A year ago, a day after Christine Blasey Ford testified before Congress about her accusation of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, I stood in front of Sen. Jeff Flake’s office with a young woman I had just met. Her name was Maria Gallagher. She had decided to take the morning off work to join the thousands of women protesting Kavanaugh’s nomination. I had been in and out of the protests for weeks, and I knew it was extremely unlikely that we would be able to see Flake, let alone talk to the Republican senator.What never happens happened that morning: We spotted Flake running to the elevator just a few minutes after he released a statement announcing his intention to vote for Kavanaugh. We ran behind him, blocked the elevator doors from closing, and for five gut-wrenching minutes, we poured our hearts out and urged Flake to listen to our stories, to look us in the eyes, and to examine the message he was about to send to women by supporting Kavanaugh’s nomination. ”I was sexually assaulted, and nobody believed me,” Maria spoke through tears. “You’re telling all women in America that they don’t matter, they should just keep it to themselves, because if they have told the truth, they’re just going to help that man to power anyway.” Women confront Sen. Jeff Flake after he says he'll vote yes to Kavanuagh: “That’s what you’re telling all women in America, that they don’t matter. They should just keep it to themselves because if they have told the truth you’re just going to help that man to power anyway.” pic.twitter.com/T7fSpyT69E— CNN (@CNN) September 28, 2018 The interaction was broadcast live on CNN and immediately went viral. A few hours later, Flake changed course, and demanded that the FBI carry out a week-long investigation into the allegations of sexual assault, before the vote would come to the floor of the Senate. For those seven days, millions of people had hope that our government would listen to our voices and take seriously the experiences of women in our country.In the end, the FBI carried out an extremely limited investigation. They interviewed a second woman who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, Deborah Ramirez, but not a third. Kavanaugh, who has denied the allegations, became a Supreme Court justice anyway.In recent weeks, new evidence has come to light bolstering the allegations against Kavanaugh and the failures of the FBI investigation. Two reporters from the New York Times found seven people who could corroborate Ramirez’s account that Kavanaugh had thrust his penis in her face when they were students at Yale. They also reported that Ramirez had provided the FBI with a list of people who could back up her claim at the time of the hearing, but the agency didn’t interview anyone. So now, one year later, many people have asked me: Was trying to fight the confirmation worth it? Are you still hopeful that things can change? My answer is a resounding yes, and I’ll tell you why. Immediately after Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, I struggled to understand how the courage of thousands of survivors who joined Ford with our own stories, and the solidarity of thousands who showed up to protest, could be met with such profound disdain by the politicians who ultimately voted to confirm him. How could Flake — who seemed genuinely moved by Maria Gallagher, who urgently pled not to look away from her pain — ultimately vote yes to installing a man accused of sexual assault to the highest court in our land? How could all the senators who joined him choose, through their actions, to tell millions of women that our voices and our experiences do not matter?The only way I could make sense of their decision was to understand it as an intentional effort by Trump and the GOP to send us all a message. They wanted people in this country to believe that protest does not work; that the power structure on which they stand is immune to the demands of ordinary people; and that, ultimately, democracy cannot be used to correct historical injustice. They wanted to punish us for the audacity of questioning one of their own and for trying to force them to hold him accountable. They wanted to reaffirm the culture of impunity that not only enables sexual violence, but also preserves a power structure that keeps women and people of color watching from the margins as mostly rich, white men make decisions for the rest of us. They wanted us to give up on the idea that we can become a country where politicians govern by listening. They wanted us to forget that democracy is how we take care of each other and the great-grandchildren we may never meet but whom we already love. What they failed to realize is that courage and solidarity are the seeds of social change, and those seeds were firmly planted in the hearts of millions of people during the fight against Kavanaugh. When people protest, they are surrounded by acts of courage and solidarity — and that courage is contagious. When you see someone move past their fear and their shame to do something difficult, you feel invited to tap into your own strength. That solidarity connects you to an abundance of your own spirit. That is why Tarana Burke’s rallying cry of “Me Too” has become such a powerful movement.By the time I was standing in that elevator with Flake, I had already been transformed. I had witnessed women push through their tears and pain to share their stories of sexual assault, many for the first time, in the hallways and offices of the Senate buildings. Although I have been an activist for many years, I had kept my own experience of sexual assault hidden for more than three decades. But witnessing the courage of others allowed me, and thousands of other survivors, to release it and to transform the sadness into righteous indignation and urgent political action. Several weeks after Kavanaugh was confirmed, I was still struggling to hold my own sadness after losing the fight. I worried a lot that people’s energy and outrage would dissipate, and that they would draw the wrong lesson: that it is impossible to win, so better not to fight at all. That is, until I came across a poll by MTV asking millennials, who would become the largest voting bloc for the first time, what was motivating them to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. The top three answers were: climate change, the Kavanaugh hearings, and watching people protest. Protesters rally against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on October 4, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images That poll, and the thousands of letters and messages I received from people expressing their gratitude for the elevator moment, helped me reinterpret the fight, and give new meaning to the courage I witnessed: Yes, we lost; Kavanaugh sits on the Supreme Court. However, the fight against his nomination helped shape the political consciousness of an entire generation. And young voters, in turn, helped usher in the most female and most diverse Congress in history. Our stories, our sit-ins, our protests breathed life into our democracy and transformed the balance of power in Washington by putting more of it in the hands of women, especially women of color. The women sworn into office this year who defied all expectations — Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Deb Haaland, and Sharice Davids, among others — embody the country that is arriving: a country where women and people of color are no longer occupying the margins, but sharing the center together. A more just, more welcoming, more humane country. It is through struggle that the promise of freedom and democracy will be realized. Today, Trump and his people — including Kavanaugh and those who confirmed him — continue to use their power to steadily erode the rights of women, of LGBTQIA+ people, of workers, of immigrants, of communities of color. I will confess I’m not optimistic that those who use their power to extinguish people’s voices will ever change their ways. But the power of transforming our society doesn’t reside with them. True power — the kind generated through protest, through the telling of our own stories, through community and solidarity — is power generated by the people, for the people. It is ours for the taking.So, yes, a year later, it was all worth it. And yes, I am hopeful. I really am.Ana Maria Archila is the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy.

