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‘We estimate that nearly one million of Gaza’s 1.1 million olive trees have been destroyed’

‘We estimate that nearly one million of Gaza’s 1.1 million olive trees have been destroyed’

Mohamed Suleiman writes: The last time Hajj Suleiman Abdel-Nabi witnessed a normal olive harvest was three years ago. Days before the “ceasefire” went into effect on October 10, the 75-year-old farmer took a saw to what remains of his three-dunam (about three quarters of an acre) olive farm in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi area. Alongside the massive destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure wrought by Israel’s two-year war on Gaza, the toll on agriculture and farmland in the enclave has been…

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Robert Malley talks about the Gaza ceasefire and U.S. double standards on Israel

Robert Malley talks about the Gaza ceasefire and U.S. double standards on Israel

  For more on the state of the Gaza ceasefire and the future of Palestine, we speak with Robert Malley, co-author with Hussein Agha of the new book Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. Malley is a veteran negotiator involved in previous U.S.-backed peace talks between Israel and Palestinian leadership. He says despite the many flaws in the Trump plan, including “deciding everything for Palestinians without Palestinians having a voice,” it has at least…

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The risks of letting Trump become paymaster for the military

The risks of letting Trump become paymaster for the military

Don Moynihan writes: President Trump’s personalist presidency is driven by a simple logic: protect friends and punish enemies. The shutdown encapsulates this worldview. Trump is cancelling spending in blue states and cities and firing employees in “Democrat programs.” Even more worrying: he is using the shutdown to woo our military and other armed agents, with the goal of turning them into loyal friends as he pursues “the enemy from within.” Trump says that he can determine if the armed forces…

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The Supreme Court is the last defense against Trump’s military police state. Will the court do its job?

The Supreme Court is the last defense against Trump’s military police state. Will the court do its job?

Claire O. Finkelstein, Brenner M. Fissell, Mitt Regan and Benjamin R. Farley write: The Supreme Court is poised to decide a potentially momentous question for U.S. democracy: can the president unilaterally deploy federal troops on U.S. soil over the objections of state governors? In Trump v. Illinois, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether to issue a stay of a district court’s injunction of the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago. The government’s brief argues there is “no reason…

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Why democracy is imperiled by corruption as easily as it is by authoritarianism

Why democracy is imperiled by corruption as easily as it is by authoritarianism

Will Freeman writes: President Dina Boluarte this month became the third Peruvian leader to be impeached in five years. With an approval rating hovering around 3 percent, she had become, by some estimates, one of the most loathed elected heads of state in the world. After her ouster, you would think the country would be celebrating. Ms. Boluarte, who was thrust into office in December 2022 after her predecessor was impeached, was widely blamed by Peruvians for failing to prevent…

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Steve Bannon is adamant ‘there’s a plan’ for third Trump term — despite the 22nd Amendment

Steve Bannon is adamant ‘there’s a plan’ for third Trump term — despite the 22nd Amendment

  The Daily Beast reports: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon openly shared that there are plans to help Donald Trump circumvent the 22nd Amendment and secure a third presidential term. In an interview with The Economist, Bannon told the magazine’s editors, “He’s gonna get a third term, Trump ’28, Trump is gonna be president ’28 so people just ought to get accommodated with that.” When asked by editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes about the 22nd Amendment, Bannon replied, “There’s…

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What happened in Gaza is far worse than many Americans want to believe

What happened in Gaza is far worse than many Americans want to believe

Lydia Polgreen writes: For many Americans, there might be a temptation to disbelieve the enormity of what has happened in Gaza. After all, it is a catastrophe funded by our money, made possible by our weapons, condoned by our government and carried out by one of our closest allies. It’s little wonder that some want to downplay the damage. Their defense is to cast doubt on the numbers. It goes something like this: The death toll, counted by the Hamas-run…

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Andrew Cuomo exposes his own racism with an AI ad depicting ‘criminals for Zohran Mamdani’

Andrew Cuomo exposes his own racism with an AI ad depicting ‘criminals for Zohran Mamdani’

The Guardian reports: New York City mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo has been widely labeled as racist after his official X account posted – and then deleted – an AI-generated ad depicting “criminals for Zohran Mamdani”. Not even 20 minutes into the second mayoral debate, Cuomo’s official account, @andrewcuomo, tweeted the video. It was reshared by many before being deleted. The Cuomo and Mamdani campaigns did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. The video, which has been saved…

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Sequoia Capital COO resigns because of partner Shaun Maguire’s Islamophobic attacks on Mamdani

Sequoia Capital COO resigns because of partner Shaun Maguire’s Islamophobic attacks on Mamdani

Middle East Eye reports: Sumaiya Balbale, the chief operating officer at Sequoia Capital, resigned from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm in August, after partner Shaun Maguire wrote posts about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani that she reportedly viewed as Islamophobic, the Financial Times revealed on Wednesday. Maguire, an American venture capitalist with close ties to X owner Elon Musk, wrote in a July post on the platform: “Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything. It’s…

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Bodies wash ashore in Trinidad after U.S. strikes

Bodies wash ashore in Trinidad after U.S. strikes

The New York Times reports: The first body washed ashore on Trinidad’s northeastern coast soon after the United States carried out its first strike in September on a boat in the Caribbean. Villagers said the corpse had burn marks on its face and was missing limbs, as if it had been mangled by an explosion. The tides deposited another corpse on a nearby beach days later, drawing a wake of vultures. Its face was similarly unrecognizable, and its right leg…

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‘He’s not innocent’: GOP senator denounces Trump’s pardon of crypto billionaire CZ

‘He’s not innocent’: GOP senator denounces Trump’s pardon of crypto billionaire CZ

Politico reports: Republican Sen. Thom Tillis condemned President Donald Trump’s move to pardon cryptocurrency mogul Changpeng Zhao on Thursday, saying it sends “a bad signal.” “I don’t like it,” the retiring North Carolina Republican told reporters. “He was convicted. He’s not innocent.” His comments signal that some GOP lawmakers are uneasy with the move to pardon Zhao, who pleaded guilty in November 2023 to money laundering-related charges. Zhao, often known as CZ, founded the crypto exchange Binance, which federal prosecutors…

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Trump’s East Wing blitz triggers chorus of disgust

Trump’s East Wing blitz triggers chorus of disgust

The Guardian reports: When Barack Obama roasted Donald Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, the icing on the cake was a cartoon illustration of what the White House might look like if Trump ever became US president. The name “Trump” was emblazoned across the top in giant capital letters, followed by “the White House” in lurid purple cursive, then “hotel  casino  golf course” and “presidential suite”. The parody imagined gold pillars, a giant crystal chandelier and two scantily clad…

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How to build your own memory palace

How to build your own memory palace

Lynne Kelly writes: How good is your memory? How effectively can you learn new information that you can reliably call upon? If you are like most people, you want to improve your memory. I know I did. My natural memory is pathetically poor, and I often felt hamstrung by my inability to recall dates, names, places, vocabulary. The inadequacy of my natural memory made me feel hemmed in and deeply frustrated: there was so much information just barely beyond my…

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The only check-and-balance that actually matters isn’t written in law

The only check-and-balance that actually matters isn’t written in law

Garrett Graff writes: The destruction this week of the East Wing of the White House has been uniquely shocking, a physical manifestation of what Donald Trump is doing to our presidency and our country — the excavators and heavy equipment demolishing a 120-year-old literal piece of American history feels in many ways a microcosm of so many Trump controversies. It came out of left field, with no real warning or public debate, no permissions asked or given, to serve Donald…

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