Enlarge this image A pharmacist speaks with a customer at Walmart Neighborhood Market in Bentonville, Ark., in 2014. On Monday Walmart introduced a new set of guidelines for dispensing opioid medications. Sarah Bentham/AP hide caption toggle caption Sarah Bentham/AP A pharmacist speaks with a customer at Walmart Neighborhood Market in Bentonville, Ark., in 2014. On Monday Walmart introduced a new set of guidelines for dispensing opioid medications. Sarah Bentham/AP Walmart announced Monday it is introducing new restrictions on how it will fill opioid medication prescriptions in all of its in-store and Sam's Club pharmacies. It is the company's latest expansion of its Opioid Stewardship Initiative, intended to stem the spread of opioid addiction, prevent overdoses and curb over-prescribing by doctors. It follows a similar initiative by CVS that went into effect in February. A March report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found overdoses from opioids soared by nearly 30 percent between 2016 and 2017. "We are proud to implement these policies and initiatives as we work to create solutions that address this critical issue facing the patients and communities we serve," Marybeth Hays, executive vice president of Health & Wellness and Consumables said in a statement. Shots - Health News Jump In Overdoses Shows Opioid Epidemic Has Worsened Over the next 60 days, the fourth-largest pharmacy chain will cap acute painkiller supplies to cover a maximum of seven days. It will also limit a day's total dose to no more than the equivalent of 50 morphine milligrams. And, in states where prescriptions are restricted to fewer than seven days, Walmart will abide by the governing law. Walmart said the new policies align with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations established in 2016. Those rules were meant for doctors prescribing chronic pain medication and encourage primary care physicians to prescribe the "lowest effective dose."By the end of Aug. 2018, the company said its pharmacists will begin using NarxCare, a controlled-substance tracking tool with "real-time interstate visibility." Shots - Health News Reversing An Overdose Isn't Complicated, But Getting The Antidote Can Be Shots - Health News Surgeon General Urges More Americans To Carry Opioid Antidote Pharmacies will also carry naloxone, an opioid overdose antidote that has become instrumental in helping to decrease overdose deaths. The life-saving medicine will be offered over the counter, dispensed upon request, wherever it is legal. As NPR has reported, "The medicine is now available at retail pharmacies in most states without a prescription." Retail sales of naloxone, more commonly known by the popular brand name, Narcan, increased by tenfold between 2013 and 2015. Dr. Steven Stanos, former president of the the American Academy of Pain Medicine told NPR the organization applauds "any action that seeks to limit the over-prescription of opioids." But, he added, "That needs to be balanced with the very real need of patients." "Setting a mandatory limit without giving physicians the ability to explain why a patient might need a longer prescription, interferes with the relationship between that person and their physician, who knows them better than the pharmacist," Stanos said. He also explained requiring patients to obtain a new prescription after seven, or sometimes even three days, depending on the state, can become too costly because of mandatory co-pays. Another of the company's changes going into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, is a requirement that all controlled-substance prescriptions be submitted electronically. According to Walmart: "E-prescriptions are proven to be less prone to errors, they cannot be altered or copied and are electronically trackable."

FILE PHOTO: Juan Guaido, President of the Venezuelan National Assembly and lawmaker of the opposition party Popular Will (Voluntad Popular), speaks during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela January 10, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia RawlinsSAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil’s government on Saturday issued a statement saying it recognized Venezuela’s Congressional leader, who opposes President Nicolas Maduro, as the rightful president of Venezuela. Maduro, who started a second term as president this week, has found himself increasingly isolated as countries around the world have called his continued leadership illegitimate. Juan Guaido, the head of Venezuela’s opposition-led Congress, said this week he was prepared to assume the country’s presidency on an interim basis and call elections. Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Chizu NomiyamaOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Enlarge this image Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, pictured on Monday delivering a speech, has withdrawn his country from a United Nations compact on migration. Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, pictured on Monday delivering a speech, has withdrawn his country from a United Nations compact on migration. Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images In his second week in office, far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has pulled the country out of a U.N. migration pact, fulfilling a pledge he made before taking office.Brazilian diplomats told local media on Tuesday that the country officially left the agreement. A diplomat also told Reuters that Brazil has exited the pact. Bolsonaro appeared to confirm the withdrawal on Wednesday, tweeting, "No to the compact on migration." "Defense of national sovereignty was one of our campaign's banners and it will be a priority of our government," he wrote. "The Brazilians and immigrants who live here will be safer under rules that we ourselves make, without external pressure."Brazil's departure from the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration marks the latest rejection of the non-binding agreement, which has drawn protest across the world, especially from far-right politicians in Europe. Nearly 30 countries, including the United States, refused to sign the pact in December. Europe Protesters And Police Clash In Brussels At Rally Against UN Migration Pact Brazil was among the majority of countries that signed onto the compact, under the country's previous administration.Bolsonaro's decision to leave the agreement follows guarantees the president-elect and his foreign minister made last month, after a polarizing election and runoff."The Bolsonaro government will withdraw from the Global Compact on Migration being launched in Marrakech, an inadequate instrument for dealing with the problem," tweeted Ernesto Araújo, now the country's foreign minister, in December. "Immigration must not be dealt with as a global issue, but rather in accord with each country's reality and sovereignty."More than 700,000 registered immigrants live in Brazil, according to the Migration Policy Institute, along with several hundred thousand more undocumented immigrants. By far the largest segment comes from Portugal, followed by Japan, Italy, Paraguay and Bolivia. Meanwhile, Brazil has become one of the primary destinations for an increasing number of Venezuelans fleeing a political and economic crisis at home. At least 65,000 Venezuelans have sought asylum in Brazil over the last four years, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Geoff Ramsey, assistant director for Venezuela at the Washington Office on Latin America, told NPR last fall that about a dozen tent camps were operating on the Brazilian-Venezuelan border.Last month, Araújo tweeted that Brazil would "continue to welcome" Venezuelan asylum-seekers even when it withdrew from the compact, though it would also focus on the "restoration of democracy in Venezuela." World A U.N. Migration Pact Is Dividing Europe — And Has Become Fodder For Nationalists The U.N. accord has become a focal point for anti-immigrant sentiment, particularly in Europe. Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Rally, called the agreement "a pact with the devil." And in Brussels last month, thousands of protesters took to the streets carrying anti-immigration banners as they rallied against the pact.The Trump administration refused to participate in the agreement more than a year ago, while other countries agreed to the pact last summer but pulled out before it was formally adopted, including Austria, Hungary, Italy, Chile and Australia. Bolsonaro's government, now just over a week old, has drawn comparisons to the current U.S. administration, including in its rhetoric on refugees. On Wednesday, the Brazilian president echoed President Trump's language comparing national security to home security."If we decide who we let into our own houses, why would we do any differently when it comes to our Brazil?" he tweeted.In a televised address on Tuesday night, Trump argued for his proposed border wall by pointing out that "wealthy politicians build walls, fences, and gates around their homes." Latin America Brazil's Far-Right Candidate Jair Bolsonaro Wins Presidential Election Bolsonaro has taken his victory as a "mandate" to change the country's foreign policy, according to an op-ed by his foreign minister published in Bloomberg on Monday. "We are convinced that Brazil has a much larger role to play in the world than the one we currently attribute to ourselves," Araújo wrote.

