Tag Archives: WorldNews

The fearless Megan Rapinoe embodies the best of America

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The funny, eloquent, insightful midfielder is the latest in a long line of USA women’s players who have been unafraid to challenge the establishment

As the Star-Spangled Banner rang out on Tuesday in Reims before the USA’s quarter-final tie with Spain, the TV cameras panned over the starting eleven, hands on hearts, singing in unison. And then there was Megan Rapinoe, silent and steely, standing because she’s been told she has no other choice, a proud American with a point to prove.

In the gritty grind of a game that followed she was not at her best, yet she scored both USA’s goals from the penalty spot, testament to both her talent and her composure. When things go wrong, you want Rapinoe on your team. And when things go right, she’s often the driving force, the source of some of the sweetest crosses and most accurate corners ever witnessed in the sport.

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Trump Administration Didn’t Want Stonewall Pride Flag On Federal Property—So It Gave Flagpole To NYC Parks Department

Trump Administration Didn't Want Stonewall Pride Flag On Federal Property—So It Gave Flagpole To NYC Parks Department

With the launch of the WorldPride festival coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the uprising at the Stonewall Inn later this week, it’s likely that tens of thousands of people will stop by the Stonewall National Monument (which includes the Stonewall Inn and Christopher Park across the street) to pay tribute to the bar’s legacy this weekend. And while there, they’ll see the iconic LGBT pride flag on display just on the eastern tip of the landmarked national park. But it seems the Trump administration was not so keen on the pride flag appearing on federal property, to the point that they gifted the flag to the NYC Parks Department so they wouldn’t have to deal with it. [ more › ]

Boris Johnson takes to airwaves to lie, lie and lie again | John Crace

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Tory leader-in-waiting unable even to maintain the most basic rules of conversation

You can see why Boris Johnson’s carers have chosen to mothball him in recent weeks. His decline has been almost total. Johnson never did much care for the past or the future. Every day has always been a tabula rasa, one on which he was free to reinvent himself as he pleased without being bound by any commitments he may have made. Now though, he appears to barely have a present. Unable even to maintain the most basic rules of conversation, his words are just a scattergun of free association.

Nick Ferrari began Johnson’s LBC radio interview with a few easy rapid-fire yes and no questions as if to establish a benchmark for the lie detector. It proved hard work as Johnson was such a shambles he could barely even confirm his name. Was he a coward? That should have been a no brainer. That’s the one thing on which everyone – even his friends – agree. Johnson merely looked confused. The silence was interpreted as a yes on the polygraph.

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Britain is now a remain nation. We can halt this rush to Brexit | Polly Toynbee

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The Tory party’s hardcore membership would head us off a cliff. We need to rebel against this democratic outrage

The frontrunner’s domestic squall on Thursday night has acted as a lightning-flash illumination of the democratic fraud unfolding before our eyes. Had this tiff happened on Love Island, at least every citizen would get to vote. If a despairing lethargy hung over the prime ministerial contest, this fracas has electrified the preposterous nature of the non-choice, and our total exclusion from it. Pinch yourself: is this really be happening in a democracy? This is now a remainer nation, held hostage by extreme no-dealers.

Remember, this has never happened before. It was bad enough when MPs chose the sitting prime minister – John Major, Theresa May, Gordon Brown – but for the first time the Tory party’s misbegotten 1998 rules see our fate fixed by the votes of a tiny self-selecting oligarchy. This novel experiment in non-democracy couldn’t come at a worse time, with the ruling party seized by no-deal Brexit mania, forcing all candidates to abandon truth to woo the membership’s worst delusions. Only one, Sam Gyimah, represented anything approaching the British remain majority, but he couldn’t scrape eight nominations to get into the contest: that’s the nature of the Tory beast.

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Boris Johnson’s pitch is all about his character. That’s why the row in his flat matters | Matthew d’Ancona

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The would-be prime minister says Brexit just requires brio and confidence. He turned politics into a game of personality

Let’s begin with the straightforward part: any incident in which a woman is heard screaming in her home, and shouting “Get off me!” at a man, instantly becomes a matter not only of public interest but public responsibility.

Related: Hunt ramps up pressure on Johnson to explain police visit

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Russians ‘spread fake plot to assassinate Boris Johnson’ on social media

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Suspected spy operation was designed to provoke tension in the west, says new study

Suspected Russian spies floated a series of fake stories on social media including a claim that Remainers were planning to kill Boris Johnson and that the novichok used in the Salisbury attack came from the Real IRA, a new study shows.

The operation was done to provoke tensions between western countries. It was persistent, sophisticated and well-resourced, and involved fake accounts on more than 30 platforms and nine languages, over five years, the study says.

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