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Throughout the years, the U.S. has depended on drone strikes in hunting down Al Qaeda's top leaders and operatives. In 2015, the group's leader was killed in a drone strike in the southern city of Mukalla, the provincial capital of Yemen's largest province of Hadramawt, and which fell into the hands of the group for a year.

“Biden is so empathetic and is seen as being such a decent man, and that was very important at that moment for Andrew Cuomo,” said Ms. Weingarten, who like other Democrats, saw a similar, perhaps anachronistic political sensibility binding the two men.

“Biden is a politician from a different age, when a sense of having somebody’s back, based upon the values you carry and the work you’ve done together, means something,” she said, adding, “That’s something that Cuomo and Biden share very, very deeply.”

“GMO will make Ghanaian farmers poor” and “Our Food Under Our Control!!!”

Monsanto is also part of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a group of private corporations tasked by the G8 to invest in solutions to African hunger over the next decade.

Hating Monsanto is “a luxury when you’re surrounded by food 24/7,” writes one defender, who argues that spreading negative sentiment against the company actually “impedes global economic growth.” Even Britain’s Environmental Secretary, Owen Paterson, said organizations fighting the spread of GMOs are “absolutely wicked” and “cast a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world.”

However, golden rice is still mainly theoretical after a decade of research.

ood Sovereignty Ghana warns against the “control of our resources by multinational corporations and other foreign entities,” and the “avaricious calculations behind the proposition that food is just another commodity or component for international agribusiness.”

they call for “collective control over our collective resources.”

ontroversial GM golden rice, which is supposed to pump up Vitamin A levels in regular rice to make it more nutritious, could well be a promising use of technology

But African farmers also have very legitimate concerns about Monsanto’s reputation for investigating, suing, and ruining farmers who try to save GM seeds.

hunger is not caused by a food shortage but by “a lack of purchasing power and/or the inability of the rural poor to be self-sufficient.”

"I was keen to take the collection beyond the obvious. So I looked quite hard at poetry printed in British newspapers in the first weeks of war.

"That has become a deep-rooted part of British culture and it's partly down to the impact the poets of the trenches had after the war - Sassoon and Owen and Graves and the rest. There were no seaborne equivalents."

"We know that Hardy privately had many doubts about the war: he admitted that he couldn't write patriotic poetry very well because he always saw the other side too much. But he felt unable to express his doubts in public.

"But we should resist the temptation to think we always know better than everyone in 1914. "It's easy to mock them in retrospect. We have the enormous advantage of knowing the horror that lay in wait in the four years ahead."

While Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was an indispensable agent of his interests in England, Jasper was his political mentor in the years spent in exile

Henry VI bestowed the English honour of Richmond on Edmund, while the younger brother, Jasper, was endowed with a title and estates in Wales

After the death of Gloucester, and after several mishaps, they recovered favour under the indulgent protection of the young Henry VI

His Welshness was thus of crucial importance in easing Henry's path to the throne, for quite literally no other route was feasible than that which took him through Wales. It was also to be an essential ingredient in the success of Tudor policy in Wales

As a landless exile, Jasper's most common point of con- tact continued to be Wales: most of his incursions during the reign of Edward IV

In the reign of Richard III, as events were to show, Wales and the Marches were the most vulnerable parts of his dominions

Edward IV himself, as a descendant through the Mortimer connection of Llywelyn Fawr (the Great), could be regarded by Guto'r Glyn and Lewis Glyn Cothi as the potential deliverer of the Welsh and the heir to the kings of Britain

He had been a patron of the bards since the 1450s, and was praised as a faithful supporter of Henry VI and as the man who would unite Wales under the Lancastrians.