If there is any fragile encouragement to be squeezed out of Boris Johnson’s letter to the European Union this week, it is perhaps the fact that he wrote it at all. After four weeks of acting as if the EU does not exist, the existence of the letter is at least an implied recognition that the relationship with the EU matters. For nearly a month, Mr Johnson’s government has also promoted the fiction that a no-deal Brexit is an acceptable prospect for Britain. So when Mr Johnson starts his letter by saying that he very much hopes the UK will be leaving with a deal, it is just about possible to muster some carefully guarded optimism that he may actually mean it.Yet the content of what he wrote makes a mockery of any such conclusion. In fact it is difficult to see how Mr Johnson could have done less than he does in the letter to Donald Tusk. At the core of the letter is the statement that the Irish backstop is not viable. The letter then excoriates the backstop as undemocratic, a brake on UK trade and regulatory policy and a threat to the Northern Ireland peace process. In most respects, this is the opposite of the truth. In some ways it is downright mischievous. The letter is more like one of Mr Johnson’s fact-free and irresponsible newspaper concoctions than a serious diplomatic approach to solving an impasse that imminently threatens British economic stability, trade, jobs, constitutional cohesion and security.It is important to remember what the backstop is. It is a customs and regulatory arrangement of last resort to address the unique situation in Ireland, for which Britain has shared legal and moral responsibility. It is designed to maintain an open and seamless border in Ireland in perpetuity. It would only apply if the UK and the EU cannot agree, by the end of the transition period, to a deal maintaining such a border. That is made more difficult by the tension between the UK government’s insistence on leaving the customs union and the single market, and the UK’s obligations under the Good Friday agreement which ensures the “demilitarisation” of the border as part of the peace process. Theresa May’s hope that ways could be found, amid mutual trust, of reconciling these objectives over time led Britain to propose such a backstop, to which the EU agreed. It should have been supported. But it split the Conservative party and triggered the overthrow of Mrs May by Mr Johnson.The argument therefore directly pits the wish of the ruling hard-Brexit wing of the Tory party to deregulate the UK economy against Britain’s historic responsibilities to maintain peace in Northern Ireland and good relations with its neighbours in the Irish Republic. Polls, including one this week, show that what Mr Johnson proposes is rejected by the people of Northern Ireland (who also voted to remain in the EU back in 2016). They would prefer a regulatory border between Northern Ireland and Britain rather than between the two parts of Ireland. The US Congress has also said it will block any UK-US trade deal that undermines the peace process. Mr Johnson’s letter, with its brusque demand that the backstop must be scrapped, is both a dangerously frivolous threat to Ireland north and south and a gamble with his already highly tendentious trade aspirations.It is easy to conclude that the letter is not a credible attempt to negotiate an alternative to the backstop at all. It contains two shoddily unreliable suggestions. One is to create “alternative arrangements” by the end of the transition period “as far as possible”. The other is to look “constructively and flexibly” at other commitments. In neither case is there any detail. If this is an opening bid in a process that is seriously intended to result in a deal with the EU, it is an extraordinarily reckless way of going about something on which so much rests.Unsurprisingly, Mr Tusk has rejected all this because Mr Johnson offers no alternatives. Any possibility of progress towards a deal now rests on meetings this week at the G7 summit in Biarritz. Angela Merkel seemed to imply on Tuesday that she, at least, is in the business of being serious about trying to reconcile Brexit with the Irish peace process. The question facing her and all of us is whether Mr Johnson is capable of being serious too. Topics Brexit Opinion Article 50 Boris Johnson European Union Northern Ireland Ireland Donald Tusk editorials

Today, Senator-elect Rick Scott released the below statement following the 3:00pm conclusion of the machine recount. After the recount, Senator-elect Scott’s lead grew by 865 votes, with a total margin of 13,427. Senator-elect Rick Scott said “Last week, Florida voters elected me as their next U.S. Senator and now the ballots have been counted twice. I am incredibly proud and humbled by the opportunity to serve Florida in Washington. Our state needs to move forward. We need to put this election behind us, and it is time for Bill Nelson to respect the will of the voters and graciously bring this process to an end rather than proceed with yet another count of the votes – which will yield the same result, and bring more embarrassment to the state that we both love and have served.”

Enlarge this image U.S. surfer Lakey Peterson is carried up the beach after claiming victory in a World Surf League event in Australia in March. The league says it will start paying the same prize money to men and women. Jason Childs/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jason Childs/Getty Images U.S. surfer Lakey Peterson is carried up the beach after claiming victory in a World Surf League event in Australia in March. The league says it will start paying the same prize money to men and women. Jason Childs/Getty Images Surfing's governing body has announced that it will give equal prize money to male and female athletes in all of its events, starting next year."This is a huge step forward in our long-planned strategy to elevate women's surfing and we are thrilled to make this commitment as we reveal our new 2019 schedule," World Surf League CEO Sophie Goldschmidt said in a statement. "This is the latest in a series of actions the League has undertaken to showcase our female athletes, from competing on the same quality waves as the men, to better locations, and increased investment and support."The new policy closes a significant pay gap between men and women at the league's surf competitions. At WSL events in Australia earlier this year, the men's winner was paid $100,000, while the top woman was paid $65,000."I honestly didn't see it coming," Carissa Moore, a three-time world champion, told CNN. "It's a huge deal. It's more just the statement that it makes to be recognized on that level and to be respected as elite athletes alongside the men.""When I first started surfing, I would go out to lineups and I would be the only girl," she said. "And it still is very hard to catch waves sometimes in some lineups with all the guys. It has been difficult in the past to fight for better waves, and to get respect from the males. And so to get this support from the WSL and also all the guys on tour is really exciting."In June, the league came under fire for its gender pay discrepancies after a photo from a junior surf competition in South Africa captured the issue succinctly: The winner of the boys' division held up a giant check for 8,000 rand, while the girls' winner held one for 4,000."Did the girls surf a different ocean that was easier we don't know about?" posited one commenter. The San Francisco Chronicle notes that California's State Lands Commission made equal pay a requirement for WSL to receive a permit to hold its annual big-wave competition at Mavericks, a famous break off Half Moon Bay.But the league said its decision wasn't directly related to the photo blowback or the Mavericks issue."The one thing we wanted to pride ourselves on was being a leader in the space," said WSL Deputy Commissioner Jessi Miley-Dyer, who is herself a former pro surfer. "We wanted to be one of the first sports to do this for the women, and we also thought that it would be a really good stand for us. And it's important as well for sports to pay attention to what's going on in broader society."Obviously things are changing for women in the world, which is awesome," she told NPR. "So yeah, we paid attention to what people have been saying, and we thought that it was a great time to do it."Surfing will be an Olympic event for the first at the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo, and the league seemed to recognize it could catch an early wave: "The WSL is proud to be the first American-based global sports league to offer gender pay equality," it tweeted.Kelly Slater, an 11-time world champion on the men's WSL tour, was stoked about the move. The Two-Way BBC Salaries Ignite Debate Over Appropriate Pay, Gender Equity "I believe it's a great precedent to set in sports and challenges what has been the norm," he wrote on Instagram. "My brothers and I were raised predominantly by our mom on a small weekly paycheck so it's refreshing to set an example as a sport for what should be the norm, and not the exception, in society."Female athletes in many sports have been asking why their pay doesn't match that of their male counterparts.Last year, BBC Sport found that 35 of 44 sports governing bodies that awarded prize money paid equal amounts to men and women. But in sports where there isn't parity, the difference is striking.France's men's soccer team took home a prize of $38 million when they won the 2018 World Cup, and runner-up Croatia received $28 million. The Two-Way U.S. Women's Soccer Team Members File Federal Equal-Pay Complaint When the U.S. women's team won the Women's World Cup in 2015, they were awarded $2 million. And that was up from previous tournaments: "Prior to 2007 the women's teams received no prize money at all from FIFA," CNN notes.In 2016, five members of the U.S. women's team filed a wage discrimination complaint against the U.S. Soccer Federation, noting that despite generating almost $20 million more revenue than the men's team the previous year, they were paid roughly a quarter of what the men earned. The women's team reached a new labor deal with U.S. Soccer last year, boosting their base pay by 30 percent.Tennis' four Grand Slam events pay men and women's winners equally, but that's not the case in many of the tournaments that fill the rest of the calendar."Today, I feel proud to be a surfer," Australian surfer Stephanie Gilmore wrote on Wednesday. "Proud to be a female surfer. I feel like the momentum in our society to have this conversation is incredible — because it's not just in surfing, or in sport, that women are fighting for equality in the workplace. It's everywhere."

