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The massive demonstrations in Hong Kong are an enormous test for China's commitment to its complex "one country, two systems" approach to Hong Kong, implemented after Britain's return of the region to Chinese sovereignty in 1984. Student demonstrators and others are challenging China's decision on how the next Chief Executive of Hong Kong will be selected and the very meaning of the "high degree of autonomy" promised to Hong Kong's residents.

The number of Texas clinics providing safe abortion services to women were reduced to eight overnight. On Thursday, the conservative judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed an earlier court decision that had allowed 13 other clinics to remain operating in the country's second largest state. According to one clinic operator, Texas now "faces a health care crisis, brought on by its own legislators.”

Last February British Columbia's Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint demanding to know why the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) considers critics of Canada's petroleum industry a threat to national security. But, last week the CSIS said the association's complaint was "overly broad," and took steps to limit the inquiry into why the agency was spying on environmental groups and sharing its information with the oil companies.

It may be a panel of judges that shut most Texas abortion clinics, but the law the court upheld began with a flood of money to antiabortion forces from the Koch network's "free enterprise" groups.

A surge in voter registration likely presages a significant demographic shift in election day turnout.

In Jefferson County, Colorado, a newly conservative school board instituted a review to ensure that the AP US curriculum will “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system”.

It used to be that economic expansions improved the incomes of the bottom 90 percent more than the top 10 percent. But starting with the “Reagan” recovery of 1982 to 1990, the benefits of economic growth during expansions have gone mostly to the top 10 percent. Since the current recovery began in 2009, all economic gains have gone to the top 10 percent.

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Israel is out of step with much of the world. Over time, nations have become more ethnically and religiously diverse; populations have become more urban and educated; and economies have become more commercial. In response to these social and economic changes, many nations have left behind the notion of a favored state religion. It is time for Israel to do the same. It must be a fully secular state.