Joe Biden has for the first time called for Donald Trump to be impeached for abusing the powers of his office to help his own re-election.Delivering a blistering 25-minute speech at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Biden, the former vice-president under Barack Obama, departed from his usual campaign pitch and signalled that he will aggressively confront Trump as the president pushes unfounded accusations that Biden and his son Hunter had nefarious dealings in Ukraine.Trump is “shooting holes in the constitution”, Biden said, by asking foreign powers to interfere in the 2020 election by pursuing dirt on the Bidens and then refusing to cooperate with a resulting House impeachment inquiry.“This is a president who has decided this nation doesn’t have the tools, the power, the political will” to punish bad behavior, Biden said, cataloguing a litany of Trump’s misdeeds that he said warrant impeachment.“He’s not just testing us,” Biden said. “He’s laughing at us.”Trump retorted via Twitter. “So pathetic,” he wrote. The president maintained he had done nothing wrong.Biden referenced Trump’s past claim that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and get away with it.Biden said: “It’s no joke. He’s shooting holes in the constitution. And we cannot let him get away with it.”Nancy Pelosi, the House of Representatives speaker and the most powerful Democrat in Congress, announced an impeachment inquiry against Trump on 24 September after a whistleblower alleged the White House had attempted to cover up a July call between Trump and the Ukrainian president.At issue is the question of whether Trump abused his office by using its power to his own political advantage, by pushing a Ukrainian investigation of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.There is no evidence to support Trump’s claims that Biden exploited his influence as vice-president to aid his son or his business.Biden on Wednesday again condemned Trump’s “lies and smears and distortion” and said the president peddles them because he fears facing Biden in a general election.“He’s trying to create a campaign where truth and facts are irrelevant,” Biden said, adding that the spectacle covers the president’s “manifest incompetence”.“We’re not going to let Donald Trump pick the Democratic nominee for president,” Biden added. “I’m not going to let him get away with it. He’s picked a fight with the wrong guy.”Without evidence, and contrary to the accounts of several Ukrainian officials, Trump has claimed Biden used his role as vice-president to protect his son from corruption investigations when he pressed for the firing of the top Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, during Obama’s second term.Ukrainian officials, including one Shokin successor, have disputed Trump’s claims, and Biden has previously noted that the Obama administration’s position was supported by many other western governments, who saw Shokin as incompetent or corrupt.Many of the other 19 Democratic 2020 candidates have long supported the opening of an impeachment inquiry into Trump, following the findings of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference into the 2016 election and links between the Trump 2016 campaign and Moscow.Biden’s speech on Wednesday came as his campaign continues internal deliberations over the best way to handle Trump’s broadsides and an impeachment inquiry that could last months and potentially never result in the Republican-led Senate removing Trump from office – even if the Democratic-led House impeaches him.“When I announced my candidacy,” Biden recalled, “I said I was running in order to restore the soul of America. That wasn’t hyperbole.”But his advisers also point to the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump dominated media narratives of the Republican primary and the general election against Hillary Clinton with a barrage of attacks on his opponents that forced them to campaign on his terms.Biden nodded at that reality, as well, and promised he won’t let that get in his way.“I’m not going to be distracted,” he said. “None of these attacks are true, and I’m going to stay focused on your lives. That’s what this election is about,” he continued. The Associated Press contributed to this report Topics Joe Biden Donald Trump Trump impeachment inquiry Democrats US politics US elections 2020 news

Media player Media playback is unsupported on your device Video Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil presidential front-runner stabbed at rally The front-runner in Brazil's presidential election, Jair Bolsonaro, has been stabbed at a campaign rally.He has had surgery for injuries to his intestines and is expected to recover, according to hospital officials. Read more: Brazil poll front-runner stabbed at rally

