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This morning I woke up with a hangover softly pulsing in my left temple.

 I took a quick inventory: Last night I went from happy-hour drinks with a former colleague (two glasses of rosé— or was it three?), then to dinner with a friend (another glass of rosé), then to a nightcap with another friend (a beer).

 I don’t make a habit of bar-crawling on weekday nights the way I did when I was in my 20s and working in D.C. Now I live in Los Angeles, where I’m a freelancer whose meetings mostly take place over coffee and whose friends are more likely to suggest we go for a hike than a cocktail. And so when I do end up having more than a single glass of wine with dinner, I don’t beat myself up about it.

 But this morning was different. When I felt the twinge of a hangover, I immediately thought of an essay that I — and, judging by Facebook and Twitter, almost every woman I know — read recently. In it, writer Kristi Coulter makes a deft and passionate argument that modern women drink to excess to escape the realities of living in a still-too-sexist world. “I see that booze is the oil in our motors, the thing that keeps us purring when we should be making other kinds of noise,” writes Coulter, who is now sober.

 Coulter describes blowing off steam after serving on a sexist panel at work by drinking Manhattans and eating some expensive tapas with her female friends. She calls out women she knows for inserting alcohol into every social scenario, from a morning walk through the farmers market to a trip to the waxing salon. “Maybe all that wine is an Instagram filter for our own lives, so we don’t see how sallow and cracked they’ve become,” she writes.

 Her essay is getting a lot of attention because it’s incredibly well-written and because it does what all compelling trend stories do: It helps us notice something that is ubiquitous in our lives and draws some firm conclusions about the deeper significance. Naturally, Coulter’s firm conclusion — that women drink to cope with the pressures of living in a sexist society — has attracted some critics. In Slate, Nora Caplan-Bricker counters that “many men also spend their free time floating away from their problems on a river of booze. They don’t strike me as participants in an unrelated phenomenon.” We are all depleted by the demands of our lives, she writes. In other words, blame capitalism, perhaps, but not the patriarchy.

 I don’t think Coulter is entirely wrong. But it’s also impossible to prove that she’s right. Like most women who call themselves feminists, I know that living in a sexist world shapes my life and choices. It’s probably why I feel “cleaner” with shaved legs and like to wear bright lipstick. In one specific instance, I’m pretty sure it’s why I was denied a promotion. In most cases, though, when it comes to decisions I make, it’s difficult to separate what is and isn’t related to the patriarchy. Do I feel more powerful with short hair because of the patriarchy? Do I pick my cuticles when I get nervous because of the patriarchy? Do I have a distant relationship with my mom because of the patriarchy? Did I get drunk last night because of the patriarchy? Who knows.

 Women are also shaped by the culture we consume, which muddies the waters even more. Think Olivia Pope, the “Scandal” protagonist who self-medicates with red wine. (And always while wearing a white sweater, sitting on a white couch, never spilling a drop. It’s a perfect visual metaphor for Olivia’s need to be perfect in order to counter the twin demons of sexism and racism.) And Coulter mentions the women of “Sex and the City,” whose “f— it, let’s get cosmos” attitude is ancient pop culture history by this point. Women have a lot of models for booze as both a coping mechanism and a bonding tool. Are these shows merely reflecting real women’s propensity to drink to cope with patriarchy? Or, in drinking so much, are real women reflecting what we’ve seen so often in movies and on TV? I don’t know.

 What I do know is that I don’t share Coulter’s experience of having my female friends insist that all social interactions be lubricated with alcohol — again, I live in Los Angeles, where there are always at least a few drivers in the group who aren’t drinking. But she did make me sit up and take note of the way wine is coded as part of bonding among women of my socioeconomic status. On the podcast I co-host with my friend Aminatou Sow, we are often drinking wine as we record. Some episodes even feature the “glug, glug” noise of us refilling our glasses. In our online store, we sell a portable wine tumbler branded with our podcast logo. We also discuss the patriarchy a lot. I’d never considered that the two things might be related.

 Even if they are, I’m not sure that’s such a terrible thing. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never had a drug or alcohol problem, but for me, drinking with other women isn’t just coping or complacency. It’s often about plotting. Sometimes, a few glasses of wine with friends is what helps me connect my outrage with a plan of action. Under the influence of alcohol, I’ve decided to dump a dude who wasn’t treating me right, committed to revamping my career and, honestly, had a lot of fun. Perhaps some women who drink together are victims of groupthink and ignoring their problems. But I associate it with forming deep bonds. And maybe alcohol keeps some women silent. For others — myself included — it can embolden us to say what we were too afraid to say when we were sober. Drinking together does not always mean screeching and splashing in the shallow end of the hotel pool.

 Maybe patriarchy does drive us to drink, just as patriarchy drives us to shave our legs and wear bright lipstick. Or maybe it doesn’t, and we get drunk for the same reasons that men do. Either way, I’m less concerned about what draws women together over a bottle of wine, and more interested in what we do once we get there. Coulter writes, “Work is hard and there’s still no good way to be a girl and I don’t know what to do with my life and I have to actually deal with all of that.”

 I have a good idea about where to start. Let’s plot a revolution together. I’ll bring the wine — but don’t worry, you don’t need to drink if that’s not your thing.

 Correction: This piece initially stated that writer Kristi Coulter described drinking half a dozen Manhattans with her friends. In fact, Coulter merely described drinking an unspecified number of “rye Manhattans.” ||||| I’m newly sober and dog-paddling through the booze all around me. It’s summer, and Whole Foods has planted rosé throughout the store. Rosé is great with fish! And strawberries! And vegan protein powder! (Okay, I made that last one up.) At the office, every desk near mine has a bottle of wine or liquor on it in case people are too lazy to walk the 50 feet to one of the well-stocked communal bars we’ve built on our floor. Driving home from work, I pass billboard ads for Fluffed Marshmallow Smirnoff and Iced Cake Smirnoff and not just Cinnamon, but Cinnamon Churros Smirnoff. A local pharmacy, the same one that fucks up my prescription three months in a row, installs self-service beer taps and young men line up with their empty growlers all the way back to Eye & Ear Care.

 Traveling for work, I steel myself for the company-sponsored wine tasting. Skipping it is not an option. My plan is to work the room with my soda and lime, make sure I’m seen by the five people who care about these things, and leave before things get sloppy (which they always do). Six wines and four beers are on display at the catering stand. I ask for club soda and get a blank look. Just water, then? The bartender grimaces apologetically. “I think there’s a water fountain in the lobby?” she says.

 There is. But it’s broken. I mingle empty-handed for 15 minutes, fending off well-meaning offers to get me something from the bar. After the fifth, I realize I’m going to cry if one more person offers me alcohol. I leave and cry anyway. Later I order vanilla ice cream from room service to cheer myself up.

 “People love this with a shot of bourbon poured over it,” the person taking my order says. “Any interest in treating yourself?”

 ***

 That’s the summer I realize that everyone around me is tanked. But it also dawns on me that the women are super double tanked — that to be a modern, urbane woman means to be a serious drinker. This isn’t a new idea — just ask the Sex and the City girls (or the flappers). A woman with a single malt scotch is bold and discerning and might fire you from her life if you fuck with her. A woman with a PBR is a Cool Girl who will not be shamed for belching. A woman drinking MommyJuice wine is saying she’s more than the unpaid labor she gave birth to. The things women drink are signifiers for free time and self-care and conversation — you know, luxuries we can’t afford. How did you not see this before? I ask myself. You were too hammered, I answer back. That summer I see, though. I see that booze is the oil in our motors, the thing that keeps us purring when we should be making other kinds of noise.

 ***

 One day that summer I’m wearing unwise (but cute, so cute) shoes and trip at the farmer’s market, cracking my phone, blood-staining the knees of my favorite jeans, and scraping both my palms. Naturally, I post about it on Facebook as soon as I’ve dusted myself off. Three women who don’t know I’m sober comment quickly:

 “Wine. Immediately.”

 “Do they sell wine there?”

 “Definitely wine. And maybe new shoes.”

