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Realizing they had a revolution on their hands, the Democratic Party’s wealthy ex-Confederates and newly arrived Northern industrialists swiftly put this cross-racial revolt down. They cut off credit to Populist activists and expelled them from their churches; lynchings spiked. They also patented the timeless rejoinders to “class warfare,” calling the Populists a “communistic ring” and, crucially, as one Alabama publication put it, “nigger lovers and nigger huggers.”

When the white have-nots revolted in successive decades, they appropriated the elite’s racist shibboleths — and took them so much further than the haves ever intended.

And even when the elites were in charge of the racism, they could not always control the monster white supremacy they had created. In Birmingham, the fire hoses and police dogs of Eugene Connor, known as Bull, a city commissioner installed by the “Big Mules,” not only hastened the end of legal segregation but also made his city kryptonite for economic development.

The axiom of unintended consequences is the same today, and explains why populism remains ideologically incoherent: Caught up in feel-good spasms of nativism, the base is willing to overlook the Trump administration’s elite, kleptocratic culture. And the tax-cut-hungry Republican establishment keeps sowing the whirlwind, under the assumption that, in Mr. Kennedy’s words, its base “would rather be poor than not be proud.”

But the Alabama psyche is complex, and Mr. Trump may have misread it at the now legendary rally in Huntsville where he tore into knee-taking black N.F.L. players — many of whom come out of Alabama football programs and therefore, Mr. Kennedy dryly observed, “are family.”

Also important to that redemption narrative is the South’s belated prosecution of civil rights era crimes, and one of its major protagonists is Doug Jones

While his appeal to black voters is self-evident, Mr. Jones is also culturally correct by Southern-white standards, a deer-hunting, bourbon-drinking, “Roll, Tide!” product of a Wallace-supporting household in Birmingham’s steel-mill suburbs, who did well as he did good. He is inarguably less “embarrassing” than Mr. Moore to the polite circles frequented by Mr. Strange

Defiance is now an epidemic as pervasive as opioids, and Alabama has transformed from backwoods to bellwether. While the press plays the defeat of Mr. Trump’s tepidly endorsed candidate as a debate over the prestige of his coattails, the president has swung the sacred trust of his office, the legacy of Lincoln, behind a candidate whose very existence confirms a republic in peril.

Modern Egyptians, by comparison, share much more DNA with sub-Saharan populations.

The findings have turned years of theory on its head

Heat and high humidity in tombs, paired with some of the chemicals involved in mummification, all contribute to DNA degradation

They found that the sample set showed a strong connection with a cluster of ancient non-African populations based east of the Mediterranean Sea

This is not just the DNA of one person. It's the DNA of the parents, grandparents, grandparents' parents, grand-grand-grandparents' parents and so forth

Strict social structures and legal incentives to marry along ethnic lines within these communities may have played a part in the Egyptians' genetic stasis

A lot of people has assumed foreign invaders ... brought a lot of genetic ancestry into the region," Krause said. "People expected that through time, Egypt would become more European, but we see the exact opposite

Modern Egyptians were found to "inherit 8% more ancestry from African ancestors" than the mummies studied. The paper cites increased mobility along the Nile, increased long-distance commerce and the era of the trans-Saharan slave trade as potential reasons why

The team's findings do come with one obvious caveat: "All our genetic data (was) obtained from a single site in Middle Egypt and may not be representative for all of ancient Egypt

"worst in living memory."

"People were fearful they would soon begin to starve,"

Almost half of Bangladeshis are employed in the agriculture sector, with rice as the single most important product

Recent figures from the the Asian Development Bank show that 31.5% of Bangladeshis live below the national poverty line

the world's "potential impact hotspots" threatened by "extreme river floods" due to global rise in temperatures

He’s trying to articulate a language of shared culture and values in a country that has been rocked by technological, cultural, and demographic change. It may be an imperfect attempt. But at least Sasse has identified the right project.

The Vanishing American Adult is written as a reflection on the purpose and nature of education, which, Sasses argues, should extend beyond schooling and classrooms.