(Reuters) - A growing number of Americans said they opposed President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, as the candidate’s confirmation hearings took place and as he fended off a sexual assault claim, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. FILE PHOTO: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the third day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 6, 2018. REUTERS/Alex WroblewskiThe Sept. 11-17 poll found that 36 percent of adults surveyed did not want Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court, up 6 points from a similar poll conducted a month earlier. Only 31 percent of U.S. adults polled said they were in favor of Kavanaugh’s appointment. If support for his nomination remains this weak, Trump’s pick would rank among the lowest-supported Supreme Court nominees to later be confirmed, according to historical data from Gallup. “Not after the sexual charges,” said Jeffrey Schmidt, 56, from Colorado, who opposes President Trump and his policies. “Before the allegations, I was not sure.” Kavanaugh has denied the claim that he assaulted a woman while in high school in 1982, calling it “completely false.” Support for Kavanaugh was higher among Republicans, but fewer than two out of three, or 64 percent, said they were in favor of his nomination. Thirty-five-year-old Karis Reeves, a Republican-leaning professional from Arizona, said he supported Kavanaugh’s nomination, but added he wasn’t “informed enough” and that the timing of the sexual misconduct allegation was “conspicuous.” More women — 33 percent — opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, up seven percentage points from a month earlier. “It was already a ‘no’ but now it’s a stronger ‘no,’” said Bonnie Mann, 29, when asked about whether her view of Kavanaugh’s nomination had changed since the allegation. Christine Blasey Ford, a university professor in California whose sexual assault allegations have roiled a confirmation process that once seemed smooth for Kavanaugh, wants her claim to be investigated by the FBI before she appears at a Senate hearing, her lawyers said on Tuesday. Trump has stepped up his defense of Kavanaugh and expressed sympathy toward his nominee, saying on Wednesday that it was hard for him “to imagine anything happened.” The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 2,196 adults online across the United States and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 2 percentage points. Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Bernadette BaumOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey’s meticulously prepared memos of his meetings with US president Donald Trump were leaked to the press last night (April 19), within less than a hour of being shared with the House Judiciary Committee.Republican members of the committee were planning to subpoena the Department of Justice to share them with Congress, in a highly unusual move.For the most part, the 15 pages of memos flesh out the meetings with Trump that Comey detailed during his hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee last June, including Trump’s repeated demands for “loyalty” and his asking Comey to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation.Staunch Trump supporters in Congress believe the leaked memos prove Trump didn’t obstruct justice in the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election:(Meadows, the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, is not 100% accurate —Trump doesn’t tell Comey to “find the truth about whether his campaign team did anything wrong” anywhere in the memos.)However, the full memos (read them here or here) may not help Trump’s cause at all. They create a picture of a man completely disinterested in whether Russia meddled in the election that made him president, and obsessed with other issues:Trump’s fixation on accusations of hiring prostitutes. The so-called “golden showers” report on Trump, released publicly two weeks before his inauguration, claimed Russia had compromising information on Trump, including information about prostitutes hired at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow in 2013.When Comey met with Trump on Jan. 6 of last year, he told him of the report and what it contained. Trump’s first response was to suggest that he wasn’t the kind of guy who needs to pay for sex:During their next meeting on Jan. 27, Trump said that he’d been reminded that he didn’t sleep in Moscow on the night in question, and asked Comey to investigate the accusation to set his wife’s mind at ease:And on a Feb. 8 meeting at the White House, Trump mentioned that Putin had told him that Russia had some of the “most beautiful hookers in the world,” while again disputing the “golden showers” report:Then when the two talked on March 30, Trump brought up the issue again:The Trump team’s knowledge and interest in the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. On their second meeting on Jan. 27, Trump and Comey dined alone in the White House’s Green Room. Here, the president talked nearly non-stop, Comey recalls, picking up topics of conversation only to discard them and return to them later, “conversation-as-jigsaw puzzle” as he says. (That’s the same way that Trump speaks when he’s veered off his notes in a speech, or is doing a free-wheeling interview with the press.)On the topic of the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails, though, Trump “knew the sequence of events very well,” and walked through how they played out during his campaign, asking Comey along the way whether there was a “revolt” at the FBI after the agency said there was “no case”:Later in the White House during the Feb. 8 meeting, then chief of staff Reince Priebus picked up the same theme, asking Comey why Clinton wasn’t charged with “gross negligence”:Relaying that Mike Flynn forgot to tell him a major world leader called. Flynn, the former national security adviser, was already on the outs with Trump on Jan. 28, Trump told Comey. (Flynn resigned on Feb. 13 over controversy about his contacts with Russia, after the Justice Department warned the White House he hadn’t been upfront about them.) The president thought British prime minister Theresa May was the first world leader to call him after his inauguration, but Flynn forgot to tell him that it was actually someone else, Comey writes, spelling May’s first name incorrectly: Comey and Trump talked about jailing reporters. After details of Trump’s private conversations with Mexican and Australian (paywall) world leaders were leaked, the two spoke on Feb. 14 about how dangerous leaks are, and how to punish leakers. Maybe Trump should “put a head on a pike as a message,” Comey said. Maybe we should jail reporters, Trump said. Comey laughed as he walked out the door:

The UK chief executive of the German manufacturing group Siemens has said Brexit is making Britain an international “laughing stock”, while urging MPs to pursue a softer withdrawal from the EU.Jürgen Maier said Britain was wrecking its reputation for business stability, putting investment in the country at risk and threatening the economy. A no-deal Brexit would inflict further damage, he said, while urging MPs to reach a consensus and back a customs union with the EU.Writing an open letter to MPs published by the Politico website, he said: “The world is watching, and where the UK used to be beacon for stability, we are now becoming a laughing stock.“Enough is enough. We are all running out of patience. Make a decision and unite around a customs union compromise that delivers economic security and stability.”The head of Siemens UK, which is one of the country’s biggest industrial firms with annual revenues of £5bn and 15,000 staff, said political turmoil over Brexit was making it harder for him to win support for British investment from the firm’s managing board in Germany.The warning came after official figures showed business investment slumped last year, declining in every quarter for the first time since the last recession in 2008, as companies put spending decisions on hold due to the lack of clarity over the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU.Business leaders have become increasingly exasperated with MPs’ inability to break the deadlock over Brexit in parliament, reacting with frustration after Theresa May’s plan was defeated for a third time on Friday.Maier has previously said Siemens UK was ramping up stocks of critical supplies because of Brexit, stocking more components required for machines used to keep the country running, including on infrastructure such as railways and food processing.The Anglo-Austrian businessman has developed a reputation in recent years as one of the most outspoken captains of industry in Britain, debating politics on television programmes such as Question Time when other business leaders would shy away.He campaigned for remain before the EU referendum but backed the prime minister’s deal, saying it would provide certainty for businesses and avoid the UK crashing out without an agreement. However, he said the current approach had failed and called on the government to compromise with MPs.He said he believed a majority would most likely be found through a UK-EU customs union, which was among the options closest to winning support last week when MPs voted on eight separate proposals for breaking the impasse.Such an outcome would enable the continuation of frictionless trade with the EU and save businesses billions of pounds every year on unproductive customs declarations, he said. Topics Brexit European Union Europe Manufacturing sector news

Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. suspended accounts they believe to be part of a Chinese effort to undermine antigovernment protests in Hong Kong, marking the first time the companies have pointed to China as a source of disinformation campaigns, company representatives said on Monday.Twitter said it took down 936 accounts linked to a “significant state-backed information operation” originating in China. “These...