Jeremy Hunt has implored British diplomats to continue “speaking truth to power and standing up for British interests” as the fallout from the resignation of the UK ambassador to Washington became a key battleground in the fight to succeed Theresa May.In a message to all Foreign Office staff that will be seen as a coded rebuke to Boris Johnson, Hunt praised the departing ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, hailing him and his diplomatic colleagues as “the best of Britain”.“The twin roles you perform of speaking truth to power and standing up for British interests have never been more vital,” wrote Hunt, the foreign secretary, on Thursday. “Please keep speaking up without fear or favour, remembering that the UK government alone will determine appointments based on our national interest alone.”He added: “I want you to know that you will always get all the support you need to carry out your vital work. I will ensure you get it.”The reassuring missive was released after a day in which Johnson, the clear favourite to become the new prime minister, faced intense criticism from Conservative party colleagues over his perceived abandonment of Darroch.At a Tory leadership hustings on Thursday evening, Johnson claimed he fully supports Darroch, despite his previous repeated public refusals to do so.He told the audience: “I rang Kim, I think yesterday, and said how much I regretted his resignation, which indeed I do. He, I think, was the victim of a very unpleasant stunt by somebody who tried to – and succeeded in – leaking his confidential diptels [diplomatic communications], which are intended to guide ministers and the government about his thoughts about what’s going on in Washington.“And I think it was absolutely disgraceful that those diptels were leaked and I think it is vital – and as I said to Kim and I say to everybody – that all our civil servants, all great ambassadors such as Sir Kim, should feel free to speak without fear or favour to their political masters and then it is up to their political masters to decide what to do with it. And I think whoever leaked that, those diptels, deserves to be hunted down and prosecuted.”Asked why he had been less willing to offer such clear public backing before Darroch felt moved to resign, Johnson said: “I must say that I think there has certainly been an attempt to politicise this issue and to take the career prospects of Sir Kim and turn them into an issue in the Conservative leadership contest. I notice that.“What I will say is that I don’t think that should happen and, as I said in the debate, I don’t think that issues of personnel in our civil service should become footballs in political conversations and just as the advice that civil servants give to ministers should be sacrosanct and ministers should not reveal it and should not betray it.”In the background, there is also a fierce wrangle over who should replace Darroch in Washington and, crucially, whether the decision should be taken by May or her successor.At an urgent Commons question about the affair, a series of Tory MPs lined up to criticise Johnson, who repeatedly refused to back Darroch after Trump insulted the ambassador in a series of tweets and said he would no longer deal with him.One Conservative backbencher, David Morris, said Johnson, a former foreign secretary, should make a formal apology to parliament. “Do you not feel that it is incumbent on every member of parliament in this place to back up our excellent diplomats and civil servants, and the honourable member for Uxbridge should come to the house and apologise?” he asked.Adding to the likely discomfort of the Johnson camp, the Foreign Office minister tasked with responding to the urgent question was Sir Alan Duncan, who had the day before accused Johnson of throwing Darroch “under the bus”.Johnson has praised Darroch but stayed otherwise silent after declining several times during a Tory leadership TV debate on Tuesday night to offer support, something friends of Darroch said was a key element in the ambassador’s decision to resign the next day.One of Johnson’s leading allies, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss, spoke up for him on Thursday, telling a journalists’ lunch that while she did not like overseas leaders such as Trump “slagging off” the UK, she agreed with the US president’s criticism of May’s Brexit deal.On the timing for appointing a new ambassador, Truss predicted this would take months and so it would be a job for the next prime minister.On Thursday evening, Johnson talked up the importance of the maintaining a working relationship with Washington, but insisted that there were circumstances in which he would publicly criticise Trump.He pointed to his response to Trump’s claim in 2015 that some parts of London were “so radicalised that police are afraid for their own lives”. At the time, Johnson noted, he had replied that the “only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump”.That came after other Tories had been openly critical of him. During the urgent question, one Conservative MP, Roger Gale, told the Commons: “The failure of the former foreign secretary to leap to the defence of Sir Kim shows a lack of leadership that is lamentable.”Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, was less direct, but made his feelings known, saying the loss of Darroch after Trump’s comments amounted to the UK being bullied.Tugendhat said the government should “always stand up for those we send abroad, military or civilian, and will back them to the point that is necessary in the interests of the British people, and no one else”.The only support for Johnson in parliament came from the veteran Tory backbencher Peter Bone, who said: “The attacking of colleagues is completely wrong and people should be ashamed of themselves when they’ve done that.”The urgent question was tabled by Labour’s Pat McFadden, who said the decision of Darroch to resign, despite having the full support of Theresa May and her cabinet, was “a dark moment for our democracy and for the standing of the United Kingdom”.McFadden said Johnson’s lack of support for the envoy was “an appalling abandonment of someone in the firing line”. He added: “Real leaders protect their people, they don’t throw them to the wolves because they can sniff a prize for themselves. His actions are a chilling warning of what is to come if he becomes prime minister.”Duncan said he would not be responding to such views on Johnson: “I hope the house will understand if I hold back today from making any further comment on the right honourable friend the member for Uxbridge. I said enough yesterday to make my position entirely clear.”Duncan nonetheless managed to reiterate his condemnation of Johnson several times in ways varying from the coded to the open. Responding to one question, he replied: “It is everyone’s duty, and everyone in this house’s duty, to defend our ambassadors. They are our ambassadors doing our duty. If they do something terribly wrong or break all the rules, that’s altogether different.”Duncan later drew laughter after the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Jo Swinson, cited his description of Johnson’s actions as “the behaviour of an utter wimp”. “I seem to recall that was one of the kinder words I used yesterday,” he told MPs, adding: “I think what I would rather do is concentrate on the specific details of the question put, the merits of Sir Kim Darroch rather than the … merits of anyone else.”Predictions about who will fill the role have already begun, with names mentioned including Sir Mark Sedwill, the head of the civil service.The appointment would help smooth the return to the cabinet of Gavin Williamson under Johnson, whose campaign he has helped run. Sedwill played a leading role in Williamson’s dismissal as defence secretary in May after an inquiry found he had leaked information about the role of Huawei in the UK’s 5G network.Political figures named as possible successor include the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, the international trade secretary Liam Fox, and the chancellor-turned man-of-many-jobs George Osborne. Topics Foreign policy Jeremy Hunt Boris Johnson Conservative leadership Conservatives news

The Conservative party has finally got a leader it deserves. As the UK’s next prime minister, Boris Johnson won’t be able to outrun boring facts and hide from bad publicity. He faces the most daunting challenge – that of how the UK can leave the European Union – on entering No 10 since Winston Churchill in 1940. It is fitting because Mr Johnson is largely responsible for the mess he now has to clear up. The signs are not promising. His pledge that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October “deal or no deal” is as politically expedient as it is destructive. His bravado helped to win the leadership. But it did not unnerve the EU and only hardened opposition within the party. Burning bridges to Europe is an act of arson not statesmanship. Leaving the EU without a deal threatens to wreck the UK economy, break up Britain and rekindle violence on the island of Ireland. No wonder Mr Johnson says he can avoid a hard Brexit, though he can’t say how. He thinks he will be protected from harm if, and when, things go badly wrong. Yet his praetorian guard are from the Tory hard right who, he will find out, prefer to give rather than obey orders.In this radicalising process a referendum became the chosen political device to avoid the Conservative party having to reveal its splits over Europe. Mr Hague campaigned to save the pound and offered a referendum on any further extension of EU powers. By 2005 Michael Howard was pushing hard for a referendum on an EU constitution. When David Cameron became Tory leader he parked the populism, marooning voters who had been whipped up into a frenzy by his predecessors’ rhetoric. Nigel Farage seized the opportunities presented and the rise of Ukip forced Mr Cameron into first shelving key elements of his modernising project before, in 2013, committing to the Brexit referendum – a decision that did not shoot Mr Farage’s fox and led to the UK’s vote to leave the EU.The lesson for Mr Johnson to learn is that when centre-right politicians adopt the language and policies of populist nationalism, the only victory is for the hardliners. Mr Farage now leads the Brexit party and is riding high in the polls. If Mr Johnson thinks he can sup with the devil he might find that he sits down at the table as a guest and ends up as dessert. Nowhere is this more obvious than with Donald Trump, whose friendship comes at a steep cost. The price will be to bearhug the hard Brexit that Mr Johnson wants to avoid. Without that, Mr Trump cannot secure the US-UK trade deal that he prizes. Scooping up the votes of hard leavers can also repel more people than it attracts. Early polling of Mr Johnson’s appeal appears to bear this out. Populist movements want to overturn constitutional governments so that the groups they define as enemies of the people can be targeted. That’s why they need to be confronted, within and without the Tory party. Mr Johnson plays the clown. But the circus will move on, only to leave a broken country in its wake. Topics Boris Johnson Opinion Conservative leadership Conservatives Brexit Article 50 European Union Foreign policy editorials