Instead of relying on “institutionalized school-centric childhood[s],” Sasse says, families should develop practices that will prepare their kids to become “fully formed, vivacious, appealing, resilient, self-reliant, problem-solving souls who see themselves … called to love and serve their neighbors.”

In a chapter called “Embrace Work Pain,” Sasse encourages families to set their alarms early, maintain a rigorous chore system, and send their kids out to do hard labor; in his case, it was detasseling corn

Sasse holds up multi-generational relationships, world travel, and voracious reading as ways of building greater empathy and self-knowledge.

A large portion of the book is dedicated to forms of stoicism, discipline, and self-denial: “There is almost nothing more important we can do for our young than convince them that production is more satisfying than consumption,” he writes. “Anyone who swims so completely in a sea of material surplus as to be unaware of the virtues of the simple life is flirting with great moral risk.

Citizens who take little interest in books threaten the idea of democracy, which “assume[s] the ability to read—and a desire to read.

Americans have long held the “ideal that work is a necessary component of becoming a fully formed adult, that a life well-lived entails a forward-leaning embrace of responsibility.” The country’s great challenge is “to create lifelong learners and lifelong producers,” he writes.

he believes culture—and the acculturation of the young—is more important than policy.

Americans “are a drifting and aimless people—awash in material goods and yet spiritually aching for meaning.

His proposals are about recovering this sense of meaning and establishing a shared language for talking about it, thickening the civic culture that serves as the foundation of political deliberat

This is an increasingly radical idea. America has largely responded to the challenges of diversity and pluralism by pushing moral language out of public life.

Platforms like Twitter, beloved by Sasse and Trump alike, thrive on outrage, reduction, and snark.

n. Like Rousseau, Sasse sees healthy society as a function of virtuous individuals. The senator is making “a plea for self-discipline and self-control” as “the one and only dignified alternative to discipline and control” by the government.

Austria now tried to form an alliance that would threaten France into submission and stop the eastern rivals from fighting.

e Girondins or Brissotins) who wanted to take pre-emptive action, hoping that war would enable them to oust the king and declare a republic: the king’s failure to surrender to constitutional monarchy left the door open for him to be replaced.

there was terror in Paris. This was largely due to the fear the Prussian army would flatten Paris and slaughter the residents, a fear caused largely by Brunswick’s promise to do just that if the king or his family were harmed or insulted. Unfortunately, Paris had done exactly that: the crowd had killed their way to the king and taken him prisoner and now feared retribution. Massive paranoia and a fear of traitors also fuelled the panic. It caused a massacre in the prisons and over a thousand dead.

First Coalition, which was first between Austria and Prussia but was then joined by Britain and Spain

It would take seven coalitions to permanently end the wars now started. The First Coalition was aimed less at ending the revolution and more on gaining territory, and the French less as exporting revolution than getting a republic. More on the Seven Coalitions

many of the officers had fled the country.

(One opponent of the war was called Robespierre.

France began 1793 in a belligerent mood, executing their old king and declaring war on Britain, Spain, Russia, the Holy Roman Empire, most of Italy and The United Provinces, despite roughly 75% of their commissioned officers having left the army.

The influx of tens of thousands of passionate volunteers helped strengthen the remains of the royal army. However, the Holy Roman Empire decided to go on the offensive and France was now outnumbered

France’s government now declared a ‘Levée en Masse’, which basically mobilised/conscripted all adult males for the defense of the nation. There was uproar, rebellion and a flood of manpower, but both the Committee of Public Safety and the France they ruled had the resources to equip this army, the organization to run it, new tactics to make it effective, and it worked. It also started the first Total War and began the Terror.

