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In the category of: Go f*cking figure…
Satellite images show North Korea upgrading their nuclear facility
New satellite images show North Korea has made rapid improvements to the infrastructure at its Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center — a facility used to produce weapons-grade fissile material, according to an analysis published by 38 North, a prominent North Korea monitoring group.
In the category of: Go f*cking figure again…
As expected, America’s European allies aren’t pleased.
This summit was months in the making. Trump called Putin in March to congratulate him on winning his rigged election (despite Trump’s staff imploring the president not to) and even invited him to meet at the White House.
That led Trump’s aides to scramble to set up a summit with the Russian leader which will now happen in just over the two weeks.
The two men have met before on the sidelines of international gatherings. But this will be the first time Trump and Putin meet without another reason for being in the same room.
There is concern that Trump is putting his desire to grow closer to Putin ahead of the feelings of America’s friends. “I hope that we will see signs that the administration is proceeding cautiously and with consideration for European allies,” Alina Polykova, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution, told me.
In the category of: Deep breathing helps prevent anxiety attacks.
It’s not just abortion: 5 issues likely to be affected by Kennedy’s exit
Major changes could be coming in areas where the relatively moderate Supreme Court justice had been counted as a crucial vote.
If the court picks up a new vote hostile to abortion rights, Roe probably won’t be overturned right away, but the court could be given an opportunity to consider a reversal within years. Kennedy’s exit also seems certain to accelerate the erosion of access to abortion by blessing a series of state laws limiting when and where women can terminate a pregnancy.
Major changes could also be coming in other areas where Kennedy, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, has been counted as a crucial vote on the court, including affirmative action, gay rights, voting rights and the application of the death penalty to minors and the intellectually disabled.
On some issues, like affirmative action, the court’s rulings from prior decades already seemed to be on life support and may now be all but dead if President Donald Trump succeeds in adding another hard-core conservative to the court. But inertia and the court’s aversion to rapid reversals of its precedents could save some 5-4 rulings in which Kennedy carried the day, like the landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
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