 Have I mentioned that it’s morning when this happens? On a weekday? This isn’t one of those nightclub farmer’s markets. And the women aren’t the kind of beleaguered, downtrodden creatures you imagine drinking to get through the day. They’re pretty cool chicks, the kind people ridicule for having First World Problems. Why do they need to drink?

 Well, maybe because even cool chicks are still women. And there’s no easy way to be a woman, because, as you may have noticed, there’s no acceptable way to be a woman. And if there’s no acceptable way to be the thing you are, then maybe you drink a little. Or a lot.

 ***

 The year before I get sober, I’m asked to be The Woman on a panel at the company where I work. (That was literally the pitch: “We need one woman.”) Three guys and me, talking to summer interns about company culture. There are two female interns in the audience, and when it’s time for questions, one says:

 “I’ve heard this can be a tough place for women to succeed. Can you talk about what it’s been like for you?”

 As The Woman, I assume for some reason that the question is directed at me. “If you’re tough and persistent and thick-skinned, you’ll find your way,” I say. “I have.”

 I don’t say she’ll have to work around interruptions and invisibility and micro-aggressions and a scarcity of role models and a lifetime of her own conditioning. My job on this panel is to make this place sound good, so I leave some stuff out. Particularly the fact that I’m drinking at least one bottle of wine a night to dissolve the day off of me.

 But she’s a woman. She probably learned to read between the lines before she could read the lines themselves. She thanks me and sits down.

 “I disagree,” says the guy sitting next to me. “I think this is a great company for women.”

 My jaw gently opens on its own.

 The guy next to him nods. “Absolutely,” he said. “I have two women on my team and they get along great with everyone.”

 Of course they do, I think but don’t say. It’s called camouflage.

 Guy #1 continues. “There’s a woman on my team who had a baby last year. She went on maternity leave and came back, and she’s doing fine. We’re very supportive of moms.”

 Guy #3 jumps in just to make sure we have 100% male coverage on the topic. “The thing about this place,” he says, “is it’s a meritocracy. And merit is gender-blind.” He smiles at me and I stare back. Silent balefulness is all I have to offer, but his smile wavers so I know I’ve pierced some level of smug.

 The panel organizer and I fume afterward. “Those fucking fucks,” she says. “Ratfucks.”

 What’s a girl to do when a bunch of dudes have just told her, in front of an audience, that she’s wrong about what it’s like to be herself?

 What’s a girl to do when a bunch of dudes have just told her, in front of an audience, that she’s wrong about what it’s like to be herself? I could talk to them, one by one, and tell them how it felt. I could tell the panel organizers this is why you never have just one of us up there. I could buy myself a superhero costume and devote the rest of my life to vengeance on mansplainers everywhere.

 Instead, I round up some girlfriends and we spend hundreds of dollars in a hipster bar, drinking rye Manhattans and eating tapas and talking about the latest crappy, non-gender-blind things that have happened to us in meetings and on business trips and at performance review time. They toast me for taking one for the team. And when we are good and numb we Uber home, thinking Look at all we’ve earned! That bar with the twinkly lights. That miniature food. This chauffeured black car. We are tough enough to put up with being ignored and interrupted and underestimated every day and laugh it off together. We’ve made it. This is the good life. Nothing needs to change.

 ***

 Do you remember the Enjoli perfume commercial from the 1970s? The chick who could bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you’re a man?

 I blame that bitch for a lot. For spreading the notion that women should have a career, keep house, and fuck their husbands, when the only sane thing to do is pick two and outsource the third. For making it seem glamorous. For suggesting it was going to be fun. And for the tagline she dragged around: “The 8-Hour Perfume for the 24-Hour Woman.” Just in case you thought you could get one fucking hour off the clock.

 More tales of my first sober summer: I go to an afternoon showing of Magic Mike at one of those fancy theaters that serves cocktails to blunt the terrible stress of watching a movie in air-conditioned comfort. A few rows ahead of me, a group of women are drinking champagne through straws. They whoop and holler at the screen as though at an actual Chippendale’s. In the parking lot afterward, one of them says to the others: “Girl time! We have to claim our girl time.” “We’ve earned this,” another replies. And then they drive off in separate directions.

 There’s always one person who can’t deal if someone isn’t drinking.

 A baby shower is in progress at the nail parlor. Except for the guest of honor, everyone is drinking wine, lots of it. I wonder if the mom-to-be minds, if it feels like they’re rubbing it in. “Thank God there are places like this where we can have lady time,” a woman in a yellow dress says. She tells the mom-to-be she’s far enough along to have some wine. It seems important to her that the mom-to-be drink with them. I catch myself nodding. You, I think. Yeah, I know you. There’s always one person who can’t deal if someone isn’t drinking.

 “I’m going to feel hungover by dinner,” a different woman says. “But it’s so worth it. How often do you get a chance to get away from your kids for an afternoon?”

 I personally think this is an insensitive thing to say at a baby shower.

 Is it really that hard, being a First World woman? Is it really so tough to have the career and the spouse and the pets and the herb garden and the core strengthening and the oh-I-just-woke-up-like-this makeup and the face injections and the Uber driver who might possibly be a rapist? Is it so hard to work ten hours for your rightful 77% of a salary, walk home past a drunk who invites you to suck his cock, and turn on the TV to hear the men who run this country talk about protecting you from abortion regret by forcing you to grow children inside your body?

 I mean, what’s the big deal? Why would anyone want to soften the edges of this glorious reality?

 ***

 I run a women’s half-marathon on a day in August when temperatures are fifteen degrees above normal. It’s a — what do you call it — a horror show. But I finish and someone puts a finisher’s medal on me. I’m soaked, chafed, limping, and still triumphant. Until they say: “The margarita tent is right over there!”

 A yoga studio where I sometimes practice starts a monthly “Vinyasa & Vino” event: an hour of fast-paced yoga in a hundred-degree room, followed by a glass of an addictive, dehydrating substance (made locally!). Oh, but it’s about mindful savoring, I’m told. Well, then. Apologies for thinking it was about mindful reciprocal advertising to an overwhelmingly female audience, and om shanti.

 A local kitchen shop offers a combination knife-skills and wine-tasting class — yes, wine for people who have already self-identified as being so clumsy with sharp objects that they need professional instruction.

 At the waxing salon, a cut-glass decanter of tequila is at the ready for first-time Brazilian customers, which — okay, you know what, that tequila was actually pretty helpful back in the day, and far be it from me to deprive other first-timers.

 Is there nothing so inherently absorbing or high-stakes or pleasurable that we won’t try to alter our natural response to it?

 But knives and booze, yoga and booze, 13 mile runs and booze? What’s next to be liquored up: CPR training? Puppy ballet class? (Not really a thing, but someone should get on it.) Is there nothing so inherently absorbing or high-stakes or pleasurable that we won’t try to alter our natural response to it? Maybe women are so busy faking it — to be more like a man at work, more like a porn star in bed, more like 30 at 50 — that we don’t trust our natural responses anymore. Maybe all that wine is an Instagram filter for our own lives, so we don’t see how sallow and cracked they’ve become.

 Toward the end of summer I take a trip to Sedona and post a photo to Facebook that captures the red rocks, a stack of books, a giant cocoa smoothie, and my glossy azure toenails in one frame. It is scientifically the most vacation-y photo ever taken.

 “Uh, where’s the wine?” someone wants to know.

 “Yeah, this vacation seems to be missing wine,” someone else chimes in.

 I go to a stationery store to buy a card for a girlfriend. I couldn’t keep it together enough to track greeting card occasions when I was drinking, so it’s been a while since I’ve visited a card shop. There are three themes in female-to-female cards: 1) being old as fuck, 2) men are from Mars, and 3) wine.

 “Wine is to women as duct tape is to men…it fixes everything!”

 “I make wine disappear. What’s your superpower?”

 “Lord, give me coffee to change the things I can…and wine to accept the things I cannot.”

 Newly sober women have a lot of wonderful qualities, but lack of judginess not one of them. I don’t just stand there mentally tsk-tsking at the cards. I actually physically shake my head at them like Mrs. Grundy. Are you sure you can’t change those things? I think. And have you stopped to think that if you need ethanol — yes, at this point in my sobriety I called wine ethanol, don’t you wish you could have hung out with me then? — to accept them, maybe it’s because they’re unacceptable?

