Malian authorities ban French TV channel over its coverage of a pro-democracy protest
The High Authority for Communication said in a letter published on Tuesday that it was cutting the signal of French channel TV5 Monde after a news anchor remarked that 'hundreds of security forces were mobilized to prevent demonstrators from accessing' the Palais de la Culture during a May 3 protest.
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Atlantic
10 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Trump Gains When Elites Downplay D.C. Crime
As I listened this week to liberal politicians and journalists wave off talk of Washington, D.C.'s heartbreaking violence as mere Republican demagoguery, I was struck by many progressives' dispiriting inability to talk candidly about the plague of crime afflicting working-class and poor Americans. This denial opens a door for President Donald Trump to speak in a language, however cynical, that resonates with those voters. Responding to Trump's takeover of policing in the nation's capital, Senator Tim Kaine, a liberal Democrat from Virginia, stated this week that crime 'is at a 30-year low in D.C., making these steps a waste of taxpayer dollars.' Although that's true of violent crime in general, the city's murder rate was lower throughout the 2010s. The Guardian acknowledged that 'violent crime is higher in Washington DC than the national average' but reassured readers that the capital is 'not among the most violent large cities in the United States today.' Jim Kessler, a think-tank executive who previously worked as Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer's legislative and policy director, went on Fox News to advise Americans to stifle their fears. 'If people are afraid to come to D.C.,' he said, 'go to Disney World, get fat, eat French fries.' I am loath to defend Trump's takeover of policing in D.C. Reassigning FBI agents as beat cops is a dubious crime-fighting practice, as agents know little of the District's neighborhoods and how to distinguish between the good folks and those who are pure trouble. National Guard soldiers, to state the obvious, have little training in police work. Charles Fain Lehman: Trump is right that D.C. has a serious crime problem And some of the nation's most violent cities— such as Memphis, Cleveland, and Little Rock, Arkansas—are found in pro-Trump states. That doesn't mean the city is safe, or that it's politically wise to dismiss concerns about crime. Trump's opponents this week made much of the fact that homicides in the District fell from 287 in 2023 to 187 in 2024. That improved number in the District is equivalent in per capita terms to 2,244 homicides in New York City. The actual count there last year was 377—slightly more than twice as many homicides as in D.C., but New York has more than 12 times as many people. When I worked for The Washington Post in the late 1990s—not long after the period when D.C. was the nation's murder capital—I reported on the city's tragically high homicide rates. Both then and now, that problem, like so many other aspects of life in Washington, was de facto segregated by race and class. The Post recently published a map of 2024 homicides, with tiny circles for the name and location of everyone who was killed. This becomes clear: To wander the predominately white, upper-middle-class neighborhoods west of Rock Creek Park and the thoroughly gentrified areas of Capitol Hill and the Navy Yard is to pass through neighborhoods with homicide rates closer to Copenhagen's. But across the Anacostia River in the majority-Black Wards 7 and 8, where more than 40 percent of the children live in poverty, reality is far grimmer. More than half of the District's homicides last year occurred in these wards. Four years ago, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform released a report on gun violence in D.C. Well in excess of 90 percent of the victims and suspects were Black males, the report found, 'despite Black residents comprising only 46 percent of the overall population in the District.' Jonathan Chait: Donald Trump doesn't really care about crime When I arrived in Washington in 1996, the Post would print at the beginning of each week a news brief that reduced the preceding weekend's death toll to a terrible agate of victims' names and addresses. What I recall most from that time was talking with young men who had seen friends killed, and some of whom possessed terrifying armaments and body armor. Mothers described to me how they trained their children to roll off their bed and hit the floor at the sound of gunfire. A grieving father told me maybe it was just as well that his son, a drug dealer, had died. 'If he'd made it,' he said, 'the first thing that would have come to his mind was revenge.' The intensity of that bloodletting was not easily explained at the time—and that remains the case today. The D.C. police force still has more officers per capita than New York City or Chicago, and that does not include the federal police forces patrolling Capitol Hill and the parks. Something remains terribly wrong in too many neighborhoods in the District, and no one should dismiss that just because Trump appears to be making cynical use of that misery. I have no doubt that Trump enjoys targeting Democratic-controlled cities for embarrassment. I also have little doubt that a mother in Ward 8 might draw comfort from a National Guard soldier standing watch near her child's school. And I try to imagine having the audacity to insist to her that the homicides and the danger that are her daily reality are somehow a phantasm.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
The Latest: Trump departs for high-stakes meeting with Putin in Alaska
President Donald Trump 's face-to-face high-stakes summit with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday could determine the fate of European security as well as the trajectory of the war in Ukraine. The exclusion of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy already deals a heavy blow to the West's policy of 'nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.' Washington, D.C.'s police department now potentially in open conflict with federal forces over the terms of Trump's takeover of security in the nation's capital, with the DEA administrator now named 'emergency police chief,' a declaration that city leaders say has no basis in law. The attorney general's declaration came after a dispute over how much help police would provide in arresting immigrants. Macron and Zelenskyy huddled ahead of the Alaska summit The office of President Emmanuel Macron says the French leader and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke Thursday and again Friday before the Trump-Putin summit. The two have agreed to meet each other after the U.S.-Russia summit, when 'it will be most useful and effective.' The brief readout of the exchanges didn't detail any specifics of what Macron and Zelenskyy discussed. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are among the Trump administration officials joining the president for his flight to Alaska. Trump will also be accompanied on Air Force One by CIA Director John Ratcliffe and top White House aides, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Monica Crowley, a former Fox News commentator serving as Trump's chief of protocol, also are making the trip. The Washington police department seeks to assure its citizens With the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department potentially in open conflict with the federal government over the terms of Trump's departmental takeover, the police department is looking to address public concerns. 