Karnataka Minister Eshwar Khandre defends HMT land action, says forest land cannot be diverted

Is Mitch McConnell secretly deceased? | Arwa Mahdawi

The senator’s health is shrouded in mystery after he was hospitalized. Why can’t we get a clear answer? This shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer. The response is either “yes”, “no”, or something along the lines of “he’s on life-support but appears to be brain dead.” However, while it may be a straightforward question, nobody close to the Kentucky senator seems keen on delivering a clear answer. On 14 June, the 84-year-old senator was hospitalized for a medical event. According to a new video and eyewitness account, McConnell was loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher after a possible cardiac arrest at his home. On Tuesday, majority leader John Thune’s representative claimed he’d spoken to Mitch the previous day and “[t]hey had a lengthy and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics, including national security.” Senate Republican whip John Barrasso and political commentator Scott Jennings have also said they had 20-minute phone calls with McConnell on important topics. McConnell is retiring from the Senate and his successor will be decided in a November election between Republican congressman Andy Barr and Democrat Charles Booker – with Barr widely favoured to win the seat. This is the guy, don’t forget, who blocked Merrick Garland’s supreme court nomination in 2016 after justice Antonin Scalia because he claimed that a vacancy shouldn’t be filled during a presidential election year. (Translation: he didn’t want Barack Obama nominating a judge.) This is the guy who, four years later, changed his mind about that whole election year rule he was so passionate about and rushed through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as a supreme court judge just eight days before the election. As a Guardian editorial notes, the UAE is playing a key role in fueling the conflict and the west is complicit: “The US and UK voice concern for Sudan, but have studiously ignored the role of the UAE, which has pledged to invest $1.4tn in the US.” Highly recommend this 2019 Guardian interview about Funk’s extraordinary life , including a fun anecdote about her travelling around Europe and Africa in a camper van “with only a poodle and a chipmunk for company”.