<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Henry Nicholls</span></p><p class="caption">Demonstrators react on the ruling of the Supreme Court during a protest outside the Supreme Court in London, Britain September 24, 2019.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>The United Kingdom's highest court has ruled that Boris Johnson's decision to shut down Parliament for five weeks was unlawful.</li><li>Lady Hale, the President of the Supreme Court, on Tuesday morning said: "The prorogation was also void and of no effect. Parliament has not been prorogued. This is the unanimous judgment of all 11 Justices."</li><li>She said the prorogation was "null and void," meaning Parliament had not been suspended.</li><li>Read Lady Hale's damning verdict in full.</li></ul><p>Boris Johnson suffered a catastrophic blow to his authority on Monday as the United Kingdom's highest court found that his suspension of Parliament for five weeks was unlawful.</p><p>Eleven Supreme Court judges <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-says-boris-johnson-suspending-parliament-was-illegal-2019-9?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Tuesday morning</a> ruled unanimously that Johnson's move - widely seen as an attempt to stop his opponents legislating to stop a no-deal Brexit - was "unlawful, void and of no effect," in a dramatic move which immediately triggered calls for his resignation from opposition parties.</p><h2>Here is Supreme Court President Lady Hale's explanation of the ruling:</h2><p>"We have before us two appeals, one from the High Court of England and Wales and one from the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland. It is important, once again, to emphasise that these cases are not about when and on what terms the United Kingdom is to leave the European Union. They are only about whether the advice given by the Prime Minister to Her Majesty the Queen on 27th or 28th August, that Parliament should be prorogued from a date between 9th and 12th September until 14th October, was lawful and the legal consequences if it was not. The question arises in circumstances which have never arisen before and are unlikely to arise again. It is a "one-off".</p><p>Briefly, the Scottish case was brought by a cross party group of 75 members of Parliament and a QC on 30th July because of their concern that Parliament might be prorogued to avoid further debate in the lead up to exit day on 31st October. On 15th August, Nikki da Costa, Director of Legislative Affairs at No 10, sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister, copied to seven people, civil servants and special advisers, recommending that his Parliamentary Private Secretary approach the Palace with a request for prorogation to begin within 9th to 12th September and for a Queen's Speech on 14th October. The Prime Minister ticked 'yes' to that recommendation.</p><p>On 27th or 28th August, in a telephone call, he formally advised Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament between those dates. On 28th August, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Privy Council, Mr Mark Harper, chief whip, and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park, Leader of the House of Lords, attended a meeting of the Privy Council held by the Queen at Balmoral Castle. An Order in Council was made that Parliament be prorogued between those dates and that the Lord Chancellor prepare and issue a commission for proroguing Parliament accordingly. A Cabinet meeting was held by conference call shortly after that in order to bring the rest of the Cabinet "up to speed" on the decisions which had been taken. That same day, the decision was made public and the Prime Minister sent a letter to all Members of Parliament explaining it. As soon as the decision was announced, Mrs Miller began the English proceedings challenging its lawfulness.</p><h2>1.</h2><p>Parliament returned from the summer recess on 3rd September. The House of Commons voted to decide for themselves what business they would transact. The next day what became the European Union (Withdrawal) (No 2) Act passed all its stages in the Commons. It passed all its stages in the House of Lords on 6th September and received royal assent on 9th September. The object of that Act is to prevent the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a withdrawal agreement on 31st October.</p><p>On 11th September, the High Court of England and Wales delivered judgment dismissing Mrs Miller's claim on the ground that the issue was not justiciable in a court of law. That same day, the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland announced its decision that the issue was justiciable, that it was motivated by the improper purpose of stymying Parliamentary scrutiny of the Government, and that it, and any prorogation which followed it, were unlawful and thus void and of no effect.</p><p>Mrs Miller's appeal against the English decision and the Advocate General's appeal against the Scottish decision were heard by this court from 17th to 19th September. Because of the importance of the case, we convened a panel of 11 Justices, the maximum number of serving Justices who are permitted to sit. This judgment is the unanimous judgment of all 11 Justices.</p><p>The first question is whether the lawfulness of the Prime Minister's advice to Her Majesty is justiciable. This Court holds that it is. The courts have exercised a supervisory jurisdiction over the lawfulness of acts of the Government for centuries. As long ago as 1611, the court held that "the King [who was then the government] hath no prerogative but that which the law of the land allows him". However, in considering prerogative powers, it is necessary to distinguish between two different questions. The first is whether a prerogative power exists and if so its extent. The second is whether the exercise of that power, within its limits, is open to legal challenge. This second question may depend upon what the power is all about: some powers are not amenable to judicial review while others are. However, there is no doubt that the courts have jurisdiction to decide upon the existence and limits of a prerogative power. All the parties to this case accept that. This Court has concluded that this case is about the limits of the power to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament.</p><p>The second question, therefore, is what are the limits to that power? Two fundamental principles of our Constitution are relevant to deciding that question. The first is Parliamentary sovereignty - that Parliament can make laws which everyone must obey: this would be undermined if the executive could, through the use of the prerogative, prevent Parliament from exercising its power to make laws for as long as it pleased. The second fundamental principle is Parliamentary accountability: in the words of Lord Bingham, senior Law Lord, "the conduct of government by a Prime Minister and Cabinet collectively responsible and accountable to Parliament lies at the heart of Westminster democracy". The power to prorogue is limited by the constitutional principles with which it would otherwise conflict.</p><p>For present purposes, the relevant limit on the power to prorogue is this: that a decision to prorogue (or advise the monarch to prorogue) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In judging any justification which might be put forward, the court must of course be sensitive to the responsibilities and experience of the Prime Minister and proceed with appropriate caution.</p><p>If the prorogation does have that effect, without reasonable justification, there is no need for the court to consider whether the Prime Minister's motive or purpose was unlawful.</p><h2>2.