 ***

 The longer I am sober, the less patience I have with being a 24-hour woman. The stranger who tells me to smile. The janitor who stares at my legs. The men on TV who want to annex my uterus. Even the other TV men, who say that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” What the fuck business is it of yours whether it’s rare or not? I think.

 The magazines telling me strong is the new sexy and smart is the new beautiful, as though strong and smart are just paths to hot. The Facebook memes: muscles are beautiful. No, wait: fat is beautiful. No, wait: thin is beautiful, too, as long as you don’t work for it. No, wait: All women are beautiful! As though we are toddlers who must be given exactly equal shares of princess dust, or we’ll lose our shit.

 And then I start to get angry at women, too. Not for being born wrong, or for failing to dismantle a thousand years of patriarchy on my personal timetable. But for being so easily mollified by a bottle. For thinking that the right to get as trashed as a man means anything but the right to be as useless.

 “What,” says a woman I enjoy arguing with, “so they can get fucked up and we have to look after them?”

 No, I tell her. We have to look after ourselves.

 “That still doesn’t seem fair,” she says, not unreasonably.

 We can’t afford to live lives we have to fool our own central nervous systems into tolerating.

 But who said anything about fairness? This isn’t about what’s fair. It’s about what we can afford. And we can’t afford this. We can’t afford to pretend it’s fine that everything we do or think or wear or say yes or no to is somehow wrong. We can’t afford to act like it’s okay that “Girls can do anything!” got translated somewhere along the line into “Women must do everything.” We can’t afford to live lives we have to fool our own central nervous systems into tolerating.

 We can’t afford to be 24-hour women.

 I couldn’t afford to be a 24-hour woman. But it didn’t stop me from trying till it shattered me.

 I am very angry with women that summer and then I’m very, very angry with myself. And I stay that way for months, trudging through my first sober Christmas and job change and flu and birthday and using that anger at every turn as a reminder to pay attention and go slow and choose things I actually want to happen. By the time summer comes back around I realize I no longer smell like eight-hour perfume.

 ***

 That second summer, I meet my friend Mindy outside San Diego, where her adopted son is days from being born. Mindy’s dark alleys were different from mine, but she walked them all the same and walked herself out of them, too. Sometimes, talking about the recent past, we blink at each other like people struggling to readjust to sunlight after a long, bad movie. More and more it’s the new that gets our attention: my new job, her newish and happy marriage, the book I’m writing and the classes she’s taking. The things we are making happen, step by step.

 We spend the weekend moving slowly and sleeping late and — hypocritically — wishing the lazy baby would hurry up already. On Sunday morning we’re reading by the deep end of the hotel pool when the shallow end starts to fill with women, a bridal party to judge by what we overhear. And we overhear a lot, because they arrive already tipsy and the pomegranate mimosas — pomegranate is a superfood! one woman keeps telling the others — just keep coming until that side of the pool seems like a Greek chorus of women who have major grievances with their bodies, faces, children, homes, jobs, and husbands but aren’t going to do anything about any of it but get loaded and sunburned in the desert heat.

 I give Mindy the look that women use to say do you believe this shit? with only a slight tightening of the eyeballs. The woman on the other side of her catches the look and gives it back to me over her laptop, and then woman next to her joins in too. We engage in a silent four-way exchange of dismay, irritation, and bitchiness, and it is wonderful.

 Then Mindy slides her Tom Ford sunglasses back over her eyes and says, “All I can say is it’s really nice on this side of the pool.” I laugh and my heart swells against my swimsuit and I pull my shades down too, to keep my suddenly watery eyes to myself. Because it is. It is so nice on this side of the pool, where the book I’m reading is a letdown and my legs look too white and the ice has long since melted in my glass and work is hard and there’s still no good way to be a girl and I don’t know what to do with my life and I have to actually deal with all of that. I never expected to make it to this side of the pool. I can’t believe I get to be here.

 This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers. |||||

– A recent essay on Quartz by Kristi Coulter has been making waves on social media, with a (now-sober) Coulter saying she thinks 21st-century women guzzle too much hooch to forget about the sexist world we live in. Ann Friedman offers her own take, writing for the Washington Post that even though she takes some of Coulter's "well-written" points to heart, she's not completely on board with Coulter's conclusion, noting it's "difficult to separate what is and isn't related to the patriarchy." "Did I get drunk last night because of the patriarchy? Who knows," she says, listing other woman-related issues (e.g., a penchant for short hair, picking at one's cuticles) that could theoretically be linked to a male-dominated society. Friedman lays out why she's reluctant to fully toast Coulter's thesis, noting many men also drink to deal with the day-to-day, and that pop culture—especially via boozy women protagonists on TV and in the movies—has much to do with it, too, presenting alcohol "as both a coping mechanism and a bonding tool." And she cites her own personal imbibing, relaying how her boozing sessions tend to serve a more active "plotting" purpose to direct her "outrage," with her drinking buddies serving as sounding boards. "Maybe patriarchy does drive us to drink, just as patriarchy drives us to shave our legs and wear bright lipstick," she concludes. "Or maybe it doesn’t, and we get drunk for the same reasons that men do. Either way, I'm less concerned about what draws women together over a bottle of wine, and more interested in what we do once we get there." (Her entire essay here.)


House Republicans have moved to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, arguing he violated the public trust.

 Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz Jason ChaffetzGOP Rep. Gowdy slams Trump team for 'amnesia' on Russia meetings California Dem sworn in as House member after delay Chaffetz: Comey's silence on memos 'raised a lot of eyebrows' MORE (R-Utah) introduced an impeachment resolution Tuesday, days after the Justice Department concluded its investigation into IRS targeting of Tea Party groups with no charges filed.

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 “Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust. He failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena, documents were destroyed on his watch, and the public was consistently misled,” Chaffetz said in a statement. “Impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress.”

 Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, compared GOP efforts to the Benghazi and Planned Parenthood investigations.

 "It appears that facts simply don't matter to Republicans," Cummings said in a statement.

 "This ridiculous resolution will demonstrate nothing but the Republican obsession with diving into investigative rabbit holes that waste tens of millions of taxpayer dollars while having absolutely no positive impact on a single American," he said.

 Much of the committee’s impeachment charge centers around the destruction of several backup tapes that could have contained missing emails sent by Lois Lerner, the former official at the center of the IRS’s improper scrutiny of conservative groups.

 Chaffetz’s resolution charges that Koskinen, who took over the IRS after the controversy emerged, failed to preserve 422 backup tapes that could have contained Lerner emails.

 Republicans have argued Koskinen was not truthful when he told lawmakers he would hand over all her documents, given the destruction of the backups. Chaffetz also charged that Koskinen failed to notify Congress the evidence was missing.

 But, in the past, the IRS has said it has fully complied with all investigations.

 In July, Chaffetz’s panel indicated it could pursue action against Koskinen, after arguing he had misled the committee and impeded its investigation into the improper scrutiny. The committee had previously called for Koskinen to be fired.

 —Vicki Needham contributed. |||||

 IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) who started the investigation of the targeting of conservative groups (EPA/Michael Reynolds)

 This post has been updated:

 A group of House Republicans led by the chairman of a powerful committee moved Tuesday to impeach the head of the Internal Revenue Service, saying he violated the public trust and lied to Congress as it investigated the treatment of conservative groups.

 The announcement by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform panel, came four days after the Justice Department formally closed its investigation of the targeting scandal without filing criminal charges.

 The last-ditch effort to remove IRS Commissioner John Koskinen follows through on a threat Chaffetz made over the summer after he called on President Obama to fire the commissioner, whom he accused of erasing back-up tapes containing thousands of e-mails written by Lois Lerner, the central IRS official in the scandal.

 Koskinen took over the agency in late 2013 after the scandal broke. But Chaffetz said Koskinen had told lawmakers his agency had turned over all e-mails that were relevant to the investigation, and when e-mails were found to be missing, said they were unrecoverable.

 “These statements were false,” Chaffetz said in a statement Tuesday.

 “Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust,” Chaffetz said. “He failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena, documents were destroyed on his watch, and the public was consistently misled.”

 “Impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress.”