The French soldiers were constantly boosted by patriotic propaganda and a huge number of texts sent out to them. France was still producing more soldiers and more equipment than its rivals,

the revolutionary government didn’t dare disband the armies and let these soldiers flood back into France to destabilize the nation, and neither could the faltering French finances support the armies on French soil. The solution was to carry the war abroad, ostensibly to safeguard the revolution, but also to get the glory and booty the government needed for support

However, the success in 1794 had been partly due to war breaking out again in the east, as Austria, Prussia, and Russia sliced up a Poland fighting to survive; it lost, and was taken off the map. Poland had in many ways helped France by distracting and dividing the coalition, and Prussia scaled down war efforts in the west, happy with gains in the east.

Britain was sucking up French colonies, the French navy being unable to work at sea with a devastated officer corps.

France was now able to capture more of the northwest coastline, and conquered and changed Holland

Prussia, satisfied with Polish land, gave up and came to terms, as did a number of other nations, until only Austria and Britain remained at war with France.

At the end of the year, the government in France changed to the Directory and a new constitution.

all aimed at Austria, the only major enemy left on the mainland

The search team used an underwater drone floating 40m (131ft) above the sea bed to scour the area. The wreck was found in more than 300m of water.

an outbreak erupted in the Yuan Empire and may have hastened the end of Mongol rule over China. Three years later, the disease killed over 90 percent of the Hebei Province's populations

with deaths totaling over 5 million people.

From its origin at the eastern end of the Silk Road, the Black Death rode trade routes west stopping at Central Asian caravansaries and Middle Eastern trade centers and subsequently infected people all across Asia.

"The Land of Darkness," or Central Asia. From there, it spread to China, India, the Caspian Sea and "land of the Uzbeks," and thence to Persia and the Mediterranean.

The Central Asian scourge struck Persia just a few years after it appeared in China — proof if any is needed that the Silk Road was a convenient route of transmission for the deadly bacterium.

Civilization both in the East and the West was visited by a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish

The region's population was slow to recover, in part due to the political disruptions caused by the fall of Mongol rule and the later invasions of Timur (Tamerlane).

It seems more likely, however, that traders from further east brought diseased fleas

He goes on to charge that the Mongol leader "ordered corpses to be placed in catapults and lobbed into the city in hopes that the intolerable stench would kill everyone inside."

This incident is often cited as the first instance of biological warfare in history. However, other contemporary chroniclers make no mention of the putative Black Death catapults.

European observers were fascinated but not too worried when the Black Death struck the western rim of Central Asia and the Middle East

, the holy city of Mecca was hit by the plague, likely brought in by infected pilgrims on the hajj.

In 1335, the Il-Khan (Mongol) ruler of Persia and the Middle East, Abu Said, died of bubonic plague during a war with his northern cousins, the Golden Horde. This signaled the beginning of the end for Mongol rule in the region

It swallowed up many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out... Civilization decreased with the decrease of mankind. Cities and buildings were laid waste, roads and way signs were obliterated, settlements and mansions became empty, dynasties and tribes grew weak. The entire inhabited world changed."

Perhaps the most significant impact that the Black Death had on Asia was that it contributed to the fall of the mighty Mongol Empire. After all, the pandemic started within the Mongol Empire and devastated peoples from all four of the khanates.

The massive population loss and terror caused by the plague destabilized Mongolian governments from the Golden Horde in Russia to the Yuan Dynasty in China. The Mongol ruler of the Ilkhanate Empire in the Middle East died of the disease along with six of his sons.

Although the Pax Mongolica had allowed increased wealth and cultural exchange, through a reopening of the Silk Road, it also allowed this deadly contagion to spread rapidly westward from its origin in western China or eastern Central Asia. As a result, the world's second-largest empire ever crumbled and fell.

Referring to the possible North-South dialogue he tweeted: "Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not - we will see."

If the two countries do meet, Hyung Eun Kim from the BBC's Korean service says, they are expected to talk logistics:What route the North might take into the host countryWhether the athletes would come with a cheer-leading squadWhether the two countries would issue a joint declaration

in December 2015 in the Kaesong joint industrial zone, ended without any agreement and the agenda was not made public.