FILE PHOTO - German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin, Germany, April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Hannibal HanschkeBERLIN (Reuters) - The latest European Union decision to grant Britain a further Brexit extension shows that European leaders are able to find a common solution, Germany’s Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Friday. “In the end, we stood together when it came to the extension until end October and cooperated well with the British government”, Altmaier told public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. He said he was optimistic that a no-deal scenario could be avoided in the future, adding that although no one knew how well London would be prepared for a disorderly Brexit, the fact that cross-party discussions between Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour were being held for the first time was a positive sign. Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Riham AlkousaaOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: When President Trump laid out his immigration plan last night, he said it rests on four pillars. The third of those pillars is to end the Diversity Visa Program.(SOUNDBITE OF 2018 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: A program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit or the safety of American people.KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Most of us actually know this program as the green card lottery. No family connection is needed, no employer or sponsor. The most important ingredient you need is luck. The program had its origins in the 1980s. It was designed to benefit a growing population of undocumented Irish immigrants in New York and Massachusetts.KELLY: Later, it was broadened to include countries that don't generally send a lot of immigrants to the United States. I spoke earlier with Muzaffar Chishti from the Migration Policy Institute. And he pointed out that despite all this talk about the green card lottery, it ultimately is a small slice of the overall American immigration picture.MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Look, you know, we admit about a million people a year with green cards. The diversity program allows about 50,000 people. That's about 5 percent of our immigrant stream. About 20,000 go to European countries, 20,000 go to African countries and about 8,000 go to Asian countries. That's been the mix.KELLY: We mentioned Ireland was the initial big beneficiary. I gather Poland has also been a big beneficiary, also African countries. There's been a huge influx of African immigrants under this program.CHISHTI: Exactly. I think historians would argue that the largest migration of Africans that happened since slavery to the United States was made possible by the Diversity Visa. Countries like Nigeria, countries like Sierra Leone, countries like Guinea, Liberia have been big beneficiaries. On the other hand, countries like Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Poland have also been big beneficiaries.And Bangladesh is an outlier here but a huge beneficiary of the program since it was started.KELLY: Do you have data that shows how lottery recipients tend to fare when they get to the United States?CHISHTI: I think there's really no hard data. But I think it is - one of the criticisms of the Diversity Program is that people come with no established attachment to the country. But on the other hand, they come with, you know, fire in their belly. And lot of people argue that that is much more consistent with the founding of our country, that people who just have a lot of gumption can succeed well.KELLY: Let me ask you about another argument that's been made against this program, which is that it might, despite the screenings that are done at the outset, allow dangerous people to come into the country. A recent example has been flagged. This is the man from Uzbekistan, Sayfullo Saipov, who carried out that truck attack in Manhattan just last fall that killed eight people. He came in through the visa lottery program in 2010.CHISHTI: You know, I think first of all, the security concerns are equally valid for all admission categories. There's nothing peculiar about the diversity visas that make them more vulnerable to admission of terrorists. And with respect to the terrorists who are being tied to these programs, they all - by every piece of evidence we know, they were radicalized in the United States after the admission.So nothing in the screening process could indicate that this person who we are admitting today could potentially get radicalized a few years down the line. If there are concerns about security, they should be addressed. But they should be addressed with respect to all categories of immigrants.KELLY: Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute, thank you so much for speaking with us.CHISHTI: Thanks so much for having me.Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

He took on the pop star Miley Cyrus when she commented on Instagram that she disagreed with his politics and those of his partner, Domenico Dolce. “We are Italian and we don’t care about politics and mostly neither about the American one!” he responded on Instagram in a later post. “We make dresses and if you think about doing politics with a post it’s simply ignorant. We don’t need your posts or comments so next time please ignore us!! #boycottdolcegabbana.” Mr. Gabbana has called the singer Selena Gomez “ugly” and hit back at critics of a sneaker with the phrase “I’m thin & gorgeous” written on the side, posting, “Darling, you prefer to be fat and full of cholesterol??? I think u have a problem.” Most of the posts with offending comments have since been taken down.The fashion blogger Bryan Yambao, who blogs under the name BryanBoy and has over 600,000 Instagram followers, expressed skepticism about the brand’s claim that it was hacked — a sentiment echoed widely online. “I am having a hard time believing the notion that both social media accounts were hacked, especially when Mr. Gabbana has a proven track record of trolling everyone under the sun, from celebrities like Lady Gaga and Selena Gomez to influencers like Chiara Ferragni, both on public feed posts or on comments,” he said in a message on Wednesday. Dolce & Gabbana has been the subject of boycotts so often that the company makes T-shirts inviting people to “#Boycott Dolce & Gabbana,” with a red heart. It is listed for $295 on the company’s website. Luxury brands have to be especially careful. They have poured into China in recent years, attracted by its stunning growth and its increasingly affluent population. In September, Tommy Hilfiger brought its #TommyNow extravaganza to Shanghai, and in December, Coach is planning its 15th anniversary pre-fall show in Shanghai’s picturesque Bund area, demonstrating that the brands want to cater increasingly to local tastes. But a corruption crackdown under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party’s top leader, put a halt to conspicuous consumption, and the brands must remain wary of a yawning wealth gap that has developed in China.

