onthedarkside

The National Conservatism conference, a loosely Tory party-allied gathering run by a rightwing US thinktank, has spent the past three days hearing from a range of politicians, academics and writers in Westminster. Here are 10 things we have learned so far. 1. NatCon has made a splash in Tory circles The last time the roving conference was in London, in 2019, the extent of its Conservative speakers was perennial backbencher Daniel Kawczynski. This time there were two cabinet ministers – Suella Braverman and Michael Gove – and a series of other Tory MPs, with a resultant boost in media prominence. This is an event, and a set of ideas, that has arrived. READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/17/10-things-we-learned-from-the-uk-natcon-conference

Twenty-seven male South Carolina legislators passed a ban on abortions after six weeks Tuesday, over the objections of all five women in the state Senate—including three Republicans. The ban, which bars abortion before most people know they are pregnant, will now go to the desk of Gov. Henry McMaster (R), who is expected to sign it. It is particularly significant given that South Carolina is the only remaining state in the deep South without a post-Roe restriction on the procedure. READ MORE https://www.thedailybeast.com/male-republican-senators-ignore-women-vote-for-abortion-ban-in-south-carolina

The recent surge of book bans across the United States—driven by political debate over race, gender and sexuality—has not even spared the poem read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. Bob Graham Education Center, a K-8 school in Miami-Dade County, Florida removed Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” from its elementary school shelves after a parent filed a complaint on the grounds that it “is not educational” and contains “indirect hate messages.” The move, however, still allows middle-schoolers to access the book. “I’m gutted,” the 25-year-old Gorman said in a statement posted on social media Tuesday, explaining that “robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.” READ MORE https://time.com/6282208/a-florida-school-has-pulled-the-poem-read-at-joe-bidens-inauguration/

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will announce he is running for president during a discussion with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, three sources familiar with the plans told NBC News. Musk and DeSantis will host an event on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio chats, on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET. It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and DeSantis supporter. That same evening, the campaign will release a launch video, and DeSantis will begin visiting several early states after Memorial Day. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-presidential-bid-campaign-elon-musk-rcna85288

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The IMF on Tuesday delivered a major U-turn on its forecast for the UK economy, saying it expected growth this year, just one month after predicting a contraction. Britain's economy is now predicted to expand by 0.4 percent, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest outlook document which partly cited weaker energy prices. The institution ripped up its previous forecast in April of a 0.3-percent contraction. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/imf-says-uk-economy-grow-101731041.html

CHICAGO — An Illinois attorney general’s office investigation released Tuesday found that 451 Catholic clergy sexually abused nearly 2,000 children in the state over a nearly 70-year period, which was more than four times the 103 individuals the church named when the state began its review in 2018. Attorney General Kwame Raoul said at a news conference that investigators found that Catholic clergy abused 1,997 children in Illinois between 1950 and 2019, though he acknowledged that the statute of limitations has expired in many cases and that those abusers “will never see justice in a legal sense.” “It is my hope that this report will shine light both on those who violated their positions of power and trust to abuse innocent children, and on the men in church leadership who covered up that abuse,” Raoul said, crediting the accusers for making the review possible. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/catholic-clergy-sexually-abused-nearly-2000-kids-illinois-state-finds-rcna85856

A judge on Monday dismissed the only remaining legal claim in Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her loss in last year’s race for Arizona governor, affirming the election of Democrat Katie Hobbs. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Thompson said Lake failed to prove her claim that Maricopa County did not verify signatures on mail ballots as required by law. Lake was among the most vocal of last year’s Republican candidates promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/23/kari-lake-judge-arizona-governor-00098311

Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to make a virtual appearance in New York criminal court on Tuesday for the first time since pleading not guilty last month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump will appear before Judge Juan Merchan in the afternoon to hear the terms of a protective order barring him from publicly disclosing evidence, which the Manhattan district attorney's office will be turning over to his lawyers in the hush money payments case. Prosecutors argued the move was necessary to keep Trump from releasing confidential information in the case and then claim he hadn't been familiar with the terms of the order. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-appear-ny-criminal-case-first-time-arraignment-rcna85589

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Federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents have issued a subpoena for information about Mr. Trump’s business dealings in foreign countries since he took office, according to two people familiar with the matter. It remains unclear precisely what the prosecutors were hoping to find by sending the subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, or when it was issued. But the subpoena suggests that investigators have cast a wider net than previously understood as they scrutinize whether he broke the law in taking sensitive government materials with him upon leaving the White House and then not fully complying with demands for their return. READ MORE https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/us/politics/trump-records-foreign-deals.html No paywall archive link

(GENEVA) — The economic damage of weather- and climate-related disasters continues to rise, even as improvements in early warning have helped reduce the human toll, the U.N. weather agency said Monday. The World Meteorological Organization, in an updated report, tallied nearly 12,000 extreme weather, climate and water-related events over the past half-century around the globe that have killed more than 2 million people and caused economic damage of $4.3 trillion. The stark recap from WMO came as it opened its four-yearly congress among member countries, pressing the message that more needs to be done to improve alert systems for extreme weather events by a target date of 2027. READ MORE https://time.com/6281653/un-report-extreme-weather-climate-impact/ No paywall archive link

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Federal prosecutors have evidence Donald Trump was put on notice that he could not retain any classified documents after he was subpoenaed for their return last year, as they examine whether the subsequent failure to fully comply with the subpoena was a deliberate act of obstruction by the former president. The previously unreported warning conveyed to Trump by his lawyer Evan Corcoran could be significant in the criminal investigation surrounding Trump’s handling of classified materials given it shows he knew about his subpoena obligations. Last June, Corcoran found roughly 40 classified documents in the storage room at Mar-a-Lago and told the justice department that no further materials remained at the property. READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/22/trump-warning-classified-documents-mar-a-lago

Immigration has long been a heated topic in the UK's political discourse, no more so perhaps than within the Conservative Party. And while there is much analysis of the pros and cons of people coming in and out of the country, the hard numbers have remained the benchmark that many Tories use to determine the performance of their leader on the issue. Sky News has taken a look at the history of the statistics, the promises and the policies within the party ahead of the latest net migration figure dropping this week. READ MORE https://news.sky.com/story/net-migration-the-history-of-turmoil-within-the-tories-since-camerons-tens-of-thousands-pledge-12882189

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