This Italian Town Once Welcomed Migrants. Now, It’s a Symbol for Right-Wing Politics – The New York Times

The explosiveness of the migration issue in Italy is perhaps best seen in Macerata, a medieval town near the Adriatic Coast.CreditDmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times MACERATA, Italy — At the end of his shooting rampage as the police closed in, Luca Traini climbed the steps of a Fascist-era monument, wrapped himself in an…

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Poland’s Supreme Court in Disarray After Judges Defy Purge – The New York Times

WARSAW — Surrounded by cheering supporters, Poland’s top Supreme Court justice took a defiant stand on the courthouse steps here Wednesday morning, hours after the government purged the tribunal. She vowed to keep fighting to protect the Constitution and the independence of the nation’s courts. “I’m doing this to defend the rule of law and…

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How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country – The New York Times

Tori Venable, Tennessee state director of Americans for Prosperity, left, helping volunteers in Nashville prepare for canvassing against a mass-transit proposal. CreditWilliam DeShazer for The New York Times NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A team of political activists huddled at a Hardee’s one rainy Saturday, wolfing down a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Then they descended on…

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Ireland Votes to Legalize Abortion in Blow to Catholic Conservatism – The New York Times

Celebrations at Dublin Castle after the abortion referendum results were announced on Saturday.CreditJeff J Mitchell/Getty Images DUBLIN — Ireland voted decisively to repeal one of the world’s more restrictive abortion bans, the prime minister said Saturday, sweeping aside generations of conservative patriarchy and dealing the latest in a series of stinging rebukes to the Roman…

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‘Brexit’ Fuels Feeling in Scotland That Time Is Right for Independence – The New York Times

A demonstration in Glasgow on Monday, after the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she would seek permission to hold a new referendum on independence. Credit Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images LONDON — Scotland’s nationalists wasted no time: Just minutes after the country’s leader, Nicola Sturgeon, called on Monday for a new independence referendum, a website…

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Europe Is Facing 4 Existential Tests. Can It Hold Together? – The New York Times

Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right leader, center, campaigning in Valkenburg on Saturday. Credit Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press The risk of European disintegration looks significantly more real this week. Multiple crises, each a symptom and cause of the continent’s deepest problems, are converging simultaneously. Britain took a step toward leaving the European Union, and Scotland toward independence….

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Dutch Vote Watched Across Europe With a Finger in the Wind – The New York Times

The last preparations in a polling station at a school in Rotterdam a day before parliamentary elections in the Netherlands. Credit Robin Utrecht/European Pressphoto Agency Elections in the Netherlands on Wednesday are being watched especially closely across Europe and beyond as a key gauge of whether formerly strong barriers to the far right still stand…

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