*[Ex-minister] Alan Duncan's employer Vitol has stake in vast Arctic exploration project backed by the Putin regime.*

Under UK rules, even present members of Parliament are allowed to have "second jobs". Officially, the job can't include "vote the way we want", but that could be implicitly understood.

*Rich countries must stop [extracting] oil and gas by 2034, says study. Poorest states should be given until 2050, says research aiming to set out fair way of ending fossil fuel economy.*

Westerners' disgust doesn't tackle all the world's powerful rich equally. Russian billionaires are targeted now, but not the murderous rulers of Salafi Arabia and the UAE. Nor do all attacked countries get equal support.

To some extent, the differences in US response reflect the difference in what options the situations offer.

In Syria, the US tried supporting the rebels against Assad, but they were inseparable from the intolerant Islamists, eager to persecute non-Muslims and non-Sunnis. Only the secularist, socialist Kurds deserved and deserve support, but they could not offer a potential government for all of Syria, including those who are not Kurds.

By contrast, in Ukraine it is clear who to support, and that makes it easy to do so.

The US can stop drone bombings in Yemen, and perhaps take a neutral stance there, but that won't make its civil war go away.

The US could give less support to the regimes of Salafi Arabia and the UAE, but barring trying to impose regime change there, which we should know would cause disaster, it can't deal with those countries except through those regimes.

The mayor of Riace, Italy, has been convicted on trumped-up charges for publicly adopting policies make it easy for immigrants to settle there.

Although many businesses require female staff to wear high-heeled shoes, people tend to perceive women as more competent when they wear sensible shoes.

This perception may be grounded on valid reasons. A woman wearing sensible shoes demonstrates something about how sensible she is, and how willing to reject bullshit. Those qualities may correlate with competence.