As well as its Vichy connections, the name was also used for a party created by Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, an extreme-right lawyer who stood in the 1965 presidential election. Tixier-Vignancour’s election campaign was run by Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father and the FN leader from 1972 to 2011.

The conference approved a change of FN rules that stripped Jean-Marie Le Pen of his title as honorary president. He was thrown out of the party in 2015 after repeating antisemitic and racist comments for which he is notorious, but appealed against the decision. A court confirmed his expulsion last month.

The appearance of Bannon at the conference divided FN supporters. Gilbert Collard, an FN veteran, said inviting Bannon was counterproductive. “We might try to avoid giving ammunition to our enemies that they can use dishonestly against us,” he said.

At least two British-Iranian citizens are known to be held in Iran, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the parent company of Reuters, whose case was taken up by the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, during a visit to Iran in December.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals since 2015, mostly on spying charges, Reuters reported in November.

“This could destroy China and the Chinese people. So I cannot stay silent. I have to let them know that there are people against it, and to do so publicly,” protested Li Datong, a retired newspaper editor who became the face of liberal opposition to Xi’s power grab when he published a combative open letter attacking the move.

“The stakes could not be any higher; renewed hostility among political rivals and the repression of political dissent puts China at risk of repeating the tragedies of the Mao era,” Huang added.

“If somehow there is a weakness to be found, I think that his enemies will circle and go in for the kill. That’s the greatest danger to him at this point,” Economy said.

For those who opposed Xi and his crackdown on human rights and dissent it boded ill, she said. “I think it’s very bleak, the outlook politically.”

somehow we’ve reached a point where any behavior short of violent predation – let’s call it the “not as bad as Weinstein” standard – is characterized as misunderstood seduction.

There’s a reason so many people are conflating bad and sometimes criminal behavior with romance: traditional ideas about seduction rely on tropes of women witholding sex and men working hard to get it. It’s a narrow notion of heterosexuality – one that does a good job excusing abusive behavior.

When will we have more concern for the women hurt by abuse than the men accused of it? One of Roy Moore’s accusers had her house burnt to the ground – arson is suspected. Harper’s magazine was on the brink of publishing the name of a woman who created the Shitty Media Men list before a feminist Twitter campaign stopped it. Some women won’t see justice for years, some ever. This moment isn’t about romance, it’s about abuse. Perhaps the fact that so many people can’t tell the difference is part of the problem.

You see, “I believe women,” is really more of a sentiment than a fact, which is why you see so many men willing to say it out loud all the time.   I’m always out there talking about how much I love and respect women, reminding people that I listen to women and telling women what an incredible ally I am. I’m one of the best allies I know. I guess sometimes women do lie – like when they say they don’t want to have sex me. Those women are also lying! I mean, look at me!

A bill in California could make medication abortion available at colleges, a move that would be tremendous for the pro-choice movement and for students in desperate need of increased access.

If you’re one of those people who frets about our democracy being in serious danger, I contend that the above passages from the Post’s report should push your panic meter deep into the red. This is the reason why: we have here a former spokesman for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, one of the best-funded, most consummately professional efforts of all time, and he thinks it was an act of off-the-hook perceptiveness to figure out that Trump was aiming for disgruntled Sanders voters. Even after Trump himself openly said that’s what he was trying to do.

Its extremely modest price tag guarantees it, as does the liberals’ determination to exaggerate its giant-slaying powers. This is rightwing populism’s next wave, and in an oligarchic world, every American plutocrat will soon be fielding his or her own perfectly legal troll army. Those of us who believe in democracy need to stop panicking and start thinking bigger: of how rightwing populism can be undone forever.

And if you’ve never had to fight for the lives of people you love – or felt that your own life is imminently in danger – then you may be inclined to do nothing and uphold the status quo. But when death has come through great injustice, mourning through a militancy aimed at stopping similarly unjust deaths is not just healthy, but righteous and ethical. Mourning through militancy is one of the more noble sides of America’s history.

A critic of the war on drugs, he’s for legalizing pot and banning assault weapons. A graduate of Columbia University in New York, he performed for a time in a punk band. But Texas likes quirky politicians and O’Rourke defeated an entrenched incumbent in a primary in 2012, the same year Texas sent Cruz, now 47, to the Senate.

