First rule of the Trump administration: Every accusation is a confession

My favourite English cathedral:

Gold bugs wanted to find stolen BM treasures before they are melted down or broken up bit.ly/49heqV1 no-one has been charged with their theft though BM is pursuing a civil case against a sacked curator who denies wrongdoing.

Starmer's intervention on single market by far the most interesting line in his BBC interview - intriguing what he means, a Swiss-style deal done sector by sector, more mutual recognition for services - all will come with demands for freer movement of people.

UK should seek ‘closer alignment’ with EU single market, Starmer says ft.trib.al/ZRwzfBP

NEW behind the scenes footage from the set of ‘The Paper’ season 1. Season 2 should begin filming soon: cannot wait for it! 🗞️ In the video Domhnall Gleeson, Melvin Gregg, Duane Shepard Sr, Ramona Young, Eric Rahill, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Chelsea Frei 1/3

Anyone have a sense of why Trump isn’t so outraged that Putin would invade Ukraine? Look out, Taiwan.

Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter (516) 785-5220 3320 Beltagh Avenue , Unit Wantagh, NY 11793 We're still searching for a peaceful adult only forever home for MELIA. She can live with cats. no dogs. She enjoys car rides, walks, playing, running and sitting by your side while getting belly rubs.

Open Window #photography #monochrome #blackandwhite #classicmono #manualfocus #sanfrancisco #street #nikon

Snow under the moon

Tall #Evergreen Trees across a field #Tree #JanuArty #PNW #Photography

Asiatic lily May 16th 2024

Pretty cool www.bbc.com/news/article...

A #HazelTree full of #Lamb’sTails #Catkins this morning, in front of an #Evergreen #Tree #JanuArty #PNW #Photography #RidgefieldWA

Britain and France conducted a joint strike late last night against an underground arms cache in Syria used by Islamic State (IS), the UK defense ministry has said.

1/3/1884 — b. Mary Hamilton Swindler, American archaeologist, classical art scholar, art historian, and professor. A participant in several archaeological excavations worldwide; the first female editor-in-chief of the “American Journal of #Archaeology.” #womenshistory #WomenInSTEM #SciSky #HistSci

Nine and a half years on from the 2016 referendum, @catneilan.bsky.social the Observer looks at the shifting tectonic plates beneath the public post-Brexit arguments. June 23rd 2026 is an interesting symbolic monent for the 2027-29 agenda & post-2029 proposals observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Daylily May 16th 2024

Unbelievable. The bombing of a sovereign nation and the kidnapping of its head of state is clearly the most blatant violation of the UN charter and international law. You have zero legitimacy talking about Ukraine or any other aspect of international law if you can’t condemn it.

La prise de position de Macron n'est pas la voix de la France. Il nous fait honte. Il abandonne le droit international. Jour sombre pour notre pays.

I’ll give you 2 to 1 on “bet gate” and evens on “gamble gate”.

Venezuela wasn’t just a US intervention – it was a stress test. And Starmer's reaction shows how little influence we now have when an ally acts unilaterally.

If Trump gets his way you'd have substandard chicken in the UK food chain but it would also be much cheaper so UK poultry farms - which are built and regulated to those much higher standards - would be royally screwed. It would benefit nobody apart from US farmers.

US chicken is chlorinated because America has no animal welfare laws where poultry is concerned. It has to be chlorinated because Salmonella and e. coli run rife The EU banned that practice in 1997 and as such the UK has among the highest welfare and standards in the world. 1/2

The new transfer of Eyes Wide Shut is completely stunning, and in the service of a deeply rich text. I tried to organize some thoughts about the movie. boxd.it/coS1wR

Sparklers shooting foot-long flames, a ceiling covered in flammable foam and a crowded basement with a narrow staircase exit are some of the avoidable hazards that fire experts, witnesses and an analysis of visual evidence suggest turned a festive bar in a Swiss Alpine resort into a deadly disaster.

Hardly the most important question today but I would be quite amused if the Central and South Americans boycotted the World Cup in the USA this summer

Zelensky on Venezuela: “About Venezuela? How should I respond to that? Well, what can I say? If… If it is possible to act with dictators like this, it means the United States knows what to do next. Thank you” Omg I love it.

Magritte, Empire of Light

Director Fritz Lang’s film noir classic ‘Scarlet Street’ starring Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett opened in theaters in North America 80 years ago this week 💞 🖼️ 💸 #OTD

"𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚠𝚎'𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚞𝚝, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚎 𝚐𝚘 𝚘𝚗 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐."

10 Reform UK policies from Nigel Farage that would clobber Scots - from trade war to net zero t.co/d2NqSkbj4W

Pay no attention to Trump's incoherent rambling. They have not thought through how to expropriate the oil. There is no US oil major that would operate in Venezuela in its current condition.

The cynics think today's attack on Venezuela is staged and transactional. Maduro is allied with Putin, but in 2019 Putin offered Trump a swap: Russia cedes Venezuela and gets Ukraine. (See Fiona Hill's testimony in Trump's first impeachment trial, h/t @davetroy.com). Even Maduro may be in on it. 2/

Birthday sunrise from Glastonbury Tor. It was a beautiful morning with a lava sky to start the day off with. ❤️

🌹 random rose 🌹 May 14th 2024

Makes sense, most who vote for them are also bots.

On this day in 1933, Minnie D. Craig (R) made history when she became Speaker of the North Dakota State House of Representatives. She was the first non-temporary female Speaker of the House in any U.S. state. She held the office until Jan. 8, 1935. Image: State Historical Society of North Dakota.

Putin shows he can invade Ukraine with minimal reprisals. Trump shows he can take over Venezuela with minimal reprisals. It’s like they’re giving the nod to Xi Jinping to have a go?

Great powers have always, to some extent, written the rules for themselves. But this should be a reminder that for all we might lament the “rules based order”, it’s largely gone, if it ever existed. Hard power is the only thing which matters now. Europe needs to wake up to the new realities.

Tree of the Day. Just decided one day to be a bridge too

"his [Trump's] plan appears to be for Venezuela to remain under the day-to-day rule of a senior chavista, with its democratically elected leaders excluded and its wealth controlled by American corporations." www.economist.com/the-americas...

Trump's actions in Venezuela shows why it was wrong to dismiss his threats to Greenland. If he's willing to do this, he will be willing to do anything

"I grew up so thoroughly imbued with women's rights that it was the most important question of my life from a very early day." -- Lucretia Mott, born #OTD 1793

Bit vague from the EU. Neither supporting nor directly criticising (or even mentioning) the US.

Another thing we joked about becoming real. The slow/PR-marketed shut down of public services because we can’t afford them anymore - is happening… www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Meet the new heartthrob- er, Ukrainian defense minister. Ladies ... Mykhailo comes from the drone side of things. Maybe he can take charge of wiping out Russia's railroads.