The Observer view on Theresa May’s calamitous Brexit strategy | Observer editorial

It is certainly the case that Donald Tusk, president of the council of ministers, caught Mrs May unawares with his blunt declaration that her Chequers plan was unworkable. For the past two years, Mr Tusk has played good cop to bad cop Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator. But while Mr Tusk is an anglophile, he is also an ardent believer in the European project, as befits a former Polish prime minister. He has been a candid friend to Mrs May, but he could not force her to listen, so in the end he mockingly cast her adrift. [...]

From the start, EU leaders insisted no cherrypicking of withdrawal terms would be allowed. But Mrs May ignored them. The complex issues raised by the Northern Ireland border were flagged up early on. But only in recent months, to the profound frustration of the Irish government, have Mrs May and her cabinet taken this question seriously – and she still lacks a solution. EU officials complain, with justice, that her inflexible negotiating stance revealed an ignorant disregard, or lack of understanding, of the basic principles upon which the EU is based, namely the single market, free movement of people and goods and a common regulatory and legal framework. [...]

Perhaps the most startling aspect of Mrs May’s performance last week was that the EU leaders’ multiple rebuffs clearly took her by surprise. Why so? They were merely reiterating positions they have maintained for the past two years or more. Does she now, finally, grasp the evidence of her own eyes and ears? Does she understand her Chequers plan, rejected at home and abroad, is doomed? And does she really still believe a no-deal outcome could be anything other than a catastrophe? Judging by Friday’s negative, aggressive Downing Street statement, she remains in denial. She has learned nothing – and has absolutely nothing new to offer. Mrs May is in a very deep hole, but she will not stop digging.

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Haaretz: Putin Now Has Leverage Over Israel, and No Reason to Give It Up

The Defense Ministry, which issued a statement threatening Israel the day after the incident, is taking a hard line. Putin himself spoke softly, almost forgivingly, about a series of tragic mistakes. And Russian officers in contact with Israeli colleagues dealt mainly with professional issues – what caused the incident and what should be fixed to prevent a recurrence. [...]

New bilateral understandings apparently haven’t yet been finalized and probably won’t be publicized. But at least in the short term, Russia will presumably try to put some restrictions on Israel’s freedom of action, either by distancing Israeli planes from Russian bases in northern Syria or by demanding greater advance notice of every strike. [...]

A third country was notably absent from the Russian-Israeli tensions caused by the downed plane – the United States. Until a few years ago, Washington was involved in almost every important Mideast development. A good example is UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The United States and France were heavily involved in drafting it, but Russia, which also has a permanent Security Council seat, was almost completely uninvolved.

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The Guardian: UK faces darker hours before Brexit agreement is reached

Brussels is well acquainted with being cast as the baddy by grandstanding prime ministers and ministers. Ruling out one Brussels-led policy in bellicose terms lets governments accept quietly something else that may only be slightly less toxic to the voters and domestic political alliances that give them power. [...]

If there are any doubts in Brussels that May has now accepted a Canada-style free trade deal as the likely landing zone, albeit with some bells and whistles to make it look like a compromise, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, was able to assuage them on the BBC’s Today show on Saturday. Asked twice to rule out such a deal, with the regulatory barriers on imports this involves, he did not do so.

But there’s a bigger, and intractable, row to come. May says she has ruled out a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK for constitutional reasons. She may also have done this because the UK’s manufacturing sector is reliant on an absence of customs checks between Britain, Ireland and the continent. Yet the UK’s continued membership in a customs union has also been ruled out. The Brexiters see many of the Leave benefits as coming from the ability of global Britain to set its own tariff schedule on imports. Something has to give. Brussels is preparing for things to get much darker.

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Vox: We know ocean plastic is a problem. We can’t fix it until we answer these 5 questions.

Garbage patches the size of small countries floating on the surface of the ocean have become another powerful image of the problem, as have photos and videos of marine life choking on and filled with plastic. In the past couple of months, we’ve also seen a major mobilization around keeping plastic out of the ocean.

“Beat Plastic Pollution” was the focus of UN World Environmental Day on June 5, inspiring hundreds of beach cleanup events around the world and a remarkable commitment from India to ban single-use plastics by 2022. [...]

Since this initial report, researchers at the Santa Barbara Marine Conservancy discovered that the plastic at the ocean surface only accounts for about 1 percent of all ocean plastic. Although others have found that a large percent is absorbed into the ocean floor, it’s still not clear where all the plastic is in the ocean.

We are also not really sure what objects are the biggest component of ocean plastic. Until recently, most research into ocean plastic sources came from beach cleanups; as a result, the most common objects found were items that humans use near beaches, like cigarettes, straws, and cups. [...]

It did not refer to regulation of fishing equipment, which is believed to be the largest source of ocean plastic. It did not demand reduction of plastic production. And notably missing from the charter were the United States and Japan. Greenpeace called the proposals “tepid,” saying they were mostly voluntary and “must be met with significant legislative action.”

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CityLab: The Fight for LGBT Rights Has Moved to the Suburbs

But same-sex couples and transgender people are increasingly living outside of these traditional “gayborhoods.” Many of the national battles over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights have grown out of everyday conflicts between these new suburbanites and their straight-identified neighbors.

The movement of openly gay couples away from older cities defied the perceived connection between heterosexual family life and the suburbs that dates at least to the 1940s. [...]

At the time, local businesses and homeowners worried about attempts by neighboring communities, including Denver, to annex new land. Many middle-class residents of Jefferson County saw themselves as defenders of a particularly suburban way of life that was threatened by annexation from the central city. They identified that lifestyle with low taxes, good schools, racial homogeneity, happy marriages and, above all, the well-being of children.

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