CBS will celebrate ‘Star Trek’ Day 2020 with an epic Trek panel marathon

 

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.

— D. H. Lawrence, author of Kangaroo written at Thirroul’s Wyewurk - born in 1885

 

China's 'hybrid war': Beijing's mass surveillance of Australia and the world for secrets and scandal

The latest in The Washington Post’s “How to be a Journalist” video series “lifts the curtain on the White House beat.” Host Libby Casey speaks to Post White House reporters Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker and Toluse Olorunnipa “about how they source, chase the facts, and write stories that end up on The Post’s front page.”

 

Reporters have found a lot of different ways to travel the country and tell people’s stories, from a propeller airplane to a trek around the world on foot. Now, a rural reporter at Mountain West News Bureau is cycling 900 miles “crisscrossing the continental divide in August and September, interviewing and listening to Americans ahead of the 2020 election.” You can follow reporter Nate Hegyi’s journey on Twitter, online and through a map that shows the route.

CBS will celebrate ‘Star Trek’ Day 2020 with an epic Trek panel marathon

Space.com -“Here’s what to know. It’s been an incredible 54 years since “Star Trek” first debuted. On Tuesday (Sept. 8), actors from across the multi-decade franchise will celebrate an online “Star Trek” day with panels and discussions, while discussing the series’ emphasis on diversity. More than three hours of free virtual panels will play at the Star Trek Day website here starting at 12 p.m. PDT (3 p.m. EDT or 1900 GMT). The multi-hour online event comes in the wake of a CBS announcement Sept. 2 that “Star Trek” will feature its first nonbinary and transgender characters in Season 3 of “Star Trek: Discovery,” which premieres Oct. 15. Adira will be a nonbinary character played by non-binary actor Blu del Barrio, while transgender actor Ian Alexander will play 

Shy-Yi Oei (Boston College) & Diane M. Ring (Boston College), When Data Comes Home: Next Steps in International Taxation's Information Revolution, 66 McGill L.J. ___ (2020):

Over the last decade, there has been a revolution in cross-border tax information exchange and reporting. While this dramatic shift was the product of multiple forces and events, a fundamental reality is that politics, technology, and law intersected to drive the shift to the point where nation-states will now transmit and receive from each other significant ongoing flows of taxpayer information. States can now expect to accumulate large stashes of data on cross-border income, assets, and activities on a scale and level of comprehensiveness unmatched by previous information exchange regimes.

Spain aims to tax services like Whatsapp based on revenue

If you think the UK isn't corrupt, you haven't looked hard enough

Amazon under pressure after paying just £293 million in UK tax despite Jeff Bezos being the world's richest man

• Amazon UK pays 3% more in tax despite 35% rise in profits (9 Sep 2020)
• Money Laundering: Regulators investigate elite London law firm Mishcon de Reya  (9 Sep 2020)
• Jeff Bezos is now worth a whopping $200 billion  (9 Sep 2020)
  
• Private equity says payouts levy rise would drive industry out of UK (8 Sep 2020)
  
• Britain’s billionaires see profits soar during pandemic while poorest may see wage rise scrapped  (7 Sep 2020)
  
• Rishi Sunak weighs increasing corporation tax to 24% - would raise £12bn next year, rising to £17bn in 2023-24 (3 Sep 2020)
• UK Treasury looking at increasing the tax rate for company directors who pay themselves in dividends – currently 7.5 per cent compared to a basic income tax rate of 20 per cent (3 Sep 2020)
  
• Major tax rises will be needed to tackle record debt levels, Sunak told  (2 Sep 2020)
• Boris Johnson tries to calm Tory mutiny with vow to keep taxes low  (2 Sep 2020)
• Golden passports: the EU must act (2 Sep 2020)
• Before COVID-19, the UK was raising 34% of GDP in tax, the highest share since the early 1980s (2 Sep 2020)
• In the UK in a normal year, adding 1 percentage point to all income tax rates, all employee and self-employed National Insurance contribution (NICs) rates, or the rates of VAT, would raise £5.7 billion, £6.4 billion and £7.2 billion respectively (Sep 2020)
• Raising only the higher rate of UK income tax (currently 40% for incomes over £50,000) by one percentage point would raise around £1 billion  (2 Sep 2020)
  
• COVID-19 fuelling illicit trade, financial flows globally  (1 Sep 2020)
  
• ‘Funk Money’: The End of Empires, The Expansion of Tax Havens, and Decolonization as an Economic and Financial Event  (25 Aug 2020)
• GMB's Adil Ray grills Google boss about how much tax company pays in tense interview (25 Aug 2020)
  
• Google will ‘always pay the tax it is required to pay’, says UK director (25 Aug 2020)
• HMRC probes 250 wealthy taxpayers for evasion 

How Will the Fashion Industry Ever Recover?Treehugger

Chiefs, Texans booed as racial justice stand sparks outrage AP

A Line of Fire South of Portland and a Yearlong Recover Ahead NYT

Oregon officials concerned wildfires could be a ‘mass fatality incident’ after they burn more than a million acres San Francisco Chronicle

Officials battle online misinformation along with wildfires AP

The Crisis in the Skies of San Francisco New Yorker

House Intel Cmte Releases Whistleblower Reprisal Complaint Alleging Serious Misconduct By Senior Trump Administration Officials

News release: “Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, announced that, as part of its ongoing investigation into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), the Committee received a whistleblower reprisal complaint alleging serious wrongdoing by officials at the Department and reprisal against former I&A Acting Under Secretary Brian Murphy for making protected disclosures. Mr. Murphy filed the whistleblower reprisal complaint on September 8, 2020 with the DHS Office of Inspector General. After receiving the complaint, Chairman Schiff sent a letter today requesting that Mr. Murphy appear for a deposition pursuant to a subpoena on Monday, September 21, 2020. The whistleblower reprisal complaint depicts a sustained and disturbing pattern of misconduct by senior Trump Administration officials within the White House and DHS relating to the activities of DHS’s I&A—an element of the U.S. Intelligence Community which Mr. Murphy led from May until August of this year, before he was reassigned to DHS’s Management Directorate, and where he previously served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary beginning in March 2018. The complaint alleges repeated violations of law and regulations, abuses of authority, attempted censorship of intelligence analysis, and improper administration of an intelligence program related to Russian efforts to influence the U.S. elections. After sending the letter with the complaint, Chairman Schiff released the following statement:

The whistleblower retaliation complaint filed by former Acting Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Brian Murphy outlines grave and disturbing allegations that senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically. This puts our nation and its security at grave risk. “Mr. Murphy’s allegations are serious — from senior officials suppressing intelligence reports on Russia’s election interference and making false statements to Congress about terrorism threats at our southern border, to modifying intelligence assessments to match the President’s rhetoric on Antifa and minimizing the threat posed by white supremacists. We have requested Mr. Murphy’s testimony before the Committee, pursuant to subpoena if necessary, alongside other already scheduled interviews with other DHS officials