France’s minister for European affairs, Amélie de Montchalin, has said it is up to the UK to decide the next step on Brexit and no single European Union country was pressuring London, least of all France.Asked to respond to a report that Boris Johnson, the Conservative leadership favourite, had called the French “turds” over Brexit, De Montchalin declined to comment, saying she was unfamiliar with the word.The minister said Brexit was “a British issue for the British to decide”.She told the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris: “If the UK wants to leave the EU, and in an orderly way, the withdrawal agreement is the deal on the table, which has been negotiated for over two years. We’ve also said that the political declaration on the future relationship is open to discussion if the prime minister had a majority.”De Montchalin said the key question was to move on as quickly as possible to think about the future relationship. “What is important is how we work together on the future on issues that are economic, academic, cultural, social, defence and security – what we’ll do together, and we’ll do a lot together, that’s certain.”She said the EU 27 countries were united on Brexit.Asked if France would back giving another extension to Britain’s leaving date beyond 31 October, De Montchalin said there would have to be a political element “which showed that, if more time is given, something will be happening”. She said for the last extension, which was given in the spring, this was after cross-party talks between Conservatives and Labour. For any future request, there would have to be a process in place. “If it’s just the question ‘we’d like more time’, the EU council is very clear on that: there’s no reason for it without a new political scheme being put forward.”She said the advantage of the withdrawal agreement was that it included a transition period “which allows us to discuss the future in a stabilised situation. If there was not an exit agreement, we’d be discussing the future in a situation that wasn’t stabilised.”She said many EU countries had made contingency preparations for a no-deal exit “not because they want that” but because there might be a possibility it could happen by accident.“The cost of uncertainty is high – in the economy in general, in industry, in the financial sector, among fishermen on both sides of channel who don’t know what’s happening tomorrow,” she said. “I think there are a certain number of governments, who see the cost of that.” Topics Brexit France Foreign policy Europe European Union news

He is clever, cultivated, charming; witty, self-deprecating, wildly entertaining and oh so terribly British. Also dissembling, dishonest, dark, duplicitous, and a danger to his country and to Europe – a poker player whose bluff is about to be called.As Boris Johnson settles into his new role, vowing, do or die, to take the UK out of the EU without a deal in 90 days unless the 27 nations ditch an accord that took two years to negotiate, European politicians and commentators are both fascinated and appalled.“Like many people, I was easily charmed by his demeanour, his self-confidence, his intelligence,” said Han ten Broeke, a former Dutch MP specialising in EU affairs. “He’s a pleasure to listen to. I have a soft spot for Britain, and Boris was one reason why.”Ten Broeke has since revised his opinion. “The charm, the intellect, the confidence – it all now looks a lot like over-confidence,” he said. “A promise of simple solutions to complex problems. And it could have disastrous consequences.”The EU27 will give little, if any, ground on the withdrawal agreement, he said, and the costs of no deal are many times greater for the UK than for the EU. “So I can see only one reason Johnson might pursue it. A cynical, dark reason: new elections, to win a new mandate - putting party before country, at a truly existential moment.”Another lifelong anglophile, André Gattolin, the vice-president of the French senate’s European affairs committee, said the new prime minister had carefully cultivated a “caricatural image – the hair, the gags, the flags, the zip-wire, the provocations”.But behind the clownish persona was “a very smart strategist: after all, he’s in power, and he got there from inside the traditional structures. Yes, he has precious little room for manoeuvre and he’s soon going to run into reality; he’ll have to reach an accommodation, find something he can present as a victory.”But his very presence in No 10 showed Johnson was not the bumbler the continental media like to portray him as, Gattolin said, adding: “He pretends he’s a bull in a china shop – but he knew how to get in, by the front door. He’s playing a game, and thus far you’d have to say he’s playing it pretty well.”Some have direct – and chastening – experience of Johnson’s games. Martin Ehl’s 15-minute interview in November 2016 with the then foreign secretary won him brief international fame after Johnson was quoted dismissing as “bollocks” the notion that freedom of movement was a fundamental EU value.Downing Street soon suggested Johnson had been misquoted – even though Ehl’s newspaper, Hospodářské noviny, had agreed to the British embassy checking the interview before publication. The Czech paper posted a recording of the interview on its website in which the offending expression is clearly audible, plus the words: “You can translate bollocks into Czech.”Ehl said Johnson was “a politician and he does what he thinks is best for him”. Ehl said he had no problem with that, “but I do have a problem with someone trying to undermine our honesty and dignity … I saw in him a professional politician who knew he was talking to a journalist and that he had to say something that would resonate and make a good headline. But he wasn’t so careful.”Pascal Boniface, the director of the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, agreed it was as much of a mistake for the French to mock Johnson as it was for them to laugh at Donald Trump. “We sit here jeering at them, and meanwhile they get on with putting their plans into action,” he said.There were clearly similarities between the two leaders, Boniface said: both lead from the front, taking few hostages; both are opportunists, guided more by public opinion than any fixed ideology. But as far as Europe was concerned, he added, Johnson’s biggest problem was that the UK is not the US.“The European reflex is still to show some deference to the US,” he said. “But the EU27 will not scrap the deal for Britain. The shock of reality will be brutal for Johnson – he may conceivably frighten Conservative MPs into backing him in parliament, but he won’t budge the EU.”Italy’s former state secretary for European affairs Sandro Gozi now a Europe adviser to the French government, said Johnson was “a man who has changed his mind about quite a lot of things”, but had been “utterly consistent on Europe as prime minister: Britain must leave on 31 October. Well, we must respect that – but the question is, how will Britain leave? We await his proposal. The ball is in his court. A hard Brexit will be his choice.”Reality is waiting in the wings, agreed Salvatore Margiotta, an MP with the Democratic party. Johnson is “a poker player who will now have to reveal his bluff”, he said. “We are facing a farce, a sort of Brexit fake. A no deal would have dramatic consequences, especially for the UK – and Johnson, who is prejudiced but not foolish, knows this.”Ulrike Herrmann, economics commentator for the leftwing German daily Taz, concurred. It would be “intriguing to see when and how Boris Johnson effects his about-turn. Because he has a pragmatic relationship to power,” she said. “He became PM by posing as a hardliner. Long-term, though, he can only stay in this office if he says goodbye to a hard Brexit.”Gabriel Felbermayr, the president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, suggested it would soon become clear whether Johnson really had a plan, but “with his provocative style, he is certainly not the person to build a bridge between his country, at odds with itself, and Brussels”.Markus Becker, Spiegel’s Brussels correspondent, wondered whether Johnson was “simply going to let it come to no deal – in the hope that he will, as usual, be able to withdraw himself from the affair with a mix of chutzpah, charm and luck, and then pass the blame for the mess on to someone else”.Bild’s lead opinion writer, Franz Josef Wagner, said Johnson had sprung from Britain’s “black and quirky” sense of humour: Mr Bean, Monty Python, anti-German jokes. “When things are bad in England, people laugh rather than complain about it,” he said. “I only hope they can continue to laugh under Boris Johnson.”Some certainly doubt that. The Nobel literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who lives in Spain, recently called Boris Johnson “a liar and a clown” and warned that he posed a threat to “Britain’s progress, civilisation and culture”.But Carles Casajuana, who was Spain’s ambassador to the UK between 2008 and 2012 and met Johnson when he was mayor of London, recalled a “very intelligent, very nice” person. That was hidden, though, he said, behind an “air of frivolity: deep down, I think he’s much more calculating than he wants to show.”Berta Herrero, a journalist specialising in the EU, said Spaniards tended to see Johnson as “kind of kamikaze”, and very loose on the facts. “He’s seen as reckless; as someone who has built a career on lying and convincing people of what’s on his mind: of his fantasies, not necessarily of the truth or the facts,” she said. “He is trying to copy Trump, but is more like his little brother.”Additional reporting by Robert Tait in Prague, Sam Jones in Madrid, Kate Connolly in Berlin and Angela Giuffrida in Rome Topics European Union Europe Brexit features