On Sunday, in a sit-down meal probably a shade more horrific but less cerebral than that scene in Hannibal when a corrupt official is served a slice of his own brain to eat, Theresa May invited some of her cabinet to Chequers for Sunday lunch.The guest list, I’m sorry, was just a roll call of those now familiar basic white-boy names: David Davis, David Lidington, Damian Green, Dominic Raab, Steve Baker, Steve Barclay. Michael Gove, Alistair Burt and Boris Johnson were also invited, as were those excess-syllabic numpties Jacob Rees-Mogg and Iain Duncan Smith: so awful they named them both three times. I am not sure if there was a specific dress code, but you were not allowed to come if you were not an older white man (collectively known as a blizzard).Before the first bottle of wine had even been poured, however, there was great competition to see which particular snowflake of the mostly arch-Brexiter group could arrive in the most embarrassing manner.Duncan Smith rolled up dressed as a two-thirds-life crisis. Driving a classic Morgan sports car – with the top down – he wore a baseball cap; what appeared to be a sheepskin gilet on top of a jumper; and some tortoiseshell shades. Everything about this look screamed “on the way to tee-off at a Trump links golf course, and yes I will sign the petition to not admit women”.It was also a bit:On the plus side, at least IDS didn’t arrive in the Galloway-esque fedora and cravat he has taken to wearing of late, looking like a struck-off psychiatrist who now works weekends in the Sherlock Holmes museum:Also arriving in a manner as awful as possible was Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man who thinks he’s a genius just because there’s a photo of him as a boy holding a copy of the FT floating around the internet. I don’t really get Jacob Rees-Mogg as a vibe. A few years ago, like others, I was suckered into his sheen of politeness, but that was before he started turning up to events held by white nationalists and calling food banks “uplifting”. Which I guess they are, in terms of the buzz you get at having zero blood-sugar if you can’t afford to eat. It’s hard to take a man seriously who thinks that abortion and same-sex marriage are immoral but not, apparently, double-breasted suits.Anyway, Rees-Mogg turned up with one of his 18,000 kids in tow. It’s the one he styles to look exactly the same as him, which I suppose he thinks comes across as cute but is in fact extremely weird. I feel sorry for this boy, who presumably ended up sitting in an antechamber eating potato smileys and beans while the “grownups” “sorted out” “Brexit”.Next: Steve Baker. Weird that Baker turned up in the pink shirt and navy tie uniform of an office worker, given that he resigned as Brexit minister. Weird that Baker turned up at all, given he apparently was not on the list of invitees. Baker was wearing photochromic lenses, ie those glasses that become sunglasses in … well, in the sun. (If you are struggling to visualise them, just think about what every dad wears at sports day). At this point, can we all remember that in a matter of months we are on our third Brexit secretary (Steve Barclay), having lost David Davis and Dominic Raab. (To lose one Brexit secretary may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose two looks like a total and utter shitshow.)Please don’t worry about not knowing who Steve Barclay is, by the way. If Steve Barclay committed a crime that disgusted the nation, he still wouldn’t have to go into witness protection.The rest of the clan arrived less ostentatiously, although Boris Johnson was still sporting the new, shorter haircut that he thinks lends him gravitas, except it doesn’t, because nothing is ever lent to Boris Johnson on the basis that he’d be certain to either lose it, break it, insult it or try and have sex with it. Under no circumstances must he be lent the role of prime minister.We don’t know much about the lunch itself. Except perhaps that the food was awful. The last time such a lunch was held at Chequers, May served chicken lasagne and boiled potatoes (not a joke) which, come to think of it, might be why most of her colleagues seem to hate her. That and the fact she held a live television press conference to slag them all off a few days ago.I am presuming, too, that the manspreading was off the scale and that everybody kept their knees away from Damian Green. But in terms of what next for Brexit or for the future of the country? In terms of whether May will attempt to bring her deal back for a third vote? Nothing leaked. It did appear a coup that had been in the works for, ooh, around seven hours had collapsed. But I don’t think that’s actually the case – I think it’s just easier to backstab someone when you’re not in their house drinking their booze and eating their chicken lasagne and boiled potatoes. Better wait until after. If there’s one thing we know about this government, it’s that it is turgid with cowards.And so May survives another day, limping on like a wounded gazelle, but in her case the wound is more akin to being put through an actual meat-grinder. The Daily Telegraph – a paper that has lost the plot so much it might as well be watching a Darren Aronofsky film – treated us all this morning to Johnson’s latest column, in which he urged the PM to “channel the spirit of Moses in Exodus” (once again, not a joke).Both Lidington and Gove have denied wanting to take over as prime minister at this time, which means they almost certainly would be up for it. But it may depend on whether Gove is at his stubborn best. It may also transpire that the entire Chequers lunch was a mass-poisoning affair (Philip as the cook), because there is no way Theresa May wants to step down. It’ll be 2030 and she’ll be dancing to Abba on the graves of every single person who tried to challenge her, coughing maniacally and forcing every high-street retailer to sell “strong ‘n’ stable” tees. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Cotswolds, Cameron adds extra sandbags outside his shed.• Hannah Jane Parkinson is a Guardian columnist Topics Brexit Opinion Theresa May Iain Duncan Smith Boris Johnson Jacob Rees-Mogg Article 50 European Union comment

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission is set to announce on Wednesday that Facebook Inc has agreed to a sweeping settlement of significant allegations it mishandled user privacy and pay $5 billion, two people briefed on the matter said. FILE PHOTO: A 3-D printed Facebook logo is seen in front of displayed binary code in this illustration picture, June 18, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File PhotoAs part of the settlement, Facebook will agree to create a board committee on privacy and will agree to new executive certifications that users’ privacy is being properly protected, the people said. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will have to certify every three months that the company is properly safeguarding user privacy, a person briefed on the matter said. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the FTC will allege Facebook misled users about its handling of their phone numbers and its use of two-factor authentication as part of a wide-ranging complaint that accompanies a settlement ending the government’s privacy probe, citing two people familiar with the matter. Separately, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to announce a related settlement with Facebook for around $100 million over allegations it failed to disclose risks to investors over its privacy practices. The Wall Street Journal reported the SEC settlement earlier. The Post also reported the FTC also plans to allege Facebook provided insufficient information to about 30 million users about a facial recognition tool, an issue identified earlier by Consumer Reports. The settlement comes amid growing concern among U.S. policymakers about the privacy of online users and have sparked calls for new legal protections in Congress. Separately, the U.S. Justice Department said late Tuesday it is launching a broad antitrust probe into the competitive practices of large tech companies like Facebook. Two people briefed on the matter confirmed the Post report the FTC will not require Facebook to admit guilt as part of the settlement. The settlement will need to be approved by a federal judge and will contain other significant allegations of privacy lapses, the people said. The fine will mark the largest civil penalty ever paid to the FTC. The FTC and Facebook declined to comment. The FTC confirmed in March 2018 it had opened an investigation into allegations Facebook inappropriately shared information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The probe has focused on whether the data sharing violated a 2011 consent agreement between Facebook and the regulator and then widened to include other privacy allegations. A person briefed on the matter said the phone number, facial recognition and two-factor authentication issues were not part of the initial Cambridge Analytica probe. Some in Congress have criticized the reported $5 billion penalty, noting Facebook in 2018 had $55.8 billion in revenue and $22.1 billion in net income. Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, said last week the fine should be $50 billion. While the deal resolves a major regulatory headache for Facebook, the Silicon Valley firm still faces further potential antitrust probes as the FTC and Justice Department undertake a wide-ranging review of competition among the biggest U.S. tech companies. Facebook is also facing public criticism from President Donald Trump and others about its planned cryptocurrency Libra over concerns about privacy and money laundering. The Cambridge Analytica missteps, as well as anger over hate speech and misinformation on its platform, have prompted calls from people ranging from presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren to a Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, for the government to force the social media giant to sell Instagram, which it bought in 2012, and WhatsApp, purchased in 2014. But the company’s core business has proven resilient, as Facebook blew past earnings estimates in the past two quarters. Facebook is set to report earnings on Wednesday. Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Lisa ShumakerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian refiners are losing no time reacting to a decision by OPEC and Russia to extend their agreed production cuts to all of 2018, ordering more oil from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in a move that will result in lost OPEC and Russian market share. FILE PHOTO - A flag with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) logo is seen during a meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC producing countries in Vienna, Austria September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger Output cuts aimed at tightening the market to prop up prices have been in place since January and were to expire in March 2018, but the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), together with non-OPEC producers including Russia, extended those cuts on Thursday, to cover all of 2018. Despite this, oil supplies remain ample. Even before the official announcement on Thursday to extend the cuts, refiners in Asia, the world’s biggest consumer region, had already put in enquiries for oil shipments from the Gulf of Mexico and the wider Caribbean, particularly from the United States, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia, tanker operators said. “There have been many enquiries from Asia for oil tanker shipments from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. Now that we know OPEC’s cuts will be extended, these enquiries are being turned into orders,” said a broker who specializes in long-haul crude oil shipments, declining to be named as he was not authorized to talk to media about ongoing negotiations. OPEC’s and Russia’s biggest problem with cutting output has been that it has led to higher U.S. production and market share. In a note to clients titled “Christmas comes early,” Barclays bank said on Friday: “U.S. crude oil exports to China could easily double next year as U.S. production and export capacity expands ... (and) OPEC countries will see their market shares in Asia decline further.” Shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows oil shipments from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean to Asia’s consumer hubs of China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have already soared from around half a million barrels per day (bpd) in January, when the OPEC-led cuts were implemented, to over 1.2 million bpd in November and December. The biggest increase in exports to Asia have been coming from the United States, where output is soaring thanks to shale oil drillers. U.S. oil production C-OUT-T-EIA hit a record 9.68 million bpd last week, according to government data. [EIA/S] “The real winners (of the cuts) will be the U.S. producers,” said Matt Stanley, a fuel broker for Freight Investor Services in Dubai. Consultancy Rystad Energy expects U.S. output to reach 9.9 million bpd this year, bringing it close to levels of top producers Russia and Saudi Arabia. Stronger North American oil supplies to Asia benefit shippers as this is one of the world’s longest trade routes, meaning chartered tankers spend more time at sea. The U.S.-Asia route is at least twice as long as that from the Middle East to the main Asian trading hubs in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. “We believe the ‘new trades’ (from North America to Asia) will develop further, which is long-term positive for shipping,” said Robert Hvide Macleod, chief executive of Frontline Management, a major tanker owner. The ripple effects of ongoing OPEC cuts will also affect refinery output. U.S. crude oil tends to be relatively light and sweet in quality, as opposed to the heavier and sourer grades that many Middle East producers export. Mike Petrut, a petroleum researcher at Industrial Info Resources Oceania in Perth, Australia, said an increase in supplies of light U.S. crude at the cost of heavy crudes from OPEC would mean higher gasoline output by Asian refiners, and a lower yield of heavier products like fuel oil. Reporting by Henning Gloystein and Keith Wallis; Additional reporting by Roslan Khasawneh; Editing by Tom HogueOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