</h2><p>The third question, therefore, is whether this prorogation did have the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification. This was not a normal prorogation in the run-up to a Queen's Speech. It prevented Parliament from carrying out its constitutional role for five out of the possible eight weeks between the end of the summer recess and exit day on 31st October. Proroguing Parliament is quite different from Parliament going into recess. While Parliament is prorogued, neither House can meet, debate or pass legislation. Neither House can debate Government policy. Nor may members ask written or oral questions of Ministers or meet and take evidence in committees. In general, Bills which have not yet completed all their stages are lost and will have to start again from scratch after the Queen's Speech. During a recess, on the other hand, the House does not sit but Parliamentary business can otherwise continue as usual. This prolonged suspension of Parliamentary democracy took place in quite exceptional circumstances: the fundamental change which was due to take place in the Constitution of the United Kingdom on 31st October. Parliament, and in particular the House of Commons as the elected representatives of the people, has a right to a voice in how that change comes about. The effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme.</p><p>No justification for taking action with such an extreme effect has been put before the court. The only evidence of why it was taken is the memorandum from Nikki da Costa of 15th August. This explains why holding the Queen's Speech to open a new session of Parliament on 14th October would be desirable. It does not explain why it was necessary to bring Parliamentary business to a halt for five weeks before that, when the normal period necessary to prepare for the Queen's Speech is four to six days. It does not discuss the difference between prorogation and recess. It does not discuss the impact of prorogation on the special procedures for scrutinising the delegated legislation necessary to achieve an orderly withdrawal from the European Union, with or without a withdrawal agreement, on 31st October. It does not discuss what Parliamentary time would be needed to secure Parliamentary approval for any new withdrawal agreement, as required by section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.</p><p>The Court is bound to conclude, therefore, that the decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.</p><p>The next and final question, therefore, is what the legal effect of that finding is and therefore what remedies the Court should grant. The Court can certainly declare that the advice was unlawful. The Inner House went further and declared that any prorogation resulting from it was null and of no effect. The Government argues that the Inner House could not do that because the prorogation was a "proceeding in Parliament" which, under the Bill of Rights of 1688 cannot be impugned or questioned in any court. But it is quite clear that the prorogation is not a proceeding in Parliament. It takes place in the House of Lords chamber in the presence of members of both Houses, but it is not their decision. It is something which has been imposed upon them from outside. It is not something on which members can speak or vote. It is not the core or essential business of Parliament which the Bill of Rights protects. Quite the reverse: it brings that core or essential business to an end.</p><p>This Court has already concluded that the Prime Minister's advice to Her Majesty was unlawful, void and of no effect. This means that the Order in Council to which it led was also unlawful, void and of no effect and should be quashed. This means that when the Royal Commissioners walked into the House of Lords it was as if they walked in with a blank sheet of paper. The prorogation was also void and of no effect. Parliament has not been prorogued. This is the unanimous judgment of all 11 Justices.</p><h2>3.</h2><p>It is for Parliament, and in particular the Speaker and the Lord Speaker to decide what to do next. Unless there is some Parliamentary rule of which we are unaware, they can take immediate steps to enable each House to meet as soon as possible. It is not clear to us that any step is needed from the Prime Minister, but if it is, the court is pleased that his counsel have told the court that he will take all necessary steps to comply with the terms of any declaration made by this court.</p><p>It follows that the Advocate General's appeal in the case of Cherry is dismissed and Mrs Miller's appeal is allowed. The same declarations and orders should be made in each case."</p> <p class="tagline">Our Brexit Insider Facebook group is the best place for up-to-date news and analysis about Britain's departure from the EU, direct from Business Insider's political reporters. Join <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/267178180471848/">here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/presidential-debate-entertaining-problem-democratic-trump-reality-tv-show-2019-9">How networks treat debates like reality TV</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Read the UK Supreme Court's explosive verdict on why Boris Johnson's suspension of parliament was illegal

I spent two and a half hours with David Farnsworth, the Trump-backed candidate who defeated January 6 committee witness Rusty Bowers. Here's what I learned about religion, 'conspiracy facts,' and the modern Republican party.

A complete timeline of Britney Spears and Jamie Lynn Spears' feud and tumultuous relationship

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted by soldiers in Mexico City.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Mexico wants to send Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán to the US in the first two months of next year, the country's national security commissioner said on Friday. </p><p>"We hope (to do it) in January or February," Renato Sales Heredia <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-mexico-aims-to-extradite-drug-lord-guzman-in-early-2017-2016-10" target="_blank">told</a> Mexican television channel Televisa after being asked when the drug lord could be extradited.</p><p>Guzmán is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-transfer-to-mexico-altiplano-prison-2016-8" target="_blank">currently in jail near Ciudad Juarez</a> in northern Mexico, awaiting a ruling from a judge in Mexico City on the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/extradition-case-against-el-chapo-guzman-to-be-reviewed-by-judge-2016-9" target="_blank">Sinaloa cartel chief's appeals</a> to the extradition <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-files-appeals-against-extradition-2016-6" target="_blank">requests approved</a> by the Mexican government in May.</p><p>The judge heard Guzmán's legal team's appeals against the extradition decision on September 26, and it's not yet known when that judge will return a decision. Once he does, however, whichever side the ruling goes against is likely to appeal, likely extending the process for weeks more.</p><p>For its part, Guzmán's legal team disputed Sales' timeline. José Refugio Rodríguez, one of Guzmán's attorneys, said in an interview that the extradition petitions didn't all meet the conditions under which the transfer could be carried out by the date mentioned by Sales, <a href="http://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/2016/10/14/1122397#.WADk-WxFxEQ.twitter" target="_blank">according</a> to Mexican newspaper Excelsior. </p><p>Sales "can calculate, he can have a personal opinion. I see it very difficult (to be) from here to January," Rodríguez said in the interview, <a href="http://www.prensa.com/mundo/Mexico-extraditara-Chapo-Guzman-Unidos_0_4597790183.html" target="_blank">according</a> to La Prensa.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Edgard Garrido</span></p><p class="caption">Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto, center, hugs Renato Sales, left, the new National Security Commissioner, during the official swearing-in ceremony of new ministers at Los Pinos presidential residence in Mexico City, August 27, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The extradition process against Guzmán has proceeded slowly since his recapture in January this year, when Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said his government planned to send the kingpin north.