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MEXICO CITY — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has never been short of criticisms about his predecessor’s legacy. But he has reserved a special contempt for the sweeping overhaul that opened Mexico’s tightly held energy industry to the private sector.

The measure, which was recently approved by Mexico’s Congress with the forceful support of Mr. López Obrador, would also limit the participation of private investors in the energy sector. Both effects are central to his long-held aim of restoring energy self-sufficiency and safeguarding Mexican sovereignty.

Opponents of the legislation say that it would not only fail to resuscitate the energy sector or help achieve energy independence but that it would also violate Mexico’s international commitments to reducing carbon emissions, run afoul of trade agreements and further chill foreign investment in Mexico just as the nation is struggling to regain economic momentum amid the pandemic.

Around the world, almost 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime, according to a new report released by the World Health Organization.

The report, which WHO says is the largest-ever study of the prevalence of violence against women, draws upon data from 161 countries and areas on women and girls age 15 and up collected between 2000 and 2018.

Lockdowns and related restrictions on movement have led to widespread reports of a "shadow pandemic" — a surge in violence against women and girls around the world, as many found themselves trapped at home with their abusers.

China’s rubber stamping parliamentary body has unanimously – bar one abstention and to sustained and loud applause – approved new laws ensuring that only people it deems “patriots” can govern Hong Kong, in a move critics say signals the end of the city’s remaining autonomy.

approved new domestic amendments and budgets, and the 14th five-year-plan, intended to strengthen and expand China’s domestic technology industry and market, and reach new GDP and population targets amid economic uncertainty and declining birth rates.

approved a decision to amend Hong Kong’s mini constitution, the basic law, and the electoral system to ensure that people opposed to the Chinese Communistparty and its rule over Hong Kong are ineligible to sit in the city’s parliament.

The trial of Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, has begun - and Minneapolis looks like a police state

he George Floyd uprising that began in Minneapolis introduced the demand of defunding the police to the general public, empowered Black-led anti-police violence movements across the planet, generated policy changes in cities across the US, and most importantly built new organizations which have the capacity to fight for systemic change for the long haul.

including a move to actually defund the Minneapolis police department

China's legislature has approved a resolution to overhaul Hong Kong's electoral system - its latest move to tighten control over the city.

The "patriots governing Hong Kong" resolution was passed at the National People's Congress (NPC) on Thursday. It will reduce democratic representation and allow a pro-Beijing panel to vet and elect candidates.The former British colony was handed back to China in 1997 under a model called "one country, two systems".Under the deal, which gave the territory freedoms not available in mainland China, Hong Kong also had its own mini-constitution and an elected parliament.The latest Chinese move follows a series of measures that have tightened Beijing's grip on Hong Kong, including the passing of a national security law and a crackdown on activists and opposition politicians.Detailed legislation will now be drafted and could be enacted in Hong Kong within the next few months.

Once again, China is arguing that this reform - with its political loyalty test for candidates - is necessary to ensure stability. But critics will argue it abolishes another fundamental underpinning of the city's special freedoms - the ability to channel dissent through the political process itself.The pro-democracy protests, although sometimes violent, were accompanied by mass popular support with as many as two million taking peacefully to the streets. In late 2019, the democrats won a landslide in Hong Kong's local elections, the city's only truly democratic ballot. That may have spooked Beijing more than barricades and petrol bombs. But is its victory now complete? "It is very sad," the former Democratic Party chairperson Emily Lau told me. "But I insist this doesn't mean the game is over for Hong Kong because the fight will go on."

Back in 2010, then Vice-President Joe Biden used a swear word to emphasise how big a deal he thought congressional passage of sweeping Democrat-backed healthcare reforms was

The bill, due to be signed by Biden on Friday, will not only provide direct payments to most Americans, allocate billions of dollars to Covid research, testing and va

ccine distribution, but also greatly expands welfare for families with children.

st weeks into Joe Biden’s presidency, it is clear that he faces considerable obstacles in pursuing his agenda in Congress. The Senate cloture rule—which requires 60 votes to cut off debate on most measures—is probably the highest hurdle. Democrats’ Senate majority rests on the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, and even the process of organizing the Senate’s committees got bogged down by a debate over whether Democrats would attempt to eliminate the legislative filibuster in the opening weeks of the 117th Congress.

