Funding used to protect workers will expire on 30 September, and airlines have already announced huge layoffs
US airlines are facing what one leading analyst calls a “Thelma and Louise” moment as the industry approaches a government-funding deadline that could decide its future.
On 30 September a government aid packages used to protect workers expires, the airlines have already announced huge layoffs but what comes next could be even worse.
Continue reading...Antonio Guterres tells security council that it is ‘not clear’ whether US reimposition of sanctions on Tehran applies
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has told the security council he cannot take any action on a US declaration that all UN sanctions on Iran had been reimposed because “there would appear to be uncertainty” on the issue.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said last month that he had triggered a 30-day process at the council that would lead to the return of UN sanctions on Iran on Saturday evening. He would also stop a conventional arms embargo on Tehran from expiring on 18 October.
Continue reading...President says he has ‘obligation’ to fill the vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Donald Trump has promised to put forward a female nominee in the coming week to fill the supreme court vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pushing the Republican-controlled Senate to consider the pick without delay.
Taking the stage at a North Carolina rally to chants of “Fill that seat”, the president said he would nominate his selection despite Democrats’ objections.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has said he “approves a deal in concept” that will allow TikTok to continue to operate in the US, after threatening to ban the Chinese-owned app.
Related: China attacks US 'bullying' over ban on Tiktok and WeChat
Continue reading...Americans from across the nation paid tribute to supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who has died
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Tim Alberta, the chap I quoted a while back re Mitch “Mule Piss” McConnell and his single-minded pursuit of judicial appointments, has a fascinating piece up at Politico.
“If there’s one Republican who could be convinced that filling the sudden supreme court vacancy is a bad idea,” he writes, “it’s President Donald Trump.”
Related: Trump names three sitting senators among 20 possible supreme court picks
Any number of variables could tip the scales in such a tight election. But it’s not difficult to deduce that had a supreme court seat not been hanging in the balance, Hillary Clinton would be president right now. When I offered this theory last year to McConnell … he grinned.
“I agree,” McConnell said.
Having been reminded countless times over the past 45 months that his Supreme Court gambit won him the trust of social conservatives – which, in turn, won him the election – Trump surely realizes that this is a moment of maximum leverage. Maybe he doesn’t bother using it; maybe he automatically produces more of the goods, keeping his most important customers satisfied, believing it’s one more accomplishment to point to.
But the president is transactional to his core. This was exactly the word– “transactional” – that Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, used when we discussed the supreme court list Trump unveiled in 2016.
News is starting to come out of the Senate Democrats’ caucus call today…
Per source Schumer started with moment of silence for RBG and said “nothing is off the table” next year if GOP moves forward w/nominating process
Related: Battle hymn of the Democrats: why it's time for liberals to fight dirty
Continue reading...So many powerful storms have formed over the Atlantic this year that for only the second time, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) has run out of names, meaning it is now naming tropical storms and hurricanes with letters from the Greek alphabet.
There are 21 names available each year. The list ends with those beginning with W and excludes Q, U, X, Y and Z. Once that list is exhausted, the nomenclature system switches to the Greek alphabet.
Continue reading...Susan Collins of Maine is among vulnerable Republican senators as polls indicate voters trust Biden more on justice picks
On the question of supreme court nominees, the Republican senator Susan Collins has repeatedly threaded the same political needle. It is one with a shrinking eye.
Related: Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed America long before she joined the supreme court | Moira Donegan
Continue reading...The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has sparked a titanic political fight that could shape the future of US supreme court decisions on abortion rights, voting rights and other fundamental issues for a generation.
Related: What does Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death mean for the supreme court?
Continue reading...The US president reacted with visible surprise when reporters informed him the 87-year-old supreme court justice had died. 'She led an amazing life,' Trump said after a rally in Minnesota. 'What else can you say? She was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I'm actually saddened to hear that.'
Joe Biden says there is no doubt the next US supreme court justice should be chosen by the winner of the country's presidential election, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday.
'She was fierce and unflinching in her pursuit of the civil legal rights of everyone,' Biden said of Ginsburg, who had sat on the supreme court since 1993. 'Her opinions and her dissent are going to continue to shape the basis for law for a generation.'