</p><p>Experts have estimated that could take several years - possibly up to six - for Guzmán to be extradited to a US court, and other major kingpins captured in Mexico have sweated out multiyear extradition battles before eventually landing in the US.</p><p>The Mexican government also has a way to circumvent the legal battle around Guzmán, acting independent of the judiciary in order to carry out the extradition. </p><p><span>"As a technical matter, the Mexican executive [branch] is not at all dependent on the Mexican judicial system to approve of extradition," Peter Vincent, a former legal adviser at the US Department of Homeland Security, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-extradition-legal-battle-2016-9" target="_blank">told Business Insider earlier this year</a>. "It in fact has unilateral authority ... to ultimately approve of extradition, because extradition is after all a diplomatic matter, best handled by the executive branch."</span></p><p><span>The Mexican government <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-extradition-legal-battle-2016-9" target="_blank">has exercised this authority in the past</a>, sending cartel chief Benjamin Arellano Felix, a one-time rival of Guzmán, to the US in 2008 after deciding that he would not face double jeopardy in a US court.</span></p><p><span>Comments from Rodríguez, Guzmán's attorney, suggest he is aware of this possibility.</span></p><p><span>"If the subject of the extradition is not politicized," he said, "we have means to avoid it."</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/footage-el-chapo-raid-joaquin-guzman-mexico-2016-1">Mexico just released dramatic video of the raid at El Chapo's house that led to his arrest</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="13Mms0MDE65m2gESExX5C-Vnx0XgNKEQ" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Mexico says it wants to extradite 'El Chapo' Guzman by 'January or February' 2017

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>LEGO Group</span></p><p class="caption">LEGO's San Francisco model features a number of iconic fixtures.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>LEGO just released a model of the San Francisco skyline that includes the recently-completed Salesforce Tower, now the tallest building in San Francisco.</li><li>While the skyscraper has been favorably received, it's located next door to two controversial buildings: the sinking Millennium Tower and the now-closed Salesforce Transit Center.</li><li>Some adult LEGO fans were concerned that the new model didn't represent old-school San Francisco.  </li></ul><p>The Salesforce Tower is a relatively new addition to the San Francisco skyline, but it's already being memorialized by a famous toy company. </p><p>In December, LEGO released a model that situates the $1 billion tower alongside legendary monuments like Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. </p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-lego-factory-where-they-make-19-billion-pieces-each-year-billund-2018-4">Inside LEGO's biggest factory - where they make 19 billion pieces each year</a></em></p><p>Other notable fixtures include <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-inside-painted-ladies-home-2016-9">the "painted lady" homes</a> that were popularized by the 1990s sitcom "Full House" and two additional skyscrapers: the 850-foot-tall <span>Transamerica Pyramid and </span>555 California Street, formerly known as the Bank of America Center. </p><p>At more than 1,000 feet tall, the Salesforce Tower exceeds the height of both these buildings. It is now the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-tower-height-2018-2">tallest building in San Francisco</a> - a title that <a href="https://abc7news.com/realestate/salesforce-tower-in-sf-becomes-tallest-building-on-west-coast-/1556148/">belonged to the Transamerica Pyramid</a> for 43 years. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>LEGO Group</span></p><p class="caption">The set retails for $49.99.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Though the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-tower-office-tour-photos-2018-5#there-are-no-desks-fleshed-against-the-walls-which-a-salesforce-spokesperson-says-is-to-maximize-the-amount-of-natural-light-coming-into-the-room-the-windows-stretch-10-feet-tall-7">Salesforce Tower has been praised</a> for its "slender, tapering silhouette" and "homey" offices, the building has had a front-row seat to one of the biggest controversies in San Francisco's recent history. </p><p>Its neighbor, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennium-tower-san-francisco-tilting-sinking-timeline-2018-10">a 58-story luxury condo skyscraper</a> known as Millennium Tower, has been tilting and sinking for almost a decade<span>. Residents have also complained of mysterious odors, bubbling floors, cracked walls, and a giant window fissure on the 36th floor.</span><span></span></p><p><span>The Millennium Tower blames the sinking on the nearby </span>Salesforce Transit Center, claiming that construction workers <span>pumped too much water out of the ground while digging </span><span>a massive hole in the shared land. </span></p><p><span>The Salesforce Transit Center has been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-transbay-transit-center-problems-2018-10#the-executive-director-of-the-transbay-authority-said-everything-had-been-built-to-code-but-admitted-there-were-a-lot-of-unanswered-questions-22">plagued by similar set of issues</a>. A month after the center opened in August 2018, </span><span style="color: #000000;">a walkway along its rooftop garden started to crumble. </span>Two weeks later, workers discovered a cracked beam on the third floor deck.</p><p>The center is now <a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/holes-cut-transit-center-beams-probable-cause-cracks/">closed indefinitely</a>, with officials admitting that there are still "a lot of unanswered questions."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>LEGO Group</span></p><p class="caption">It takes more than 629 pieces to put the skyline together.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Despite being adjacent to the transit center, the Salesforce Tower hasn't shown any signs of instability. Its employees enjoy luxury amenities like a media center, coffee nooks, and meditation rooms on every floor. </p><p>On Halloween, the tower <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-tower-lights-up-eye-of-sauron-for-halloween-2018-11">lit up to form an image</a> of <span>the Eye of Sauron, an iconic symbol from "The Lord of the Rings." The following month, it commemorated the midterm elections with an LED display that read, "Vote for Tomorrow."</span></p><p><span>In a few short months, the tower has become an emblem of San Francisco, but the decision to include it in the LEGO set stirred controversy among adult consumers. </span></p><p><span>"Some preferred to have the skyline built without it, saying that it would be more representative of the 'classic' San Francisco," <a href="https://brickset.com/article/40960/review-21043-san-francisco">one reviewer wrote</a> on Brickset, a LEGO set guide and database. "I like that it's been included, and it certainly provides a great focal point next to the bridge."</span></p><p><span>Earlier this week, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff gave <a href="https://twitter.com/Benioff/status/1084531705292017664">his seal of approval</a> as well. </span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sleep-expert-explains-snooze-alarms-are-terrible-2017-11">The worst thing people do to wake up in the morning, according to a sleep scientist</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

LEGO's new San Francisco skyline includes a model of the $1 billion Salesforce Tower - take a look at the set

