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Massachusetts sues Exxon over climate change, accusing the oil giant of fraud

Massachusetts sues Exxon over climate change, accusing the oil giant of fraud

Inside Climate News reports: Oil giant ExxonMobil, already fighting a climate-related investor fraud case in New York, has been hit with a second lawsuit: The Massachusetts Attorney General is accusing the company of defrauding investors and threatening the world economy. This newest legal blow landed Thursday in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston in a complaint alleging Exxon repeatedly violated the state’s consumer and investor protection law and related regulations. The lawsuit accuses Exxon of a broad sweep of misconduct…

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The problem of political advertising on social media

The problem of political advertising on social media

Sue Halpern writes: In the course of the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton spent eighty-one million dollars on Facebook ads. With a little more than a year to go until the next election, candidates have already spent more than sixty-three million dollars marketing themselves on Facebook and Google. Trump’s campaign has spent more than anyone else’s, with a total of twenty-four million dollars in digital-ad buys. Two of those ads, which were released on Facebook on October…

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Former White House chief of staff warned Trump he would be impeached

Former White House chief of staff warned Trump he would be impeached

The Washington Examiner reports: John Kelly warned President Trump that hiring a “yes man” to succeed him as White House chief of staff would lead to impeachment and, in hindsight, regrets his decision to resign. House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump less than a year after Kelly departed the administration. The retired, four-star Marine general suggested the blame lies squarely with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other advisers who are unable, or unwilling, to…

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Inherited learning? It happens, but how is uncertain

Inherited learning? It happens, but how is uncertain

Viviane Callier writes: As a biological concept, the inheritance of acquired characteristics has had a wild roller coaster ride over the past two centuries. Championed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck at the beginning of the 19th century, it soared to widespread popularity as a theory of inheritance and an explanation for evolution, enduring even after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Then experimental tests, the rise of Mendelian genetics, and the wealth of discoveries substantiating chromosomal DNA as the principal…

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Materialism alone cannot explain the riddle of consciousness

Materialism alone cannot explain the riddle of consciousness

Adam Frank writes: Materialism holds the high ground these days in debates over that most ultimate of scientific questions: the nature of consciousness. When tackling the problem of mind and brain, many prominent researchers advocate for a universe fully reducible to matter. ‘Of course you are nothing but the activity of your neurons,’ they proclaim. That position seems reasonable and sober in light of neuroscience’s advances, with brilliant images of brains lighting up like Christmas trees while test subjects eat…

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NSC official plans to testify in impeachment probe even if White House tries to block him. White House delayed Ukraine trade decision in August

NSC official plans to testify in impeachment probe even if White House tries to block him. White House delayed Ukraine trade decision in August

Politico reports: Tim Morrison, a National Security Council official who has been identified as a witness to one of the most explosive pieces of evidence unearthed by House impeachment investigators, plans to testify Thursday even if the White House attempts to block him. “If subpoenaed, Mr. Morrison plans to appear for his deposition,” his attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, said. A slew of high-profile witnesses have defied White House, State Department and Pentagon orders not to cooperate with the impeachment probe….

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Justice Department begins criminal investigation of itself

Justice Department begins criminal investigation of itself

The New York Times reports: For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began. Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the…

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Mark Zuckerberg — like most Americans — doesn’t know what the First Amendment is for

Mark Zuckerberg — like most Americans — doesn’t know what the First Amendment is for

Masha Gessen writes: What is the First Amendment for? I ask my students this every year. Every year, several people quickly respond that the First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to speak without restriction. True, I say, but what is it for? It’s so that Congress doesn’t pass a law that would limit the right to free speech, someone often says. Another might add that, in fact, the government does place some limits on free speech—you can’t shout “fire” in…

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The Syria withdrawal’s other victims

The Syria withdrawal’s other victims

Elizabeth Tsurkov reports: In Deir Ezzor, the largest city in eastern Syria, on the banks of the Euphrates River, protesters last week chanted and raised signs calling for the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime. But they also raised U.S. and French flags, hoping the anti-ISIS coalition might keep its forces in the region. “I remember when we were taught at a young age about the French colonialist occupier, when the [Syrian] regime pretended to be a champion of national…

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After abandoning the Kurds, Trump now plans sending in tanks to control Syrian oil fields

After abandoning the Kurds, Trump now plans sending in tanks to control Syrian oil fields

USA Today reports: The Pentagon is preparing to send tanks and armored vehicles to Syrian oil fields, according to a U.S. official – a stunning reversal of President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from the war-torn country after he declared victory over ISIS. The deployment of heavy armor to Syria would represent a significant escalation in the fight, requiring a contingent of additional troops to operate and maintain the vehicles, as well as forces to protect their bases. Earlier…

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Argentina’s economy is collapsing. UN to investigate human rights abuses after 18 deaths in Chile protests

Argentina’s economy is collapsing. UN to investigate human rights abuses after 18 deaths in Chile protests

The Washington Post reports: The peso is falling — and so, it seems, is the sky. Inflation and poverty rates are soaring. National reserves are shrinking fast. In short, Argentina — in a terrible deja vu of crises past — is hurtling once again toward the economic abyss. But on the bar stools and wooden chairs of Santa Evita, a grill house dedicated to Eva “Evita” Perón, the political heroine who died a Broadway-worthy death in 1952, the customers are…

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How liberalism became ‘the god that failed’ in eastern Europe

How liberalism became ‘the god that failed’ in eastern Europe

Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes write: In the spring of 1990, John Feffer, a 26-year-old American, spent several months criss-crossing eastern Europe in hope of unlocking the mystery of its post-communist future and writing a book about the historical transformation unfolding before his eyes. He was no expert, so instead of testing theories, he buttonholed as many people from as many walks of life as possible. The contradictions he encountered were fascinating and puzzling. East Europeans were optimistic but apprehensive….

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How Trump’s war on the so-called ‘Deep State’ backfired

How Trump’s war on the so-called ‘Deep State’ backfired

The New York Times reports: Nameless, faceless and voiceless, the C.I.A. officer who first triggered the greatest threat to President Trump’s tenure in office seemed to be practically the embodiment of the “deep state” that the president has long accused of trying to take him down. But over the last three weeks, the deep state has emerged from the shadows in the form of real live government officials, past and present, who have defied a White House attempt to block…

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As student vote surges, Republicans make efforts to suppress it

As student vote surges, Republicans make efforts to suppress it

The New York Times reports: At Austin Community College, civics is an unwritten part of the curriculum — so much so that for years the school has tapped its own funds to set up temporary early-voting sites on nine of its 11 campuses. No more, however. This spring, the Texas Legislature outlawed polling places that did not stay open for the entire 12-day early-voting period. When the state’s elections take place in three weeks, those nine sites — which logged…

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