EU-UK Relations Deteriorate as Northern Ireland Talks End without Agreement

THE GUARDIAN: ‘Patience wearing very thin’ and relationship with London ‘at crossroads’, says EU negotiator Maroš Šefčovič

Talks between the EU and the UK over Northern Ireland appear on the brink of collapse as London indicated it was still considering unilateral action to keep unhindered supplies flowing from Great Britain into the region.

The European commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, said patience was “wearing very very thin” and described the relationship with the UK as “at a crossroads”.

Amid fears that the escalating crisis over Northern Ireland would develop into a trade war, David Frost, the Brexit minister, said there had been “no breakthroughs” over the Brexit checks but no “breakdowns” after a two-hour meeting with Šefčovič in London.

They agreed to continue to try to find a solution before 30 June when a ban on chilled meats including sausages and mincemeat is due to come into force. » | Lisa O’Carroll and Peter Walker | Wednesday, June 9, 2021

The JFK Assassination | 72 Hours That Changed America

The day John F. Kennedy was assassinated has sparked conspiracy theories, impacted witnesses for a lifetime and even inspired a JFK assassination tour.

John F Kennedy at 100 - in pictures »

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis obituary »

March 24, 1961 - New First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Interviewed by Sander Vanocur

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in a television interview. The first she granted since becoming first lady. The commentator Sander Vanocur sitting beside Mrs. Kennedy by the fireplace in the green room in the White House.

La longue liste des présidents de la République insultés ou attaqués

LE POINT: Du coup de canne au président Loubet à la gifle d’Emmanuel Macron, histoire d’une haine qui eut parfois des conséquences dramatiques.

Emmanuel Macron giflé, la scène humiliante interpelle et en rappelle bien d'autres que nos présidents ont connues dans leur carrière : on se souvient des sifflets et des huées qui ont accompagné le départ de Giscard d'Estaing de l'Élysée, en mai 1981, ou de Nicolas Sarkozy, violemment pris à partie par un employé municipal qui avait soudainement agrippé sa veste lors d'une visite près d'Agen, écopant de six mois avec sursis. » | Par Marc Fourny | vendredi 9 juin 2021

Le président giflé : un vent mauvais souffle sur la démocratie »

Emmanuel Macron Slapped in the Face

French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped in the face on Tuesday by a man in a crowd of onlookers while on a walkabout in southern France.


Man who slapped Emmanuel Macron to appear at fast-track trial »

Photo: Damien Tarel »

L’homme qui a giflé Emmanuel Macron condamné à dix-huit mois de prison dont quatre ferme »

Raise Age for Sale of Cigarettes to 21 and Stop ‘Tobacco Epidemic’, Say UK MPs

THE GUARDIAN: Making it illegal for more young people to buy cigarettes would help meet the government’s target of ending smoking by 2030, MPs say

MPs have called for a consultation on raising the age for the sale of cigarettes to 21 from 18 in order to end the “tobacco epidemic” by 2030.

The all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health has recommended raising the age of sale from 18 to 21 as part of tougher tobacco regulations to protect children and young people from becoming smokers and help smokers quit.

The recommendations, backed by health charities and medical organisations, also include a “polluter pays” amendment to the health and social care bill to secure funding for a tobacco control programme, forcing manufacturers to pay to deliver the end of smoking.

The cross-party group of MPs and peers has warned the government that it can only build back “better and fairer” from the pandemic by making smoking obsolete and must commit now to the actions needed to secure its vision of a Smokefree 2030. » | Press Association | Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Somebody ought to shut these meddlesome do-gooders up! Kick them out of government! I am all for discouraging smoking, but I am against this nanny state. They are attacking smokers at every turn: they are making smokers’ lives intolerable. They are also turning the smoking habit into the preserve of the élite. I hope and trust that if they go ahead and raise the age to buy cigarettes to 21, they will not expect anyone under the age of twenty-one to go fight their damn wars! If you aren’t old enough to smoke, then you are certainly not old enough to kill! Politicians' time would be better spent putting an end to corruption in this extremely corrupt country of ours! –©Mark

The Dangerous Delta Variant

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Covid cases are rising in Britain — and U.S. trends may soon follow.