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs/">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">Bashar al-Masri, the Palestinian-American billionaire behind the planned city of Rawabi.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Bashar al-Masri, a Palestinian-American billionaire, is the developer behind Rawabi, the first planned city in the West Bank built by and for Palestinians. It's a $1.4 billion project.</li><li>Masri has called Rawabi a "Marshall Plan to pick up" Palestine's economy, but has been criticized by Palestinian activists for working with Israeli companies and the government to build the city.</li><li>Masri told Business Insider that he thinks activists have made a mistake by targeting all of Israel with boycotts and divestment actions. If activists focused on boycotting the 400,000 Jewish-Israelis living on settlements in the West Bank, he said, the international community would be far more supportive.</li></ul><p>Palestinian-American billionaire developer Bashar al-Masri is the brains behind <a href="https://www.rawabi.ps/">Rawabi,</a> a $1.4 billion planned city of 40,000 in the West Bank, the territory home to 2.6 million Palestinians.</p><p>It's a project he has personally described as "a Marshall Plan to pick up" Palestine's economy. It's also a project that has received plenty of criticism from Palestinian activists who have said it "<a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/rawabi-developer-masri-helps-deepen-israels-grip-west-bank/9170">deepens Israel's grip on the West Bank</a>" and its economy. Numerous Israeli companies were contracted in the construction of Rawabi and Masri, by necessity, worked closely with the Israeli government to get the city approved.</p><p><span>In a recent conversation with Business Insider, Masri said such activists miss the point: it's a reality that Israel and the Palestinian territories' economics are intertwined. As he put it, some <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3d772d18-d159-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5">200,000 Palestinians</a> already work in Israel and every freezer in the West Bank stocks Israeli ice cream.</span></p><h2>Many pro-Palestinian activists see any cooperation with Israel as negative</h2><p>Many pro-Palestinian activists believe that any cooperation with Israel is negative. The chief activist movement pressuring Israel - <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds">Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)</a> - seeks to isolate Israel economically and politically for its treatment of Israel's Arab-Israeli citizens and its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.  A major issue is the settler movement in the West Bank, where more than 400,000 Jewish Israelis have established communities on lands within the Palestinian territories.</p><p>Started over a decade ago, the BDS movement has had <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/16/17353664/boycott-divestment-sanctions-bds-israel-gaza">its share of successes</a>, pressuring companies like Israeli appliance manufacturer Sodastream, getting some pension and sovereign wealth funds to divest, and convincing the singer Lorde to cancel her concert in Israel. Experts have suggested the movement could cost Israel between <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/11/world/israel-fights-boycott-movement/">$15 billion</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/578dea3c-0cf6-11e5-a83a-00144feabdc0">$47 billion</a> over the next decade.</p><p>But, as of yet, no major corporations have stopped doing business in the country and many Jews, American, Israeli, and otherwise, see the movement as "anti-Israel" and "<a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Where-BDS-goes-antisemitism-follows-547111">anti-Semitic</a><span>, arguing that it unfairly singles out Israel for human rights violations when other countries have worse records," according to Vox's Zeeshan Aleem.</span></p><h2>Activists are focusing on Israel - they should focus on the settlements instead, according to Masri</h2><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Associated Press/Tsafrir Abayov</span></p><p class="caption">A general view of the West Bank settlement of Beit El is seen near Ramallah Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></h2><p>Masri thinks activists have made a mistake by attacking Israel as a whole, rather than focusing on the settler movement in the West Bank. If activists focused boycotts on settler communities in the West Bank, rather than Israel as a whole, Masri said, there would be far more support from the US and Europe.</p><p>"They wrote Israel proper into the battle and no big company is going to sign on to that," said Masri.</p><p>By targeting boycotts and divestment actions against all of Israel, Masri went on, activists have made it easier to pass laws in the US that prevent boycotts against Israel. Numerous such <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanction">state laws have passed in recent years</a>; a similar such bill <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/House-advances-Israel-anti-boycott-bill-561122">was introduced into Congress</a> several months ago.</p><p>"It would have been a great tactic if you were boycotting the settlements, and most likely you could have won boycotting the settlements," Masri said. "You would have waved that flag to Israel, and said, 'Hey Israel, you can't continue your atrocities without any backlashes.' You would have been much stronger. Israel would have listened. It's maybe too late now."</p><p>He's not alone. Naomi Paiss,  the former vice president of public affairs for the New Israel Fund,<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-leftists-critique-of-bds"> has written in the past</a> that while boycotts are legitimate tactics, in the case of Israel, they are "<span>counter-productive and inflammatory." The BDS movement, she wrote, </span>has served as a bogeyman for Israel's right-wing to prove to the populace that the world is "anti-Israel." <span>Boycotting goods and services from the settlements specifically was another matter, she wrote.</span></p><p><span>"We must engage, rather than disengage,"  wrote Paiss, in a call to support pro-democracy and anti-occupation groups and forces. </span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scorpion-venom-most-expensive-liquid-in-the-world-2018-8">Scorpion venom is the most expensive liquid in the world - here's why it costs $39 million per gallon</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

A Palestinian-American billionaire thinks activists boycotting Israel are going about it all wrong

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Helen Sloan/Courtesy of HBO" title_caption="Season 5 is an important one for Jon Snow." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/553c1b44ecad048d55ed9fb3-960/jon-snow-season-5-game-of-thrones.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></div><p></p></div></div></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Last episode, Jon was elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, an honor usually awarded to a wizened ranger or a respected lord. Many brothers of the Night's Watch believe him to be untrustworthy due to his time spent with the wildlings. Others simply view him as an inexperienced boy. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Jon's election was unusual, but wholly deserved. He was raised among highborns, and has more education and fighting skills than many of his fellow Night's Watch brothers. Jon helps train the men (and boys), and was able to hold off the wildling army when Castle Black was attacked.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Jon has also never sought out power, which, if fantasy and hero archetypes hold true, means that he is the most worthy of that burden. He is one of the few characters that lands on the good side of the coin more often than not. Jon is loyal and honorable, like the man who raised him: Ned Stark. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So here he is, holding his first formal meeting as the new Lord Commander, and he's trying to do the right thing. Despite his tense history with Ser Aliser Thorne, Jon names him First Ranger - an honor. Then it's Janos' turn - he is given command of Greyguard, a crumbling fortress in need of men and repair. Janos refuses, throwing a blubbering and indignant fit. