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‘Time for this war in Afghanistan to end,’ says departing U.S. commander

‘Time for this war in Afghanistan to end,’ says departing U.S. commander

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The New York Times reports: When American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Lt. Col. John W. Nicholson Jr. survived by chance. That morning, as dozens of his colleagues were killed, he was moving house and wasn’t at his desk — which he said was 100 feet from the nose of the plane. Nearly 17 years to the day, now a four-star general departing as the commander of the American and NATO forces…

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Trump protects profits, not workers

Trump protects profits, not workers

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Politico reports: When President Donald Trump came into office pledging to cut regulations “massively,” he made a point of exempting regulations that protected workers’ health. But almost two years in, the Trump administration has done the opposite, rolling back worker safety protections affecting underground mine safety inspections, offshore oil rigs and line speeds in meat processing plants, among others. Trump’s deregulatory moves on worker safety are at odds with his public stance as a champion of working class Americans, but…

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Microwave weapons are prime suspect in attacks on U.S. embassy staff in Cuba

Microwave weapons are prime suspect in attacks on U.S. embassy staff in Cuba

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The New York Times reports: During the Cold War, Washington feared that Moscow was seeking to turn microwave radiation into covert weapons of mind control. More recently, the American military itself sought to develop microwave arms that could invisibly beam painfully loud booms and even spoken words into people’s heads. The aims were to disable attackers and wage psychological warfare. Now, doctors and scientists say such unconventional weapons may have caused the baffling symptoms and ailments that, starting in late…

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Studying time is like holding a snowflake

Studying time is like holding a snowflake

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Brian Gallagher writes: In April, in the famous Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution in London, Carlo Rovelli gave an hour-long lecture on the nature of time. A red thread spanned the stage, a metaphor for the Italian theoretical physicist’s subject. “Time is a long line,” he said. To the left lies the past—the dinosaurs, the big bang—and to the right, the future—the unknown. “We’re sort of here,” he said, hanging a carabiner on it, as a marker for the…

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Mollie Tibbetts’ father: Don’t distort her death to advance the racism she opposed

Mollie Tibbetts’ father: Don’t distort her death to advance the racism she opposed

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Rob Tibbetts writes: As I write this, I am watching Sen. John McCain lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda and know that evil will succeed only if good people do nothing. Both Mollie and Senator McCain were good people. I know that both would stand up now and do something. The person who is accused of taking Mollie’s life is no more a reflection of the Hispanic community as white supremacists are of all white people. To suggest otherwise…

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Germany’s week of right-wing riots highlights fears of racism becoming more mainstream

Germany’s week of right-wing riots highlights fears of racism becoming more mainstream

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Quartz reports: On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. A few days later, World War II began. Last night (Sept. 1), the 79th anniversary of that invasion, thousands of neo-Nazis, far-right politicians, and locals took to the streets of Chemnitz, a town in the eastern German state of Saxony, spewing hatred against foreigners and demanding “Germany for Germans.” The significance of the riots happening on such a dark anniversary was not lost on many observers. Foreign minister Heiko Mass tweeted:…

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Russia softens up West for bloodbath it is planning in Syria’s Idlib province

Russia softens up West for bloodbath it is planning in Syria’s Idlib province

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Simon Tisdall writes: Russia is going to extraordinary lengths to justify in advance the murderous onslaught that observers fear is about to descend on Idlib, a province in north-west Syria that is home to nearly two million internally displaced people. Idlib is the last large populated area outside the control of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator. And Assad, backed by his Russian and Iranian allies, is determined to get it back – whatever the human cost. In a series of coordinated…

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As technology makes billions of people economically irrelevant, their political power is likely to shrink

As technology makes billions of people economically irrelevant, their political power is likely to shrink

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Yuval Noah Harari writes: There is nothing inevitable about democracy. For all the success that democracies have had over the past century or more, they are blips in history. Monarchies, oligarchies, and other forms of authoritarian rule have been far more common modes of human governance. The emergence of liberal democracies is associated with ideals of liberty and equality that may seem self-evident and irreversible. But these ideals are far more fragile than we believe. Their success in the 20th…

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Courageous grassroots leaders provide the best hope to a troubled world

Courageous grassroots leaders provide the best hope to a troubled world

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Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who steps down tomorrow, writes: Across the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, there are politicians who are too self-serving, or too spiteful, to care for and protect the most vulnerable. They are not just cowardly but profoundly foolish, because in producing these stress fractures [– the result of decades of mediocre leadership –], they place at risk not only their own futures, but everyone else’s as…

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As final Syrian showdown looms, millions of lives are at risk

As final Syrian showdown looms, millions of lives are at risk

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The Washington Post reports: With Syria’s rebels nearing defeat after seven years at war, President Bashar al-Assad’s army says it is turning its firepower against their final stronghold. The target, Idlib province, is largely controlled by an al-Qaeda-linked militant group. Caught in the middle are millions of civilians with nowhere left to run. Public pronouncements by Syrian and Russian officials foreshadow a devastating attack if diplomacy and the pleas of aid groups for restraint are not heeded. On Wednesday, Russian…

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Donald Trump’s unadulterated racism

Donald Trump’s unadulterated racism

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Eugene Robinson writes: President Trump’s bigoted hatred of Latino immigrants has been clear from the beginning. Now his administration is aggressively persecuting Latino citizens as well. It is hard to be shocked anymore, given the daily outrages committed by Trump and his minions, but a report Thursday by The Post was jaw-dropping: In the borderlands of southern Texas, the State Department is denying passports to hundreds and perhaps thousands of men and women who have official birth certificates demonstrating they…

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White House faces legal and communications skills deficit at perilous moment

White House faces legal and communications skills deficit at perilous moment

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The Associated Press reports: Increasingly convinced that the West Wing is wholly unprepared to handle the expected assault from Democrats if they win the House in November, President Donald Trump’s aides and allies are privately raising alarm as his circle of legal and communications advisers continues to shrink. With vacancies abounding in the White House and more departures on the horizon, there is growing concern among Trump allies that the brain drain at the center of the administration could hardly…

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Time-restricted eating can overcome the bad effects of faulty genes and unhealthy diet

Time-restricted eating can overcome the bad effects of faulty genes and unhealthy diet

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sukrit3d/Shutterstock.com By Satchin Panda, University of California San Diego Timing our meals can fend off diseases caused by bad genes or bad diet. Everything in our body is programmed to run on a 24-hour or circadian time table that repeats every day. Nearly a dozen different genes work together to produce this 24-hour circadian cycle. These clocks are present in all of our organs, tissues and even in every cell. These internal clocks tell us when to sleep, eat, be…

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