This sounds radical. But Smith argues that it's in line with the Constitution and with years of court rulings. For example, Smith points out that racist appeals in union elections are illegal and that an election in which one side uses racist appeals can be invalidated by the National Labor Relations Board. Similarly, in the 2016 case Peña v. Rodriguez, the Supreme Court ruled that when a juror expresses overt bigotry, the jury's verdict should be invalidated.

So how can you tell when voters are acting out of prejudice? Again, Smith says, employment discrimination law provides a useful analogy. In discrimination cases, courts look for pretexts.

Even more ambitiously, Smith suggests expanding the Voting Rights Act to address the racist patterns of voting in Senate elections in the South.

It's difficult to address injustice, however, if you're unwilling to say injustice exists. Politicians and pundits, Republican and Democratic alike, have been unwilling to reprimand voters or hold them accountable.

In 1964, some of King’s fellow civil rights leaders called on him to denounce a planned “stall-in” by the Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights group protesting job discrimination and housing and school segregation.

King was familiar with being welcomed by leaders who saw themselves as liberal and anti-racist only to have them react furiously when attention turned to the need for local change.

On this King holiday, in this election year, we need to listen to the King who called out the hypocrisy of liberal allies who praised the struggle in the South while decrying disruptive black activism at home;

Most importantly, the awareness of robots didn’t just change people’s attitudes, but also changed their behavior.

Although the previous study illustrated how robots can help eliminate the racial pay gap, it’s not clear what robots’ impact would be on the gender pay gap.

Computers are given gendered voices and human appearances so they seem more like us.

But challenge them we must. Support for Stormzy and Neville in the wake of their comments proves that many of us are willing to force the agenda and seek change. The UK does have a problem with racism, that is a fact. And the problem will not go away until those who refuse to see give way to those who do.

The Turkish military presence in Libya will mean that the GNA is in a much stronger position to survive the onslaught by Haftar.

The deal struck between Erdogan and Putin ultimately means that both sides in Libya will need to compromise and realise that there is no way for either side to achieve a victory through military means.

Today, however, with U.S. troops still in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan and tensions high over Iran, Americans remain war-weary.

Yet Mr. Trump subsequently sent some 14,000 more U.S. troops to the Gulf, along with an aircraft carrier strike group that the Pentagon would have vastly preferred to deploy to the South China Sea to deal with the more important 21st-century threat of a rising China.

To fulfill his popular campaign promise to end America’s war of choice in Iraq, Mr. Obama withdrew all U.S. forces from the country in 2011. Just three years later, he sent some 5,000 troops back after the jihadists of Islamic State exploited the vacuum to seize swaths of Iraqi territory for its self-styled “caliphate.”

To be sure, the global economy—and therefore the American economy—would be hurt by a major disruption in oil supplies from the Gulf.

The good news is that part of this overall drag may disappear before the end of 2020, boosting American GDP growthby at least half a percentage point.What about the longer-term benefits of the trade deal?The purchase of $200bn of additional US exports in the energy, agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors, spread over two years, will reduce the bilateral trade deficit with China. But many of these exports will probably be redirected from elsewhere and will not boost US domestic output in those sectors. Longer term, China’s business restrictions, including alleged unfair trading practices, appear to be easing. Given the political boost from the phase one deal, Chinese economic reformers such as vice-premier Liu He may be in the ascendancy in Beijing for a while. 

The trade war has significantly damaged US growth in 2018-19Since President Donald Trump became more aggressive in his threats about trade protection early in 2018, US tariffs on Chinese goods have risen markedly, prompting retaliation from China. There have been only a few comprehensive studies on the overall impact of tariffs on the US growth rate. A notable exception is the work of Jan Hatzius’s US economics team at Goldman Sachs. They have estimated the possible impact of rising tariffs on net trade flows, real incomes, financial conditions and business confidence, and have combined these effects to produce the aggregate growth estimates shown in the graph below. As the negative effects of rising tariffs fade in 2020, the US growth rate is expected to be boosted by at least half a percentage point.

China is aiming to increase its reliance on domestic production for key components, including chips and controlling systems, to 75 per cent by 2025, the former minister said.

