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‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Democratic presidential candidates

‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Democratic presidential candidates

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Politico reports: A wide-ranging disinformation campaign aimed at Democratic 2020 candidates is already underway on social media, with signs that foreign state actors are driving at least some of the activity. The main targets appear to be Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), four of the most prominent announced or prospective candidates for president. A POLITICO review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms, as well…

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Microsoft says it has found another Russian operation targeting prominent think tanks

Microsoft says it has found another Russian operation targeting prominent think tanks

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The Washington Post reports: For the second time in six months, Microsoft has identified a Russian government-affiliated operation targeting prominent think tanks that have been critical of Russia, the company said in a blog post Tuesday evening. The “spear-phishing” attacks — in which hackers send out phony emails intended to trick people into visiting websites that look authentic but in fact enable them to infiltrate their victims’ corporate computer systems — were tied to the APT28 hacking group, a unit…

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Obstruction of justice: Inside Trump’s two-year war on the investigations encircling him

Obstruction of justice: Inside Trump’s two-year war on the investigations encircling him

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The New York Times reports: As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, according to several American officials with direct…

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Labour MPs have no other choice than to stay with Corbyn or leave the party

Labour MPs have no other choice than to stay with Corbyn or leave the party

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Rafael Behr writes: When does a church become so broad that its congregants no longer profess the same faith? For Labour, that challenge goes beyond the present rows over Brexit and antisemitism. It drills into deep ideological faultlines. Corbyn’s party has no leftmost boundary. There is no form of radical socialism that it deems taboo. It welcomes people who wave hammer and sickle flags, whether they are unaware of atrocities committed under that banner or simply relaxed about them. It…

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Bernie Sanders hires seasoned progressive, Faiz Shakir, as campaign manager

Bernie Sanders hires seasoned progressive, Faiz Shakir, as campaign manager

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The Daily Beast reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has tapped Faiz Shakir to serve as his campaign manager for his second run at the White House, The Daily Beast has learned. In hiring Shakir, Sanders brings into the fold one of the Democratic Party’s better-traveled operatives—an official with limited campaign experience but with ties to the party’s think tank infrastructure, its Hill operations, and the larger progressive universe. Shakir joins the Sanders operation from the American Civil Liberties Union where…

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Alabama newspaper editor incites murder. Calls on KKK to go to Washington to lynch Democrats

Alabama newspaper editor incites murder. Calls on KKK to go to Washington to lynch Democrats

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The New York Times reports: The editor and publisher of a small Alabama newspaper called for the Ku Klux Klan “to night ride again” against tax-raising politicians, prompting a fierce backlash and calls for his resignation. The editor, Goodloe Sutton, published the editorial in the Thursday edition of The Democrat-Reporter, a weekly newspaper in Linden, Ala., that had about 3,000 subscribers in 2015. The editorial went largely unnoticed until Monday, when two student journalists shared photographs of it online and…

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Egypt turns back veteran New York Times reporter

Egypt turns back veteran New York Times reporter

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The New York Times reports: Egyptian officials detained a New York Times correspondent after he arrived in Cairo on Monday, holding him incommunicado for hours before forcing him onto a flight back to London without explanation. The move against the correspondent, David D. Kirkpatrick, is an escalation of a severe crackdown against the news media under Egypt’s strongman leader, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Egyptian journalists have borne the brunt of Mr. el-Sisi’s repression, with dozens imprisoned or forced into exile….

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January was one of the warmest in all of recorded history

January was one of the warmest in all of recorded history

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Eric Holthaus writes: January 2019 was the third-warmest January in the history of global weather record-keeping, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The only warmer global Januarys in the instrumental record, which dates back to the 1880s, were 2016 and 2017, and there’s evidence that the planet hasn’t been this warm in a very long time. The last time January global temperatures were below average was in 1976 — before millennials were even a thing. So here’s the…

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Our large brains evolved thanks to an ancient ‘arms race’ for resources and mates

Our large brains evolved thanks to an ancient ‘arms race’ for resources and mates

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JuliusKielaitis / shutterstock By Mark Maslin, UCL Human society rewards individuals who can handle complex social interactions and control large groups of people. Extreme examples of this power are comedians who can fill stadiums entertaining 70,000 people, or politicians who, through their rhetoric and charm, convince millions of us to vote for them so they can run our lives. Intelligence, humour, and charisma are used to co-opt a greater share of resources for themselves and their family. In fact, many…

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Surge in U.S. economists’ support for carbon tax to tackle climate change

Surge in U.S. economists’ support for carbon tax to tackle climate change

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The Financial Times reports: US economists led by former US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen are uniting in record numbers to back the idea of a carbon tax as the most effective and immediate way of tackling climate change. At a time when Democrats including New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are pushing a sweeping “Green New Deal” programme to reduce greenhouse emissions, climate change is shaping up to be a major 2020 election issue. The US is the world’s second-biggest…

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The migrant caravan: Made in USA

The migrant caravan: Made in USA

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Roberto Saviano writes: The migrant caravan that left Honduras and headed north toward the US last October is the largest flight from drug trafficking in history. Though the phenomenon of Central American caravans isn’t new, never before have thousands of people decided to flee from criminal organizations in such numbers. It is, in a sense, the biggest anti-mafia march the world has ever seen. The migrants departed from San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras and its economic center,…

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Why are so many Guatemalans migrating to the U.S.?

Why are so many Guatemalans migrating to the U.S.?

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By Emily Yates-Doerr, Sapiens, October 25, 2018 On May 23, a bystander filmed 20-year-old Claudia Patricia Gómez González after a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot her in the head. The young woman had recently crossed into Texas from Mexico, and she was unarmed. In an article published soon after her death, her mother, who still lives in Guatemala, described her as “naughty and cuddly and playful,” adding that “she loved to draw and sing.” Gómez González grew up in the…

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Sorry, y’all, but climate change ain’t the first existential threat

Sorry, y’all, but climate change ain’t the first existential threat

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Mary Annaïse Heglar writes: Dear Climate Movement: I’m with you when you say that climate change is the most important issue facing mankind. I’ll even go so far as to say it’s the most important one ever. But, when I hear folks say — and I have heard it — that the environmental movement is the first in history to stare down an existential threat, I have to get off the train. This game of what I call “existential exceptionalism” is a losing one….

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Trump is right, UK must take back ISIS fighters says ex-British army chief

Trump is right, UK must take back ISIS fighters says ex-British army chief

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The Guardian reports: A former head of the British army has said Donald Trump is right to say British Islamic State fighters held in Syria should be brought back to the UK because they are the UK’s responsibility. Gen Lord Dannatt said it was important they are seen to be treated fairly to help prevent others being radicalised and to set an example to the rest of the world. He told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “Usually I disagree with…

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