful thinking: Might the great FX spy series, virtually ignored by the Emmys throughout its run, claim the top drama award for its final season?The answer was no — “Game of Thrones” won again. But “The Americans” did score awards for Matthew Rhys, for best actor in a drama, and the creators Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, for drama writing. It was a nice send-off for one of the best shows of the past decade, one that almost made up for Keri Russell’s being denied best actress honors for the past six seasons. Almost. — JEREMY EGNERA director wins an Emmy, then pops the questionIn a mostly ho-hum ceremony, Glenn Weiss delivered a moment that left many in attendance slack-jawed and applauding. He proposed to his girlfriend on live television after winning an award. Mr. Weiss, who has now amassed more than a dozen Emmys, won for outstanding directing for a variety special for his work on the most recent Oscars telecast.He started his speech paying tribute to his mother, who he said had passed away two weeks ago. “Mom always believed in finding the sunshine in things, and she adored my girlfriend, Jan,” Mr. Weiss said.Mr. Weiss was referring to Jan Svendsen, the chief creative officer at Charity Network, and added: “You wonder why I don’t like to call you my girlfriend? Because I want to call you my wife.”Ms. Svendsen’s jaw dropped, and she said yes before Mr. Weiss had even popped the question. The crowd cheered as Ms. Svendsen walked to the stage. Once she arrived, Mr. Weiss told her, “This is the ring that my dad put on my mom’s finger 67 years ago.”He knelt and said, “Will you marry me?”She, of course, said yes (again), and the two walked offstage with an Emmy and a lifetime partnership. — SOPAN DEBMaking a bold fashion statementFor the most part, the women on the red carpet were glam, and the men (save the “Queer Eye” cast) were disappointingly bland. But one star stood out from the rest and had social media abuzz: the “black-ish” actor Jenifer Lewis, who arrived at the ceremony adorned in comparatively casual (but sparkly) Nike gear.“I’m wearing Nike tonight to tell them how proud I am of them for supporting Colin Kaepernick and his protest against police brutality and racial injustice,” she told CNN. Check out the rest of our Emmys red carpet coverage here. — AISHA HARRISThandie Newton’s hypothetical God is a woman“The only white people that thank Jesus are Republicans and ex-crack heads,” Mr. Che joked, regarding acceptance speeches at predominantly white awards shows. As the night went on, there were a few callbacks to his comment, but the “Westworld” star Thandie Newton, who won for best supporting actress in drama, had the best one.“I don’t even believe in God, but I’m gonna thank her tonight,” she quipped from the podium, appearing completely stunned by her win. The crowd erupted into cheers, before Ms. Newton continued on with her charming speech (which included a slip of profanity, also charming). — AISHA HARRIS#Notallmen, but a lot of themHannah Gadsby, whose Netflix special “Nanette” has become a cultural phenomenon since debuting earlier this year, presented the award for best directing for a drama series. The winner, Stephen Daldry of “The Crown,” was not present. But Ms. Gadsby’s dry, amiably acerbic wit was.This is not normal. The world’s gone a bit crazy. I mean, for somebody like me, a nobody from nowhere, gets this sweet gig — free suit, new boots — just because I don’t like men. That’s a joke, of course. Just jokes, fellas. Calm down. #Notallmen, but a lot of them. It is just jokes, but what are jokes these days? We don’t know. Nobody knows what jokes are, especially not men. Am I right, fellas? That’s why I’m presenting alone. There is a winner and the Emmy goes to Stephen Daldry, “The Crown.” And of course Stephen could not be with us tonight to accept the Emmy on his own behalf because of probably me. So I think I’ll just leave now and that’s well done, him.— SOPAN DEBTeddy Perkins shows upThere was an unexpected oddball sitting in the audience early in the evening, and his name was Teddy Perkins. The character, portrayed in “Atlanta” by the creator and star Donald Glover in Season 2, was spotted sitting among other attendees near the front of the stage. A photographer captured him congratulating Bill Hader, who beat out Mr. Glover for best actor in a comedy.And just like that, he was gone. It wasn’t clear if that was Mr. Glover beneath all that makeup — he hadn’t walked the red carpet earlier in the evening. But then a few categories later, Mr. Glover, looking like his normal self, did finally appear in the same seat once occupied by the creepy character.The prevailing theory was that another “Atlanta” star, Lakeith Stanfield, had put on the costume, but he did walk the red carpet before the show. And E! has since published a photo from someone in attendance at an Emmys after-party that appears to show Mr. Glover, Mr. Stanfield and Teddy Perkins chatting it up. The mystery is almost as confounding as that “Teddy Perkins” episode. — AISHA HARRIS

In a taped segment midway through the broadcast, the show returned to diversity as a theme, with Mr. Che handing out “reparations Emmys” to black actors from past shows, including Jimmie Walker and John Witherspoon.The focus on diversity became ironic as the night wore on, with one white person after another delivering acceptance speeches. Before the ceremony was done, there were victories for actors and performers of color — including Regina King, for the Netflix limited series “Seven Seconds”; Ms. Newton, for her work on HBO’s “Westworld”; and RuPaul, of VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — but the great majority of winners did not reflect the night’s theme.The “S.N.L.” influence held fast throughout the night, with Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen, stars of a new Amazon show, “Forever,” appearing in a series of awkward-on-purpose sketches and an out-of-breath Will Ferrell presenting the award for best comedy series.In a way, it was surprising to see the New York-based “S.N.L.” front and center at the Emmys. The Television Academy, the main body behind the awards, has looked askance at the show for most of its 43-year run. But that has changed, with “S.N.L.” having won half of its 62 Emmys in the past five years.For all of Mr. Michaels’s efforts to showcase performers he has worked with, perhaps the show’s most memorable moment came thanks to Glenn Weiss, the director of the 2018 Oscars broadcast. Mr. Weiss, who won in the category of best director for a variety special, proposed to his girlfriend, Jan Svendsen, from the stage. (She said yes.)