 A statement issued Wednesday morning by the IRS says the agency ”vigorously disputes” the allegations.

 ”We have fully cooperated with all of the investigations,” the IRS said.

 The oversight committee has been investigating the IRS for more than two years, since agents were discovered to have subjected conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny.

 Chaffetz was joined by 18 committee Republicans in sponsoring an impeachment resolution, which now goes to the House Judiciary Committee.

 House Democrats quickly denounced the move as political grandstanding.

 “Calling this resolution a ‘stunt’ or a ‘joke’ would be insulting to stunts and jokes,” Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.) the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. He said the impeachment resolution was “ridiculous” and a waste of taxpayer money.

 “Instead of squandering millions of taxpayer dollars on baseless partisan attacks,” Cumming said, “the committee should focus on issues that matter to all Americans, like bringing down the costs of prescription drugs, as I have requested for the past year with no success.”

 Cummings added that there is no evidence Koskinen did what Chaffetz is accusing him of and said IRS has spent $20 million and 160,000 employee hours cooperating with investigations.

 Pursuing impeachment against an agency leader is highly unusual, and a step beyond contempt charges, the mechanism House Republicans tried to use against both Lerner and former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. in past disputes.

 More than a century ago, Congress brought articles of impeachment against War Secretary William Belknap in 1876, after the House of Representatives uncovered evidence supporting a pattern of corruption.

 He resigned during the proceedings. |||||

Write a summary.

– Now that the Justice Department has decided not to file criminal charges in the IRS scandal over the scrutiny of conservative groups, House Republicans have moved to take action of their own: impeachment. A powerful House committee has advanced a measure to impeach IRS chief John Koskinen, reports the Washington Post. Koskinen took over after the scandal broke, but Republicans say he lied to Congress in the subsequent investigation. "Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform panel. "He failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena, documents were destroyed on his watch, and the public was consistently misled." At issue are 422 backup tapes that might have contained emails from the IRS figure at the center of the scandal, Lois Lerner, explains the Hill. Koskinen not only failed to preserve them, he didn't notify Congress they were missing, says Chaffetz. Democrats say it's all political theater. "Calling this resolution a ‘stunt’ or a ‘joke’ would be insulting to stunts and jokes," says Elijah Cummings. Still, the long-shot bid now moves on to the House Judiciary Committee.


Article:
Frankly, I'm not going to get whipped up over whether a woman wants to give birth in a hospital or a swimming pool or on a pile of leaves, but I do find the premise of having an entire film crew around to document and televise the experience does somewhat undercut the whole "in the wild" thing a bit. And I definitely find Lifetime's branding of childbirth as an insistently "crazy" event spectacularly offensive. Japanese game shows are crazy. Sandy Hook truthers are crazy. Birth is actually just how human beings arrive on the planet, thanks.

 But what if birthing babies in a creek isn't your idea of solid appointment television? Wait, there's more. What about "Girlfriend Intervention," a new show that's basically "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" but instead of gay men it's black women and instead of straights it's whites? Here, let Lifetime describe it for you: "Our wise, poised and stylish African American women, in each episode, help a white sister seeking a complete makeover to restore her confidence and inner glow…. Who better to teach a woman how to get that sparkle in her eye and spring back in her step?" Note street cred bestowing use of the word "sister." I guess Homer Simpson was right when he long ago observed, "It's true, it's true. We're so lame." And if you've come to Lifetime for the ethnic stereotyping, stick around for the new show "Kosher Soul," which is about an African-American guy engaged to a Jewish woman, and is converting for her sake. HILARITY TO ENSUE. There's also a "Project Runway" spinoff for teens called "Threads," which actually sounds cool. Also currently in development: shows with the self-explanatory titles "Ugly Models" and "Worst Stylist Ever," and a series that explores "the emotional and psychological journeys of people attempting to fix their lives by fixing their teeth." ||||| Lifetime’s new reality show is delivering some controversy before it’s even been born. The network announced Wednesday a new series titled Born in the Wild that chronicles pregnant women giving birth outdoors, unassisted by doctors. “What happens when the craziest experience of a woman’s life becomes truly wild, and soon-to-be parents decide to take on an unassisted birth in the outdoors?” asks the press release. “Born in the Wild will document the journeys of young, expectant parents who have chosen to give birth ‘in the wild.'”

 It’s certainly a head-turning TV hook. But one obstetrician says we already know what happens when women give birth in the wild, and it isn’t good. “I understand everybody wants to believe we overmedicalize pregnancy and that it’s a natural process. But it’s a natural process that historically has caused an extraordinary loss of life,” says Ron Jaekle, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Fetal Center. “There is not a single piece of literature that we had to read growing up that didn’t talk about somebody’s mother or wife dying in childbirth, it was part of the national vocabulary. In the 1900s, a women died for every 1,000 babies born in the United States. Today it’s .1 for every 1,000.”

 The Lifetime series is taking precautions to help ensure the safety of the mother and child. No first-time mothers will be allowed to participate on the show and all participants will have a clean bill of health. A trained emergency professional will be on site. And while the couple will choose the birthing location, the production will remain within a certain radius of a hospital should complications arise. “I’m not surprised an OB-GYN would say that [but] we’re taking extreme precautions to make sure the mothers and the babies are safe,” says Eli Lehrer, Lifetime’s senior VP and head of nonfiction programming. “Our presence at these births is going to make them far safer than if they were doing it on their own.”

 The series itself was inspired by a viral video showing a birth in a forest that racked up 20 million views (photo above). Lehrer says he has a personal connection to the show’s concept himself as his second child was born at home via midwife. “This isn’t [Discovery Channel’s] Naked and Afraid and we’re dropping people in the woods and saying ‘go have the baby,'” he says. “These are all people who have already had babies in hospitals who had unsatisfying experiences and who are choosing to have different experiences. This is something people are doing and we set out to document it.”

 Even with the safety measures in place, however, Jaekle insists Born in the Wild “doesn’t make any sense.” He contends that even with modern medical care, just giving birth at home — let alone in a forest — is demonstrably more risky. “[The number of children impacted] is a small number — until it’s your kid,” Jaekle says of home birth complications. “They can’t possibly make it safe enough to not [eventually] have a problem that will need a medical intervention to save the day. And then [the producers] won’t interview the docs in the ICU who will say, ‘This would never have happened if she had been in a hospital.'”

 Another possible concern is the show inspiring couples not protected by the production’s safety net to try this more extreme “natural” route, something that’s particularly unsafe for first-time mothers (which the show will not allow to participate). “I’m not worried this is going to spark a trend,” Lehrer says. “I truly don’t think this is something people would enter into lightly. This is a very specific subset of people doing this.”

 The series was one of four new unscripted shows the network announced Wednesday. The network also ordered Girlfriend Intervention, a racial twist on Bravo’s classic Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, about “four wise, poised and stylish African American women, who, in each episode, help a white sister seeking a complete makeover to restore her confidence and inner glow.” There’s also Threads, a “competition series showcasing America’s most talented young fashion designers,” and Kosher Soul, following a stylist and comedian who converts to Judaism to please his wife. |||||Summary:

– A new Lifetime reality show is raising eyebrows, especially in the medical community: Born in the Wild will feature women giving birth outdoors with no medical assistance. The network says it is taking "extreme precautions" to ensure safety, including having an emergency professional on standby and a hospital within range. First-time mothers won't be allowed to take part, but obstetricians say it still is just too risky. "I understand everybody wants to believe we overmedicalize pregnancy and that it's a natural process. But it's a natural process that historically has caused an extraordinary loss of life," a maternal-fetal medicine specialist tells Entertainment Weekly. A Lifetime exec says the network has set out to document something people are already doing. It's not as if "we're dropping people in the woods and saying 'go have the baby,'" he says. "These are all people who have already had babies in hospitals who had unsatisfying experiences and who are choosing to have different experiences." At Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams isn't impressed by the "completely insane" concept or by Lifetime's press release describing childbirth as the "craziest experience" of a woman's life. "I'm not going to get whipped up over whether a woman wants to give birth in a hospital or a swimming pool or on a pile of leaves, but I do find the premise of having an entire film crew around to document and televise the experience does somewhat undercut the whole 'in the wild' thing a bit," she writes. "And I definitely find Lifetime’s branding of childbirth as an insistently 'crazy' event spectacularly offensive."


