How reported threats in North Carolina trace to Trump-fueled misinformation

How reported threats in North Carolina trace to Trump-fueled misinformation

Aaron Blake writes: For weeks, misinformation about the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Hurricane Helene response has spread far and wide on social media platforms — with more than a helpful nudge from Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the relaxed moderation policies of Musk’s platform, X. The real consequences of that have begun to show. The Washington Post reported late Sunday that federal emergency responders were ordered evacuated from Rutherford County, N.C., on Saturday due to a reported threat…

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Netanyahu tells U.S. that Israel will strike Iranian military, not nuclear or oil, targets, officials say

Netanyahu tells U.S. that Israel will strike Iranian military, not nuclear or oil, targets, officials say

The Washington Post reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the Biden administration he is willing to strike military rather than oil or nuclear facilities in Iran, according to two officials familiar with the matter, suggesting a more limited counterstrike aimed at preventing a full-scale war. In the two weeks since Iran’s latest missile barrage on Israel, its second direct attack in six months, the Middle East has braced for Israel’s promised response, fearing the two countries’ decades-long shadow…

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Internal polling memo has warning signs for Senate Republicans

Internal polling memo has warning signs for Senate Republicans

Politico reports: The top GOP super PAC charged with flipping the Senate has found that most of its candidates are trailing their Democratic opponents, according to an internal polling memo obtained by POLITICO. The new round of October polling from the Senate Leadership Fund shows all but one Republican candidate running behind Donald Trump in battleground states, a pattern that could sharply limit their ability to build a sizable majority unless they can force a change in the final weeks…

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NRA chief involved in gruesome cat killing as college fraternity member

NRA chief involved in gruesome cat killing as college fraternity member

The Guardian reports: Douglas Hamlin, who was appointed to lead the NRA this summer in the wake of a long-running corruption scandal at the gun rights group, was involved decades ago in the sadistic killing of a fraternity house cat named BK, according to several local media reports at the time. Hamlin pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty brought against him and four of his fraternity brothers in 1980, when he was an undergraduate student at…

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Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?

Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?

The Guardian reports: It begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to the depths at sunrise. The waste from this frenzy – Earth’s largest migration of creatures – sinks to the ocean floor, removing millions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year. This activity is one of thousands of natural processes that regulate the Earth’s climate. Together,…

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Researchers parse the future of plankton in an ever-warmer world

Researchers parse the future of plankton in an ever-warmer world

Nicola Jones writes: Across the world’s oceans, an invisible army of tiny organisms has a supersized impact on the planet. Plankton are at the base of the ocean food chain, feeding fish that feed billions of people. They are responsible for half of the world’s oxygen supply and half of our planet’s annual carbon sink. Miniscule but powerful, their presence can help or hinder ecosystems — by soaking up greenhouse gas, for example, or by spewing toxins. Where plankton live,…

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Navigation strategies studied in a lab may not replicate in real life

Navigation strategies studied in a lab may not replicate in real life

Sujata Gupta writes: On a trip to Siberia in 2019, cognitive scientist Pablo Fernandez Velasco attended a raffle drawing with the region’s Evenki reindeer herders. Prizes included a soccer ball, tea, a portable radio, a GPS unit and other knickknacks. A herder in Velasco’s group won the GPS. “I thought [that] was one of the fancier prizes,” says Velasco, of the University of York in England. “He was crestfallen.” The herder, who had been eyeing the radio, had no use…

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Liz Cheney issues dire warning about ‘fundamentally cruel’ Trump, agrees he’s a ‘fascist’

Liz Cheney issues dire warning about ‘fundamentally cruel’ Trump, agrees he’s a ‘fascist’

NBC News reports: Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday issued a series of dire warnings about a potential future Trump administration, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that people ought to “carefully” consider what another Trump presidency would look like. “Donald Trump believes he will be immune for anything he does once he’s in office,” Cheney, a fierce Trump critic, told moderator Kristen Welker. The former Wyoming congresswoman, who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and has campaigned with…

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Trump wants the military to target his political opponents

Trump wants the military to target his political opponents

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump has proposed a fascist plan to deploy military forces against U.S. citizens who oppose him on election day. “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” the former president told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo when she asked if he expects “chaos on election day” from immigrants. “We have some very bad people, some sick people, radical left lunatics…. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really…

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Trump escalates rhetoric on outlawing political dissent and criticism

Trump escalates rhetoric on outlawing political dissent and criticism

NBC News reports: Donald Trump is ramping up his rhetoric depicting his political rivals and critics as criminals, while dropping a long trail of suggestions that he favors outlawing political speech that he deems misleading or challenges his claims to power. In a speech Friday in Aurora, Colorado, the Republican presidential nominee blasted the immigration system and lobbed a rhetorical grenade at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. “She’s a criminal. She’s a criminal,” said Trump, who was found…

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Trump suggests heckler should ‘get the hell knocked out of her’ after rally

Trump suggests heckler should ‘get the hell knocked out of her’ after rally

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump suggested that a heckler would later get “the hell knocked out of her” during an insult-laced speech here Saturday that portrayed a dark image of the country and demonized undocumented immigrants. As Trump called the Nov. 5 election a “chance to send a message,” he stopped his remarks and turned to the crowd. “Back home to mommy, she goes back home to mommy,” Trump said, resuming his speech and appearing to address…

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Surrender or starve: Netanyahu mulls plan to force residents out of northern Gaza and cut off aid to those left inside

Surrender or starve: Netanyahu mulls plan to force residents out of northern Gaza and cut off aid to those left inside

The Associated Press reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas militants, a plan that, if implemented, could trap without food or water hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes. Israel has issued many evacuation orders for the north throughout the yearlong war, the most recent of which was Sunday. The plan proposed to Netanyahu and the Israeli…

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U.S. to deploy about 100 troops to operate advanced anti-missile system in Israel amid heightened tensions

U.S. to deploy about 100 troops to operate advanced anti-missile system in Israel amid heightened tensions

CNN reports: The US will send an advanced anti-missile system — and US troops to operate it — to Israel “to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1,” the Pentagon said Sunday. It is not the first time the US has deployed the system, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, to the Middle East, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in the statement, and…

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Gravity can exist without mass and dark matter could be myth, says study

Gravity can exist without mass and dark matter could be myth, says study

Rupendra Brahambhatt writes: According to the theory of general relativity, a galaxy must have a certain amount of mass to be held together by gravity. However, scientists don’t see enough visible mass in many galaxies in the universe, yet gravity keeps such galaxies intact. How’s this even possible? This is where the concept of dark matter comes into play. Scientists believe that galaxies have invisible mass in the form of matter that doesn’t interact with light. The gravity holding these…

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