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="hbogo.com" title_caption="Janos (center) believed Jon Snow should have been killed a while back. The two don't exactly see eye-to-eye." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/553acb95ecad04df7d439042-960/screen shot 2015-04-24 at 5.48.49 pm-1.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ned Stark believed that "he who passes the sentence should swing the sword." Jon knows what he must do, and how he must do it. </span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Janos Slynt twisted his neck around to stare up at him. "Please, my lord. Mercy. I'll...I'll go, I will, I..."</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>No, </em>thought Jon.<em> You closed that door. </em>Longclaw descended.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Jon glanced back at Stannis. For an instant their eyes met. Then the king nodded and went back inside his tower.</p><p>Not long ago, Jon denied Stannis what he wanted - for Jon to swear fealty to him and rule over Winterfell. These two leaders don't always see eye to eye, but Stannis is a fair and pragmatic man. With this choice, this action, Jon has earned his respect. Stannis gives the nod to end all nods of approval. It's like the ultimate fist-bump of Westeros. </p><p>There is also a coincidental link between this scene and Sansa Stark. Janos Slynt was the leader of City Watch in King's Landing before being sent to the Wall. When Joffrey ordered Ned Stark beheaded, Janos was one of the men who grabbed him and held him at the execution block. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="HBO" title_caption="Janos Slynt, right before Ned Stark is arrested in front of King Joffrey." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/553c1d546da81120050fe10b-960/janos-slynt-game-of-thrones.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>HBO</span></p><p class="caption">Janos Slynt, right before Ned Stark is arrested in front of King Joffrey.</p></div><p></p></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="HBO" title_caption="Sansa watches on as her father Ned Stark (far right) is executed in front of her in season one of " Game="" of="" Thrones.="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/553c142869beddf3169c0c91-960/ned-stark-hbo-game-of-thrones.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>HBO</span></p><p class="caption">Sansa watches on as her father Ned Stark (far right) is executed in front of her in season one of "Game of Thrones."</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the chapter of "A Game of Thrones"</span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">immediately following Ned's beheading, Sansa is the point-of-view character. She is forced by Joffrey to attend court and sees Janos there. The book text reads: </span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head.</em></p><p>Jon, without knowing it, is Sansa's hero. </p><p>This scene in Sunday's episode was sandwiched between Sansa's dramatic engagement to Ramsay Bolton and a rather promiscuous brothel raid, but it stands out as one of the most significant moments so far. For book readers, this was a long anticipated moment from "A Dance with Dragons,"<em> </em>and boy was the wait worth it. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/george-rr-martin-hired-superfans-fact-check-game-of-thrones-2015-4">'Game of Thrones' superfans caught George R.R. Martin's mistake so he hired them</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="AyaDJsdDqYM_vm63q2GpFGnQF5-rJB_r" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

'Game of Thrones' brings one of the most iconic scenes from the books to life

<p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>English farmers could finally be allowed to commercially grow genetically modified (GM) crops o</span><span>n their own soil</span><span> following a landmark ruling by the European Parliament, </span><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCQQqQIwAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fearth%2Fagriculture%2Fgeneticmodification%2F11341757%2FGM-crops-what-it-will-mean-for-you-if-British-farmers-get-green-light.html&amp;ei=4iG1VILfF8rkarPVgYgM&amp;usg=AFQjCNFct2EYLl-z2Cx1_rdPGmJ6qPhFLA&amp;sig2=nxIVhjfqFA1X2xMZVuPaew&amp;bvm=bv.83339334,d.d2s">The Telegaph reports. </a></p>
<p>Many British scientists, the government, and other groups are behind GM entering the country's agriculture industry. Currently there are no approved commercial commodities produced in Britain. But now,<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> GM crops such as maize could be part of the landscape as soon as spring this year. The foods will probably be initially used as animal feed. </span></p>
<p>Once passed, GM crops that have been deemed safe for consumption by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will be open for EU countries to plant. As the British government has been central to the approval, it will almost certainly be behind allowing the introduction of GM into the country's commercial agriculture industry. </p>
<p>In November 2014 the Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) told Business Insider about the discussions. DEFRA said a proposal had been tabled to give member states the choice of whether they want to plant EU-approved GM crops.</p>
<p>DEFRA said: <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"If the EU does not embrace GM planting it will miss out on the economic and environmental benefits that this is delivering elsewhere in the world. GM is one of the options for making production more efficient and sustainable. All the analysis shows that the world will need 70% more food by 2050".</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The environment minister Lord de Mauley last week told MPs that the technology is key for the 21st century. And the Council for Science and Technology (CST) also showed support in the lead up to the decision. The body previously <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/288823/cst-14-634-gm-technologies.pdf">wrote a letter to prime minister David Cameron </a>to warn of food challenges amid climate disruption and an increasing population.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">GM crops, simply, have been <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/making-the-food-and-farming-industry-more-competitive-while-protecting-the-environment/supporting-pages/genetic-modification">modified to better suit our needs; adapt to a changing planet and global climate.</a> Some might be more resilient to drought or famine, while others may require fewer pesticides to grow. GM can also boost the size and speed in which plants grow, and even boost the nutritional value of crops.</span></p>
