Speaker Mike Johnson is ‘convinced’ the impasse over homeland security funding will be resolved by Tuesday
The ongoing partial US government shutdown is expected to continue into early next week, with no reopening likely before Tuesday, if what federal officials on both sides of the country’s political aisle are saying is any indication.
House Democrats have so far said they are refusing to guarantee the votes needed to speed passage of a funding measure that would restore government operations.
Continue reading...Bovino allegedly denied promoting two border patrol officials because of their race, according to several reports
Recently demoted border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who served as the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in several US cities, was compared to a Confederate general in an email sent to him by a colleague in 2018, according to multiple reports.
A border patrol agent who was later promoted to a senior role in New Orleans sent the email in question as well as a number of Confederacy-related images after Bovino canceled a job listing and installed that same agent – a white officer – in the listed role by bypassing the agency’s standard career-advancement process.
Continue reading...Europe’s India and Vietnam deals signal a historic shift away from coercion towards cooperation that respects developing countries’ sovereignty
For the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU’s trade pact with India was the “mother of all deals”. Seen from the other end of the telescope, it looked like the mouse of all deals, with just €4bn (£3.5bn) in tariff reductions – a rounding error in a €180bn trading relationship. But that misses the point: this is about economic heavyweights resetting the terms of their cooperation because of Donald Trump’s use of tariffs as a tool of economic and political compulsion.
Last week marked a turning point. In upgrading ties with Vietnam in the wake of its India deal, Europe is no longer trying to lock Asian partners into fixed industrial roles. The EU wants Hanoi to move into hi-tech production. That shift will probably displace Vietnam’s labour-intensive manufacturing elsewhere. India is an obvious beneficiary, able to absorb that demand.
Continue reading...After stories revealed high levels of contamination in neighborhood around factory processing US toxic waste, government announces sweeping array of tactics
The Mexican government has announced it will pursue a sweeping array of tactics to combat industrial pollution, from $4.8m in fines against a plant processing US hazardous waste to the rollout of a new industrial air-monitoring system, following investigations by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, a Mexican investigative unit.
Those stories revealed high levels of heavy-metal contamination in the neighborhood around the factory, Zinc Nacional, in the Monterrey metropolitan area, and showed the broader extent of industrial pollution in the region, linked to Monterrey’s role in manufacturing and recycling goods for the US market.
Continue reading...Employees of Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, DTEK, were travelling about 40 miles from frontline, says police
A Russian drone attack on a bus carrying mine workers in Ukraine’s central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region has killed at least 12 people, officials said.
The bus was driving about 40 miles (65km) from the frontline, according to police. Images published by Ukraine’s state emergency service showed what appeared to be an empty bus, its side windows shattered and windscreen hanging from the front.
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