A ban on Huawei buying US tech combined with the overall market uncertainty from the tech war led to Broadcom revising down its 2019 revenue estimate by US$2 billion.However, given that the most advanced Chinese producers of semiconductor technology are two to three generations behind their US rivals, China would be the major short-term loser should decoupling continue, Capri said.

“While there are changes to some Chinese technology policies, phase two is unlikely to make much progress in addressing the two countries’ rivalry,” said Chris Rogers, Research Analyst at Panjiva, S&P Global Market Intelligence.

In the face of restrictions on liquidity, defaults and bankruptcies in the private sector have multiplied. The Chinese banking system operates on the basis of cross-guarantees, which means that a single bankruptcy can ricochet through an entire network of connections.

Trade tensions with the United States seem to have hurt China, and this week’s deal, however timid and tentative, is a welcome step forward. But China itself needs to get its own economy back on track — it needs to support its private sector again.

Drastically reduce emissions from cars and trucks.

Price emissions, regulate them, or do both.

Unfortunately, far too much of the conversation about climate change is centered around individual actions that people can take, things like flying less or eating less meat. But such lifestyle changes, as good intentioned as they are, don’t cut deep enough.

The fires raging in Australia are just a recent example of the challenges a continuously warming Earth will present. To date, 28 people have died, including two firemen, and millions of animals are thought to have perished.  Then there are hurricanes. In 2019, Hurricane Dorian sat almost immovable above Abaco Island in the Bahamas for more almost 24 hours, killing at least 70 people. Heat waves killed an estimated 1,500 people in France in 2019. The good news is this is far below the 2003 heat wave that killed an estimated 30,000 across Europe, with 14,000 in France alone. And here at home, a heat wave killed 66 people in Montreal in 2018.

More than 100 counties, cities, and towns have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and vowed to oppose any new "unconstitutional restrictions" on guns.

China has taken steps to address the deluge of plastic, including introducing a mandatory recycling system that’s being piloted in cities such as Shanghai.

Unreliable batteries and other quality problems have also dampened consumer enthusiasm.

For now foreign car companies continue to see gold in China and are boosting local production of their own electric vehicles.

Consumer demand remains uncertain. On a recent afternoon, several drivers at a battery-charging station in an underground parking lot were lukewarm about their Chinese-brand electric vehicles.

The Russian effort in South America — the details of which have not been previously reported — appears aimed at stirring dissent in states that have demanded the resignation of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, senior diplomats say.

The unrest in Latin America this fall cannot be attributed to any single factor, and it is unclear how effective the Russia-linked influence campaign on Twitter was.

South Korea’s relations with China, its biggest trading partner, have been strained over Seoul’s decision to host a U.S. anti-missile system that Beijing perceives as a security threat.

Tokyo, in turn, agreed to resume discussions with Seoul on their dispute over Japan’s tightened controls on exports of key chemicals used by major South Korean companies to make computer chips and smartphone displays.

China’s relations with Japan had been more acrimonious than with any other foreign state, but have in recent years undergone a remarkable transformation, partly as a result of the U.S.-China tariff war.

Past caravans have had an overwhelming effect on the U.S. immigration system, but it's unlikely this most recent surge will reach the southern border, as Mexican officials remain on high alert and had vowed to block hundreds of mostly Honduran migrants hoping to reach the United States.

Singapore’s climate pledge in 2015 was deemed a “stretch target” that would not be easily met, as efforts towards sustainable development in the country were still in their nascent stages.

Singapore has installed large-scale floating solar panels in its reservoirs and coastal shorelines. Efforts are also being made towards making 80% of the buildings in the country green by 2030. Come 2040, only 10% of rush-hour commutes in Singapore will be made via private transportation.

Protecting Singapore against climate change will be costly. Up to S$100 billion will be poured into measures to cope with rising sea levels caused by climate change. Prevention is better than cure. Singapore, and countries around the world, must identify their vulnerabilities and undertake the actions required to defend their long-term national interests. But these measures should not become a substitute for ambitious efforts to reduce emissions and prevent temperatures from rising wherever possible.