<p>Professor Joyce Tait of <a href="http://www.innogen.ac.uk/">Edinburgh Univerity's Innogen Institute</a>, who researches GM, says: "<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There is a food crisis. GM food is a vital resource in our global production."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the likes of the US, Argentina, and Brazil, the technology is widely used to improve efficiency and feed more people using less land. In the <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> currently, it's only trialled for investigation: <a href="http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/our-science/2020-wheat">20:20 Wheat, from Rothamsted Research in England</a>, is <span>the world's longest running agricultural research station. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many remain opposed to its use. Some argue that GM can have a negative impact on the environment and can be damaging ecosystems - even human health. <a href="http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/11/12/rupert-read-genetically-modified-crops-are-%E2%80%98a-reckless-gamble-with-our-common-future%E2%80%99/">The Green Party often stands against GM.</a></span></p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.greenfacts.org/en/gmo/3-genetically-engineered-food/5-gene-flow.htm"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">GreenFacts write</span>s:</a> "<a href="http://www.greenfacts.org/glossary/ghi/genetic-engineering.htm">Genetic engineering</a> may accelerate the damaging effects of agriculture or contribute to more <a href="http://www.greenfacts.org/glossary/pqrs/sustainability.htm">sustainable</a> agricultural practises and the conservation of natural resources, including biodiversity. The environmental concerns associated with <a href="http://www.greenfacts.org/glossary/tuv/transgene.htm">transgenic</a> crops are summarised below along with the current state of scientific knowledge regarding them."</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition, because other EU nations - such as Wales, Scotland, France and Germany - remain opposed to GM crops, it's likely the market will be challenging. The Telegraph notes that farmers might be disinclined to grow the crops because there will be too few countries to export to.</span></p>

GM Crops Could Finally Be Grown In The UK After A Landmark EU Ruling

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Revolution#/media/File:Mexican_rebels_w_cannon.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">Mexican rebels stand with rifles and a cannon during the bloody revolution.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The Mexican Revolution, which began on 105 years ago and raged for a decade, is <a href="http://edsitement.neh.gov/feature/mexican-revolution-november-20th-1910" target="_blank">considered to be the first</a> major social, political, and cultural revolution of the 20th century, and perhaps the bloodiest conflict in modern North American history. </p><p>The revolution resulted in more than <a href="http://www.hist.umn.edu/~rmccaa/missmill/mxrev.htm" target="_blank">1.5 million</a> deaths. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican refugees fled to the US. A cascade of leaders rose to prominence - only to be assassinated. Peasant uprisings broke out throughout the country that was in a decade-long state of crisis.</p><p>At the heart of the revolution were tensions between the "criollos," or the Spanish-descended ruling class, and "mestizos," or people of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry that comprised a majority of the population and much of the country's peasantry. Mexico in the years leading up to the revolution was a powder keg, with elites facing off over questions of presidential succession and constitutional change, and the peasantry feeling increasingly angry and alienated.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wikimedia Commons</span></p><p class="caption">"Adelitas" was one of the names given to the women were instrumental in assisting the revolution as nurses, spies, tax collectors, journalists, as well as warfighters.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Mexico was in need of fundamental changes - changes that weren't likely to change peacefully.</p><p>Tensions came to a head when Porfirio Diaz, the dictator who had rule Mexico for the previous 34 years, sought to continue his rule for an eighth term as president. </p><p>Francisco I. Madero, a Mexican political  exile wrote and distributed the "<span>Plan of San Luis Potosí," which, among other things, called for a revolution beginning on November 20, 1910, to depose Diaz and restore both <a href="http://countrystudies.us/mexico/22.htm">the 1857 constitution</a> and the term limits that it mandated.</span></p><p>Though Madero's pen initiated the revolution, reival generals, political figures, and militia leaders, the most famous of which were Pancho Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south, carried out most of the fighting.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wikimedia Commons</span></p><p class="caption">Emiliano Zapata, left, and Pancho Villa, right.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Zapata was especially emblematic of the revolution. A champion of the "campesinos," or country people of Mexico, Zapata's rallying cry of "Tierra y libertad" (Land and Liberty) galvanized the rural poor - a population that wanted sweeping change.</p><p>Zapata helped draft a counter to the <span>Plan of San Luis Potosí, known as the Plan of Alaya. Under this proposal, land would be redistributed to the peasants who worked on it. Zapata's plan for "land for those who work it" proved popular with campesinos.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexican-revolution/">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">Revolutionary fighters led by Emiliano Zapata under the Plan de Ayala, drawn up in 1911 after Madero stalled on instituting land reform in Morelos, Mexico.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span>By May of 1911, Diaz had left the country. But after 35 years of a single dictator, Mexico found itself trapped in a destructive power vacuum. Madero ruled briefly before being assassinated in 1913 by Victoriano Huerta, a general in league with counterrevolutionaries led by Porfirio Díaz's nephew.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_left"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz#/media/File:1914_Occupation_of_Veracruz.jpg">Hadsell via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">Caption reads: "Formal raising of first flag of US / Veracruz 2 P.M. April 27, 1914"</p></div><p></p></div>Amid heavy opposition, Huerta dissolved Mexico's congress and began to impose an autocratic government similar to Diaz's.<span> US President Woodrow Wilson soon sent Marines into the country to remove Huerta.</span></p><p>After US forces helped oust Huerta in 1914, Washington settled on supporting Venustiano Carranza, a wealthy landowner.</p><p>At first, Carranza sought to reconcile the differences of the different camps. Carranza's US-backed government eventually endorsed and <span>drafted a new constitution that was approved in 1917.</span></p><p><span>The constitution included agrarian reform and expanded individual rights. But Carranza left many of his promises unfulfilled, and was assassinated while fleeing Mexico City during the next election, in 1920.</span></p><p><span>Alvaro Obregon, a one-time ally of Carranza's who later helped overthrow him, became president in 1920, an event that marked the end of over a decade of instability and vioelnce.</span></p><p><span></span><span>Mexico was in <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/mexico/timeline.html">continuous turmoil throughout this period</a>. The revolution was a complex and multi-sided conflict that pitted the country's rulers against one another - and against  a peasantry eager for political and social change. </span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexican-revolution/">Latinamericanstudies.org</a></span></p><p class="caption">Peasant militants during the Mexican Revolution.</p></div><p></p></div></div>W</span><span>hile Mexico is now a democracy, the revolution didn't exactly end that way. In 1929, the Institutional Revolutionary Party came to power. Implementing a system often described as a "benign dictatorship," the party would remain in charge of Mexico until Vicente Fox's election 2000.</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-escape-cost-bribes-mexico-prison-2015-11"> Here's how much El Chapo's prison escape cost the infamous drug lord</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="BiaTNzeDoRmj4WtEFRHk1jPTj4ZDtn5K" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The deadliest war in North America's modern history started 105 years ago today

Queen Elizabeth II owns every dolphin in Britain, doesn't need a driving license, and other incredible powers you didn't know the monarchy has

<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>On August 3rd, 1900, Charles Yerkes, an American financier and ex-convict, gazed across London from the top of Hampstead Heath.</p>
