↩ Accueil

Vue lecture

Europe live: Parts of US national security strategy ‘unacceptable’ for Europe, says Merz

German leader says there is ‘no need for the Americans to want to save democracy in Europe’

Oh, and a little warning shot from EU’s Kallas:

“If we go into the fight [of] pointing fingers, I mean, we can also point a lot of fingers [on] what is wrong in America, but this is not the way we work, we are not going to meddle with the internal affairs of other countries.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/UPI/Shutterstock

  •  

Trump is remodeling Washington to fit his twisted vision of America | Judith Levine

The administration is offloading gems of US architecture while redesigning the city to match the president’s values

While the original architect of Donald Trump’s ever-expanding ballroom steps down and preservationists panic over the fate of New Deal murals inside the Social Security Administration building, the president gushes about painting the granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building white, “fixing” the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and erecting his own Arc de Triomphe.

To peruse the plans for a Trump-era capital district alongside the General Services Administration’s list of assets identified for accelerated disposition – the federal buildings slated for off-loading – is to discern a diagram of Trump’s values.

Judith Levine is a Brooklyn-based journalist, essayist and author of five books. Her Substack is Today in Fascism

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

  •  

Preparation for the Next Life review – deeply felt story of love among the marginalised in New York

Bing Liu’s film is an unflinching portrait of an undocumented Uyghur immigrant and a traumatised US veteran whose fragile connection is strained by their pasts

Chinese-American film-maker Bing Liu made an impression with the poignant documentary Minding the Gap about people from his home town in Illinois; now he pivots to features with this sad and sombre study of romance and life choices among those on the margins of US society, adapted from the prize-winning novel of the same name by Atticus Lish.

The scene is the no-questions-asked world of New York’s Chinatown; newcomer Sebiye Behtiyar plays Aishe, a Chinese Uyghur Muslim undocumented immigrant. One day she catches the eye of Skinner, played by Fred Hechinger, a young military veteran who impulsively starts to talk to her. There is a spark between them and then something more.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jaclyn Martinez

© Photograph: Jaclyn Martinez

© Photograph: Jaclyn Martinez

  •  

Could a drug for narcolepsy change the world? | Zoe Williams

There are apparently breakthroughs on the way for those with sleep disorders – which sent me down a rabbit hole of research...

I met a guy in pharmaceuticals who told me about a bunch of cool breakthroughs in sleep meds: mainly, we may be on the brink of a new Wegovy, but in this case it’s a drug to cure narcolepsy. I suggested the two things are not quite the same, given that obesity is a global epidemic and narcolepsy is fairly rare. He countered that the way the drug works might also have applications for insomnia; similar to the Post-it note having been invented by someone trying to create the world’s strongest glue.

Anyway, in the course of this, I discovered the test for type 1 narcolepsy, which is that you’re put in a room with zero stimulation – nothing to read, no one to chat to, perfect silence, perfect temperature – and timed on how long it takes you to fall asleep. If it’s under eight minutes, you’re narcoleptic. But the average, for a person with no complaints in that area at all, is 22 minutes. I was completely incredulous. This is a grip on consciousness more or less the same as a house cat. Bored? Go to sleep. Even a dog will have a quick look for something to eat first.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Posed by model; Westend61/Getty Images

© Photograph: Posed by model; Westend61/Getty Images

© Photograph: Posed by model; Westend61/Getty Images

  •  

Adam Pankratz: B.C.’s reconciliation nightmare gets even worse

It has been clear for some months now that David Eby and the B.C. NDP’s approach to Indigenous reconciliation would have ruinous consequences for British Columbia’s economy. Last Friday, the situation got even worse, as a new court ruling poured more cold water on economic activity in the province and opened the door to every B.C. law being subject to interpretation through a United Nations human rights document. The implications for British Columbia could not be much more dire. Read More
  •  

Mickey Amery: How we are protecting free expression for Alberta’s professionals

Albertans and Canadians value their freedoms. They know freedom is the foundation of our democracy and the reason we choose to build our lives here. Freedom of expression, in particular, is fundamentally important. It is the foundation that our democratic discourse is built on. For this freedom to be fully realized, people must be able to speak their mind without fear of losing their licence or their livelihood. Read More
  •  

Same Product, Same Store, but on Instacart, Prices Might Differ

The findings are the latest example of how the notion of a single price is breaking down in the digital age, a trend economists say could be pushing up some prices.

© Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

In tests in four cities across the country, nearly 200 volunteers checked prices on 20 grocery items on Instacart. They found differences in item after item.
  •  

Colby Cosh: Alberta runs into the separation-referendum barriers that it erected

On Friday, Alberta King’s Bench Justice Colin Feasby issued an irascible ruling on a reference question from the chief electoral officer of the province. Justice Feasby had been asked to decide whether a potential citizen’s initiative launched by an Alberta separatist group was in conformity with the current version of the Citizen Initiative Act (CIA) passed in 2021. Read More
  •