Besides Cruz’s personal unpopularity, there is Trump’s unpopularity affecting the mood in Texas. According to the Washington Post, Gallup’s 2017 year-long average found Trump’s job approval rating at 39% among Texas adults.

It’s easy to look at what’s happening in Washington DC and despair. That’s why I carry a little plastic Obama doll in my purse. I pull him out every now and then to remind myself that the United States had a progressive, African American president until very recently. Some people find this strange, but you have to take comfort where you can find it in Donald Trump’s America.

Gender pay reporting – mandatory from this year for every organisation with more than 250 employees – is an important step forwards. Without transparency, discrimination remains hidden. But it is not enough. We need to encourage men to play a greater role in family life, for example by giving all men a longer period of “use it or lose it” paternity leave in the first year of their child’s life. We need to ensure that opting to work part-time does not result in women choking off their career progression. And we need to ensure that more women pursue careers in highly paid industries, while improving pay and working conditions in female-dominated jobs such as caring and cleaning.

The last 50 years have shown that there is a long way to go before we achieve what is “self-evidently just and right” for women. It will require radical cultural and social reforms, from eradicating the effects of implicit bias to creating a society in which it is possible for mothers and fathers to share their caring responsibilities equally. Only then will gender equality truly become a reality.

A successful peace initiative will need to involve them all, as complex as that will be; a simple deal bearing no relation to realities cannot hold. It will also require persuading Riyadh to be clearer and more realistic about its aims. Britain’s shameful role in Yemen gives it an extra duty to press that case. But for now it seems more focused on security and promoting Typhoon sales.

Though our current president is a uniquely polarizing figure, the principle at stake has nothing to do with political ideology. The impact of this ruling will apply to all government officials – Democratic, Republican and otherwise – who have chosen to use social media as an instrument of governing.

Other politicians also understand that, absent a legal prohibition, they can manipulate social media to make themselves seem more popular by quietly suppressing the speech of their critics

These words resonate even today. He of course knew a world of men orating to a few thousand fellow Greeks. He could never have imagined that same person in front of a screen, logged in to social media, but wrestling with the very same ideas of justice and fairness, war and peace, right and wrong with more than 200 million fellow citizens in a country nearly 3,000 miles wide.

But suppose he were asked to decide tomorrow’s case – is there any doubt whether he would grant them the very same right to speak and be heard on the most important issues of the day?

And while the flow of drugs from the east traditionally went through Slovak territory, low-cost tourism opened up Bratislava to a younger, affluent market. Unprepared for the influx of cash-paying tourists, the city’s hotels and restaurants, prostitution and gambling rings – as well as the drugs trade on the streets – were being run by organised crime cartels.

n recent years the mafia has preferred to destroy journalists’ reputations rather than resort to murder. If this was a mafia execution, it suggests that whatever information Kuciak had uncovered was so big it warranted his being silenced, whatever the cost. A killing like this would carry a high price in terms of police crackdowns and media attention, both of which would make it harder for the mafia to do business. But they will have decided that the sacrifice was necessary to protect more important, perhaps longer-term, interests. The execution of Kuciak also sends a message to others: “none of you is invulnerable”.

The murder of Kuciak, a courageous young reporter doing his job, caused an outpouring of shock and international coverage. But nothing was done to protect him when he was alive – and this is the real scandal. Journalists are isolated, exposed, dragged through the courts accused of defamation, or sued for libel, like Daphne Caruana Galizia. In Europe, as in Latin America, the only journalist offered unconditional support is a dead one.

The question is what liability gun manufacturers or sellers have in making, marketing a selling a product that kills thousands every year, and whether, for example, they are negligent in selling weapons, like the AR-15, that many argue have no place outside of a combat zone and are predictable weapons of mass death.

And yet they seem awfully nervous about having to defend themselves in court. Yes, lawsuits are expensive and time-consuming, but gun manufacturers aren’t exactly vulnerable little guys. The American legal system has mechanisms in place for tossing out baseless lawsuits, and surely some brought against gun makers and sellers will be summarily tossed.