The progress of repairing China-Australia ties, strained over Canberra’s concerns about Chinese influence in its domestic affairs, has been “unsatisfactory”, said China’s top diplomat after meeting his Australian counterpart.“During our diplomatic and strategic dialogue in Beijing last November, we agreed to calibrate and relaunch China-Australia relations, but the process of improving our ties has not been satisfactory,” said state councillor Wang Yi after the Bangkok meeting on the sidelines of a regional security forum.Wang said he hoped China’s relations with Australia could be back on track as soon as possible, according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.Both countries have no historical grievances and fundamental conflicts of interests and their interests are highly complementary, Wang said.China is Australia’s major trading partner and while there are difficulties in bilateral ties, Australia is willing to strengthen dialogue and communication with China on the basis of mutual respect, the statement cited the Australian foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, as saying.Australia has banned Chinese telecommunications equipment-maker Huawei from supplying its 5G mobile networks over security concerns and is seeking to counter China’s emerging influence in the South Pacific islands.Australia will make its own decisions and will not discriminate against any particular country or company, Payne was quoted as saying in regard to the Huawei issue.Last week Payne issued a warning to foreign diplomatic representatives residing in Australia that the nation would not tolerate interference in the exercise of free speech.It came after the Chinese consul-general in Brisbane, Xu Jie, backed the “patriotic behaviour” of Chinese students who clashed with pro-Hong Kong protesters at the University of Queensland.Payne said the right to free speech and to peaceful and lawful protest was protected in Australia, even on contentious and sensitive issues.“The government would be particularly concerned if any foreign diplomatic mission were to act in ways that could undermine such rights, including by encouraging disruptive or potentially violent behaviour,” Payne said.Last month Payne said Australia remained “deeply concerned” about China’s treatment of the Uighur people, including use of forced labour.In June, a Lowy Institute poll suggested trust by Australians in China to be a responsible global actor had hit its lowest point since the survey began 15 years ago.The increasing negativity about China coincides with extensive reporting by Australian media outlets about Beijing’s use of soft power, concerns about increasing Chinese influence in the Pacific and the ongoing flashpoint of the South China Sea.Beijing says it never interferes in the internal affairs of another country. Topics China Huawei Marise Payne Asia Pacific Australian politics Thailand

On Sept. 18, 2016, a friend came to Ms. McGowan’s house in Salem, N.H., and offered her a hit of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin. They sniffed a line and drove to the Family Dollar across the state line in Lawrence, where Ms. McGowan collapsed with her daughter beside her. At least two people in the store recorded the scene on their cellphones.Medics revived her and took her to the hospital, where child welfare officials took custody of her daughter, and the police charged Ms. McGowan with child neglect and endangerment. (She eventually pleaded guilty to both and was sentenced to probation.) Two days later, the video of her overdose was published by The Eagle-Tribune and was also released by the Lawrence police.The video played in a loop on the local news, and vaulted onto CNN and Fox News, ricocheting across the web.“For someone already dealing with her own demons, she now has to deal with public opinion, too,” said Matt Ganem, the executive director of the Banyan Treatment Center, about 15 miles north of Boston, which gave Ms. McGowan six months of free treatment after being contacted by intermediaries. “You’re a spectacle. Everyone is watching.”Ms. McGowan had only seen snippets of the video on the news. But two months later, she watched the whole thing. She felt sick with regret.“I see it, and I’m like, I was a piece of freaking [expletive],” she said. “That was me in active use. It’s not who I am today.”But she also wondered: Why didn’t anyone help her daughter? She was furious that bystanders seemed to feel they had license to gawk and record instead of comforting her screaming child.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump sought to backtrack on comments last year in which he tied his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey to a probe into Russian election meddling, accusing NBC News on Thursday of “fudging” their interview, but offering no supporting evidence. Trump made his accusation as the man who took over the federal Russia investigation from Comey, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, digs deeper into a probe that has already led to a series of indictments of former Trump aides. Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017, a move that Comey said later was aimed at undercutting the probe. The Trump administration said at the time of Comey’s dismissal that the president had acted on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and No. 2 Justice Department official Rod Rosenstein. In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt that aired two days after the firing, Trump accused Comey of being incompetent and noted the recommendation, but also raised the issue of the Russia investigation, saying he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he fired him. In a Twitter post on Thursday, Trump accused the news outlet and Holt, of “fudging my tape on Russia,” but gave no evidence to back up his claim. In addition to looking into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, which Moscow denies, Mueller is investigating any collusion with Russia by Trump’s campaign and any attempt by the president to impede the probe. The Comey firing could be central to a potential obstruction of justice case. Legal experts have said Mueller’s team must weigh whether the president acted with an improper, or “corrupt,” intent when he took actions such as firing Comey. Trump has denied any collusion with Russia, or any obstruction of justice. He has said since the interview with Holt that he did not fire Comey over the federal probe. Trump said in the Holt interview, “regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself — I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.” Representatives for NBC News, part of Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), declined to comment on Trump’s tweets on Thursday. Representatives for the White House did not respond to a question about Trump’s accusation. In the most dramatic day yet in the Russia investigation, federal prosecutors last week secured the conviction of Trump’s former campaign manager for financial crimes and a plea agreement from the president’s longtime attorney that included pleading guilty to campaign finance violations. Trump, in a string of tweets last week, said he had nothing to hide from Mueller’s probe. Trump’s tweets on Thursday were his latest attack on the news media. He has repeatedly called critical reports about him “fake news” and on Thursday he also called for the firing of CNN’s president, Jeff Zucker. Representatives for CNN, owned by AT&T (T.N), declined to comment. U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions from the news media during an event at which he announced a grant for a drug-free communities support program in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., August 29, 2018. REUTERS/Leah MillisU.S. news organizations have pushed back against the stream of criticism from Trump. Federal authorities on Thursday charged a California man with threatening to kill Boston Globe employees for the newspaper’s role leading a defense this month of press freedoms by hundreds of news organizations. Shares of AT&T and Comcast did not move on the president’s tweets. Reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Ken Li in New York; Editing by Susan Thomas and Frances KerryOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