It might not be welcome news for voters, let alone MPs, but the UK could be facing its third general election in little more than four years. With many pundits predict an autumn poll, here is a list of reasons why that might happen. And one why it might not.No 10 feels very much on an election footing. No sooner are they finding their feet in their new departments than ministerial special advisers, or “spads”, non-civil service appointees whose careers are tied to those of their minister, have suddenly been told to cancel any holiday plans. An email from Boris Johnson’s own senior adviser, Edward Lister, warned spads that, barring exceptions and pre-booked cases, no holiday time would be allowed before the Brexit day of 31 October.He might have been prime minister for little more than a fortnight, but Johnson and his team have already pushed out a series of election-friendly policy announcements, from more police to a cash boost for schools and the NHS. On Thursday, Johnson even used an election-style Facebook address to the nation from his No 10 office to unveil a plan to ease immigration rules for scientists post-Brexit.Adding to the sense of clearing the decks before an election, it has emerged that the government is to ditch the planned three-year spending review and rush through a one-year version next month, setting out how the spending pledges will be paid for. This would head off accusations that Johnson’s promises were un-costed.For most MPs, recess in August is either about catching up on constituency casework or spending a couple of weeks on the beach. But many are instead busy preparing election machinery, even trailing the streets to knock on doors and talk to constituents. Others are plotting ways to undermine Johnson’s apparent ambition to remove the UK from the EU without a deal on 31 October.While there are grandiose plans being made by some MPs to seek to block a no-deal departure, for example by amending the motion needed for parliament to break for party conferences in mid-September, or by amassing some government of national unity, more likely would seem to be a Labour-led vote of no confidence against the government. Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA), if no new administration can be formed within 14 days of such a vote being successful, an election would happen – though perhaps falling after Brexit day.After the Conservatives lost the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection to the Liberal Democrats at the start of the month, the government’s working majority fell to just one. With rumours swirling that several disaffected Tory moderates could be on the verge of quitting, even this could evaporate by autumn. And even if there was no vote of no confidence, leading a minority government is hugely difficult and Johnson could be tempted to seek a more secure mandate.The arithmetic for a vote of no confidence looks incredibly tight – as well as needing virtually all opposition MPs to back the measure, it would require several Tories to vote to bring down their own government, which is a big ask. If it looks shaky, Labour might delay and try other methods to stop no deal. Johnson himself could call an election under the FTPA if two-thirds of MPs support the move. But it would be a big risk – an election amid the uncertain chaos of no deal, banking on the hope that the core pro-Brexit vote would all go to the Conservatives while the remain-minded supporters would fragment. Theresa May tried a similar tactic in 2017, and we all know how that ended. Topics Boris Johnson Conservatives Brexit analysis

Donald Trump praises Britain's incoming prime minister on Tuesday, saying that he is a 'good man' who 'will get [Brexit] done'. The US president also says Johnson is known as 'Britain Trump': 'They like me over there. That's what they wanted. That's what they need.' Trump claims Boris Johnson popular in UK because he's seen as 'Britain's Trump' - live news Boris Johnson elected new Tory leader Brussels greets Boris Johnson victory by rejecting Brexit plans