South Korea proposed two bilateral meetings: one focusing on military talks and another that would reunite families separated by the war. Neither happened and instead the North continued to test-fire missiles.

It raises intriguing possibilities in the wake of a year where the drift has been entirely negative: Pyongyang making significant strides in its nuclear and missile programmes Growing external pressure to isolate North Korea Genuine fears that the Trump administration might be on the path to a new conflict on the Korean peninsula

North Korea has participated in the Olympics before, but not in South Korea. It boycotted the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.

Korean Air Flight 858 exploded over the Andaman Sea, killing more than 100 people. A North Korean spy later said Pyongyang had ordered her to plant it to create chaos in South Korea.

Pyeongchang, approximately 180km (110 miles) east of Seoul, will host both the Winter Olympics in February and the Winter Paralympics in March.

The best experts help us find the sweet spot between our gut and our brain by explaining processes, risks, and benefits in ways that we can understand.

Over the summer, hundreds of the same experts who told us not to gather even in small groups—for instance, to sing in a church choir or, more personally, have a small funeral for my brother—made a political exception for gigantic street protests where people held hands and shouted and chanted together.

Early inconstancy about masks and transmissibility confused even well-meaning people who just wanted to know the right answer

we must consider whether we are asking questions that are meaningful and intended to help us reach a decision, or whether we are asking questions to enjoy a temporary sense of empowerment.

We should focus on useful inquiries that are guides to action: Do these vaccines have side effects? If I need two shots, how long can I wait between getting them? How long will immunity last? What can I do after I’m vaccinated?

Sometimes, experts and their institutions fail. But people who believe that medical schools, research institutions, peer review, and lab trials—in other words, the entire structure of modern science—have all failed or become corrupted are beyond the reach of reason, and no expert advice will sway them

We are capable of being serious adults who understand, if we choose to try, and accept that in every crisis, risks and imperfect solutions exist, while still maintaining our faith in expertise and its achievements.

I once worked with a U.S. Navy captain who commanded one of America’s most advanced nuclear submarines. He told me of the wondrous experience of surfacing in the North Atlantic in the middle of the night and standing on top of the conning tower just above the waves, nothing but sea and stars before him in the pitch blackness. He thought it was ecstasy; I became anxious merely imagining it.I asked how he overcame the sense of helplessness and isolation that I felt just hearing his description of the experience. He seemed slightly amused at the question. “You just have to have faith in all that technology under your feet.”

What he meant was that you had to trust that everyone involved in making that submarine had done their job in good faith and to the best of their ability, and that their work was checked and rechecked by people who would want to feel safe putting their own children aboard that tiny sliver of steel in the midst of the great ocean.

I know that dedicated and decent people created such miracles. They have done their part, and I will do mine.

Now, though, the prime minister’s approval ratings have recovered, powered largely by the public’s enthusiasm about the vaccine rollout.

Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed said they thought Britain had performed better on vaccinations than E.U. countries

Significantly, a slight plurality of those surveyed — 40 percent — said they thought Brexit had helped improve Britain’s handling of the pandemic, while 14 percent said it had made it worse, and 38 percent thought it had made no difference.

But Mr. Goodwin said one consequence of the vaccine success is that there are few signs of significant numbers of people rethinking the wisdom of Brexit or suffering the acute regret — or as he called it, “Bregret” — that some expected.

The monthslong shutdown of much of Britain’s economy will also complicate the task of identifying the negative effects of Brexit, since they are likely to be lost in a sea of red ink.

“Brexit doesn’t solve those problems,” Mr. Frost added, “but it does give us means to solve them, to move on, to get a grip but also to reform our attitudes and become a country that can deal with problems again.”

Last October, North Korea displayed its biggest missile yet -- an updated version of the Hwasong-15

Japan, America's most important ally in the Pacific and home to numerous US military bases housing tens of thousands of US personnel, was alarmed.

North Korea has previously demonstrated it has missiles that can reach Japan. In 2017, it tested two ballistic missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Later that year, Pyongyang tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-15, that soared skyward before splashing into waters off the coast of Japan. If it had flown on a standard trajectory, David Wright, an expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it could have traveled 13,000 kilometers (8,100 miles).

"Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, DC, and in fact any part of the continental United States,"

The atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, by the US in 1945 killed 70,000 people with its initial blast, and left tens of thousands of others to die slowly from burns or radiation-related illnesses.

The CFR report notes, however, that as the massive missile displayed at the parade had not yet been tested, its real capabilities remain unknown.

The South Korean Defense Ministry puts Pyongyang's army at 1.28 million people compared to Seoul's 550,000.

North Korea has successfully tested nuclear bombs on six occasions, in 2006, 2009, 2013, twice in 2016 and in 2017, according to the CFR report.

"With each test, North Korea's nuclear explosions have grown in power,"

Ballistic missiles are powered only through the initial stages of their flight, reaching a zenith at some point and then falling from gravity onto their targets.

"We're going to have to learn to live with North Korea's ability to target the United States with nuclear weapons," Jeffrey Lewis, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies, said in the CFR report.

A 2020 white paper from South Korea's Defense Ministry said Pyongyang has 13 missile brigades. At October's military parade, nine missiles were unveiled, including the massive ICBM and a submarine-launch ballistic missile, according to the document.

"North Korea is expected to continue to upgrade its nuclear and missile capabilities in the name of strengthening its self-defense capabilities and mobilize all of its manpower and resources with the aim of improving residents' lives by 2022 when it marks the 110th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's birthday,

Pyongyang's army has developed new multiple-rocket launchers that can hit anywhere in South Korea, Seoul's Defense Ministry said, potentially putting the country's entire population of more than 50 million people in danger.

almost 30,000 US troops are based in South Korea on US military installations that dot the country.

The ballistic missiles Pyongyang tested Thursday -- the second weapons test in less than a week -- were likely of a shorter range variety

North Korea's ground forces can also call on 4,300 tanks, 2,600 armored vehicles and 8,800 artillery pieces

The North's navy has 430 combat ships and 70 submarines.

its air force has 810 combat aircraft.

North Korea's firepower could be brought to bear quickly on Seoul because the South Korean capital is only about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the 38th parallel that divides the Korean Peninsula.

However, regardless of whether Pyongyang ever makes good on its threats, the CFR says the potential for attack can't be ignored. "The (Kim) regime's forward-deployed military position and missiles aimed at Seoul ensure that Pyongyang's conventional capabilities remain a constant threat to its southern neighbor," the CFR report said. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image {background-color:white;background-position:center;background-repeat:no-repeat;width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image.ob-lazy-bgimg{background:none!important;}.AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; 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National parks are warming twice as fast as the rest of the country, said Brengel, the NPCA’s vice-president of government affairs. “We’re seeing the effects, whether it’s invasive species, wildfires, sea level rise or wildlife being pushed out of its usual habitat.”

Haaland is charged with managing natural resources and federal lands that comprise one-fifth of the United States and are responsible for a quarter of the country’s annual carbon emissions.

In its first two months, the Biden administration has started to reverse some of Donald Trump’s most controversial decisions, directing the interior department to review the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments – a step toward restoring their protections – and paused the sale of new oil and gas leases on public lands.

“I think the encouraging thing is they want to do something and they’re being very inclusive,” said David Willms, the senior director for western wildlife with the National Wildlife Federation.

The National Parks Conservation Association hopes to see the department move away from the last administration’s energy dominance agenda, enhance water protections, support more wildlife corridors and expand national park land. And Haaland is the right person for the job, Brengel said.

Through an interpreter, Rida says that he used his share of his family's land to pay his passage to the islands — 2,000 euros ($2,380). But the people smuggler tricked him, taking his money and leaving him stranded.

"They eat in the camp, breakfast lunch and dinner. And us? We're hungry. Hungry and ashamed, because it can't go on like this," he says. Pockets of xenophobia have bubbled here since the crisis began. There have been anti-migrant marches and reports of organized groups attacking Moroccans.