GLASGOW, Scotland (Reuters) - Britain will allow Huawei Technologies a restricted role in building parts of its 5G network, seeking a middle way in a bitter dispute between the United States and China over the next generation of communications technology. Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this. Britain’s National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Theresa May, met to discuss Huawei on Tuesday. Britain will block Huawei from all core parts of the 5G network and access to non-core parts would be restricted, two security sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “It’s essential that we get the balance right, ensuring that our networks are built in a way that is secure against interference from whatever source, but also are competitive,” said Britain’s finance minister, Philip Hammond. The Daily Telegraph newspaper first reported the decision. 5G, which will offer much faster data speeds and become the foundation stone of many industries and networks, is seen as one of the biggest innovations since the birth of the internet itself a generation ago. In what some have compared to the Cold War arms race, the United States is worried 5G dominance would give a competitor such as China an advantage Washington is not ready to accept. European nations are treading a fine line in the dispute between the world’s two most powerful countries, under pressure from the United States to take a hard line on Huawei but also anxious not to sour trading and diplomatic relations with China. Huawei welcomed London’s move, though ministers cautioned that a final decision may not have been made. Britain’s compromise could provide a template for other Western nations to follow as they try to navigate the row between Beijing and Washington. The world’s leading intelligence-sharing network - the anglophone Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - will not use technology from Huawei in its most sensitive networks, a U.S. official said. “What I see playing out here is a discussion amongst all of us about the realities of where do you define sensitive networks, where does that start and end,” said Rob Joyce, a senior official from the U.S. National Security Agency. For Britain’s spy masters, the riddle of Huawei is only a part of the wider challenge of securing 5G networks and what they see as the much more fundamental threat from China’s dominance in certain globalized technologies of the future. Related CoverageUK spy chief says 5G engineering risks more important than firm's countryFive Eyes will not use Huawei in sensitive networks: senior U.S. officialCiaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance and said any decision on Huawei had to take into account Britain’s international trading posture. When asked if the United States was softening on Huawei, he said: “I wouldn’t get into language like softening.” “I welcome the debate is beginning to inch into wider territory about general standards of security required for 5G to protect us and our allies from any attack,” said Martin, head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Huawei, founded in 1987 by a former engineer in China’s People’s Liberation Army, denies it is spying for Beijing, says it complies with the law and that the United States is trying to smear it because Western companies are falling behind. Huawei’s equipment is either not present or is being stripped out of existing core networks in Britain, but is widely used in lower risk parts such as radio masts. The telecoms equipment market is dominated by three suppliers - Huawei, Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia - and network operators oppose any move that would limit competition among them. Companies such as Samsung , Cisco and China’s ZTE are also targeting parts of the 5G equipment sector. The world’s second largest mobile company, Vodafone, has warned a complete ban would significantly extend the cost and time to deploy 5G. What Britain is trying to do is keep Huawei’s technology away from the brain of the network, while using it in the less sensitive parts of the nervous system. But lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of Britain’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said allowing Huawei to remain in the 5G network would undermine trust between Five Eye allies. “Our most important security alliance is the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network,” Tugendhat said. “The problem with therefore having Huawei running our infrastructure is that it undermines that trust.” Tugendhat said it was difficult to define core and non-core with 5G and that the Chinese company should not be allowed to build Britain’s 5G network. One of the biggest changes between 4G and 5G is the ability to take the advanced computing power usually kept in the protected “core” of a network and distribute it to other parts of the system. FILE PHOTO: The logo of Huawei Technologies is pictured in front of the German headquarters of the Chinese telecommunications giant in Duesseldorf, Germany, February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File PhotoThis will provide more reliable high-speed connections. But it also means engineers will no longer be able to clearly ring-fence the most sensitive parts of the system, U.S. officials say. Chris Watson, head of the technology, media and communications group at law firm CMS, said it was not clear how 5G technology would develop, and more data processing could move to the network edge, blurring the line between the core and periphery. “It’s not yet clear quite what 5G networks are going to consist of, and therefore where the real processing power and communications links are going to be located,” he said. Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper in London; Writing by Paul Sandle and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kate Holton/Mark Potter/Jane MerrimanOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

John Oliver has discussed Donald Trump’s reaction to the Russia investigation, suggesting that he’s trying to use his incompetence as a defense.In Last Week Tonight on HBO, the British comic covered the president’s tweet in response to revelations about the men he chose to work with in his government.Oliver said: “There are three people from the Trump campaign facing serious charges about their entanglements overseas, and in all three cases, Trump’s pushback has basically been: ‘I don’t know anything about the people I should have known those things about.’”Oliver went on to describe what has been a recurring strategy from the president.“He’s playing the Trump card, and what I mean by that is, he’s using his own incompetence as a defense,” he said. “It’s the same way that you might excuse the behavior of a dog or a small child. If you found your dog pissing on a rug and then your child urinating on the dog, you would think, ‘Yeah, I’m annoyed, but they’re idiots who don’t know what they’re doing so they get to walk away from this one.’ That is the Trump card.”He went on: “We cannot accept the Trump card as his defense here because if we do, just think about what we would actually be saying there. “We’d be saying: ‘Look, this guy is too dumb to really understand what he’s doing, so I guess we have no choice but to let him keep being president.’ Please let’s not do that.”Last week, it was revealed that former Trump aide Paul Manafort spent much of his Russian earnings on living a lavish lifestyle. “Over $2m on rugs and clothes?” he said. “Now, I can’t speak to the quality of his rugs but how the fuck is this guy spending that much on clothing? He looks like he bought all the suits he’s going to wear for the rest of his life on one day in 1982 with a cashier’s cheque for $900.”Oliver described Manafort as “an extra from a direct-to-DVD mobster movie who fell asleep in a tanning bed”.“Either Trump did a background check, discovered his suspicious activity and didn’t care or he didn’t so much as Google Manafort before hiring him because everybody knows that Manafort is dodgy,” he said. Topics John Oliver John Oliver recap US television Television Donald Trump TV comedy Comedy Paul Manafort news

Both Democratic and Republican insiders breathed sighs of relief on Tuesday night as outsider candidates widely believed to be flawed, if not unelectable, lost in critical primaries.In West Virginia, Don Blankenship, the coal baron who was convicted in a fatal mine disaster and ran television ads considered to be racist by many, finished third. Republicans were angst-ridden at the possibility that Blankenship, who served a year in prison for wilfully violating mine safety and health standards after an explosion that killed 29 people in 2010 could become their standard bearer. He received further national attention after he ran a controversial television ad where he talked about “China people.”Instead, the state attorney general Patrick Morrisey won, edging out two-term incumbent congressman Evan Jenkins. Morrisey, a former lobbyist who was attacked for New Jersey roots and ties to the pharmaceutical industry, was heavily backed by movement conservatives like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. In contrast, Jenkins, who faced criticism for being a registered Democrat until 2013, was considered a favorite of establishment Republicans.With 90% of precincts reporting, Morrisey received with 35% of the vote while Jenkins received 29% and Blankenship 20%.Blankenship had been seen as surging recent days that left Republicans afraid that they would virtually forfeit the general election in the deep red state if he was the nominee. President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter urging West Virginians to vote against Blankenship in a state that he won by over 40 points. “To the great people of West Virginia we have, together, a really great chance to keep making a big difference. Problem is, Don Blankenship, currently running for Senate, can’t win the General Election in your State...No way! Remember Alabama. Vote Rep. Jenkins or A.G. Morrisey!” tweeted Trump. “Remember Alabama” was an invocation of the 2017 special election for U.S. Senate in Alabama where Republicans nominated Roy Moore, a controversial former judge who faced accusations of sexual assault. The convicted former coal CEO had based much of his campaign on his loathing for senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, attacking McConnell’s family and dubbing the Kentucky Republican “Cocaine Mitch.” After his defeat, McConnell’s campaign account tweeted a picture of the Senator surrounded by white powder with the caption “Thanks for playing Don.”Morrisey will face incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin in November.The marquee race for Democrats on Tuesday was the Ohio gubernatorial primary, where the former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich flopped in a comeback attempt against Richard Cordray, the former head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB). Cordray was strongly backed by Elizabeth Warren, who campaigned for him in the state.With 81% of precincts reporting, Cordray was beating Kucinich by a margin of 63% to 22%.Kucinich, a former congressman, faced scrutiny over his ties to the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his refusal to condemn the Assad regime. Democrats were worried that Kucinich’s baggage could drag the rest of the ticket down if he were the party’s nominee.Cordray will face Mike DeWine, a former US senator and the state’s current attorney general. DeWine easily defeated a primary challenge from the state’s lieutenant governor, Mary Taylor.In Ohio’s Republican primary for US Senate, Jim Renacci, an incumbent congressman who was vocally supported by Trump, defeated businessman Mike Gibbons for the Republican nominationBusinessman Mike Braun, beat two US congressmen in the Indiana’s Republican Senate primary and will face the incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly in what is expected to be one of the most competitive races of the 2018. Trump won Indiana by almost 20 points, and Republicans there have long targeted Donnelly. The president will appear at a campaign stop there on Thursday along with Vice-President Mike Pence.Braun, a businessman, won a decisive victory over the US representatives Luke Messer and Todd Rokita by attacking the congressmen as identical creatures of the Washington “swamp”.Meanwhile, both Rokita and Messer tried to closely tie themselves to Trump; Messer nominated Trump for the Nobel peace prize while Rokita campaigned with a cardboard cutout of him.Greg Pence, Mike’s older brother, easily won the primary for the safe Republican seat vacated by Messer.In another House race, Robert Pittenger of North Carolina became the first incumbent to lose a primary on Tuesday. Pittenger, a three term congressman, lost to conservative pastor Mark Harris who attacked him as insufficiently conservative. Harris had lost a 2016 primary bid against Pittenger by 134 votes. The suburban Charlotte district has been considered competitive in a general election and Democratic nominee Dan McCready has been a fundraising juggernaut who had $1.3m cash on hand at the end of the last reporting period. Topics US politics Indiana Republicans Democrats news