Biden said her replacement should be selected by the winner of the election in November, citing precedent established by Senate Republicans in 2016, when they blocked Barack Obama's attempt to replace justice Antonin Scalia in an election year
The region has seen some of the longest lockdowns in the world but experts are urging countries not to reopen too soon
The scene in Rio de Janeiro was as though much of 2020 had never happened.
The beaches at Ipanema and Copacabana heaved with visitors, the white sand obscured by bronzed bodies, sun loungers and parasols, as locals enjoyed the blistering 38C heat.
Continue reading...Consumers buying chlorine dioxide solution on Amazon platform say they have been drinking fluid despite FDA warnings
Industrial bleach is being sold on Amazon through its product pages which consumers are buying under the mistaken belief that it is a “miracle cure” for Covid-19, despite health warnings from the US Food and Drug Administration that drinking the fluid can kill.
Related: 'Archbishop' of Florida church selling bleach 'miracle cure' arrested with son
Continue reading...Male and female are killed and 14 are injured in shooting in upstate New York
Two people have died and 14 others have been wounded in a mass shooting at a party in Rochester, New York, police said.
A male and a female died in the shooting on Saturday, the interim police chief Mark Simmons told reporters. The wounded people were taken to two different hospitals. Simmons said none of them were reported to have life-threatening injuries.
Continue reading...Covid has forced many people out of workplaces. Some have saved money by moving overseas
When the coronavirus lockdown forced Mason Palmer, 26, to start working from home, the digital content creator had a rethink about where that home was and in July he moved from Bristol to Milan. “I’ve always loved travelling to Italy,” he says. “I was always going over there; it was like an expensive hobby.”
He did not expect his boss to necessarily be on board with his plans and suggested that he move to working for the company, Working Word, on a freelance basis. But the firm was open to the idea and his boss kept him on staff. “Now I’m like the unofficial Milan branch,” he laughs.
Continue reading...Brad Downey says first lady shows contradiction between US’s position on race in 2020
The American artist behind a controversial statue of the US First Lady Melania Trump, unveiled this week in bronze in her native Slovenia, has defended the work as a representation of the contradictions of her husband’s presidency.
Brad Downey, a conceptual artist from Kentucky based in Berlin, said the statue that replaced an earlier wooden carving destroyed in an arson attack in July, was motivated by his “frustrations with the policies of my birth country.”
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s decision to ban downloads of the Chinese-owned platform prompts realignment of tech space
TikTok users in the United States have reacted with a collective shrug to Donald Trump’s decision to ban new downloads of the video-sharing app, but many are already planning an exit to other platforms should the clampdown lead to an outright ban.
“Oh my God! Ok! It’s happening! Everybody stay calm!” TikToker Nick Foster told his 577,000 followers, dubbing a video of himself with audio of actor Steve Carell’s character on the series The Office panicking during a fire alarm.
Continue reading...The move follows a number of clashes with Russian forces now stationed along the Turkish border
The US military has stepped up its deployment of troops and equipment in north-eastern Syria after a rise in tensions with Russia in the region.
US central command “has deployed Sentinel radar, increased the frequency of US fighter patrols over US forces, and deployed bradley fighting vehicles to augment US forces” in the area, which is controlled by the US and its Kurdish allies, spokesman Captain Bill Urban said in a statement.
Continue reading...The supreme court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died of metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was 87 years old.
Ginsburg was the second woman appointed to the court in history and became a liberal icon for her sharp questioning of witnesses and intellectually rigorous defenses of civil liberties, reproductive rights, first amendment rights and equal protections under the law
Continue reading...The supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguably the single most important female lawyer in the history of the American republic, has died from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was 87 years old.
Appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993, Ginsburg was a stalwart of the court’s liberal bloc, which Donald Trump appears now to have the opportunity to confine to a minority for a generation.
Later nicknamed RBG, Ginsburg was an icon, especially for women, and provided an essential vote in watershed rulings that combatted gender discrimination and protected abortion rights, equal pay, civil liberties and privacy rights.
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