Britain has had one of the world’s most successful Covid-19 responses in recent months.

Unlike the European Union, the British government understood that quickly obtaining vaccine doses mattered more than negotiating the lowest price. Unlike the United States, Britain was willing to impose nationwide restrictions again late last year to reduce caseloads. British officials also chose to maximize first vaccine shots and delay second shots, recognizing that the strategy could more quickly reduce Covid cases.

Thanks to these moves, Covid has retreated more quickly in Britain than in almost any other country. Fewer than 10 Britons per day have been dying in recent weeks, down from 1,200 a day in late January. On a per-capita basis, Britain’s death rate last month was less than one-tenth the U.S. rate.

Despite this success, Britain is now coping with a rise in Covid cases. The main cause appears to be the highly infectious virus variant known as Delta, which was first detected in India. Britain’s recent moves to reopen society also probably play a role.

The increase is a reminder that progress against the pandemic — even extreme progress — does not equal ultimate victory. Britain’s experience also suggests that cases may soon rise in the U.S. “What we’re seeing in U.K. is very likely to show up in other Western countries soon,” The Financial Times’s John Burn-Murdoch wrote. » | David Leonhardt | Monday, June 7, 2021

Legal Storm Clouds Gather over Donald Trump’s Future

THE GUARDIAN: As the ex-president hints at running once again, his future could lie in the courtroom, not the Oval Office

He’s Teflon Don no more, at least when it comes to court.

Donald Trump, no longer insulated by claims of presidential protections, faces a host of increasingly serious legal problems in some of the US’s most high-profile courts, including both criminal investigation and civil litigation.

So even as Trump maintains his grip on the Republican party and teases ambitions to run again for president in 2024 – his legal woes could render all that debate meaningless: Trump’s future could lie in the courtroom, not the Oval Office.

Trump “can face criminal charges for activities that took place before he was president, after he was president, and while he was president – as long as they were not part of his duties while he was president of the United States,” said attorney David S Weinstein, partner at Jones Walker LLP’s Miami office. » | Victoria Bekiempis | Tuesday, June 8, 2021

John F Kennedy Jr: The Story of His Final 24 Hours | Full Documentary

John Kennedy Jr. was American royalty and a cultural icon. His promise of living out his political legacy bequeathed to him on the day of his father’s assassination, was cut short over the Atlantic Ocean one July night. Kennedy’s death and that of his wife and sister-in-law, were the result of a series of bad decisions Kennedy had made during his last day. A day plagued by stress when his life depended on his ability to think clearly. Final 24 examines the string of errors that led to his tragic demise.

How Did a Gay Scientist of Jewish Descent Thrive Under the Nazis?

THE NEW YORK TIMES: RAVENOUS Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection By Sam Apple

At the start of the 20th century, the German Empire was the undisputed hub of the scientific universe. From 1901, when the Nobel Prizes were established, through 1932, Germans won almost a third of all the Nobels awarded to scientists — 31 in total. (American scientists, in contrast, won five during the same time period.) This impressive track record was fueled, in part, by Jewish researchers who just decades earlier would have been excluded from prominent academic positions. When the Nazis seized power in March 1933, it was not unusual for major scientific institutes to be led by Nobel laureates with Jewish roots: Albert Einstein and Otto Meyerhof, both Jewish, ran prestigious centers of physics and medical research; Fritz Haber, who’d converted from Judaism in the late 19th century, ran a chemistry institute; and Otto Warburg, who was raised as a Protestant but had two Jewish grandparents, was the director of a recently opened center for cell physiology. » | Seth Mnookin | Sunday, June 6, 2021

Could a Third Wave of Covid Be More Serious Than UK’s First Two?

THE GUARDIAN: Analysis: Concern over Delta variant means decision on ending restrictions on 21 June hangs in balance

Summer has nearly arrived and the UK is beginning to unlock from coronavirus restrictions, with a full lifting still on the cards in England on 21 June.

Yet the spectre of the Delta variant is casting an ominous shadow, with concerns it could fuel a third wave. So just how serious could the next peak be – and could it be more serious than Britain’s first two waves?

