The U.K. stands at its most dangerous crossroads in decades after Parliament emphatically rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal and left her facing an uncomfortable vote to oust her government. The humiliating defeat on Tuesday evening, the biggest for any government in modern history, leaves May’s divorce agreement with the European Union all but dead and…
John Bercow has rejected the two key Brexit amendments that could have helped May avoid a huge defeat tonight. The Murrison and Swire amendments were designed to assuage some of the fears of Brexiteers about the Northern Ireland backstop, but neither have been selected by the Speaker, ostensibly because they lack sufficient support from backbenchers.…
THERESA MAY will go to the House of Commons on January 15th expecting defeat. The prime minister’s Brexit deal, hammered out during more than a year and a half of talks in Brussels, has been attacked on all sides of the House. The Labour opposition says it could get a better deal. The Scottish Nationalists…
In the darker corners of the Internet, you can now find celebrities like Emma Watson and Selma Hayek performing in pornographic videos. The clips are fake, of course—but it’s distressingly hard to tell. Recent improvements in artificial intelligence software have made it surprisingly easy to graft the heads of stars, and ordinary women, to the…
Earnings season is always a crucial time for stock investors. It gives them a rare peek inside the companies whose shares they own. And perhaps most important, it's a chance for them to take advantage of bigger-than-usual price swings. But the reporting period getting underway this week is carrying extra importance. In fact — given…
SPARE A THOUGHT for emerging markets. When America’s economy falters, they often share the pain, because America is an indispensable market for their goods. But when America’s economy prospers, they can also suffer, because the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, lessening demand for emerging-market assets. Get our daily newsletterUpgrade your inbox and get our…
Think you’re likely to die in a plane crash or train wreck? Think again. According to a new report on preventable deaths from the National Safety Council, Americans are more likely to die from an accidental opioid overdose than either of these outcomes — and it’s even more likely than a motor vehicle accident or…
In pushing for a wall between on the US-Mexico border, President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to portray undocumented immigrants as a cause of US crime. The latest effort came in a series of tweets over the weekend, including one on Sunday in which the president said thousands of undocumented immigrants "who have committed sexual…
HUNDREDS OF WORKERS and their families pressed through the iron gates of a factory that knocks out trainers in Rawalpindi towards the end of last year. In the alleyway behind it the factory-owner was dishing out biryani. It was the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. Children flocked around great steaming pots, as employees replaced those emptied with…
Last week’s column admonished IBM’s The Weather Company for being unclear about the way The Weather Channel app, its weather forecasting service, uses people’s location data. The infraction seems meager in comparison to the abuses that plague location aggregator services—and their downstream clients—which source data from mobile carriers. These aggregators, barnacles of the telecom industry,…