As the Spanish government struggled to accommodate the surge of arrivals, hotels left empty because of the pandemic were used as temporary solution. Now it is opening six new migrant camps for 7,000 people on the islands.

Aday Arbelo, an out-of-work welder from Gran Canaria, is also eating at the soup kitchen. "We're all afraid!" he says. "Every day there's police around here, every day there are fights and robberies." "It's awful. One day this is going to explode because there's no solution at all. The government promises and promises and nobody helps."

Rida wants to earn money for his mom's diabetes medicine. He says the family is poor and there's no future for him in Morocco. He's not alone. Moroccans make up one of the largest immigrant groups in Spain. And according to a recent survey by Arab Barometer, an independent research group, 70% of young citizens consider emigrating due to frustrations over a lack of economic opportunities.

"The main problem is not the migrants arriving but the local authorities and the government," Carlsen adds, "the image they are giving in front of the Canarian people — they feel like they are abandoned."

"Life in Senegal is very hard. There's no work or money," he says. "We're fishermen, and the government has sold the sea to foreign boats. To European boats!"

Cristina Taisma Calderín, a 19-year-old student from Las Palmas, has come to offer food and friendship. "This country is not only for us, they are people!" she says. "They have the right to live well in good conditions. And if other people come, let them come."

Spain's Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has said that the government wants to minimize transfers to the mainland in order to "prevent irregular entry routes into Europe." The center-left government's junior coalition partner, the leftist United We Can party, demanded migrants urgently be allowed to travel, condemning what it considers the "repeated infringement of human rights" in the Canaries.

A spokesperson from Spain's Interior Ministry told NPR that all undocumented migrants without international protection under asylum law face deportation. After the pandemic halted repatriation flights for months, deportations to Morocco, Senegal and Mauritania are now underway.

The changes will amount to a new electoral process with “Hong Kong characteristics,” Wang Chen, a Politburo member who specializes in legal matters, said in a speech.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was returned to Chinese rule in 1997 on the promise that it would be accorded a high degree of autonomy for 50 years. But “Beijing’s full grip on power in Hong Kong may happen well before 2047,” said Diana Fu, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

The government promised economic growth of “over 6 percent,” a relatively modest target by the standards of China’s pre-pandemic expansion but a big turnabout from last year and a signal of its commitment to keeping the world’s second-largest economy humming.

The forecast indicates that China expects a strong rebound after the pandemic brought the country’s economy to a standstill for several months last year.

The spending increases over the past two decades, which have given China the world’s second-largest military budget today, have paid for a modernization and expansion program aimed at challenging American military dominance in the Pacific, especially in the South China Sea and around Taiwan.

Strengthening that message will be a major focus for Mr. Xi as he looks ahead to two important political events. In July, the party will celebrate the centenary of its founding.

As China’s rivalry over science and technology with the United States and other countries remains at a boil, Beijing is digging deep into its pockets in a bid for victory.

Just over a year after the coronavirus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, Beijing also pledged to increase resources to guard against emerging infectious diseases and biosafety risks.

The Communist Party’s latest five-year plan specifically calls for the construction of a “Polar Silk Road,” presumably aimed at helping China better capitalize on new energy sources and faster shipping routes in the Arctic.

China’s military budget is set to rise by around 6.9 percent this year, a slight increase from last year. As overall government spending is projected to decline slightly, the People’s Liberation Army is still being funded robustly.

As countries continue to grapple with the pandemic, the party has doubled down on the message that China’s political model of strong, centralized leadership is superior to the chaos of liberal democracies.

The government addressed concerns about China’s aging population and shrinking labor force by announcing pension reforms and gradual changes to the official retirement age

On Friday, the government announced plans to build a system to support “family development” and strengthen marriage and family counseling services.

“Fully implement the party’s basic policy on religious work,” read a draft of the five-year plan. “Continue to pursue the sinicization of China’s religions and actively guide religions so that they can be compatible with socialist society.”