In May members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) from the University of Warwick released results from models that suggested a variant 40% more transmissible than the Alpha variant – first detected in Kent and known as B.1.1.7 – could result in up to 6,000 hospital admissions a day. » | Nicola Davis, Science correspondent | Monday, June 7, 2021

Die Philip Morris Story (2012)

Der mächtigste Tabakkonzern der Welt sitzt ziemlich fest im Sattel. Wie kann Philip Morris, zu dem auch Marlboro gehört, trotz Nichtraucherschutzgesetzen so erfolgreich sein?

Philipp Morris, British American Tobacco und JTI produzieren starken Tabak in der Schweiz (2014)

Was kaum bekannt ist: Die Schweiz ist ein Exportland von Zigaretten. Die drei grossen Produzenten haben vergangenes Jahr Zigaretten im Wert von über einer halben Milliarde Franken ins Ausland exportiert. Das ist nur deshalb möglich, weil die Gesetze in der Schweiz weit weniger hart sind als in der Europäischen Union: Schweizer Zigaretten dürfen mehr Teer, Nikotin und Kohlenmonoxid enthalten als in der EU produzierte.

Elisabeth II: 90 photos pour 90 ans de vie

BBC: Une grande sélection de photos de la reine Elizabeth II des archives de l’agence Press Association marquant chaque année de sa vie jusqu'en 2015. Compilé pour la célébration du 90e anniversaire de la reine. » | mercredi 9 septembre 2015

Meghan et Harry : Lili Diana, le bébé de la réconciliation ?

LE POINT: En donnant à leur fille le prénom de la reine Elizabeth, les Sussex envoient un signal positif aux Windsor. Un geste que Buckingham pourrait apprécier.

Avec Meghan et Harry, on pouvait s'attendre à tout à l'occasion de cette naissance : allaient-ils encore en profiter pour envoyer une nouvelle salve négative par-dessus l'Atlantique ? Depuis trois mois, ils n'ont pas retenu leurs coups, avec des attaques et des reproches réguliers contre la famille royale, qui sort à chaque fois les boucliers en espérant que l'offensive se calme… Et là, surprise : un message positif accompagne cette fois l'arrivée de leur deuxième enfant, puisque le couple a choisi de donner à leur fille le prénom de Lilibet, le surnom privé de la reine Elizabeth II. Dans un message aux allures de faire-part, les Sussex ont même précisé qu'ils ont voulu ainsi rendre hommage à la reine, que Harry considère toujours comme son « commandant en chef », comme il se plaît à le répéter en interview. » | Par Marc Fourny | lundi 7 juin 2021

Power vs People? Ft. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Former President of Brazil

Hard times always bring out the best and the worst in people and their governments, and in this sense, COVID-19 seems to be a pretty accurate reality check on individuals, nations and the world as a whole, rewarding those who practice and punishing those who only preach. But is it potent and scary enough to put politics back into the service of policy and not the other way around? To discuss this, Oksana is joined by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Former President of Brazil

Michael Cohen: Does Donald Trump Have a 'Secret' Pardon? | 60 Minutes Australia (February 2021)

Meghan and Harry Announce Birth of Baby Daughter Lilibet

THE GUARDIAN: Child named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmother

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have announced the birth of a daughter they have named Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.

Harry and Meghan’s daughter, who was born in hospital in California on Friday, weighed 7lb 11oz and has been named after the family nickname for the Queen, the baby’s great-grandmother. Her middle name was chosen to honour her late grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales, the couple said. The baby is the Queen’s 11th great-grandchild and is eighth in line to the throne.

Both mother and child were healthy and well, a statement said, and Lilibet – a younger sister for two-year-old Archie – was “settling in at home” after her birth at Santa Barbara Cottage hospital. » | Jessica Murray | Sunday, June 6, 2021

Harry and Meghan Announce Birth of Second Baby, Lilibet Diana »

What’s in a name? The meanings of Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor »

Health Care: America vs. the World

Millions of Americans have no health insurance and live in fear that one illness could bankrupt them. Even though the U.S. spends far more on health care than other wealthy nations, Americans die of preventable diseases at greater rates. The PBS NewsHour special, “Critical Care: America vs the World,” examines how four other nations achieve universal care for less money, with better outcomes.

Why Piers Morgan Refuses to Be 'Cancelled' in Explosive Interview | 60 Minutes Australia