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Month: April 2019

Trump’s thirst for Mueller revenge could land him in legal trouble

Trump’s thirst for Mueller revenge could land him in legal trouble

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Politico reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller may be done, but President Donald Trump and his team are still adding to an already hefty record of evidence that could fuel impeachment proceedings or future criminal indictments. Team Trump’s bellicose tweets and public statements in the last few days are potentially exposing Trump to fresh charges of witness intimidation, obstruction of justice and impeding a congressional investigation — not to mention giving lawmakers more fodder for their presidential probes — according to…

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Experiments that make quantum mechanics directly visible to the human eye

Experiments that make quantum mechanics directly visible to the human eye

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Rebecca Holmes writes: I spent a lot of time in the dark in graduate school. Not just because I was learning the field of quantum optics – where we usually deal with one particle of light or photon at a time – but because my research used my own eyes as a measurement tool. I was studying how humans perceive the smallest amounts of light, and I was the first test subject every time. I conducted these experiments in a…

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To stop global catastrophe, we must believe in humans again

To stop global catastrophe, we must believe in humans again

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Bill McKibben writes: Because I am concerned about inequality and about the environment, I am usually classed as a progressive, a liberal. But it seems to me that what I care most about is preserving a world that bears some resemblance to the past: a world with some ice at the top and bottom and the odd coral reef in between; a world where people are connected to the past and future (and to one another) instead of turned into…

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Melting permafrost in Arctic will have $70tn climate impact, study predicts

Melting permafrost in Arctic will have $70tn climate impact, study predicts

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The Guardian reports: The release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost will accelerate global warming and add up to $70tn (£54tn) to the world’s climate bill, according to the most advanced study yet of the economic consequences of a melting Arctic. If countries fail to improve on their Paris agreement commitments, this feedback mechanism, combined with a loss of heat-deflecting white ice, will cause a near 5% amplification of global warming and its associated costs, says the paper,…

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I was Bernie’s biggest critic in 2016 — I’ve changed my mind

I was Bernie’s biggest critic in 2016 — I’ve changed my mind

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Peter Daou writes: If you had told me in the spring of 2016 that three years later I’d be touting the merits of the Bernie Sanders campaign—taking flak from Hillary Clinton supporters for not being loyal enough to her—I would have laughed and asked what alternate reality you lived in. But life and politics have a way of taking unexpected turns, and here I am writing about the considerable strengths Sanders brings to the 2020 election. I do so not…

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A Trump transition staffer says it’s time for impeachment

A Trump transition staffer says it’s time for impeachment

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J. W. Verret writes: Let’s start at the end of this story. This weekend, I read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report twice, and realized that enough was enough—I needed to do something. I’ve worked on every Republican presidential transition team for the past 10 years and recently served as counsel to the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee. My permanent job is as a law professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, which is not political, but where…

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France blasts U.S. for weakened UN resolution on sexual violence in conflicts

France blasts U.S. for weakened UN resolution on sexual violence in conflicts

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France 24 reports: The UN Security Council on Tuesday approved a watered-down resolution on sexual violence in conflicts, eliminating language on providing survivors “sexual and reproductive health care” to get US support in a move criticised by France. Tuesday’s vote on the German-drafted resolution was 13-0, with Russia and China, which had submitted a rival draft, abstaining. Both Russia and China said they opposed sexual violence in conflicts, but denounced “lax interpretations” in the text and a “manipulated” struggle to…

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A Neanderthal tooth discovered in Serbia reveals human migration history

A Neanderthal tooth discovered in Serbia reveals human migration history

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A 3D recreation of a recently discovered Neanderthal tooth. Joshua Lindal, Author provided By Mirjana Roksandic, University of Winnipeg and Joshua Allan Lindal, University of Winnipeg In 2015, our Serbian-Canadian archaeological research team was working at a cave site named Pešturina, in Eastern Serbia, where we had found thousands of stone tools and animal bones. One day, an excited Serbian undergrad brought us a fossil they had uncovered: a small molar tooth, which we immediately recognized as human. A single…

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Earth Day founder thinks we’re close to political breakthrough on climate

Earth Day founder thinks we’re close to political breakthrough on climate

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Joe Romm writes: Denis Hayes, the principal national organizer of the first Earth Day, in April 1970, said on Monday that the upcoming 50th anniversary next year will be “the largest, most diverse action in human history.” The goal is to engage three billion people around the world with a focus on climate change. Thanks to a resurgence in youth-led climate activism, Hayes told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., that “2020 will be for climate what…

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We’re losing the war on climate change

We’re losing the war on climate change

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John D. Sutter writes: For years now, people like environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben have been screaming from the treetops that we need a World War II-scale mobilization to fight the scourge of climate change. They’re right, of course. And on Earth Day — that 24-hour sliver of the calendar when we talk about the fact that humans exist on, and because of, a living planet — it’s clear not only that we are losing this war but that we…

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Global wealth gap would be smaller today without climate change, study finds

Global wealth gap would be smaller today without climate change, study finds

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The New York Times reports: Climate change creates winners and losers. Norway is among the winners; Nigeria among the losers. Those are the stark findings of a peer-reviewed paper by two Stanford University professors who have tried to quantify the impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions on global inequality. It was published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Global temperatures have risen nearly 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, since the start of the industrial age,…

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Sri Lanka’s pain is going to spread

Sri Lanka’s pain is going to spread

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Mihir Sharma writes: In Sri Lanka, memories of war and terrorism are very much alive. The decades-long civil war between the Sinhala-dominated government in Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was brutal by any standards, and it ended a decade ago with a climactic battle near the Indian Ocean that took thousands of civilian lives. But Sri Lanka, beautiful and multicultural, has never had just the one fault line. On Easter morning, when hundreds of Christians and hotel…

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How Stephen Miller made immigration personal

How Stephen Miller made immigration personal

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Politico reports: In the summer of 2017, a group of White House aides were in Paris, enjoying some rare downtime during Donald Trump’s first trip to France as president. As the Trump officials soaked up a July evening along the banks of the Seine, one stepped away to take a phone call from the U.S. It was Stephen Miller, the president’s then-31-year-old chief policy adviser, speechwriter and hard-line immigration policy advocate. As the other officials looked on, Miller spent several…

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Mueller makes it clear: Trump was worse than a ‘useful idiot’

Mueller makes it clear: Trump was worse than a ‘useful idiot’

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Garrett M Graff writes: Back in January, approximately 1,000 Robert Mueller news cycles ago, I argued that given the arc of the special counsel Russia probe, it’d be embarrassing for Donald Trump if he weren’t an agent of the Russian intelligence: “We’ve reached a point in the Mueller probe where there are only two scenarios left,” I wrote at the time. “Either the president is compromised by the Russian government and has been working covertly to cooperate with Vladimir Putin…

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