Republican Joni Ernst accuses party of cancel culture over Liz Cheney ousting

The only woman in Republican Senate leadership complained about cancel culture on Monday, regarding the imminent removal of Liz Cheney, the only woman in Republican House leadership, because she opposes Donald Trump’s big lie that the presidential election was stolen. The Iowa senator Joni Ernst told reporters: “I feel it’s OK to go ahead and express what you feel is right to express and, you know, cancel culture is cancel culture no matter how you look at it. “Unfortunately, I think there are those that are trying to silence others in the party.”

Larry Hogan decries 'circular firing squad' within GOP

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday the Republican Party experienced its "worst four years we've had, ever" under President Donald Trump, noting the party's losses in both chambers of Congress and the White House. "We've got to get back to winning elections again. And we have to be able to have a Republican Party that appeals to a broader group of people," said Hogan, a Republican, on NBC News' "Meet the Press." "Successful politics is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division."

French soldiers warn of civil war in new letter

A new open letter has been published in France warning of the threat of civil war and claiming to have more than 130,000 signatures from the public. The message, published in a right-wing magazine, accuses the French government of granting "concessions" to Islamism. "It is about the survival of our country," said the text, said to be issued anonymously by soldiers and appealing for public support. The French government condemned it, as well as a similar letter last month. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called the latest letter a "crude manoeuvre" and accused its anonymous signatories of lacking "courage", AFP news agency reported.

 

Train firm’s ‘worker bonus’ email is actually cybersecurity test

A rail union has hit out at a “cynical and shocking stunt” after a train company emailed staff to promise a bonus to workers who had run trains during the pandemic – only to reveal it was in fact a test of their cybersecurity awareness. West Midlands Trains emailed about 2,500 employees with a message saying its managing director, Julian Edwards, wanted to thank them for their hard work over the past year under Covid-19. The email said they would get a one-off payment as a thank you after “huge strain was placed upon a large number of our workforce”.

 

Boris Johnson being investigated over Caribbean holiday

Boris Johnson is under investigation over who paid for his Caribbean holiday with Carrie Symonds during Christmas 2019. The parliamentary standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, confirmed on Monday morning that she was investigating a possible breach of the MPs’ code of conduct. It is the latest allegation of impropriety faced by the prime minister, as the Electoral Commission continues its inquiry into the Conservative party over claims that a loan to cover works to Johnson and Symonds’ Downing Street flat were not properly declared.

German Greens vote to expel city mayor over online racial slur

The leadership of Germany’s high-flying Green party is facing the first test of its authority ahead of national elections in September, after a prominent Green mayor posted a racial slur about a German national footballer on social media. Regional leaders of the party voted at the weekend to expel Boris Palmer, the provocative mayor of Tübingen, over a Facebook post in which he referred to the former Germany international Dennis Aogo as an “awful racist”, in reference to an unsubstantiated anecdote on social media that the footballer, who has a Nigerian father and a German mother, had once bragged about the size of his penis, using the n-word.

 

NACI’s Vaccine Advice Has Reminded Workers They’re Expendable

Vaccine distribution has been horrifically unequal. This is something we’ve known for a while, but the message was further reinforced this week.

Indigenous solar energy project brings jobs, reliable revenue stream to community in Alberta

Pembina Institute reacts to Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s investment in clean electricity

Jenner has hangar pains after Hannity interview

GOP recall candidate Caitlyn Jenner may have played right into Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s hands when she lamented on Fox News that a neighboring private plane owner at her airport hangar is abandoning California because he “can't take” seeing homeless people anymore. It was her plane anecdote that went viral. “The guy right across, he was packing up his hangar,” Jenner said during the sitdown in her own Southern California plane hangar. “And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Ariz. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.'"

Revealed: 46m displaced people excluded from Covid jab programmes

Tens of millions of asylum seekers, migrants, refugees and internally displaced people around the world have been excluded from national Covid-19 vaccination programmes, according to World Health Organization research seen by the Guardian. The gaps mean that a scattered group numbering at least 46 million people, about the size of the population of Spain, may struggle to get vaccinated even if a global shortage of doses eases.