'What's most important for our community to know is that MPD remains committed to delivering high-quality police service and ensuring the safety of everyone in our city,' a Friday morning statement from an MPD spokesperson. The city appears poised to fight back against the federal takeover, particularly Thursday's attempt by Attorney General Pam Bondi to install DEA chief Terry Cole as 'emergency police commissioner.' D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb issued a declaration that Bondi's order was 'unlawful' and the MPD was under no obligation to comply. Trump: 'HIGH STAKES!!!' Trump made his first public comments on the day as he prepares to meet with Putin. 'HIGH STAKES!!!' he posted on Truth Social as his motorcade idled outside the White House shortly after sunrise in Washington. He left the White House for Joint Base Andrews, the home base for Air Force One, at 7:32 a.m. ET. It's a cool and rainy day in Anchorage An early morning rain storm hit Anchorage, Alaska, just before 3 a.m. on Friday, and the streets leading to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson were sopping wet. The temperature was hovering right about 53° F early Friday morning. Media from all over the world have descended on Anchorage for the top-level summit. There was not much activity outside the base's main gate early Friday morning except for media setting up for the day or sending live images back to the networks. Eyeing Texas, California will hold vote on partisan redistricting Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a Nov. 4 special election as the state moves toward redrawing congressional maps in an attempt to pick up five more Democratic seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026. The move is in direct response to a Republican-led effort in Texas pushed by Trump, as his party seeks to maintain its slim House majority after the midterm elections. Judge rules against Trump's efforts to end DEI programs U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland ruled that the Education Department violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with diversity initiatives. The case centers on two Education Department memos ordering schools and universities to end all 'race-based decision-making' or face penalties up to a total loss of federal funding.
The Hill
3 hours ago
- The Hill
Britain's net-zero scheme is being derailed by opposition to solar and wind projects
Britain's plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 won't be derailed by high costs, even though Brits are now paying some of the world's highest residential electricity prices. Nor will the effort be derailed by lack of support from the Labour Party, which has issued a manifesto claiming that Britain will be a ' clean energy superpower.' Instead, the country's net-zero scheme will fail because of the fierce opposition from rural landowners throughout the British Isles. They are telling the owners of proposed solar and wind projects to take their oceans of photovoltaic panels and forests of giant turbines and put them somewhere the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. The proof is in the numbers. Since Jan. 1, there have been nearly four dozen rejections of solar or wind projects in England, Ireland, and Scotland. Among the latest was a rejection last month in Kent, where a planning inspector spiked plans for a massive solar project owned by the French company EDF. The 257-acre project was rejected due to what the planning inspector determined would be a ' significant adverse effect on the receiving landscape.' Also in July, a scheme that aimed to cover 114 acres of prime agricultural land in Scotland with solar panels was rejected by local officials. The project near the town of Coupar Angus had received 44 letters of objection and just one letter in support. I have been tracking the rural backlash against alt-energy projects in the U.S. for 15 years. As the Renewable Rejection Database shows, there have been at least 878 rejections or restrictions of wind and solar projects in the U.S. since 2013, including 82 this year. I am also tracking the international opposition to alt-energy in the Global Renewable Rejection Database. The numbers in the global database show the extent of the local opposition to solar and wind energy in the British Isles. Thus far in 2025, there have been 64 rejections or restrictions of solar or wind projects in countries outside of the U.S. Of that number, 45 have been in England, Ireland, or Scotland. And of that sum, six rejections occurred in July alone. The opposition to these projects is ferocious, and it has been ongoing since at least 2016, when local campaigners defeated a proposal to build a 12-turbine wind project near Scotland's Loch Ness. One of the latest high-profile battles is over the proposed Calderdale Energy project in West Yorkshire. If built, the 300-megawatt plant, promoted by a Saudi outfit called Al Gihaz Holding, would be one of the biggest onshore wind projects in England. The plan calls for 41 massive turbines, standing 200 meters high, to be built amid Walshaw Moor, a region believed to have inspired Emily Brontë's masterpiece, 'Wuthering Heights.' The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has called the project ' entirely inappropriate.' Opponents have already collected over 15,000 signatures calling for the rejection of the giant bird-chopping project. The surging resistance to solar and wind projects in Britain rhymes with what I have seen all over the world. Although climate NGOs, the pro-solar claque, and pro-wind lobbyists try to dismiss rural residents' objections as NIMBYism ('not in my backyard'), the reality is that everyone, everywhere, cares about what happens in their neighborhoods. Over the last 15 years, I have interviewed dozens of people from numerous countries who have fought solar and wind projects. Their concerns are the same. They are rightly concerned about the deleterious health impacts caused by noise pollution from wind turbines. They are concerned the projects will hurt their property values. Numerous studies have shown that wherever solar and wind projects are built, the value of nearby properties tends to fall. They are concerned about their landscapes and viewsheds. They are also worried about wildlife. And increasingly, objections are being made about the destruction of agricultural land. To cite just one example, last year, the provincial government in Alberta announced an 'agriculture first' policy designed to protect Canadian farmland from solar and wind development. The province also created a 70,000 square kilometer buffer zone around the Rocky Mountains to preserve viewsheds from alt-energy development. Despite the never-ending hype about renewable energy, land-use conflicts are a binding constraint on the expansion of solar and wind energy. That's true in England, Ireland, Scotland, and in rural communities worldwide. After watching these fights for years, it is clear to me that the farmers, ranchers, and residents of rural communities are not just going to roll over and take it. They will continue to fight to protect their communities, and the numbers in the Global Renewable Rejection Database will continue to rise.