British Airways' chief executive is "profusely" sorry for an IT meltdown he revealed has disrupted 75,000 passengers' flights.

 Alex Cruz told Sky News the airline was "making some progress" towards getting their services back to normal on Monday following the computer outage, which he described as "a tragedy".

 The airline boss denied claims from the GMB union the problems were down to BA cutting "hundreds of dedicated and loyal" IT staff and contracting the work out to India to save money.

 Mr Cruz insisted those parties involved in the weekend's problems had "not been involved with any type of outsourcing in any foreign countries".

 He added: "They've all been local issues around a local data centre who have been managed and fixed by local resources."

 Mr Cruz said there was "no evidence whatsoever" a cyberattack was behind the computer problems.

 He instead cited a "power surge" around 9.30am on Saturday morning for the "catastrophic effect" on all of BA's systems.

 Video: Honeymooners stuck in Heathrow for three days

 Video: BA boss reacts to honeymooners' delay

 The IT troubles had led to no compromise of any passenger data or any concerns about access to the terror watchlist for flights, Mr Cruz said.

 He revealed BA is operating more than 95% of its flights on Monday, with all of its Gatwick services and long-haul flights from Heathrow going ahead.

 More than 90% of BA short-haul flights from Heathrow would also be operating, while more than two-thirds of passengers affected on Saturday and Sunday would make it to their final destination by the end of Monday.

 Other passengers whose flights were disrupted over the weekend will have the option to re-book their flights for any time over the next six months.

 Image: People sleep at Heathrow Airport as a British Airways IT chaos affected 75,000 passengers

 Responding to the chaos that grounded scores of planes over the weekend, Mr Cruz said: "We do apologise profusely for the hardship that these customers of ours have had to go through.

 "We know that there have been holidays interrupted and personal events that have been interrupted and people waiting in queues for a really long time.

 "We absolutely profusely apologise for that and we are absolutely committed to provide and abide by the compensation rules that are currently in place."

 Mr Cruz promised an "exhaustive investigation" into the meltdown, adding: "We're absolutely committed to finding the root causes of this particular event and we will make sure nothing like this happens to British Airways ever again."

 Experts predict BA is facing a huge compensation bill, estimated at more than £100m, over the disruption.

 Customers have been left queuing for hours in packed terminals over the last few days and some had to bed down on terminal floors on Saturday.

 Many complained of scant information from staff.

 :: Passengers describe airport pandemonium

 Mr Cruz was shown a Sky News video of a honeymoon couple who had been stranded for three days at Heathrow, causing them to miss the start of their cruise holiday.

 He said: "We are extremely sorry and what we will do is make up and follow absolutely our obligations and provide as much flexibility as we can to them and the rest of the passengers that have been affected."

 The IT outage had a knock-on effect on BA services around the world, while passengers who did get onto flights from the UK reported arriving without luggage.

 Video: BA worker threatens to call police on passenger

 Video has emerged of a BA employee at Venice Airport threatening to call the police on a woman who asked about the policy on customers who do not have money to pay for hotel rooms.

 Stacy Irish, who posted the footage on Twitter on 28 May, said: "I was told it has nothing to with BA if customers can't afford it. She then said she would call the police."

 Some experts expect the disruption to linger for several days, as planes and aircrew are returned to their positions and the backlog of passengers is cleared. ||||| Alex Cruz, the chief executive of British Airways, has apologised “profusely” to passengers caught up in the travel chaos at the weekend that grounded flights at Heathrow and Gatwick, but denied the disruption had anything to do with cost-cutting in the business.

 Giving his first media interview since a major outage caused the airline’s IT system to collapse last Saturday, he refused to resign and said the problem was not a result of outsourcing jobs to other countries.

 “I can confirm that all the parties involved around this particular event have not been involved in any type of outsourcing in any foreign country,” he told Sky News.

 “They have all been local issues around a local data centre.”

 He added that no BA passengers’ data had been compromised in the IT meltdown and said there was no evidence it was the result of a cyber attack, promising not to allow such an outage to happen again.

 The IT failure was caused by a short but catastrophic power surge at 9.30am that affected the company’s messaging system, he said, and the backup system failed to work properly.

 “We will have completed an exhaustive investigation on exactly the reasons of why this happened,” Mr Cruz said. “We will, of course, share those conclusions once we have actually finished them.

 “We have no evidence whatsoever that there was any cyber attack of any sort.”

 BA plans to operate about 95 per cent of its flights on Monday from the two major London hubs, but 27 departures and arrivals were already cancelled on the day, and 58 were delayed.

 After the outage caused more than 1,000 flights to be delayed or cancelled, including BA’s sister airlines in Spain, Iberia and Air Nostrum, focus quickly turned to Mr Cruz’s handling of the company, having shut down the airline’s computer department last year, slashing 700 jobs in the UK.

 In pictures: British Airways disruptions

 17 show all In pictures: British Airways disruptions

 1/17 A passenger looks at a British Airway plane at John F. Kennedy (JFK) international airport in New York Getty Images

 2/17 British Airways planes are seen at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters

 3/17 Passengers stand at the British Airways check-in desk after the London's Gatwick and Heathrow airports suffered an IT systems failure, at the 'Leonardo da Vinci' airport in Fiumicino, near Rome, Italy EPA

 4/17 Arrivals notice boards are displayed at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters

 5/17 People wait with their luggage at the British Airways check in desks at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters

 6/17 Thousands of passengers face a second day of travel disruption after a British Airways IT failure caused the airline to cancel most of its services Getty Images

 7/17 A woman covered in a blanket sleeps in Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 Getty Images

 8/17 People sleep next to their luggage at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters

 9/17 People sleep at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London Reuters

 10/17 A woman sleeps on a luggage trolley at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters

 11/17 People queue to enter the terminal at Gatwick Airport Reuters

 12/17 People wait with their luggage at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 Getty

 13/17 Thousands of passengers face a second day of travel disruption after a British Airways IT failure caused the airline to cancel most of its services Getty

 14/17 People queue with their luggage outside Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 Getty Images

 15/17 People queue for check-in at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. Thousands of passengers face a second day of travel disruption after a British Airways IT failure caused the airline to cancel most of its services Getty Images

 16/17 People sleep next to their luggage at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters

 17/17 People wait with their luggage at Heathrow Terminal 5 Reuters

 He then outsourced the company’s IT systems to Indian firm Tata Consultancy Services.

 GMB union’s national aviation officer, Mick Rix, claimed the chaos “could have all been avoided” if BA had not “made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India”.

 Experts predict the knock-on effect could continue for several days and BA is facing huge compensation costs, with reports suggesting the bill could top £100m.

 Mr Cruz said the airline was “committed” to following all compensation rules. ||||| In this image taken from the twitter feed of Emily Puddifer, a view of Terminal 5 departure lounge, at London's Heathrow airport after flights were canceled due to the airport suffering an IT systems... (Associated Press)

 In this image taken from the twitter feed of Emily Puddifer, a view of Terminal 5 departure lounge, at London's Heathrow airport after flights were canceled due to the airport suffering an IT systems failure, Saturday, May 27, 2017. British Airways canceled all flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick... (Associated Press)

 LONDON (AP) — Travelers on British Airways and its sister airlines in Spain faced a third day of delays and cancellations Monday, mainly on short-haul flights in Europe, after the company suffered a colossal IT failure over the weekend.

 BA chief executive Alex Cruz said that the airline was running a "near-full operation" at London's Gatwick Airport and planned to operate all scheduled long-haul services from Heathrow. But he said there would still be delays, as well as some canceled short-haul flights.

 Data from flight tracker FlightAware.com showed BA's sister airlines in Spain, Iberia and Air Nostrum, cancelled over 320 flights on Monday, a bank holiday in the U.K. that sees a high level of air travel.

 BA itself canceled another 27 flights and had 117 more delayed Monday.

 The airline, which is part of the broader International Airlines Group, canceled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday after the IT outage, which it blamed on a power-supply problem. The glitch threw the plans of tens of thousands of travelers into disarray.