<p>His journey through the capital in a horse-drawn carriage had already begun to persuade him that it was a fine place to invest.</p>
<p>The streets heaved with people; Yerkes had never travelled through such a densely populated city. But the view from one of its highest points clinched his interest.</p>
<p>To the south lay spires, crowded terraced houses and congested streets. To the north were pastures, stretches of farmland and a few sleepy villages.</p>
<p>Within two decades that landscape was transformed--thanks to Yerkes. By 1907 elegant redbrick Underground stations had been built to the north at Archway, near Highgate village, and to the north-west at Golders Green, on a site previously dominated by a pig farm and a crematorium. Land values surged. A photograph of Golders Green from 1920 shows an elegant high street lined with four-storey buildings and bustling with cars and buses.</p>
<p>The story of how London expanded so swiftly at the turn of the 20th century is one of financial ingenuity, bold risk-taking and low skulduggery. It is also the tale of one dauntless American who, though notorious in his time, is today unknown in the city he helped shape.</p>
<h3>There are second acts in American lives</h3>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>America was full of men on the make in the second half of the 19th century. As John Franch observes in "Robber Baron", a biography of Yerkes, he numbered among the "gilded generation" that also included Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Born in 1837, Yerkes grew up in an age of big business, when railways were stretching across the country like arteries and large enterprises springing up along them. By 1851, as Mr Franch enumerates, even the fairly rundown part of Philadelphia where the young Yerkes lived boasted three textile factories, a malt house, a machine shop and a sawmill.</p>
<p>A child who did not care much for books--but had a head for numbers--Yerkes thrived in this atmosphere. He was born into a reasonably well-to-do Quaker family; his father was president of a bank. An indifferent student, he finished his education at 17 to work for a brokerage, and by the age of 28 had set up his own bank and was acquiring a reputation as a canny businessman. Then, in 1871, a fire in Chicago and the ensuing stockmarket collapse undid him: Yerkes was found to have embezzled funds that he was holding for the city of Philadelphia. He was sent to prison for two years and four months, serving seven months.</p>
<p>"By the time I was 35 I had accumulated a fortune of some $1m," he later told an English journalist. "Then, by a stroke of ill luck, I lost it all...This, of course, is nothing extraordinary for Americans." He rebuilt his fortune by investing in the burgeoning tram (or "streetcar") business in Chicago in the late 1880s. His business methods were purposefully obscure: Yerkes would borrow cash, acquire leases and create networks of construction companies, operating companies and holding companies before issuing diluted stock. Bribery of officials was rife, as was the badmouthing of competitors. In one particularly Machiavellian move, described by Sidney Roberts, a historian, Yerkes constructed a tram line in the dead of night--and in four hours--so that fractious Chicago property-owners wouldn't be able to stop him.</p>
<p>Eventually he controlled hundreds of miles of tramway and railway. But his luck ran out again. Infuriated by Yerkes's badly lit trams and occasionally shoddy service, the citizens of Chicago revolted when he tried to renew his franchises. Club-wielding men protested. Local newspapers ran angry editorials: Yerkes was portrayed as a monopolising robber baron who had little regard for his passengers' comfort. Spurned, in 1899 he decided to leave the Midwest. He sold his shares for an inflated $20m and moved to New York, packing up his growing art collection (which included the first Rodin sculpture bought by an American, a sword that once belonged to Oliver Cromwell, and a few flashy portraits of Yerkes himself); he installed it, along with his second wife, in a mansion overlooking Central Park. To the delight of New York gossip columnists, he also set up his 19-year-old mistress, Emilie Grigsby, in a flat two blocks away.</p>
<p>Yerkes could have led an easy life in New York. He was 62 when he arrived, and admitted that he needed a rest. Photographs from the period show a sturdy, rather short man, with white whiskers and fashionably slicked hair, glaring at the camera. He looks fearsome, but also rather tired. His house in the city was magnificent: it had a two-storey conservatory full of rare birds, a penthouse theatre and a marble-clad hallway ornamented with a bust of Nero. It was far more fun to spend money in New York than in Chicago, he once quipped. But Yerkes could never settle anywhere for long. He soon decided to invest in London's transport network; he would spend the next five years travelling back and forth between America and Britain.</p>
<p>The move would help ruin him financially. It would also be the finest idea of his life.</p>
<h3>Baron versus baron</h3>
<p>In 1900 London was the world's largest city, with 6.5m inhabitants and streets thronged with omnibuses, hackney cabs and horse-drawn carriages. By the time Yerkes visited Hampstead Heath, three Underground lines were already dug and running: the Metropolitan, the District, and the City and South London line, which shuttled businessmen from Stockwell to King William Street in uncomfortable carriages known as "padded cells". But a series of plans for further lines--stretching up from Charing Cross in central London to Hampstead in the north, or from Elephant and Castle in the south-east to Regent's Park in the north-west--had stalled for lack of cash.</p>
<p>Yerkes's decision to invest was not driven by anglophilia. The government's tendency to meddle and the interminable parliamentary processes annoyed him. An "obsolete past" hung over the city like smog, he thought. Compared with Americans, Britons seemed sluggish. They took far too long to board a train, as if they "had a hundred years to do it in", Yerkes huffed. To a man known to work 18-hour days--getting up at five o'clock to cycle 12 miles in his knickerbockers--the locals could seem lazy. In 1903 he told a reporter at the New York Times: "The trouble with the British workman is that he does not work enough. If you pass through London or adjacent places on a Saturday afternoon you will be perfectly amazed by the number of men playing ball." He was willing to concede that "this is an enjoyable way to live. But it is a bit startling to a busy, hustling American." That sort of indolence helped give this particular hustling American his opportunity.</p>
<p>In New York Yerkes had met Thomas Reeves and H.H. Montague Smith, English businessmen who were looking for funding for the Charing Cross to Hampstead railway. Now part of the Underground's Northern line, this had been given parliamentary approval in 1893; a construction contract had been signed in 1897, but finance proved elusive. After his visit to Hampstead in August 1900 Yerkes paid £100,000 to the railway company and became its chairman. A new contract was signed, and two new bills put before Parliament to extend the line farther north to Golders Green and Archway.</p>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container"><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span>As politicians pondered these proposals, and those submitted by rivals, Yerkes took over three other lines, actual and planned, among them the Great Northern, Brompton and Piccadilly railway, a proposed route from west London to Finsbury Park in the north-east (see map).</p>
<p>Altogether these projects would cost £16m. To raise the cash Yerkes created a new company, the Underground Electric Railways Company (UERL), enlisting a bank to help through the issuing of "profit-sharing secured notes".</p>
<p>Most investors were American, but Yerkes persuaded some wary Britons to chip in too. Before he built anything, however, Yerkes would have to see off an even grander American financier: John Pierpoint Morgan.</p>