LONDON — Britain has never had a proper, written constitution, a matter of some pride to Britons. While Americans haggle over their rules, British politics runs on an evolving array of laws and practices, refereed by the so-called good chaps in government, with their impeccable sense of fair play.But popular faith in that approach was severely shaken this past week when Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided unilaterally to suspend Parliament at the height of a political crisis set off by his determination to achieve Brexit by an Oct. 31 deadline, with or without a deal with the European Union.And that first shock was followed by a second, perhaps even more startling realization: Once someone starts kicking aside the conventions and customs that shape British democracy, there are surprisingly few hard and fast checks on executive authority.[Throngs took to he streets to protest Boris Johnson’s move.]Despite the howls of outrage from Mr. Johnson’s opponents, historians and legal experts say Britain’s entire political class has to shoulder the blame, having taken a series of steps in recent decades that opened the door to these sorts of disruptive tactics.“We’ve always felt like we don’t need those legal safeguards,” said Professor Meg Russell, the director of the Constitution Unit at University College London. “We don’t need judges to tell our politicians what to do because we’re one of the most mature democracies in the world. We are stable. We do politics well. But I think we’ve probably become complacent.”Whether that complacency has become dangerous could be demonstrated in the coming weeks. Mr. Johnson could conceivably upset a litany of constitutional norms by ordering the queen to veto anti-Brexit laws, refusing to resign if Parliament ousts him or inventing new national holidays to make sure lawmakers cannot sit.All of those previously unthinkable maneuvers are on the minds of the parliamentary mavens and political operatives working for Mr. Johnson, according to British news media reports, and each could plunge the country deeper into crisis, turning the fight over Brexit into a struggle over the future of Britain’s parliamentary democracy itself.“He’s kind of testing the system to destruction,” Professor Russell said of Mr. Johnson. “Our constitution basically depends on very British sentiments of decency and fair play, and it assumes people who reach high office will respect conventions, precedents and unwritten rules. If you get a person in office who wants to tear all those up, you find the system is fragile.”Parliament will not be entirely shut out of the tussle over Brexit. It will return briefly from summer recess in a few days before being sent home again by Mr. Johnson. It still has the power to stop a no-deal Brexit, either through legislation or, as a last resort, a vote of no confidence in the government, which could lead to a caretaker government and a general election.Or not. It is only by custom that prime ministers resign after a vote of no confidence. There is no law requiring them to, and Mr. Johnson’s camp has suggested he might not.Opposition lawmakers argue that Mr. Johnson’s strategy is tempting a disastrous and unpopular no-deal Brexit that could tear apart the United Kingdom, cripple some British industries and throw the economy into a recession, while setting off shortages of food and medicines.Mr. Johnson, whose allies have dismissed such dire prophecies as “Project Fear,” tried to undercut rival lawmakers by asking the queen to suspend Parliament for five weeks, a sharp break with the traditional period of several days.That unleashed a cacophony of criticism, laments for the fate of British democracy and, in some quarters, praise. But none of that could stop Mr. Johnson.“There are very few formal constraints on politicians willing to ride roughshod over those conventions, except the reluctance of other members of Parliament to accept that,” said Robert Saunders, a historian at Queen Mary University of London. “This can only be stopped politically.”The role of the courts in these matters will be tested in the coming weeks, with judges forced to adjudicate on matters they have never seen. An immediate challenge to the prime minister’s action has been filed in Scotland, where the judge declined to issue a temporary injunction but scheduled a hearing for Tuesday. A former Conservative prime minister, John Major, joined a prominent businesswoman and opposition leaders in another legal challenge that is expected to be heard later in the week.But the court proceedings may be a sideshow to the main event of the week, when Parliament reconvenes and the opposition tries to rein in the combative new prime minister.Without a directly elected president, the British system depends on the lower house of Parliament for democratic legitimacy, entrusting the 650-member body to choose a government based on whichever party commands a majority or, as is currently the case, a majority coalition.Not only does Mr. Johnson head a minority government, but he himself has never faced an election as Conservative leader. He was lifted into Downing Street by the roughly 90,000 dues-paying Conservative Party members who chose him to succeed Theresa May. Without strong support in Parliament, he has tried to draw his mandate instead from the referendum in 2016, when Britons voted 52 percent to 48 percent for Brexit.And now Mr. Johnson has turned the screws on Parliament, giving it almost no time to mount a challenge. It could amount to a clash that the constitution may not be able to adjudicate.“That’s a fundamental breach of the most basic principles of the constitution,” Dr. Saunders said of suspending Parliament, adding that making such a move a permanent tool of Downing Street could quickly turn disastrous.“It’s trading short-term gain for significant long-term damage,” he said. “They might win this battle, but it sets precedents that future governments less to Boris’s taste will also follow.”Scholars said they worried not only about the encouragement Mr. Johnson received from President Trump on Twitter after suspending Parliament, but also about how an antidemocratic move in the “mother of Parliaments,” as Britain’s body is known, might embolden right-wing leaders around the world.“What message does that send to Matteo Salvini, to Viktor Orban?” Professor Russell said, referring to populist politicians in Italy and Hungary. “What message does it send to Donald Trump? This is really serious.”But the risks to Britain’s unwritten constitution are not entirely Mr. Johnson’s doing. Scholars say it has been whittled away in recent decades by attacks on Britain’s parliamentary system and a series of blithe changes by a political class so enamored of its own reputation for smooth governing that it forgot what constitutional instability looked like.In the name of democratization, the major political parties began giving more power to dues-paying activists for responsibilities like picking the party leader. That, Dr. Saunders said, has left both the Labour and Conservative leaders answering as much to each party’s base as to lawmakers, undermining Parliament’s authority.“They treated their parties as if they were inward-facing organizations, like the local golf club, in which members elect a president and set the rules,” Dr. Saunders said. “But parties aren’t inward-facing organizations. They aspire to the government of the country.”Still, some analysts say there are ways for a restive Parliament to regain control — namely by voting out Mr. Johnson’s government — if only it stopped dithering.“The government governs,” said Vernon Bogdanor, a professor at King’s College London. “If Parliament doesn’t like it, it should get another one, which it can do at any time.”Civil servants, the nonpartisan aides who help make the government run, may also find themselves pulled between their obligation to the constitution and their service to Mr. Johnson. A former head of the civil service warned that it should consider “putting its stewardship of the country” first.Perhaps the biggest question is how Britons will react. People have been largely sanguine about leaving the European Union without a deal, but with the constitution on the line, some analysts wonder if Britons will be as forgiving of Mr. Johnson’s actions.“We’re about to find out,” Dr. Saunders said. “Whether it will have that energizing effect on the wider population, we don’t know yet. But it’s going to be a powerful part of the success or failure of his strategy.”