 Cruz told Sky News Monday the problem started at 9:30 Saturday morning when "there was indeed a power surge that had a catastrophic effect over some communications hardware which eventually affected all the messaging across our systems."

 He said there was no evidence indicating the airline had come under cyberattack.

 BA operates hundreds of flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on a typical day — and both are major hubs for worldwide travel.

 Passengers, some of whom had spent the night at London's Heathrow Airport, faced frustrating waits to learn if and when they could fly out.

 Some endured hours-long lines to check in, reclaim lost luggage or rebook flights at Terminal 5, BA's hub at Heathrow. Many complained about a lack of information from the airline.

 Cruz apologized in a video statement, saying: "I know this has been a horrible time for customers."

 The British union GMB linked the IT problems directly to the company's decision to cut IT staff last year.

 "This could have all been avoided. In 2016, BA made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India," said Mick Rix, national officer for aviation at the union. ||||| Ryanair is making hay while the sun is not shining on British Airways.

 BA customers are facing a third day of travel disruption because of a breakdown in the airline's computer system.

 And Ryanair is making no attempt to hide its schadenfreude:

 "Meanwhile, over at the @ British_Airways IT department..." said a tweet on the official Ryanair account, along with the hashtag #ShouldHaveFlownRyanair.

 "Breaking news: BA appoints new head of IT," said another tweet which was pinned to Ryanair's page.

 Ouch.

 Some people saw the funny side:

 @Ryanair I am crying this is bloody brilliant 😂😂😂😂 — Dannii (@Dannii_BJROE) May 28, 2017

 Others didn't:

 @Ryanair Isn't this a bit like a run down corner shop poking fun at Sainsbury's? — Jon Cook (@JonCook188) May 28, 2017

 @Ryanair Oh the irony @Ryanair the company with THE worst customer service known to man ... flew once 11 years ago, vowed never again .. and haven't — Sean Elkins (@seanieboyelkins) May 29, 2017

 British Airways said 75,000 customers were affected by the technical glitch over the weekend but denied the failure was because the company outsourced its IT operations. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images

 British Airways is working to restore its computer systems after a power failure caused major disruption for thousands of passengers worldwide.

 The airline is "closer to full operational capacity" after an IT power cut resulted in mass flight cancellations at Heathrow and Gatwick.

 Thousands of passengers remain displaced, with large numbers sleeping overnight in terminals.

 BA has not explained the cause of the power problem.

 So far on Monday, 13 short-haul flights at Heathrow have been cancelled.

 Heathrow advised affected BA passengers not to travel to the airport unless their flights had been rebooked, or were scheduled to take off today.

 Passengers on cancelled flights have been told to use the BA website to rebook.

 Chief executive Alex Cruz has posted videos on Twitter apologising for what he called a "horrible time for passengers".

 But no-one from the airline has been made available to answer questions about the system crash, and it has not explained why there was no back-up system in place.

 Cancellations and delays affected thousands of passengers at both Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday.

 All flights operated from Gatwick on Sunday but more than a third of services from Heathrow - mostly to short-haul destinations - were cancelled.

 Passengers slept on yoga mats handed out by the airline as conference rooms were opened to provide somewhere more comfortable to rest.

 What went wrong at BA?

 Rory Cellan-Jones, technology correspondent

 Image copyright Getty Images

 BA blames a power cut, but a corporate IT expert said it should not have caused "even a flicker of the lights" in the data-centre.

 Even if the power could not be restored, the airline's Disaster Recovery Plan should have whirred into action. But that will have depended in part on veteran staff with knowledge of the complex patchwork of systems built up over the years.

 Many of those people may have left when much of the IT operation was outsourced to India.

 One theory of the IT expert, who does not wish to be named, is that when the power came back on the systems were unusable because the data was unsynchronised.

 In other words the airline was suddenly faced with a mass of conflicting records of passengers, aircraft and baggage movements - all the complex logistics of modern air travel.

 Read the full blog

 BA said it operated virtually all scheduled long-haul flights on Sunday, but the knock-on effects of Saturday's disruption resulted in a reduced short-haul programme.

 "We apologise again to customers for the frustration and inconvenience they are experiencing and thank them for their continued patience."

 Ian Sanderson, one of the affected passengers who is stuck in transit in London, said he was "incandescent with rage" after being unable to rebook his flight, or speak to a member of staff.

 Image copyright Twitter Image caption Thousands of customers have taken to Twitter to vent their frustration

 Speaking on Sunday evening, he said: "I've bombarded them with about 100 tweets in the last 24 hours. I know that's annoying but there's nothing else I can do.

 "We've tried to call them on the numbers they give and all we've got is the same recorded message which then cuts off at the end."

 Former Virgin Airlines spokesman Paul Charles said: "What seems remarkable is there was no back-up system kicking in within a few minutes system failing.

 "Businesses of this type need systems backing up all the time, and this is what passengers expect."

 'Extraordinary circumstances'

 BA is liable to reimburse thousands of passengers for refreshments and hotel expenses, and travel industry commentators have suggested the cost to the company - part of Europe's largest airline group IAG - could run into tens of millions of pounds.

 Shares in IAG listed on the Madrid stock exchange are currently trading down by about 3%.

 Customers displaced by flight cancellations can claim up to £200 a day for a room (based on two people sharing), £50 for transport between the hotel and airport, and £25 a day per adult for meals and refreshments.

 Consumer expert Franky Brehany said travellers stranded in a "high-value city" like London may be able to claim more and should keep all receipts.

 But he added that it might be harder for passengers to claim compensation, as BA may blame "extraordinary circumstances" - "like an act of God or force majeure" - meaning the airline would only have to reimburse hotel and food costs.

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Queues built up on Sunday at Heathrow Terminal 5 as passengers waited to speak to BA staff

 Image copyright Getty Images

 Thousands of bags remain at Heathrow Airport, but BA has advised passengers not to return to collect them, saying they will be couriered to customers.

 The airline said there was no evidence the computer failure was the result of a cyber-attack. It denied claims by the GMB union that the problem could be linked to the company outsourcing its IT work.

 Gatwick Airport said it was continuing to advise customers travelling with British Airways to check the status of their flight with the airline before travelling to the airport.

 EU flight delay rights |||||

Write a summary.

– It's close but no cigar for British Airways. The airline has fully restored all its long-haul services out of Heathrow following Saturday's crippling IT failure, but Monday marks the third day of related delays and cancellations, particularly when it comes to short-haul flights. The AP reports BA axed 27 flights on Monday, and sister airlines Iberia and Air Nostrum cancelled more than 320. The airline didn't offer much in the way of details until Monday when in an interview with Sky News, CEO Alex Cruz faulted a power surge. The Independent reports Cruz also said the backup system didn't kick in as it should have. Cruz brushed away a British union's assertions that the root of the IT issue stretches back a year, when "hundreds" of IT staffers lost their jobs, per the union GMB, with the work outsourced to India. Cruz countered that "they've all been local issues around a local data center who have been managed and fixed by local resources." But that doesn't stop the BBC from speculating that for BA's "Disaster Recovery Plan" to have worked, "veteran staff with knowledge of the complex patchwork of systems built up over the years" would be key, and it's possible some of those people left during last year's shift to India. GMB isn't the only one needling the airline. Mashable reports budget airline Ryanair has been poking fun on Twitter. In one tweet, it proclaims, "Breaking news: BA appoints new head of IT.... #ShouldHaveFlownRyanair"; the picture above features the line "computer says no." See its other tweet here.


Summarize this article:

Trump vexes allies as he calls for Russia to rejoin G-7 The statement comes as Trump was already feuding with Macron and Trudeau ahead of the world leader meeting in Canada.

 President Donald Trump on Friday called for Russia to be reinstated into the group of the world’s largest economies, drawing the ire of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and further inflaming tensions at the G-7 meeting in Canada.

 “Now, I love our country. I have been Russia's worst nightmare,” Trump said. “But with that being said, Russia should be in this meeting. Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting?”

 Story Continued Below

 Trump made the remarks on the White House South Lawn as he left for the G-7 summit in Quebec, which he will depart from early in order to travel to Singapore, where he is scheduled to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next week.