<p>Morgan's son, J. Pierpoint Morgan junior, had wired his father details of a proposed underground line to run from Piccadilly to north-east London, tracing a similar route to Yerkes's Brompton and Piccadilly railway. Meanwhile London United Tramways (LUT), a separate outfit that operated trams, put a bid into Parliament to create a line serving two tram termini in west London. Morgan and the LUT joined forces to build a line that would stretch under the city from Hammersmith in the west to Tottenham in the north-east.</p>
<p>In 1902 Yerkes won parliamentary approval for his extension up to Golders Green and Archway, as well as for his Brompton and Piccadilly line. Oddly (since the two schemes were so similar) Morgan's plans were also approved; perhaps the MPs thought one of them was bound to collapse--an outcome that, inadvertently, they helped bring about. The politicians were concerned that only the lucrative, central part of Morgan's line would be built, so insisted that the whole thing, from Hammersmith to Tottenham, must be constructed. Still, when Parliament went into recess, it seemed that both the Yerkes and Morgan projects were viable.</p>
<p>But when Parliament returned Yerkes had acquired a majority interest in the LUT. This meant he could prevent it building its part of the Morgan line. The whole proposal promptly fell through. J.P. Morgan described Yerkes's manoeuvres as "the greatest rascality and conspiracy I have ever heard of." Scandalised politicians huffed about this "very dirty transaction".</p>
<h3>Paradise by way of Golders Green</h3>
<p>In the event Tottenham did not join the Underground network until the 1960s. All the same, Yerkes's cunning and determination were a boon to his adopted city. They meant work on his Underground lines began even as Parliament prevaricated and NIMBYs in Hampstead fretted that the Tube (as the system was soon known) would drain the Heath of moisture. If plans had been left to fester for ten more years, the rise of the motorbus would have made tunnelling under crowded streets seem even less worthwhile. As Christian Wolmar, a railway expert, points out, another deep-level Tube line did not open in London until 1968.</p>
<p>And the monopolistic instinct that got Yerkes booted out of Chicago served a better purpose in London. By the time of the first world war his firm, the UERL, then known as the Underground Group and run by Alfred Stanley (later Lord Ashfield), controlled all but one of the city's Tube lines, all three tram companies and the main bus operator. Its elegant roundel logo is still in use today. London's transport network became a comprehensive system, not a fractured, chaotic one. Rather than leaving stations to switch lines, passengers could zip down escalators to do so instead. This changed the way people got around the city. It also changed the way the city itself developed.</p>
<p>In 1900 Yerkes told a sceptical American journalist that "a generation hence London will be completely transformed...people will think nothing of living 20 miles or more from town, owing to electrified trains." This had started to happen in parts of the city where railway lines had already been built. Large Victorian houses clustered in places such as Clapham Junction, a south London neighbourhood home to a railway terminus since 1863. But Tube lines would encourage more people to move farther out. At a board meeting in 1903 (reported in The Economist), Yerkes asserted: "Cheap fares to the suburban districts is the only thing that will solve the problem [of overcrowding], and other Londons must be built up on the outskirts of London."</p>
<p>Other Londons were indeed built. Land values in Golders Green more than doubled between 1903 and 1904 alone. By 1908 the Underground Group put up posters showing a couple in their garden in Golders Green: a man in a waistcoat, his sleeves rolled up, waters sunflowers; his wife reclines in a deckchair as their child plays nearby. Below are lines from William Cowper's 1784 poem, "The Task", describing how pleasant it is to be at a "safe distance" from "the great Babel". The image is a precursor of the famous adverts that, after the first world war, touted "Metro-Land" as the bucolic domain of aspiring middle-class families.</p>
<h3>Mind the gap</h3>
<p>The three new lines that Yerkes championed all opened between March 1906 and June 1907. He did not live long enough to see any of them in operation. When he became ill with kidney disease in 1905 he defied his doctor's orders and kept a telephone by his bed. He also chaired meetings of his company, and gave newspaper interviews in which he yet again berated Londoners for being slow moving. But in November of that year he returned to America to die in the Waldorf Astoria hotel, with Miss Grigsby, his mistress, by his side.</p>
<p>British newspapers were generous towards the man "who revolutionised our old-fashioned methods of going to and fro". Americans were more scathing about his rakish behaviour: a serial philanderer, Yerkes cheated repeatedly on both his wives and on Miss Grigsby. His behaviour so outraged his contemporaries that when the journalist Theodore Dreiser based a trilogy of novels on Yerkes's life, he depicted him as a swarthy businessman who seduces female stenographers in his oak-panelled office, and has to break down his wife's door when she tries to strangle one of his mistresses.</p>
<p>Americans were also unimpressed by his apparent lack of philanthropy, which seems mostly to have consisted of splashing out $23,000 on an electric fountain in Chicago in 1890 and, two years later, giving just over $300,000 to fund what was then the world's largest telescope. (As a result, a crater on the moon is named after him.) Yerkes was startlingly blunt about his motives: "Whatever I do, I do not from any sense of duty, but to satisfy myself."</p>
<p>Yet, in a paradox characteristic of many voracious tycoons, he also wanted to leave a legacy. Initially, that seemed unlikely. Many of his other business schemes were ditched. Angry creditors contested his will. Proposals for his mansion in New York to become a museum fell through, and it was sold off along with his art collection. In the 1930s the mansion was bulldozed and replaced with a modern apartment block. Plans to establish a hospital in his name were also scuppered. Yerkes once told his shareholders that the Underground would be "the crowning success" of his life. But, when his lines eventually opened, passenger numbers disappointed, and even that hope looked forlorn.</p>
<p>After his death, though, the concern was saved from bankruptcy by Lord Ashfield, who ploughed money into advertisements, boosting the Tube's popularity. Yerkes's attention to details, such as the decor of his tile-clad stations, survived him, as did his vision of a city surrounded by densely packed suburbs. And, these days, his method for realising that vision is back in fashion.</p>
<p>One of Yerkes's lines is currently being extended; meanwhile Crossrail, a completely new project that scythes through London, is scheduled to open in 2016. Both of these schemes are funded partly by private capital: austerity has made it near-impossible to fund big infrastructure projects with public money alone. The city is coming full circle, suggests Isabel Dedring, London's deputy mayor for transport: back to a model of development based more on Yerkes-style independent finance.</p>
<p>Unlike J.P. Morgan, Yerkes's feted arch rival, today few know of this strange, extravagant individual. His only real monument does not bear his name. At Golders Green station--which still looks much the same as when Yerkes's team built it in 1907--a small brown plaque near the electronic ticket gates notes the date the building opened, and that some original features remain, such as ornate timber handrails in the stairwells. But it does not mention the man who ensured that the station, along with the suburb that blossomed around it, got built.</p>
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