IMHO, all cryptocurrencies are just a new kind of scam, similar to Ponzi Scheme!!!Maybe, maybe not.Isn't printing & issuing your own currency and/or stocks illegal & for really good reasons???Illegal where?But isn't that what exactly cryptocurrencies really are doing???Yes. This is not a great discovery.Why do you think "Satoshi" took first 1 MILLION BITCOINS for himself & disappeared into hiding???We don't know if s/he is in hiding. What we do know is that s/he is not being pestered by the press everyday of their lives, which seems to be a decent reason to not let them know who you are.Maybe to make sure law enforcement cannot catch him, if/when BITCOIN SCAM fails/uncovered???Maybe to sell his 1M Bitcoins all @ once, when Bitcoin price reaches its top limits???Just THINK it!!!"Top Limit"? what's that supposed to be?

The next prime minister of the UK—be it Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt—is set to inherit a range of complex legal and political issues from the outgoing Theresa May. With Brexit on the horizon, here are the five key constitutional questions the next prime minister must consider, in order to safeguard the territorial integrity of the UK. The most immediate constitutional issue facing the next prime minister relates to the Brexit impasse in Northern Ireland. With the EU remaining consistent in its position to not renegotiate the backstop, the future prime minister faces tough decisions in finding a workable solution to the Northern Irish question. The dilemma pits the delivery of Brexit against the integrity of the union.Should the former take priority in the form of a hard Brexit, support will likely rise for a poll on Irish reunification. Conversely, placing precedence on the territorial integrity of the UK, a softer Brexit scenario—or revocation of Article 50—would safeguard Northern Ireland’s place in the UK but cross fundamental red lines in the Conservative Party’s Brexit policy. The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, recently committed to holding a second independence referendum before 2021, which leaves the future prime minister with two options. He may transfer to Scotland the powers to hold a second referendum. With opinion polls showing only a modest increase in support for independence since 2014, and the absence of a clear pro-independence majority, this may prove a calculated risk. However, relying on luck in referendums has only a limited chance of success—as David Cameron experienced in 2016. The second option is for the UK prime minister to withhold permission for a second referendum—as Theresa May did in March 2017. While legally entitled to do so, the success of this strategy likely depends on the prime minister offering compromises on Brexit (since Scotland voted to remain in the EU) or greater self-government. If the prime minister chooses to simply rely on the exercise of legal authority to maintain the territorial integrity of the UK, it could damage trust—and stability in Scotland. In the period since the Brexit referendum, a variety of grassroots movements have emerged in Wales, calling for independence from the UK—culminating in the first ever march for independence in Cardiff in May 2019. A recent YouGov poll suggests a significant increase in the percentage of people in Wales identifying as “indycurious”—open to consider the option of Welsh independence. While further investigation is needed to clearly identify the long-term significance of the rise of indycurious Wales, its initial results should not be ignored by May’s successor. Wales has traditionally been the most reluctant of the three non-English parts of the UK to pursue a distinct path away from the UK center. Therefore, the emergence of data showing that this is changing—and among Labour voters in particular—serves as a litmus test on the ascendance of regional dissatisfaction towards Westminster. In 2000, Rick Rawlings, professor of public law at UCL, observed that England had become “the spectre at the feast” in the UK devolution process. Over the last two decades, England has failed to receive a level of devolution comparable to the rest of the UK. While processes have been introduced to provide English MPs with a voice on England only matters, and certain English local authority areas have received additional powers as combined authorities, England remains the most centralized of the UK’s four component nations. Yet, despite its centralized character, recent research suggests that distinct circumstances emerging in England are now coming to play an important role in the UK’s constitutional and political landscape. Most notably, public attitudes in England show higher levels of euroscepticism, compared to the rest of the UK, and anxiety over England being left behind by the UK devolution process. To successfully navigate these issues, the future prime minister needs to be prepared to address questions on England which may require difficult UK-wide compromises. This issue facing the next prime minister relates to the UK-wide territorial constitution.With devolution now in its 20th year, much has changed in the UK’s internal architecture. This has caused an ideological gulf to open up between the UK and devolved governments in their interpretation of the territorial constitution. On the one hand, the UK government maintains the vision of the UK as a “union of solidarity.” On the other, the devolved administrations—particularly Scotland and Wales—see the UK as a multi-national state, whereby each of the four component nations has an equal say on its future development.The realities of these divisions have been highlighted, for example, in the disputes over the extent to which the UK government had to consult the devolved administrations on the decision to trigger Article 50 to begin Brexit negotiations. Here, the legal superiority of the UK parliament triumphed to the detriment of the security and trust of the devolved administrations. If the next prime minister is to safeguard the territorial integrity of the UK, and return it to a period of constitutional stability, they must work to find a compromised position in the interpretation of the UK’s evolving constitutional dynamics. The constitutional challenges facing the next prime minister are significant. Brexit has both highlighted pre-existing fault-lines in the territorial constitution, and exacerbated many of the issues which have emerged over the last two decades of devolution. The task for the next prime minister is to find solutions to these issues where their predecessors have failed.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Long-simmering tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and his attorney general erupted anew on Wednesday after Trump lambasted Jeff Sessions’ decision on a surveillance abuse investigation as “DISGRACEFUL.” Sessions, one of Trump’s earliest supporters in his 2016 presidential campaign, responded to the public rebuke with an uncharacteristically terse statement in which he pledged “to discharge my duties with integrity and honor.” The latest fracas began with Trump flaying Sessions for having Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz - not prosecutors - examine how the agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation obtained a warrant to monitor a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. “Why is A.G. Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate massive FISA abuse,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which regulates government monitoring of the communications of suspected foreign agents. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey, etc.,” Trump continued. “Isn’t the IG an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!” Horowitz was sworn into his post in 2012, during the Obama administration, after serving on a sentencing policy commission to which he was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush. Trump’s tweet appeared to reveal a lack of understanding of the function of Horowitz’s office, which serves as an independent watchdog that investigates misconduct in the Justice Department and can refer wrongdoing to prosecutors. Trump’s attack on Sessions also was his latest breach of the principle of preserving judicial and prosecutorial independence. He has crossed that line numerous times, for example by vowing to have his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton investigated. In his statement, Sessions called the referral to Horowitz “the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary.” “As long as I am the attorney general, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution,” he said. Sessions’ statement was his strongest defense against repeated attacks from Trump. U.S. President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions (front) host a Public Safety Medal of Valor awards ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst The exchange reignited tensions between the pair rooted in Sessions’ recusal from his department’s probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which Trump sharply criticized at the time, raising questions about how long Sessions would hold on to his job. The new clash revived that uncertainty. “I don’t think it will end well,” said Channing Phillips, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. “The relationship has been pretty tough since last summer as it is.” Sessions’ recusal paved the way for the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has filed a flurry of criminal charges against a slew of former Trump campaign aides and advisers and Russians accused of trying to skew the 2016 election to Trump. Trump denied there was any collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and Russia has said it did not meddle in the election, contradicting the assessment of senior U.S. security officials. Top Republicans came to Sessions’ defense. “Not to incur the president’s wrath, but I wouldn’t do that. Jeff Sessions is loyal to the president,” Representative Peter King, a Republican member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told Fox News. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, defended Sessions’ decision to refer the matter to Horowitz. Horowitz “has been fair, fact-centric and appropriately confidential with his work,” Gowdy said in a statement. “I have complete confidence in him.” Sessions said on Tuesday that he was referring to Horowitz the allegations of FISA surveillance abuses by the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes. Slideshow (4 Images)Nunes charged in a memo released on Feb. 2 that the FBI and the Justice Department improperly obtained a September 2016 FISA warrant to monitor the communications of Page, who had numerous Russian contacts. On Saturday, the House Intelligence Committee released a Democratic rebuttal that called the Nunes memo “a transparent effort to undermine” the FBI, the Justice Department, Mueller and congressional probes into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan OatisOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.