Rather, its emergence was made possible in 1806 when the Senate—at the advice of Vice President Aaron Burr—removed from its rules a provision (formally known as the previous question motion) allowing a simple majority to force a vote on the underlying question being debated.

Filibusters then became a regular feature of Senate activity, both in the run-up to and aftermath of the Civil War. Senate leaders from both parties sought, but failed, to ban the filibuster throughout the 19th century. Opponents would simply filibuster the motion to ban the filibuster.

Looming in the background of this “reform” is Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s conflict with Donald Trump, who pressured him to subvert the election and deliver Trump a victory. What won Raffensperger praise and admiration from Democrats and mainstream observers has apparently doomed his prospects within the Republican Party, where “stop the steal” is dogma and Trump is still the rightful president to many. It is not even clear that Raffensperger will hold office after his term ends in 2023; he must fight off a primary challenge next year from Representative Jody Hice of Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, an outspoken defender of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.

Last Wednesday, for example, Republicans in Michigan introduced bills to limit use of ballot drop boxes, require photo ID for absentee ballots and allow partisan observers to monitor and record all precinct audits. “Senate Republicans are committed to making it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” the State Senate majority leader, Mike Shirkey, said in a statement. Shirkey, you may recall, was one of two Michigan Republican leaders who met with Trump at his behest after the election. He also described the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 as a “hoax.”

One Arizona Republican, John Kavanagh, a state representative, gave a sense of the party’s intent when he told CNN, “Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they’re totally uninformed on the issues.” He continued: “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”

The US Senate is expected to pass a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill in the coming days before it heads to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law. This may seem like a major win for the new administration and congressional Democrats, but it's actually a Pyrrhic victory -- one that they may come to regret in the weeks and months ahead.

Because this is the first major legislative initiative of Biden's presidency, the Democrats' unwillingness to compromise may have poisoned the well when it comes to future bipartisan action.

There's a second reason why Biden and the Democrats erred when they decided to push the spending package forward without bipartisan support: They handed Republicans an opportunity to unite when the prevailing narrative is that the party and the conservative movement, more broadly, are fundamentally divided.

Syria is the world’s war. Here are 10 reasons why 10 years of unending misery and mayhem have harmed everyone:

Estimates of civilian lives lost since March 2011 vary greatly, from about 117,000 to 226,000 – but the vast scale of this modern killing field is indisputable.

Over half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million is displaced, about 6.6 million abroad. Many are trapped in Idlib, in north-west Syria, caught between opposing forces and prey to Islamist militias.

In 1890, Mississippi became one of the first states in the country to call a constitutional convention for the express purpose of writing white supremacy into the DNA of the state.

“As a further precaution to secure unquestioned white supremacy the committee have fixed an arbitrary appointment of the state, which fixes the legislative branch of the government at 130 members and the senatorial branch at 45 members.” The majority of the seats in both branches were “from white constituencies.”

On Feb. 24, the center updated its account to reveal that “as of February 19, 2021, state lawmakers have carried over, prefiled, or introduced 253 bills with provisions that restrict voting access in 43 states.”

New York City’s jails were under such threat from the coronavirus last spring that city officials moved swiftly to let hundreds of people out of the crowded, airless old buildings. The effort shrank the jail population to its lowest point in more than half a century.

There are now more than 5,500 people in the city’s jails, slightly more than were detained last March. About three-quarters of the people being held have not been convicted. Many are awaiting trial much longer than usual, as the court system continues to operate at a near standstill during the pandemic.

Those behind bars are at high risk for contracting and spreading the virus, and correctional facilities have been home to some of the largest outbreaks nationally. Often, those outbreaks have spread into the community at large, as people shuttle in and out of detention. Few of those being detained in New York have been offered vaccines.

A year later, jails are more crowded than they were when the pandemic began. And there has been an increase in infections in recent months that could pose a public health risk even beyond the jail walls.

About three-quarters of the people being held have not been convicted. Many are awaiting trial much longer than usual, as the court system continues to operate at a near standstill during the pandemic.

In lawsuits, prisoners and guards alike have called the living conditions inside unsanitary and dangerous.

Inspired by racial justice protests, the Legislature repealed a law blocking police misconduct records from scrutiny. Now the outcomes of thousands of cases are available online.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea have said that releasing the records would allow the nation’s largest police department to respond to public demands for accountability and transparency by showing it has a strong disciplinary system.