He predicted a victory for Henry as the last of the triumphant line of Brutus and Cadwalader, kings of the Britons

The route of the march from Milford Haven avoided the south eastern Marches, which were dominated by the lords loyal to Richard III

How Welsh was Henry Tudor? In blood he was a quarter Welsh, a quarter French and half English (or at least Platagenet). In so far as place of birth and residence could determine his nationality, he was certainly Welsh

Nothing daunted, the resourceful author dedicated it instead to King James and his son Prince Henry, whom he addressed as the future Prince of Wales. The adaptation was plausible enough, in all senses of that word, for James, after all, was descended from Henry VII and his forebears, the Welsh Tudors; and with this reminder Holland's readers in Wales could the more readily transfer their loyalty to the Scottish Stuarts

Unless he had been presented at Henry VI's court in his youth (and there is no evidence for this), Henry was a stranger to England before his ar6val at Shrewsbury on August 17th, 1485

In his first proclamation, on August 25th, 1485, Henry announced his titles to be, besides King of England and of France, 'Prince of Wales and lord of Ireland'. This was the first time any King who had not himself been invested with the principality as heir apparent to a reigning monarch had appropriated the title to himself

Whereas letters of denizenship conferred English status upon individuals, charters of privileges were granted between 1504 and 1508 to the ancient principality and five marcher lordships in North Wales, dispensing the inhabitants from various civic disabilities imposed by the penal laws of Henry IV and Henry V

The inhabitants of North Wales were released not only from the prohibitions of Lancastrian penal laws but from those of the Edwardian settlement of 1284, which had excluded the Welsh from the plantation boroughs.

Edward IV had used motifs from the British Legend in his court rituals and had fostered an Arthurian cult in celebration of his own descent from British kings and the princes of Gwynedd

By marrying Elizabeth, Henry thus enhanced his connection with British as well as English kingship, and their son and heir personified both traditions

Richard III had referred disparagingly in two proclamations to the rebel 'Henry Tydder'; this may well have stung, so that the new King was all the more concerned to establish an honourable lineage for his family. A commission of Welsh genealogists was therefore set up to trace his pedigree. Only the report has survived, to show Henry's descent from medieval Welsh and British rulers. However fantastic its remoter claims, there is no sound reason to doubt its authenticity as an official document. Even Sir Edward Coke in his Fourth Institutes of the Laws of England (1644) accepted its validity and gave as his source for the original commission the patent rolls for Henry VII, though no-one else has found any trace of it there. (The great champion of the common law who set such store by precedents was notoriously careless in his scholarship.) Henry did not draw on this pedigree to confirm the legitimacy of his monarchy, only to embellish it. What was important for him was the historical associations with British, rather than Welsh, royalty. That these also proved to be flattering to the Welsh nation was an incidental and inexpensive form of propaganda.

His beneficence was a distinct policy that culminated in Henry VIII's measure of incorporation of 1536-43

This consolidated and elaborated upon a form of administration that had existed in its essentials in the principality of North Wales since Edward I's Statute of Wales of 1284

Owen spoke for his own class of prosperous Protestant gentry, but the very fact that Welsh commentators thought of the extension of English law as a boon and an act of grace ensured the success of Tudor rule in Wales

There was no tacit acknowledgement of their Welsh identity by Henry VII's son and grandchildren – it was something claimed for them by the Welsh

In 1603 Hugh Holland published the first (and only) book of his Pancharis, which related the love between Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois

Henry VI had commissioned both his half-brothers to represent and defend the crown's interests in Wales against the Yorkist enemies, the Vaughans, the Herberts and the Earl of March, later Edward IV.

The family of monarchs who ruled England and Wales from 1485 to 1603 did indeed form a dynasty, but they do not seem to have called themselves the 'Tudor' dynasty: the only con- temporaries who regarded them as such were the Welsh

the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson called on the President to commute the sentences of and pardon all the inmates scheduled for execution; and 23 elected and former prosecutors filed an amicus brief on Wednesday in support of Bernard's appeal due to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

Attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr joined Bernard's legal team late on Thursday and had filed a petition with the Supreme Court requesting to delay the execution for two weeks so they could get up to speed on Bernard's case.