 His suggestion that the G-7 welcome Russia back into the fold is likely to heighten tensions in Quebec, where the president is expected to meet with allies irate over his decision to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and the European Union. In recent days, Trump has engaged in a war of words with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

 The G-7, short for Group of Seven, was the G-8 until 2014, when the group’s members expelled Russia over its invasion and annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. The G-7’s current membership comprises the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain.

 “I would recommend — and it's up to them, but Russia should be in the meeting, it should be a part of it. You know, whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run,” Trump told reporters. “And in the G-7, which used to be the G-8, they threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in. Because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”

 The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

 Trump's suggestion that Russia be brought back into the exclusive club of industrialized nations earned at least one endorsement Friday — that of Italy's new, right-wing prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, who wrote on Twitter that he agreed with the U.S. president.

 But the British government raised alarms about the proposal, which also brought bipartisan scorn from U.S. lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.).

 “President Trump is turning our foreign policy into an international joke, doing lasting damage to our country, without any rhyme or reason. We need the president to be able to distinguish between our allies and adversaries, and to treat each accordingly. On issue after issue, he’s failed to do that," Schumer said in a statement. “The president’s support for inviting Russia back into the G-7, just after they meddled in the election to support his campaign, will leave millions of Americans with serious questions and suspicions.”

 "This is weak. Putin is not our friend and he is not the president's buddy," Sasse said in his own statement. "He is a thug using Soviet-style aggression to wage a shadow war against America, and our leaders should act like it."

 Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a frequent Trump critic who tangled with the president earlier this week, was blunt in a tweet: "No, Russia should not be added to the G-7."

 Flake's Arizona colleague, GOP Sen. John McCain, was similarly critical of the president's suggestion in a statement emailed to reporters Friday afternoon.

 “Vladimir Putin chose to make Russia unworthy of membership in the G-8 by invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea. Nothing he has done since then has changed that most obvious fact," McCain said. “The President has inexplicably shown our adversaries the deference and esteem that should be reserved for our closest allies.”

 Trump’s support for Russia’s reentry into the group of leading economies adds to the lengthy list of warm gestures he has offered for the Kremlin and its leader, President Vladimir Putin. Critics of the president have long complained that his foreign policy is too soft on Russia, which the U.S. intelligence community has said sought to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf, especially relative to the president’s get-tough approach to foreign policy elsewhere around the globe.

 But while Trump’s rhetoric toward Russia, and Putin in particular, has been noticeably warmer than that of his predecessor, the president and his administration have pointed often to significant steps taken against the Kremlin, including new sanctions, the expulsion of dozens of diplomats and the forced closure of Russia’s two West Coast consulates, in Seattle and San Francisco.

 "If Hillary got in, I think Putin is probably going, ‘Man, I wish Hillary won,’ because you see what I do," Trump said on Friday about his harsher actions against Russia.

 Russia had been scheduled to host the G-8 summit in 2014 and had been planning to hold the leaders’ gathering in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, which was also the site of the Winter Olympics that year. But after Russian troops invaded Crimea, officials quickly rescheduled for Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union, which participates in both the G-7 and the G-20. Russia remains a part of the larger group.

 Trump has run afoul of some of America's closest allies in the run-up to the Quebec gathering.

 He has devoted significant focus in recent weeks to resetting U.S. trade relationships around the globe, complaining especially loudly about what he says is unfair treatment by top trade partners like Canada and the EU. The president's decision to impose tariffs on both earned him a stern rebuke from Trudeau and the leaders of multiple major EU nations.

 Trump was originally scheduled to meet Friday for two bilateral meetings, one with Trudeau and another with Macron, although the White House said Friday morning that Trump was running late and that the Macron meeting would have to be rescheduled for later in the day. Trudeau's greeting of Trump ahead of their meeting appeared somewhat stiff but was marked mostly by handshakes and pleasantries.

 White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump and Macron met informally and "exchanged pleasantries and briefly discussed trade." She added that Macron and Trump would hold another meeting later Friday.

 Macron and Trump both promised this week to confront Trump over his recent decision to impose tariffs on U.S. allies, using blunt language to describe their positions.

 “Maybe the American president doesn’t care about being isolated today, but we don’t mind being six, if needs be,” Macron said.

 Following their joint meeting at the summit, Macron said he and Trump had a “very direct discussion.“ But both of the leaders‘ description of their chat were devoid of the escalating rhetoric they had exchanged in the days and hours leading up the summit.

 “I also want to congratulate you, because I‘m reading what‘s going on in France,“ Trump told Macron in front of a gathering of reporters. “You've got great courage. You‘re doing the right thing.“

 Trump hit back on Twitter late Thursday.

 "Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers," he tweeted. "The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out. Look forward to seeing them tomorrow."

 He added, "Prime Minister Trudeau is being so indignant, bringing up the relationship that the U.S. and Canada had over the many years and all sorts of other things...but he doesn’t bring up the fact that they charge us up to 300% on dairy — hurting our Farmers, killing our Agriculture!"

 When asked by reporters Friday morning about the spat, Trump presented it as a temporary trade dispute and that "in the end we'll all get along."

 "Look, all of these countries have been taking advantage of the United States on trade," Trump said. "We have massive trade deficits with almost every country. We will straighten that out. And I'll tell you what, it's what I do. It won't even be hard, and in the end we'll all get along. ... When it all straightens out, we'll all be in love again."

 The president later made light of the distance between himself and Trudeau on trade, joking during a bilateral meeting that the prime minister “has agreed to cut all tariffs and all trade barriers between Canada and the United States.“ Trump then reassured reporters the two were “actually working“ on the matter and had “made a lot of progress today.“

 Trump managed to draw a laugh from Trudeau and Merkel prior to a working session on Friday afternoon. The president caught sight of New York Times photographer Doug Mills, turned to Trudeau and quipped: "He's the number one photographer in the world. Unfortunately, he works for The New York Times."

 The remarks, overheard by a pool reporter, prompted laughter from Trudeau and Merkel. Reporters were subsequently escorted out.

 Despite numerous other differences, Western leaders have remained united in the need to maintain economic sanctions and other pressure on Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine — not just in Crimea but also in the eastern Donbas region, where it has supported an armed insurgency. An international investigative team recently announced that a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, Flight MH-17, that was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014 was destroyed by a Russian missile supplied by a specific military unit in southern Russia.

 Putin has continued to deny any Russian role in that episode, which killed all 298 people on board. Putin initially denied that Russian military forces had invaded Crimea but later acknowledged that they had done so, and even bestowed awards on soldiers who participated in the operation.

 David Herszenhorn and Cristiano Lima contributed to this report. ||||| President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington, Friday, June 8, 2018, to attend the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (Associated Press)

 President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington, Friday, June 8, 2018, to attend the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and the annual Group of Seven meeting of industrialized nations (all times local):

 8:30 a.m.

 President Donald Trump is calling for Russia to be reinstated to the leading group of industrialized nations, now known as the Group of Seven.

 Trump tells reporters: "Russia should be in the meeting, should be a part of it."

 Russia was ousted from the elite group in 2014 as punishment for President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea and its support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. The suspension was supported by the other members of the group, including the U.S., Canada, Japan and four European nations.

 Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump associates colluded with Russia in a bid to sway the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor.

 ___

 7:25 a.m.

 President Donald Trump says he won't be talking about the Russia probe for a while because he'll be focused on trade talks at the annual Group of Seven meeting of industrialized nations.

 Trump notes on Twitter that he's heading for Canada, where the nations' leaders are gathering at a Quebec resort. Several are expected to challenge Trump's new trade policies, which include tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

 Trump tweets that the talks "will mostly center on the long time unfair trade practiced against the United States." After that, he'll head to Singapore for a summit with North Korea.

 He adds: "Won't be talking about the Russian Witch Hunt Hoax for a while!"

 ___

 6:40 a.m.

 President Donald Trump says he is looking forward to "straightening out unfair Trade Deals" at the annual Group of Seven meeting.

 The group of industrialized nations is gathering at a Quebec resort for discussions that are expected to be tense. The leaders from France and Canada say they will push back against new U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

 Trump showed no signs of budging on his trade policies Friday, tweeting: "Looking forward to straightening out unfair Trade Deals with the G-7 countries. If it doesn't happen, we come out even better!

