Jeremy Corbyn on the road

A reporting team from The Guardian has been on the road with Jeremy Corbyn and provides an inside look at him when he is not in the public eye. One gets the impression of a man who is comfortable in his own skin and knows who he is and what he wants, who becomes uncomfortable only when he feels pressured to answer hypothetical questions for which there really are no good answers. Meanwhile Conservative leader Teresa May has come across as phony and somewhat bumbling.
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Should a racist and homophobe have a tennis stadium named after her?

Tennis great Martina Navratilova has not been shy about speaking her mind and trying to advance the cause of women and the LGBT community. She has now called on Australian authorities to rename the Margaret Court Arena, one of the main courts where the Australian Open is played, because Court is a racist and a homophobe and is thus not worthy of the honor, though there is no denying her tennis accomplishments.
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The consequences of US withdrawal from the Paris accords

Donald Trump has finally made good on his signature campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris climate change accords, a move that has been pretty much condemned by everyone except his die-hard base of climate-change deniers, the US fossil-fuel industry, and those business leaders who see this as yet another step in removing all those pesky restrictions that prevent them from squeezing ever more profits at the expense of people’s lives and the planet’s health.
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What if the laptop ban is imposed on all flights?

Dan Gillmor suggests various things you can do if the Trump administration decides to implement a plan where laptops are banned from carry on luggage on all flights and that may be extended to tablets and cameras as well. One of the things that needs to be overcome is the fact that as soon as your laptop leaves your possession, it can be damaged and its contents vulnerable to theft.
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Using the ‘bureaucratic voice’ to evade responsibility

We are by now drearily familiar with the non-apology apology, where instead of coming right out and saying that one is sorry for an error or for doing something wrong, we get a statement along the lines of “I am sorry if you were offended”, which seems to imply that one is sorry for the effect that one caused on some people (and which subtly implies that it is they were wrong for their silly reaction), rather than acknowledging that what one said or did was wrong.
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When the weapons of war come home

The US is now a country that is permanently at war with other countries. While the countries that are designated as enemies may change, the state of war has become a fixture. Among other things, these wars serve the purpose of being testing grounds for new weapons systems. But what many people who may be sanguine about unleashing firepower on poor people of color in other countries may not realize is that what the US military uses abroad often later becomes tools for local law enforcement. The increasing militarization of local police departments is often the result of the military providing them with surplus equipment that has been superseded my newer ones.
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