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Top intelligence office informs congressional committees it’ll no longer brief on election security

Top intelligence office informs congressional committees it’ll no longer brief on election security

CNN reports: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has informed the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence that it’ll no longer be briefing on election security issues, according to letters obtained by CNN and a senior administration official. Instead, ODNI will primarily provide written updates to the congressional panels, the official said. The official added that other agencies supporting election security, including the Department of Justice, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, intend to continue…

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Kenosha militia event asking attendees to bring weapons was reported 455 times without Facebook acting

Kenosha militia event asking attendees to bring weapons was reported 455 times without Facebook acting

BuzzFeed reports: In a companywide meeting on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that a militia page advocating for followers to bring weapons to an upcoming protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, remained on the platform because of “an operational mistake.” The page and an associated event inspired widespread criticism of the company after a 17-year-old suspect allegedly shot and killed two protesters Tuesday night. The event associated with the Kenosha Guard page, however, was flagged to Facebook at least 455 times…

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New study suggests polls are missing shy Trump voters

New study suggests polls are missing shy Trump voters

Bloomberg reports: A new online study finds that Republicans and independents are twice as likely as Democrats to say they would not give their true opinion in a telephone poll question about their preference for president in the 2020 election. That raises the possibility that polls understate support for President Donald Trump. Some 11.7% of Republicans and 10.5% independents said they would not give their true opinion, vs. 5.4% of Democrats, according to the study by CloudResearch LLC, a Queens,…

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The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the coronavirus

The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the coronavirus

The New York Times reports: Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the United States: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus. Most of these people are not likely to be contagious, and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time. But researchers say the…

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Reports of several cases of Covid-19 reinfection — but the implications are complicated

Reports of several cases of Covid-19 reinfection — but the implications are complicated

STAT reports: Following the news this week of what appears to have been the first confirmed case of a Covid-19 reinfection, other researchers have been coming forward with their own reports. One in Belgium, another in the Netherlands. And now, one in Nevada. What caught experts’ attention about the case of the 25-year-old Reno man was not that he appears to have contracted SARS-CoV-2 (the name of the virus that causes Covid-19) a second time. Rather, it’s that his second…

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Employees outraged with Zuckerberg as Facebook continues promoting violence

Employees outraged with Zuckerberg as Facebook continues promoting violence

BuzzFeed reports: Frustrated Facebook employees slammed CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday during a companywide meeting, questioning his leadership and decision-making, following a week in which the platform promoted violent conspiracy theories and gave safe harbor to militia groups. The billionaire chief executive was speaking via webcast at the company’s weekly all-hands meeting, attempting to address questions about violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the QAnon conspiracy that has proliferated across Facebook. The meeting came one day after the Verge reported that…

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How Biden could lose

How Biden could lose

George Packer writes: Here is a prediction about the November election: If Donald Trump wins, in a trustworthy vote, what’s happening this week in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will be one reason. Maybe the reason. And yet Joe Biden has it in his power to spare the country a second Trump term. Events are unfolding with the inevitable logic of a nightmare. A white police officer shoots a Black man as he’s leaning into a car with his three sons inside—shoots him…

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On climate change, we’ve run out of presidential terms to waste

On climate change, we’ve run out of presidential terms to waste

Bill McKibben writes: The working definition of the ongoing brain seizure that is 2020 is either that Coloradans are being told by state authorities to install smoke-resistant “safe rooms” in their houses, or that Californians now must weigh what kind of mask to wear. An N95 mask helps to filter out harmful particulates from the wildfire smoke that is overwhelming the Golden State, but many come with an exhalation valve to keep the wearer from overheating—and that valve can spread…

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University of Arizona says it caught a dorm’s covid-19 outbreak before it started by screening sewage

University of Arizona says it caught a dorm’s covid-19 outbreak before it started by screening sewage

The Washington Post reports: As 5,000 students prepared for move-in day at the University of Arizona this week, the school warned they would be tested periodically for the coronavirus. One test, though, doesn’t involve a nose swab. The university is regularly screening the sewage from each dorm, searching for traces of the virus. On Thursday, officials said the technique worked — and possibly prevented a sizable outbreak on campus. When a wastewater sample from one dorm came back positive this…

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Cloth masks do protect the wearer – breathing in less coronavirus means you get less sick

Cloth masks do protect the wearer – breathing in less coronavirus means you get less sick

When people wear masks, they can still get infected, but they’re more likely to have milder symptoms. Wenmei Zhou/Digital Vision Vectors via Getty Images By Monica Gandhi, University of California, San Francisco Masks slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by reducing how much infected people spray the virus into the environment around them when they cough or talk. Evidence from laboratory experiments, hospitals and whole countries show that masks work, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends face coverings…

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Evidence from federal judge prompts new call for investigation into Trump’s admission to the University of Pennsylvania

Evidence from federal judge prompts new call for investigation into Trump’s admission to the University of Pennsylvania

The Washington Post reports: A professor at the University of Pennsylvania has renewed a request to investigate how President Trump was admitted to the school in 1966, citing what he called “new evidence” on secretly recorded tapes in which Trump’s sister says a friend took his entrance exam. The professor, Eric W. Orts, is one of six faculty members who asked Penn’s provost earlier this summer to launch an investigation into how Trump transferred into the school. He noted that…

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Terminating payroll tax could end Social Security benefits in 2023, chief actuary warns

Terminating payroll tax could end Social Security benefits in 2023, chief actuary warns

NBC News reports: The federal government’s ability to pay Social Security benefits could stop by mid-2023 if President Donald Trump were to permanently terminate the payroll tax and not offer another revenue source, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration said Monday. The chief actuary, Stephen Goss, offered the prediction in a letter to a group of Senate Democrats who requested an analysis of what would happen if the payroll tax is eliminated with no other funding stream for…

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Overt racism remains entrenched within law enforcement across America, report says

Overt racism remains entrenched within law enforcement across America, report says

The Guardian reports: White supremacist groups have infiltrated US law enforcement agencies in every region of the country over the last two decades, according to a new report about the ties between police and far-right vigilante groups. In a timely new analysis, Michael German, a former FBI special agent who has written extensively on the ways that US law enforcement have failed to respond to far-right domestic terror threats, concludes that US law enforcement officials have been tied to racist…

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The racism of Republican agenda is on display at the RNC

The racism of Republican agenda is on display at the RNC

Thomas B. Edsall writes: The center-right political coalition in America — the Republican Party as it stands today — can be described as holding two overarching goals: First, deregulation and reductions in corporate and other tax liabilities — each clearly stated on the White House website — and second, but packing a bigger punch, the preservation of the status quo by stemming the erosion of the privileged status of white Christian America. For those who want confirmation of Republican accomplishments…

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