“He is an egomaniacal, narcissistic buffoon,” said Michael Rubino, a top Trump adviser in Virginia who is close to Corey Lewandowski, the president’s former campaign manager. “The MAGA agenda is but a vehicle for him to continue his years-old self-aggrandizement campaign.”But Mr. Stewart was untroubled by his termination and Mr. Trump’s loss in Virginia, the only Southern state Hillary Clinton won, and immediately turned to a run for governor. And much as he did with immigration after being elected to the county board, he quickly seized on another racially charged issue.Mr. Stewart’s embrace of the Confederacy reached an apogee in his 2017 campaign. He showed up to an Old South ball in Danville, Va., and, surrounded by men in re-enactment regalia and women in hoop skirts, declared the Confederate flag a symbol of “our heritage,” not of hate. And he appeared with the white nationalist Jason Kessler, who went on to organize the torch-led protests in Charlottesville that turned deadly.His stance troubles some people back in Prince William. Outside a Food Lion in Haymarket, Charles Dubissette, 42, recalled with distaste a video of the ball with Mr. Stewart expressing pride in the Confederate flag, which played on the news this week after his primary victory.“He’s trying to pander to his perceived constituents, but the dynamics of all that are changing,” said Mr. Dubissette, who sells real estate. “Prince William County is not what it used to be. He ought to take that into consideration if he plans on succeeding.”After losing the governor’s race, Mr. Stewart almost immediately began running for the Senate. In December, he showed up in Montgomery, Ala., at the election night party for Roy S. Moore, the Republican Senate candidate there who was accused of making sexual advances to underage girls. Mr. Stewart stood with reporters in the back of a thronged room and held an impromptu news conference for those who recognized him.

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he as walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return to Washington from South Korea, U.S., June 30, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri GripasWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday Iran was playing with fire after Tehran said it had exceeded its limit for low-enriched uranium allowed under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Asked at a White House event if he had a message for Iran, Trump said he did not have a message, but Iran knew what it was doing and was “playing with fire.” Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; editing by Grant McCoolOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

In early September, Amazon's market value briefly went over $1tn (£779bn), just over a month after Apple became the first public company in the world to achieve such a feat. Both tech companies have grown over the last few years, but will this continue?Apple and Amazon are as different from each other as apples and oranges.Apple is a tech company that is also a trendy consumer brand. Its computers and devices have often been must-have gadgets, and customers are willing to pay far more for their products than cheaper alternatives. On the other hand, Amazon is where people go when they want to get a product more cheaply, more easily, or more quickly.Since the iPhone first went on sale in 2007, Apple shares have soared by 1,100% and have jumped almost a third in the past year.As for Amazon, the internet retail giant has seen a steady, yet speedy rise in its share price, with its market value jumping from $600bn to $700bn in just 16 days. In contrast, the same feat took Apple 622 days. Amazon's market value tops $1tn Is Amazon's first serve strong enough? Apple's market value hits $1 trillion Although Apple and Amazon offer different products and services, they are both technology firms and make up two of the five best performing technology stocks on the market - typically known as FAANG, which stands for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google.Which company has a better outlook on long term growth? Here's a look at some of the key areas for each firm, and how they are are performing.Traditionally, most of Apple's revenues have come from its device sales - particularly the iPhone, iPad, iMac and iPod. Apple only has a 14% share of the global smartphone market, yet its revenues consistently dwarf its nearest competitor.According to Strategy Analytics, in the first quarter of 2018, Apple captured $61bn in revenues, whereas Samsung only achieved $19bn, followed by Huawei in third position with $8bn in revenues."Apple's dependence on iOS devices has been its strength, but moving forward presents its greatest challenge, in that opportunities to grow its user base will be limited," Juniper Research's head of forecasting and consultancy Windsor Holden tells the BBC. "We don't believe revenues will decline, but the opportunity to generate significant new revenues will diminish over time, as increasingly Apple relies on creating additional value from existing customers."Amazon has performed below expectations over the last five years with its devices, which include Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire tablets and Echo voice-controlled speakers, but analysts say it can afford to do so."Amazon can sustain a model where they can sacrifice margins on devices, because they generate revenue from services and content," explains Gartner principal analyst Roberta Cozza.In 2017, there were 1.5 billion smartphone shipments worldwide, according to Juniper Research. However shipment growth will continue to slow down over the next five years, since most consumers in western markets now already own smartphones.Apple also faces huge competition in all regions from Chinese Android smartphone makers, who are releasing feature-rich premium devices which are cheaper than Apple and Samsung's devices. "In a competitive landscape where you have this level of commoditisation and low cost, it becomes risky for Apple to heavily rely on hardware sales," adds Ms Cozza. One key area of business growth potential is the connected home. Both Apple and Amazon have developed artificially intelligent virtual personal assistants and wireless smart speakers, but in this space Amazon has a clear advantage. Apple's virtual assistant is Siri, and it recently released the Home Pod wireless speaker. Amazon's virtual assistant is Alexa, and it has a line of Echo smart speakers.The Home Pod is focused on providing a music experience, while Amazon wants you to use the Echo to control the lights in your home and to manage your daily life. And Amazon's Echo already has a much higher household penetration than Apple's Home Pod. "If you speak to people in the industry, they say it's a lot easier to work with Amazon, because you're dealing with a much more open ecosystem," says Mr Holden."It's become very easy for third parties to create apps for Alexa, [whereas] Apple has always tended to be almost defensive of its control of the iOS ecosystem."Ms Cozza agrees. She says that Amazon has been very active in pushing Echo's usefulness in the home, in enterprise and in cars, whereas Apple has not, and has far fewer partners.When it comes to services, Apple and Amazon's offerings differ considerably. Amazon is primarily focused on ecommerce, but apart from devices, it also sells apps, has a cloud computing business Amazon Web Services (AWS), offers video content streaming with exclusive TV content, and is also in the online payments space. AWS has proved to be particularly lucrative - it has seen sales jump by 49% to $6.1bn in the second quarter of 2018, and its operating profit has risen to $1.64bn, from $916m in the same period in the previous year.Juniper estimates that the cloud computing market for software, platform and infrastructure-as-a-service will be worth over $145bn in 2020.Amazon is the largest player in this market, with a third of the market share. "Amazon's strength in the cloud historically has been the ability to attract an enormous variety of customers; from large corporates such as Netflix, to individuals," says Mr Holden."Moving forward, it will be a key player in the Internet of Things (IoT) movement, particularly given its wide-ranging AWS tools and ability to provide edge computing services."Apart from devices, Apple is mostly focused on its Apple Music streaming service; Apple Pay contactless payments; and selling music tracks and mobile apps on the iTunes Store.But it could potentially develop other services."Apple has other avenues - immersive technology in education; and think about wearables and healthcare," says Ms Cozza."I think still there are a lot of services and opportunities where Apple can grow."Both Amazon and Apple are hugely successful businesses, and in fact their joint total worth could encapsulate 25 of the biggest companies in the US. But which one has the greatest potential for long term growth?Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, feels that both companies will continue to grow, but at a different pace."They're still really admired, but there are concerns that Apple won't be able to keep pushing their iPhone as heavily as it has done in an era where there's much more competition," he tells the BBC.Apple's share price growth has seen a lot of stops and starts, he says. It needs another "breakthrough" product and a new mass market to sell to, or its growth will stagnate.As for Amazon, because it is a younger company than Apple, it still doesn't have an established presence in many countries, so it has more room to grow than Apple, which already has a global customer base. "Amazon is much more of a mass market player than Apple - with some instances you could use Amazon every day," he said. "With Apple you would only buy one product a year. Amazon has a much bigger potential to scale up than Apple."On the downside, both companies have grown so large that they now face the threat of regulation from a number of governments, to say nothing of additional taxation.Still, the consensus is that Apple and Amazon's fortunes are unlikely to be dented anytime soon."Both companies are facing issues around regulations. There are issues about taxation, but if it comes down to a straight fight between Amazon and Apple, then given that Amazon has these various strong strings to its bow, then ultimately my belief is that Amazon will win out," says Mr Saunders.

Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson have been dubbed the Thelma and Louise of Brexit. Like the characters from the 1991 Hollywood film, the two candidates say they are prepared to end the Brexit adventure by driving us over a cliff. In the movie it was two women on the run who lost their lives. With the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, a country is at stake. It beggars belief that both men are prepared to plunge the economy into the abyss with apparent disregard for people’s jobs; or that they would stress-test to breaking point the union between the country’s biggest nations; or put the hard-won peace and security of Northern Ireland at risk.The problem is that the Conservative party membership does not reflect the UK, yet it will elect a prime minister to lead the country. Tory members predominantly are elderly, wealthy and concentrated in the southern half of England. They are also more rightwing than the population as a whole and seriously deluded: they are unconvinced, despite their own government’s best recent efforts, that a no-deal Brexit would cause serious disruption. In a survey earlier this year, three-quarters of them said such warnings were “exaggerated or invented”. Little wonder that Nick Boles, a former Conservative MP who became an independent after failing to convince fellow Tories to compromise over Brexit, thinks only exposure to the disaster of a no-deal exit from the EU would shake former colleagues out of their stupor.Instead of challenging their electorate, the two prime ministerial candidates have pandered to their worst instincts. The result has been an arms race in no-deal rhetoric that has revealed the outlines of a state-shrinking, low-tax, deregulatory Brexit project that is inimical to the interests of the country and seeks to strip protections hard fought for in the fields of employment, environment and consumer rights. Both men appear to be selling the idea of a managed no-deal. This introduces big problems that – despite claims to the contrary – WTO membership can’t address, and EU crisis negotiations are unlikely to. It also suffers from the very same flaw as Theresa May’s deal – of being dependent on the EU’s goodwill, which would have been exhausted by the determined foolishness of whoever is prime minister.It looks almost certain that Mr Johnson will win the race to Downing Street. Mr Boles worries that there is no easy route for MPs, even in a parliament that the Tories do not control, to block Mr Johnson taking the UK out of the EU without a deal. He thinks Tory MPs would not vote to bring down their own government to prevent a no-deal Brexit. The former Conservative minister believes Mr Johnson would probably enact a no-deal Brexit and then call an election, a strategy which has the attraction of outflanking Nigel Farage.The process of choosing the next PM has given greater weight to party interests than those of government or country. With Brexit this is not a good thing. Trouble is being stored up for the future by mainlining nationalism into post-Brexit politics as well as bringing up immigration constantly. The choice of populism as a narrative frame – with an out-of-touch elite intent on depriving a sovereign people of a decision they voted for – is as dangerous as it is trite. Britain’s political crisis has already reached new lows; it ought not to plumb even greater depths. Topics Brexit Opinion Boris Johnson Jeremy Hunt Conservative leadership Conservatives European Union Foreign policy editorials

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBC, Fox News and Facebook (FB.O) pulled a campaign ad linking a caravan of Central American migrants and a cop killer, which U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed and CNN deemed “racist,” the media companies said on Monday. The primetime TV ads on NBC, paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, ran during a “Sunday Night Football” broadcast. Luis Bracamontes, only partially shown by court order, is arraigned in Superior Court in Sacramento, in October 2014. REUTERS/Max Whittaker It intercut courtroom footage of Luis Bracamontes, an undocumented Mexican immigrant convicted of killing two sheriff’s deputies in California in 2014 with scenes of the caravan, which has been moving slowly through Mexico toward the United States. The ad was placed on the popular football broadcast to encourage voters to choose candidates from Trump’s Republican Party in elections on Tuesday that will determine whether Republicans retain control of the U.S. Congress. “After further review we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible,” said a spokesperson for NBC Universal, owned by Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), in a statement on Monday. The ad was earlier rejected by CNN, which labeled it “racist.” “CNN has made it abundantly clear in its editorial coverage that this ad is racist. When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined. Those are the facts,” the network tweeted on Saturday. Fox News issued a statement about taking down the ad shortly after NBC, according to a CNN report. “Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network,” Marianne Gambelli, Fox News’ president of advertisement sales, said in a statement. Facebook Inc joined in, and said it no longer allowed paid promotion of the ad because it violated its policies regarding sensational content. However, it did not block Facebook users from sharing the video. The company said it held advertising on its platform to a higher standard. “This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “While the video is allowed to be posted on Facebook, it cannot receive paid distribution.” For all Reuters election coverage, see: here Reporting by Kenneth Li; editing by Grant McCool, David Gregorio and Jonathan OatisOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.