"Brandon's execution is a stain on America's criminal justice system. But I pray that even in his death, Brandon will advance his commitment to helping others by moving us closer to a time when this country does not pointlessly and maliciously kill young Black men who pose no threat to anyone," Bernard's attorney Robert Owens said in a statement.

The court's decision left Trump as Bernard's last hope. The President did not act.Trump was made aware of the case -- and of the calls by celebrities and activists to commute Bernard's sentence -- over the past several days

"the jury heard ample evidence indicating that Bernard did not have a leadership role in the gang -- and was not even a full-fledged member."

Five of the sentencing jurors came forward saying that if they had been aware of the undisclosed information, they would not have agreed to sentence Bernard to death, Owens said.

"The decision to move forward with all these super spreader events in the midst of a pandemic that has already killed a quarter of a million Americans is historically unprecedented," Dunham said.

According to Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson's order denying the preliminary injunction, up to 125 people enter the facility for an execution, including nearly 40 out-of-state Bureau of Prisons employees who are part of the execution team.

Interactions between the execution team and Federal Correctional Center Terre Haute staffers are "extremely limited, and members of the execution team generally do not even enter the FCI or interact with inmates there. Plaintiffs do not interact with inmates on death row or with anyone in the execution facility,"

it exposes the Biggest Lie of the Bush-Cheney administration: that Abu Ghraib was an exception, and not the rule. What was done to suspects in Abu Ghraib was actually less grotesque, less horrifying, and less shocking than what Bush and Cheney ordered the CIA to do to human beings directly.

It shows the horror of terrorism and then the horror of the torture that Cheney illegally used to respond to it.

The movie also depicts waterboarding in a way that destroys the pathetic defense that this wasn't torture, because the tortured were not asked direct questions during it. They were, of course. Torture was followed by interrogation which was followed by more grisly torture. There is no doubt here that what the US did was almost a text-book definition of war crimes.

the simple juxtaposition of terror with torture in the film does not force an obvious conclusion. In some ways, like Spencer, I think it reveals the core truth behind Cheney's armchair warrior mindset. The torture was not for intelligence (and it provided nothing reliable as well as countless leads that were dead ends). It was for revenge.

What the movie also shows - importantly - is the evil of Jihadism, and its fanatical religious roots. It shows the terrorism as well as the torture. The easy view that all of this torture was based on hallucinatory threats is rebutted.

this movie echoes what we are told the Senate Intelligence Committee report concludes. We got bin Laden when we stuck to Western values. When we acted like the Nazis or the Communists, we failed.

It may be that many people watching this movie will actually believe the torture was integral to the end-result. But that will be because they want to see that or because they are as dumb as Owen Gleiberman. It isn't there. And if they want to see that, they will also be forced, at least, to own the barbarism depicted on screen in a way that euphemisms like "sleep deprivation", "stress positions" and "enhanced interrogation" were designed to obscure.

But my view is that Americans were shielded by their government and, disgracefully, their press, into living with barbarism - because Orwellian language was used and propagated to disguise the true evil that was at the heart of the Cheney mindset.

Along a number of divides, whether by race or poverty levels, children tend to live with more segregation than the population at large.

By 2010, income segregation was twice as high among families with children younger than 18 living at home as among households without them. That means that a typical childless household lives among more diverse neighbors from across the economic spectrum than does the typical family with children.

The nationwide phenomenon of rising income segregation is in effect the aggregate outcome of parents who can afford to jockeying for position for their kids

as income inequality has widened over this same time, the rich have more and more money to spend on the real estate arms race to get into wealthy neighborhoods, where everyone else is wealthy, too

rising income inequality hasn't translated into the same residential sorting effect for households without children. That's perhaps because the childless rich — including so-called DINKs — are spending their greater wealth on other luxuries

Given that school quality is embedded in the high cost of housing in many communities

it's also logical that households without children would decline to pay a premium for an amenity they don't plan to use.

Most real estate sites such as Redfin list grades for local schools right on the bottom of each property listing. So it's never been easier to make sure you're buying not only the best home, but also the public schools with the best standardized test scores

"We always think, well, we’re never going to have integrated schools as long as we have such highly segregated neighborhoods," she says. "I want to point out maybe we’ll never have integrated neighborhoods if we have segregated schools."