We don’t know a whole lot about how the gun industry deals with the violence, death and destruction its products bring about because the whole industry operates under a Congress-approved veil of secrecy. We do know that victims have been unjustly stymied, denied even the chance to have their voices heard in court. No good happens in the shadows, and no industry does the right thing if it’s permitted to operate partly outside of the law. Getting rid of the PLCAA won’t end gun violence. But it would let victims be heard, and it would bring a little transparency to the shadowy, coddled gun industry.

This #TimesUp/#MeToo moment is no different; it is a revolt for which we have been preparing for decades, or perhaps it’s the point at which a long, slow, mostly quiet process suddenly became fast and loud. Part of the work was done over the past five years, more of it over the past 50. We have had a tremendous upheaval over the past few years – at the end of 2014, I wrote in these pages: “I have been waiting all my life for what this year has brought.” What this wave brought is recognition that each act of gender violence is part of an epidemic. It’s brought a (partial) end to treating these acts as isolated incidents, as the victim’s fault, as the result of mental illness or other aberrations. It’s meant a more widespread willingness to recognise that such violence is extraordinarily common and has an enormous impact, and arises from values, privileges and attitudes built into the culture.

But even the “we” has changed and I believe that that is central to why so much else has changed. Who determines what stories get told, who gets believed, whose words have weight, who’s in charge has changed. (Black Lives Matter was another movement to shift what is visible, whose version is heard, who matters.) We have not lost the proponents of the old worldview, in which men’s lives matter more and their words have more credibility, but we have gained people who don’t operate by those rules. Feminists have slowly, steadily gained power – and by feminists I mean everyone of whatever gender who thinks first that women deserve full equality and second that systematic misogyny remains a grave problem.

We are going to return to a phase in which change happens slowly and subtly enough that it is invisible to most people, though not to the people who take the long view and those who drive the change or who benefit from one small change in their home or workplace or relationship. And then the slow changes will reach a point at which there will be another rupture.

Imagine how quickly we could begin to deal with gun control, if all pre-school employees, teachers and staff walked out and went on an indefinite strike – and the large majority of supporters, according to most polls, joined them.

This kind of resistance does not allow onlookers to look away, especially in an age of social media. It brings the story to those who have refused to read it. It forces everyone to take part in the national discussion, and engage in the still small possibility of justice.

So why did Trump do it? The reasons are obvious. First reason: politics. It’s March of Trump’s midterm election year. He needs to be able to say he’s delivered on his promises to American workers. Now he can say that. Second reason: politics. There is a special election in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday, and it’s widely believed that the Republican candidate is weak, in a district Trump carried by 20 points. The tariff announcement can’t hurt with that one.

Of course in the White House, all this just makes the president laugh. He’s looking at his poll numbers; confident they’ll go up; the midterms are coming into focus and things are right on track.

Targeting financial dealings, including alleged money laundering, might be a more promising avenue. But if the Kremlin really is to blame for this latest outrage, the best response is also the simplest: charge Putin with attempted murder.

For those new to the North Korean brief, including those in the West Wing, it’s worth pointing out that the North Korean deal during the Clinton years was supposed to halt nuclearization. Then it turned out Pyongyang had a secret nuclear program.

In case we didn’t get the news, he continued: “I would not rule out direct talks with Kim Jong-un,” he said. “I just won’t. As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine.” Some people thought he was joking: others were just plain confused. South Korean officials later pointed out that Trump had not talked to the North Koreans, but instead had talked to them. So foreign policy experts naturally assumed that Trump had confused the two Koreas.

Needless to say, Trump is very pleased with this state of affairs. “Kim Jong-un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean representatives, not just a freeze,” he tweeted. “Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached.”

It’s like a diplomatic version of the Art of the Deal, but with war and peace in place of luxury condominiums.

There was a time when an idealistic new president campaigned against the establishment, promised to talk to America’s adversaries, like the mullahs in Iran and the communists in Cuba. For years the Republicans ran the emotional gamut from disdain to disgust at his weak foreign policy. But that president’s name was Barack Obama, and we all know what the world thought of him. Now we have a president in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, who is also busting sanctions to help Kim Jong-un. So this summit is less a meeting of adversaries and more a get-together of subsidiaries. Nationalists of the World, unite! You have nothing to lose but your shame.