The Perseverance rover and its little sibling, the Ingenuity helicopter, landed in a cloud of grit on Feb. 18, bristling with antennas and cameras.

The rover will scrutinize the debris chemically and geologically, and take photographs, so that scientists on Earth can search for any signs of ancient fossilization or other patterns that living organisms might have produced.

Perseverance and Ingenuity operate on very long leashes: 12 minutes of light-travel time — and signal delay — across the ether from Pasadena, where their creators and tenders wait to see what they have accomplished lately.

The rocks that return starting in 2031 will be scrutinized for years, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, for what they might say about the hidden history of our lost twin and, perhaps, the earliest days of life in the Solar System.

It could be the destiny of this generation to carry out the next great reconnaissance, to discover if we have or ever had any neighbors on these worlds. In Jezero Crater, the dream lives on. We may not ever live on Mars, but our machines already do.

The pandemic and its restrictions have limited the availability of dockworkers and truck drivers, causing delays in handling cargo from Southern California to Singapore

Economies around the globe are absorbing the ripple effects of the disruption on the seas. Higher costs for transporting American grain and soybeans across the Pacific threaten to increase food prices in Asia.

Empty containers are piled up at ports in Australia and New Zealand; containers are scarce at India’s port of Kolkata, forcing makers of electronics parts to truck their wares more than 1,000 miles west to the port of Mumbai, where the supply is better.

Rice exporters in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia are forgoing some shipments to North America because of the impossibility of securing containers.

Since they were first deployed in 1956, containers have revolutionized trade by allowing goods to be packed into standard size receptacles and hoisted by cranes onto rail cars and trucks — effectively shrinking the globe.

Unlike the financial crisis, when the economic recovery took years to gather force, Chinese factories came roaring back in the second half of 2020, yielding robust demand for shipping.

Viewed broadly, the volume of global trade dipped by only 1 percent in 2020 compared with the previous year. But that doesn’t reflect how the year unfolded — with a plunge of more than 12 percent in April and May, followed by an equally dramatic reversal. The system could not adjust, leaving containers in the wrong places, and pushing shipping prices to extraordinary heights.

Six months ago, he was paying about $2,500 to ship a 40-foot container to California.“We just paid $67,000,” he said. “This is the highest freight rate that I have seen in 45 years in the business.”

Given the prices fetched by containers in Asia, shipping carriers are increasingly unloading in California and then immediately putting empty boxes back on ships for the return leg to Asia, without waiting to load grain or other American exports. That has left companies like Scoular scrambling to secure passage.

The Biden administration has taken office in crisis mode, facing a coronavirus pandemic that it believes requires immediate action—specifically, a new economic stimulus plan that can be in place before supplemental federal unemployment benefits expire on March 14. Once again, there is the prospect that action will be taken entirely, or almost entirely, with Democratic votes, because the gap between what the White House wants and what Republicans think is necessary is yawning.

The grounds for a bipartisan effort in both areas were there in the Trump years, but bitterness over Democratic investigations of the president got in the way.

Two obvious obstacles stand in the way of post-stimulus bipartisanship. The first is that there simply won’t be enough money left. The new coronavirus package is just the latest of a handful of such pandemic plans financed, in effect, with borrowed dollars.

Republicans, having essentially looked the other way at a sea of red ink unleashed in the past four years, now are paying more attention to the rising federal debt load. But so are some Democrats.

Maybe partisanship is inevitable in today’s divisive political climate; maybe it is simply naive to think otherwise. The partisan divides of 2021 aren’t created simply by attitudes but by the changing nature of the Democratic and Republican parties from the ground up

The Democratic party is increasingly racially diverse, female and focused in urban areas along the coast. The Republican party is increasingly male, populated by voters without college degrees and focused in the heartland outside of coastal urban areas.

climate change could pose a threat to where the military operates and its roles and missions – as heavy downpours, drought, rising temperature and sea level as well as repeated forest fires affect where the military trains and fights across the globe