If we found ways to integrate schools — as former District Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) controversially proposed two years ago — that might take some of the exclusivity out of certain neighborhoods.

Politically, the two topics that most enrage voters are threats to property values and local schools.  So either of these ideas — wielding housing policy to affect schools, or school policy to affect housing — would be tough sells.

At least, she says, we are all now talking more about inequality and segregation.

Trump tempered his tone -- at least temporarily -- with a strong performance at Tuesday's joint address to Congress. The emotional high point of his speech came when he spoke directly to Owens' wife, Carryn, who watched the speech from the first lady's box.

According to the World Health Organization, “lead affects children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.”

The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.

The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency. “The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster,” Weaver said in a declaratory statement. 1 of 11 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × fa fa

The mayor — elected after her predecessor, Dayne Walling, experienced fallout from his administration’s handling of the water problems — said in the statement that she was seeking support from the federal government to deal with the “irreversible” effects of lead exposure on the city’s children. Weaver thinks that these health consequences will lead to a greater need for special education and mental health services, as well as developments in the juvenile justice system.

To those living in Flint, the announcement may feel as if it has been a long time coming. Almost immediately after the city started drawing from the Flint River in April 2014, residents began complaining about the water, which they said was cloudy in appearance and emitted a foul odor.

Since then, complications from the water coming from the Flint River have only piled up. Although city and state officials initially denied that the water was unsafe, the state issued a notice informing Flint residents that their water contained unlawful levels of trihalomethanes, a chlorine byproduct linked to cancer and other diseases.

Protesters marched to City Hall in the fierce Michigan cold, calling for officials to reconnect Flint’s water to the Detroit system. The use of the Flint River was supposed to be temporary, set to end in 2016 after a pipeline to Lake Huron’s Karegnondi Water Authority is finished.

Through continued demonstrations by Flint residents and mounting scientific evidence of the water’s toxins, city and state officials offered various solutions — from asking residents to boil their water to providing them with water filters — in an attempt to work around the need to reconnect to the Detroit system.

That call was finally made by Snyder (R) on Oct. 8. He announced that he had a plan for coming up with the $12 million to switch Flint back to the Detroit system. On Oct. 16, water started flowing again from Detroit to Flint.

beachfront property is not necessarily declining in value. Rather, the studies suggest that more-exposed properties — including properties that have not yet experienced direct flooding — simply are not appreciating as rapidly as their inland neighbors.

A large part of that rise has come in the last 25 years, said Norm Levine, director of the Lowcountry Hazards Center at the College of Charleston. As a result, roughly 1 percent of buildings in the Charleston area are now seeing annual flooding, Levine said. “Our 50-year estimate is that it will be 15 percent of the inventory of buildings.”

Owen Tyler, the managing broker of the Cassina Group, a realty company that sells million-dollar-plus historic homes in Charleston, agrees. Home buyers are asking increasingly savvy questions about flooding, Tyler said, “a dramatic change from three years ago or five years ago.

“I definitely feel like something has changed,” Boineau said when asked about sea level rise and whether flooding in Charleston is getting worse. “And I think that we all have a lot to be concerned about.”

this new set of viral clips busts the myth of Alex Jones, presenting him in a situation he can neither engineer nor spin. He’s a man who has lost control of the narrative. And it’s this performance — more than any ruling from any judge — that poses the greatest threat to the Infowars empire.

perhaps Osborne has done us all a service. In whose interests is this country run? They’re not even pretending any more. Britain is ruled by a never-ending dinner party, marked by limitless self-regard and contempt for those who don’t have a seat at the table

It is a grim spectacle. It is also a threat to our democracy, and it must be called out.

He defended the meeting in a series of now-deleted tweets and wrote,"I wanted to meet with Trump today to discuss multicultural issues ... I feel it is important to have a direct line of communication with our future President if we truly want change.