Politico: Barcelona’s war on tourists

Colau made her name campaigning against the increasing number of evictions and foreclosures in Spain after the financial crisis, before turning her sights on the tourism industry. Her local election campaign examined the “tourist bubble” and promised to bring the situation under control, propelling her leftist coalition — Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona in Common) — to victory.

It’s a difficult game to play. Barcelona gets around 30 million visitors a year, according to local government figures, bringing in a huge amount of money to the city of 1.6 million. The impact those tourists are having on rental prices, however, is a major concern for locals, with opinion polls ranking it the second biggest problem for residents, after unemployment. [...]

Colau approved a series of controversial measures after taking power: She froze handing out licenses for all new hospitality establishments, including hotels and private apartments — despite 15,000 pending requests — and launched an assault on short-term rentals through sites such as Airbnb, which she blames for the lack of affordable housing in the city. [...]

The effect of these measures is yet to be seen. The number of hotel guests in Barcelona grew by 5.4 percent in 2015 and long-term rental prices have increased by 30 percent since Colau became mayor. The growth in Madrid, where no such measures have been introduced, was 19 percent over the same period, according to the real estate website Idealista.

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BuzzFeed: There’s A Plan For California To Secede From The US, But It Probably Won’t Work

Members of the “Yes California” initiative filed a proposed ballot measure Monday that would let California residents vote on whether the state should try to break away from the rest of the country. The goal is to get the measure on the ballot in 2018 — something that will happen if organizers collect more than half a million signatures.

If the measure passes at the ballot box, it would eliminate part of the state constitution describing California as an “an inseparable part of the United States of America.”

Passing the measure would then lead to a special election in 2019 where voters would decide if they want to leave the United States and become their own country. [...]

Daniel Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, described the odds of California breaking away from the United States as “one in a billion.” Farber said the Golden State would face an array of challenges if it seceded, including deals over everything from trade to energy to copyrights on Hollywood films. [...]

Instead, he explained, California would need the consent of other states to leave the US. How exactly that consent could be given is unclear — this particular issue hasn’t come up before — though it could ultimately require a constitutional amendment. And either way, it would require the very lawmakers Californians want to break away from to get on board with the plan.

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The Guardian: 'It's not all anal sex': the German schools exploring love, equality and LGBT issues

Despite their fears, anal sex is not being snuck into lessons. What schools are being asked to do is encourage acceptance of different lifestyles and identities. The Hessian ministry of education has said that, from this autumn, teachers must have conversations about sexual and gender diversity with children – not only in sex education classes, which are mandatory in Germany, but in subjects like English and maths too.

“The idea is to show children that there are different ways to love and live,” says Markus Ulrich, of the German LGBT rights group Lesben und Schwulenverband (LSVD). The issue is brought in on a day-to-day basis. “For example, in maths, a teacher could set a question that includes a gay family,” says Ulrich. “Or in English when they study Romeo and Juliet, they could ask about other types of relationships that are sometimes disapproved of.” [...]

Klauenflügel says this cannot happen. “It’s very necessary to connect LGBT acceptance with an acceptance of all different diverse ways of living,” she says. “I think it’s particularly important to teach diversity in schools now – it’s a human rights issue and is about accepting people with different lifestyles, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, genders and backgrounds. It’s a kind of diversity competence that we really need in our society right now.”

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Business Insider: 'This is no longer amusing:' EU officials have lost patience with Boris Johnson

May's decision to appoint Johnson as foreign secretary when she became prime minister surprised many, given the latter's history of gaffes relating to other countries and their leaders. It is a move that looks be backfiring, with Johnson's reputation among his European counterparts seemingly getting worse with each week that passes.

"This is no longer amusing. It is serious stuff," a European ambassador told the Times. Research group British influence has spoken to ambassadors from all 27 EU member states and concluded that Johnson has a "wit that does not always travel well across the Channel."

Last week, Italian minister Carlo Calenda said he felt insulted by Johnson after the Tory MP suggested Italy should push for Britain to remain in the European Single Market otherwise it would be forced to sell less prosecco. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Johnson's German counterpart, told colleagues that he couldn't stand to be in the same room as the British minister, according to a Financial Times report.

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Los Angeles Times: Britain's sweeping surveillance powers act raises concerns for human rights activists

“It defies common sense,” said Carlo, policy officer at human rights organization Liberty. “We are very, very resolutely in opposition to mass surveillance, which can never be considered proportionate or necessary in a democracy.”

But after a year of debate, the Investigatory Powers Bill was approved by Parliament last week and is expected to be ratified into law by the end of the year. The bill includes measures that will force Internet and phone companies to keep a record of the complete Web browsing history of British citizens for up to 12 months, in case they need to be accessed by government agencies.

It also allows the government to obtain “bulk personal data sets,” even if most of the individuals are not suspected of any wrongdoing. [...]

In essence, the bill will force Internet and phone companies to keep records of all users for up to a year, including every website visited and every phone call made, including duration, date and time.

Such surveillance does not have to be targeted or based on any reasonable suspicion and this personal data can be accessed without a warrant in some instances.

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