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Israeli involvement in massive Beirut port blast ruled out by both sides

Israeli involvement in massive Beirut port blast ruled out by both sides

The Times of Israel reports: Massive blasts that struck Beirut were not caused by Israeli activity, sources in Lebanon and Jerusalem said Tuesday afternoon, as officials attempted to determine what sparked the huge explosions. Lebanese officials indicated that an initial explosion was caused by fireworks stored at the port, and a second, even larger explosion may have been caused by the fire reaching explosive material that has been kept there for years. The blasts came amid high tensions between Israel…

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The racial underpinnings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

The racial underpinnings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

Elaine Scarry writes: This past Memorial Day, a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the throat of an African-American, George Floyd, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Seventy-five years ago, an American pilot dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima. Worlds apart in time, space, and scale, the two events share three key features. Each was an act of state violence. Each was an act carried out against a defenseless opponent. Each was an act of naked racism….

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Don’t believe the lie that voting is all you can do

Don’t believe the lie that voting is all you can do

Daniel Hunter writes: The Black Lives Matter movement has had significant wins in recent months. Municipalities have removed statues of racists, corporations have changed branding that reinforced racial stereotypes, schools have cut ties with police forces and cities have reduced police funding. But too often, politicians, celebrities and community leaders who applaud the protesters for these victories are quick to follow up by asserting, like Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, that voting “would be the most effective response, the…

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GOP pines for Susan Rice as Biden VP

GOP pines for Susan Rice as Biden VP

Politico reports: Joe Biden still may be undecided about who to pick for a running mate, but Donald Trump’s team knows exactly who they want: Susan Rice. Trump’s aides and allies accuse Rice — without delving too deeply into the evidence — of helping cover up crimes for two of the president’s favorite foils, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, making her just the kind of deep-state villain who could fire up his MAGA base. “She is absolutely our No. 1…

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The biggest land conservation legislation in a generation

The biggest land conservation legislation in a generation

Linda Bilmes says: The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) [signed into law on Tuesday] is the biggest land conservation legislation in a generation. The National Parks Conservation Association, the leading advocacy organization for the parks, is hailing it as “a conservationist’s dream.” The legislation has two main impacts. First, it establishes a National Park and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund that will provide up to $9 billion over the next five years to fix deferred maintenance at national parks, wildlife…

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To rebuild our world, we must end the carbon economy

To rebuild our world, we must end the carbon economy

Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz, Mariana Mazzucato, Clair Brown, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Robert Reich, Gabriel Zucman and others write: From deep-rooted racism to the Covid-19 pandemic, from extreme inequality to ecological collapse, our world is facing dire and deeply interconnected emergencies. But as much as the present moment painfully underscores the weaknesses of our economic system, it also gives us the rare opportunity to reimagine it. As we seek to rebuild our world, we can and must end the carbon economy. Even…

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BP will slash oil production by 40% and pour billions into green energy

BP will slash oil production by 40% and pour billions into green energy

CNN reports: BP is planning to slash oil and gas production and pour billions of dollars into clean energy as part of a major strategic overhaul unveiled on Tuesday, alongside a huge second quarter loss and dividend cut. The London-based company said that it plans a 10-fold increase in annual low carbon investments to $5 billion by 2030 as it tries to deliver on its promise of net zero emissions by 2050 and prepares for a world that uses much…

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The coronavirus is never going away

The coronavirus is never going away

Sarah Zhang writes: The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has sickened more than 16.5 million people across six continents. It is raging in countries that never contained the virus. It is resurging in many of the ones that did. If there was ever a time when this coronavirus could be contained, it has probably passed. One outcome is now looking almost certain: This virus is never going away. The coronavirus is simply too widespread and too transmissible. The most likely scenario,…

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Israel rushed to reopen schools. ‘It was a major failure’

Israel rushed to reopen schools. ‘It was a major failure’

The New York Times reports: As the United States and other countries anxiously consider how to reopen schools, Israel, one of the first countries to do so, illustrates the dangers of moving too precipitously. Confident it had beaten the coronavirus and desperate to reboot a devastated economy, the Israeli government invited the entire student body back in late May. Within days, infections were reported at a Jerusalem high school, which quickly mushroomed into the largest outbreak in a single school…

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Trump is resurrecting the census’s horrific history

Trump is resurrecting the census’s horrific history

Karen Bass and Stacey Abrams write: To tell the story of America, we must see who lives within her borders. The census is the constitutionally protected tool wielded every 10 years to take stock, assess the accuracy of our national narrative, and ensure a fair and equitable distribution of political power and money to the places where people live. The mandatory decennial count is laid out in the founding documents of our nation. Over time, we have bettered its process…

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Landlord-leaning eviction courts are about to make the coronavirus housing crisis a lot worse

Landlord-leaning eviction courts are about to make the coronavirus housing crisis a lot worse

Eviction moratoriums have already begun to expire. Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images By Katy Ramsey Mason, University of Memphis The United States is on the verge of a potentially devastating eviction crisis right in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Federal, state and local eviction moratoriums had put most of the pending cases on hold. But as the moratoriums expire and eviction hearings resume, millions of people are at risk of losing their homes. That’s because the court process is…

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A prophet of uncertainty

A prophet of uncertainty

Adam Tooze writes: If it is true that we are now faced with pervasive risks generated and brought upon us by the forces of modernity and yet not accessible to our immediate senses, how do we cope? Until you start suffering from radiation poisoning, until your fetus suffers a horrific mutation, until you find your lungs flooding with pneumonia, the threat of the radiation or a mystery bug is unreal, inaccessible to the naked eye or immediate perception. In risk…

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How the pandemic brought America to its knees

How the pandemic brought America to its knees

Ed Yong writes: How did it come to this? A virus a thousand times smaller than a dust mote has humbled and humiliated the planet’s most powerful nation. America has failed to protect its people, leaving them with illness and financial ruin. It has lost its status as a global leader. It has careened between inaction and ineptitude. The breadth and magnitude of its errors are difficult, in the moment, to truly fathom. In the first half of 2020, SARS‑CoV‑2—the…

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A vaccine is not going to fix everything

A vaccine is not going to fix everything

The Washington Post reports: In the public imagination, the arrival of a coronavirus vaccine looms large: It’s the neat Hollywood ending to the grim and agonizing uncertainty of everyday life in a pandemic. But public health experts are discussing among themselves a new worry: that hopes for a vaccine may be soaring too high. The confident depiction by politicians and companies that a vaccine is imminent and inevitable may give people unrealistic beliefs about how soon the world can return…

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