 ___

 1:50 a.m.

 President Donald Trump is set to descend on the annual Group of Seven meeting of industrialized nations, expecting tough trade talks as his go-it-alone policies leave him increasingly isolated.

 On the eve of Friday's gathering at a Quebec resort, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previewed what will likely be a tense two days. They stressed the need for respectful dialogue but say they will push back against new U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, as they have on other issues.

 Trump is showing no signs of backing away from what he sees as key campaign promises. He tweeted Thursday: "Getting ready to go to the G-7 in Canada to fight for our country on Trade (we have the worst trade deals ever made)." ||||| Quebec City (CNN) President Donald Trump said Friday that Russia should be reinstated to a leading group of industrialized nations ahead of his visit to the G7 summit this weekend.

 Trump's statement is an extraordinary break from key US allies, and particularly striking given Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. A special counsel investigation into whether Trump campaign officials colluded with Russia is underway, though Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations.

 "Russia should be in this meeting," Trump told reporters upon leaving the White House for the summit, which is being held in Charlevoix, Canada. "They should let Russia come back in, because we should have Russia at the negotiating table."

 Russia was suspended from the group -- then known as the G8 -- in 2014 after the majority of member countries allied against Russia's annexation of Crimea, which Russia continues to hold.

 Asked in an interview earlier this week about what would need to happen for Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Austria's ORF broadcasting corporation that "there are no such conditions and there can never be."

 Friction with key allies

 Trump's comments underscore the growing divide between the US, under his administration, and Washington's closest allies.

 The President's willingness to look the other way on Russia's annexation of Crimea -- the first violation of a European country's borders since World War II -- will particularly deepen the chill with allies such as the UK, France and Germany, which are already furious about US trade tariffs, and Trump's rejection of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement.

 "We always been clear we should engage with Russia where it is in our interests, but we need to remember why G8 became the G7: it was because Russia illegally annexed Crimea," a European diplomat told CNN. "Since then, we have seen an increase in Russian misbehavior and attempts to undermine democracy in Europe. It is not appropriate for Russia to rejoin until we see it behaving responsibly. Putin should get nothing for free."

 At home, Trump's continuing failure to condemn Russia for its aggressive behavior and his ongoing push to restore more normal relations is bound to raise questions, once again, about his affinity for Moscow and Putin.

 Sen. John McCain blasted Trump for his comments, saying "The President has inexplicably shown our adversaries the deference and esteem that should be reserved for our closest allies."

 The Arizona Republican, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Putin "chose to make Russia unworthy of membership in the G-8 by invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea. Nothing he has done since then has changed that most obvious fact. Every day, Russian-led separatist forces are killing Ukrainians in the Donbass. Every day, Putin's forces are helping the Assad regime slaughter the Syrian people. And every day, through assassinations, cyber-attacks, and malign influence, Russia is assaulting democratic institutions all over the world."

 The statement added, "Those nations that share our values and have sacrificed alongside us for decades are being treated with contempt. This is the antithesis of so-called 'principled realism' and a sure path to diminishing America's leadership in the world."

 Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, "Putin is not our friend and he is not the President's buddy. He is a thug using Soviet-style aggression to wage a shadow war against America, and our leaders should act like it."

 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump was turning US foreign policy "into an international joke, doing lasting damage to our country."

 Former Vice President Joe Biden also criticized Trump's remarks , writing on Twitter, "Putin's Russia invaded its neighbors, violated our sovereignty by undermining elections, and attacks dissidents abroad. Yet our President wants to reward him with a seat at the table while alienating our closest democratic allies. It makes no sense."

 The comment not only surprised American allies and politicians, but Trump's own National Security Council staff.

 A National Security Council official told reporters in Quebec Trump's comments were not planned.

 When asked about whether there was a potential for a summit between Russian President Putin and President Trump, the official said there have been no discussions in terms of when, where or what that summit might look like. The official added that there was some chatter, but it's not something the NSC is working on internally.

 Acrimonious start to G7

 Trump's comments also come at a time when Trump is on the outs with other members of the G7. On Thursday, Trump engaged in a bitter back-and-forth with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over Twitter, both of whom he'll meet face-to-face on Friday.

 Trump is expecting a knock-down, drag-out fight with top US allies over trade during his time at the conference, held in remote Quebec. It's a battle he believes he can win, but which he's unenthusiastic about waging in person, people familiar with his thinking say.

 On Thursday, Macron said the leaders would not rule out a 6+1 communique as opposed to the traditional document signed by all leaders at the end of the summit with shared goals and principles.

 One G7 leader, however, quickly backed Trump's statement: Italy's newly sworn in Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, who said it would be in "everyone's interest" for Russia to be reinstated.

 Although Conte, a former law professor, has not voiced particularly strong opinions on Russia in the past, his two deputies -- the leader of the Five Star movement and the far-right League Party, who have considered influence over him -- have frequently expressed pro-Russia views. |||||

– President Trump is calling for Russia to be reinstated to the leading group of industrialized nations, now known as the Group of Seven, the AP reports. "Now, I love our country. I have been Russia's worst nightmare," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House Friday morning as he prepared to leave for the G7 summit in Canada, per Politico. "But with that being said, Russia should be in this meeting. Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting?" He added: "Whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run. And in the G7, which used to be the G8, they threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in. Because we should have Russia at the negotiating table." Russia was ousted from the elite group in 2014 as punishment for President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea and its support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. The suspension was supported by the other members of the group: the US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. CNN notes Trump's remarks come after a public Twitter battle Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over new tariffs the US has hit its allies with for "national security" purposes.


Here is a news article: Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Miss Claudette is on the mend. Orange Is the New Black star Michelle Hurst, known to fans of the Netflix series as Piper Chapman's neatnik roommate, has awoken from a medically induced coma following a serious car accident a few weeks ago.

 PHOTOS: Celeb injuries

 According to a fundraising page set up to help Hurst with her hospital bills, the actress is currently in the ICU at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C. "Michelle Hurst was in a bad car accident just before the holidays," the page reads. "She had major injuries, so the doctors put her in a medically induced coma to avoid movement while they did multiple surgeries near her spine."

 PHOTOS: Celeb health scares

 The explanation goes on to note that Hurst is now out of the coma — after 16 days — and has opened her eyes. "She is progressing slowly, but progressing!" an update notes.

 Hurst's OITNB costars Natasha Lyonne (Nicky Nichols) and Matt McGorry (John Bennett) tweeted links to the page and asked their followers to donate to her cause. "Please give what you can to help Michelle Hurst — the amazing actress who plays Miss Claudette on OINTB," Lyonne wrote on Jan. 16.

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 The fundraisers' goal was to raise $5,000 to "help pay for her medical expenses and time off of work." As of Friday, Jan. 17, however, more than double that amount — a total of $12,256 — had been donated by 216 supporters.

 "People, you are amazing," tweeted Piper Kerman, the author whose memoir inspired Orange Is the New Black. "In less than 2 days you raised double the goal for Michele Hurst, a.k.a. 'Miss Claudette.'"

 Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox!

 Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! ||||| Michelle Hurst, who plays Miss Claudette on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, woke up from a medically induced coma Thursday morning.

 According to a fundraising page, the actress is currently in the ICU at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital and is responsive. The page asks for donations to help Michelle's sister pay for her medical expenses and the time she's taken off of work.

 So far, the fundraiser has been a success—raising $8,684 out of their $5,000 goal.

 The page gave fans an update about her current condition, saying, "She is progressing slowly, but progressing!" |||||
A summary of this is?

– The actress who plays Miss Claudette on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black emerged from a medically induced coma yesterday after 16 days, reports Us. Doctors put Michelle Hurst in the coma after a bad car accident, and supporters set up an online fundraising page for her medical bills, notes E! Online. Thanks to public tweets from the likes of Piper Kerman, whose memoir about prison life is the basis of the series, and actress Taylor Schilling, who plays the role of Piper in the show, the page has raised more than $14,000 toward its $20,000 goal. Hurst's condition isn't clear, but the page says she is "responsive" and "progressing slowly."