But police reform advocates criticized the administration on Monday for continuing to withhold information about misconduct cases that did not result in a finding or admission of guilt by the officer — the vast majority of the records — even after a federal appeals court made it clear that the city could release them.

With the passage of a deficit-financed $1.9 trillion relief bill just hours away, Democrats in Congress may soon pivot to new agenda items, including President Biden’s Build Back Better plan for infrastructure and other critical investments. And those lawmakers will inevitably face intense pressure from fiscal moderates to include tax “pay fors” in spending legislation. One of the best ways to raise plenty of revenue — and help honest taxpayers — is to effectively battle tax cheats. To do that, though, Mr. Biden and Congress must seize the chance to revamp and restore the federal government’s own infrastructure: the Internal Revenue Service.

That tax gap is projected to total about $7.5 trillion over this decade. Meanwhile, the I.R.S. answered fewer than a quarter of its phone calls from people seeking help with their taxes.

. It would help the overwhelming majority of Americans who want to pay whatever they owe. It would help honest businesses better thrive and compete. And restaffing the I.R.S. through restored funding would help fight corruption and strengthen the rule of law.

In the years prior to taking office, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and many of their administration's top officials harshly criticized President Donald Trump's lack of action against Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Biden is now facing criticism for not following through on campaign promises to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the killing.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday announced visa restrictions that affected 76 Saudis believed to be involved in harassing activists and journalists, but he did not announce any measures against the crown prince.

Last week's virtual summit meeting between President Biden and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico was uninspiring, or at least the speeches were. Far more interesting was what the Mexican and American teams discussed before the presidents met.

Then, on the eve of the event, AMLO announced that he would submit an immigration proposal to the American side, modeled on the Bracero program, which sent millions of Mexican men to work on American farms from World War II until 1964. We don't know exactly what response he got, except for a vague comment from the White House that immigration issues had to go through Congress.

Together with AMLO's initiative, the two proposals are almost identical to the old immigration deal that Presidents Vicente Fox and George W. Bush worked on in 2001 and 2002, and which fell by the wayside after 9/11. They all resemble the bills that Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy attempted to pass as comprehensive immigration reform, in 2006, followed by other refashioned and failed tries in 2007 and 2013, by Bush again and later by President Barack Obama.

But as the current administration works to reverse the actions of its predecessor, it should recognize that former President Donald Trump introduced some policies on medical care and drug price transparency that are worth preserving.

o be clear, the Trump administration, generally, put the health care of many Americans in jeopardy: It spent four years trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act, despite that law’s undeniable successes, and when repeal proved impossible, kneecapped the program in countless ways. As a result of those policies, more than two million people lost health insurance during Mr. Trump’s first three years. And that’s before millions more people lost their jobs and accompanying insurance during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

These master price lists span hundreds of pages and are hard to decipher. Nonetheless, they give consumers a basis to fight back against outrageous charges in a system where a knee replacement can cost $15,000 or $75,000 even at the same hospital.

I view the crime bill as disastrous. It flooded the streets with police officers and contributed to the rise of mass incarceration, which disproportionately impacts Black men and their families. It helped to drain Black communities of fathers, uncles, husbands, partners and sons.

A 2015 New York Times Upshot analysis of 2010 census data found that there were 1.5 million “missing” Black men between the ages of 25 and 54, comparing the totals of Black men and women who were not incarcerated. According to the report: “Using census data, we estimated that about 625,000 prime-age Black men were imprisoned, compared with 45,000 Black women. This gap — of 580,000 — accounts for more than one-third of the overall gap.”

It continued: “It is the result of sharply different incarceration rates for Black men and any other group. The rate for prime-age Black men is 8.2 percent, compared with 1.6 percent for nonblack men, 0.5 percent for Black women and 0.2 percent for nonblack women.”

The United States and NATO, anxious about a major Russian troop buildup on Ukraine’s border, signaled strong support for the Kyiv government on Tuesday.

And in what was considered another message to Moscow, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in Germany on Tuesday that the United States would increase its military presence there by about 500 personnel and that it was scuttling plans introduced under President Donald J. Trump for a large troop reduction in Europe.

“The U.S. stands firmly behind the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told Mr. Kuleba.