Over the past year, Italian regions like Veneto and Emilia Romagna has been hit with extreme weather. From flooding to droughts and even large hail, the region has seen death and destruction caused by the weather events. Months after the flooding and drought that have affected the region, The Independent visited to meet farmers who are facing up to an uncertain future with climate change. While some are having to adapt, others are contemplating a future away from the region. Watch On The Ground on Independent TV, across desktop, mobile and connected TV.

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The former number two official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has offered a dire prediction about America’s future should Donald Trump or another like-minded Republican succeed in winning next year’s presidential election, according to a new book by a former Trump administration homeland security aide. In Blowback, author Miles Taylor recounts an October 2020 conversation he had with Sue Gordon, a 25-year US intelligence community veteran who served as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence from 2017 to 2019, shortly after news broke that the FBI had disrupted a plot by Michigan-based right-wing extremists to kidnap Wolverine State governor Gretchen Whitmer. According to a copy of the book obtained by The Independent ahead of its Tuesday release, Taylor recalls how the news of the kidnapping plot prompted him to telephone Ms Gordon, who he says spent “decades” at the CIA monitoring foreign governments for signs of instability, and ask the former deputy DNI how America’s “democratic stability” would be impacted by a second term in the White House for Mr Trump or a “Maga successor”. Taylor said Ms Gordon’s reply came “in the language of a seasoned intelligence analyst” who speaks “based on data from sources in the field and the uncertainty level of information they don’t have”. He added that she told him how she would “assess with ‘low confidence’ that the United States reaches its three hundredth birthday” — the projected 2076 tricentennial anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence from Great Britain — in “any recognisable form”. “People don’t trust government institutions anymore or each other, and when the world gets tumultuous, they’re more open to authoritarianism,” she said. Continuing, Taylor writes that Ms Gordon told him her reason for pessimism about the long-term viability of the US as a functioning democracy stems from the follow-on effects of four more years of Donald Trump — or someone acting with the same malevolence towards governmental institutions — atop the US executive branch. He said she told him that she does not believe a “Next Trump” would successfully smash through “every democratic guardrail,” but would “stoke unprecedented division and set off a slow turn towards despotism” in the US by “attempting” to further erode democratic norms and bring nominally independent institutions under his or her thumb. “That process can take decades to unfold. If history is any guide, though, it might come suddenly to a head, with the literal pull of a trigger — and the odds of that happening in the not-too-distant future are historically high,” he wrote. Taylor, who was chief of staff at the Trump-era Department of Homeland Security for the first three years of Mr Trump’s administration but is better known as the formerly anonymous author of a New York Times op-ed about “resistance” to the then-president inside his own government, told The Independent in a phone interview that he fears a repeat of the January 6 attack on the Capitol — but worse — should Mr Trump lose next year’s presidential election. Echoing Ms Gordon’s prediction of a long-term breakdown of the American democratic system, Taylor said the possibility of “low-level civil conflict” touched off by Mr Trump or another Republican is “higher now than it even was in that post election period in 2020”. “The muscle memory for those extremist movements has now been solidified. The networks are closer. And ... since that time, many more people, otherwise kind of normal people in small town America, have really taken the stolen election lies, QAnon, and great replacement theory as gospel, and the polling shows that a majority of your everyday Republicans believe those lies,” he said. “Add to that the fact that the country is more armed now than at any point in its history ... it is a powder keg.” Taylor added that his fears of violence go beyond a repeat of what happened in Washington nearly three years ago, pointing to the aborted plot against Ms Whitmer, the Michigan governor, as an example of what could be in store for the future. He told The Independent that he feels “the conditions are very ripe” in the US for “that sort of low-level conflict” in many parts of the country. “This is not just a Washington, DC thing — I really think we could see something a good deal worse, and part of that could also happen if a Trump or a savvier successor is reelected. And that misuse of the justice system could foment that even more,” he said. Read More Man arrested near Obama home threatened other prominent lawmakers, officials say Three men jailed for at least seven years over plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer DoJ dragged feet over including Trump in Jan 6 probe over fears of appearing biased, report says Oath Keepers leader issues warning to Trump amid ex-president’s legal woes White House blasts Marjorie Taylor Greene’s criticism of efforts to aid US families GOP presidential hopeful lists conservative pool of Supreme Court picks Trump finally reveals how he thinks he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine in a day

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Police in Paris fired eight shots at a woman threating to blow up a train into the capital this morning, local authorities have said, sparking chaos in the city as metro stations were evacuated. This latest security incident in France come as they face a heightened anti-terror alert following a fatal stabbing at a school blamed on an Islamic extremist. Police said officers opened fire on Tuesday after the woman didn’t respond to their warnings. The Paris prosecutors later confirmed that two police officers together fired eight shots, seriously injuring the woman. It said she was hospitalised for emergency treatment. It wasn’t clear what threats the woman was allegedly making but government spokesman Olivier Veran said the woman “made remarks of a rather Islamist nature” that worried other passengers. Phrases she reportedly used included “You're all going to get it”, “Allahu akbar” and “Boom”, said Paris police chief Laurent Nunez. Allahu akbar is “God is great” in Arabic. A police investigation has been opened into the exact nature of threats the woman allegedly made while riding the RER C suburban train into Paris, and witness testimony will be gathered, the prosecutor's office said. It said she is facing potential charges of making death threats, of defending terrorism and of intimidating behaviour directed at police. The woman was dressed in a long robe, known as an abaya, the prosecutor's office said. Abayas are mainly worn by Muslims. A search of the woman found that she wasn't carrying explosives, the police chief said. Police were verifying the identity of the woman, who was not carrying ID papers, but she is thought to have been arrested previously for threatening behaviour in 2021 and then hospitalised for apparent mental health problems, he said. A Metro and suburban train station that serves the Francois-Mitterrand national library in eastern Paris were evacuated after the incident. Earlier this month, a knifeman shouting “Allahu Akbar” at Gambetta High School in the city of Arras left one teacher dead and several other people injured as former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called for a Day of Jihad. In the 13 October school attack, French-language teacher Dominique Bernard was stabbed to death and three other people were wounded. The alleged attacker had been under police surveillance on suspicion of Islamic radicalization. French anti-terror investigators said the suspect declared allegiance to the Islamic State group before the assault in the northern French town of Arras. Local police spokesperson Axel Ronde said the officers who shot the woman this morning had “made the right decision”. He said: “The person was extremely determined to take action and given the determination, my colleagues had no other choice, to avoid being hit by an explosion, than to neutralise her by shooting her with a firearm. “The police officers made the right decision.” Read More UN chief visits tallest mountains in Nepal and expresses alarm over their melting glaciers India-led alliance set to fund solar projects in Africa in a boost to the energy transition Paris police open fire on a woman who allegedly made threats in the latest security incident In early 2029, Earth will likely lock into breaching key warming threshold, scientists calculate Londoner says dressing up as bedbug for Halloween was ‘very obvious’ thing to do French government says 9 people detained after violent attack on Lyon soccer team buses