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Trump and Putin are clearly in cahoots — over propping up fossil fuels

Trump and Putin are clearly in cahoots — over propping up fossil fuels

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Eric Holthaus writes: Whether Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election in 2016 is not up for serious debate — numerous intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic, concluded it did. During a joint press conference with President Donald Trump in Helsinki on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin went a long way toward answering why. “I did [want Trump to win] because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal,” Putin said. That statement was widely covered, but I’m…

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Mariia Butina, who sought ‘back channel’ meeting for Trump and Putin, is charged as Russian agent

Mariia Butina, who sought ‘back channel’ meeting for Trump and Putin, is charged as Russian agent

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The New York Times reports: A Russian woman who tried to broker a secret meeting between Donald J. Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, during the 2016 presidential campaign was charged Monday and accused of working with Americans to carry out a secret Russian effort to influence American politics. At the behest of a senior Russian government official, the woman, Mariia Butina, made connections through the National Rifle Association, religious organizations and the National Prayer Breakfast to try…

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Kids, separated from their parents, are not even allowed to comfort one another

Kids, separated from their parents, are not even allowed to comfort one another

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The New York Times reports: Do not misbehave. Do not sit on the floor. Do not share your food. Do not use nicknames. Also, it is best not to cry. Doing so might hurt your case. Lights out by 9 p.m. and lights on at dawn, after which make your bed according to the step-by-step instructions posted on the wall. Wash and mop the bathroom, scrubbing the sinks and toilets. Then it is time to form a line for the…

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How Israel torched its way to Iran’s nuclear secrets

How Israel torched its way to Iran’s nuclear secrets

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The New York Times reports on Israel’s theft of Iran’s nuclear archive: David Albright, a former inspector who runs the Institute for Science and International Security, said in an interview that the documents contained “great information.” “Iran conducted many more high-explosive tests related to nuclear weapons development than previously known,” he told Congress last month. But the archive also shows that after a burst of activity, a political mandate delivered at the end of 2003 slowed the program dramatically, just…

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Plastic doesn’t ever really disappear

Plastic doesn’t ever really disappear

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Zoë Schlanger writes: Since the end of World War II, plastics have proliferated, becoming a part of nearly everything we use in nearly every aspect of daily life. Yearly production has grown from 2 million metric tons of plastic in 1950 to 380 million metric tons in 2015. In total, according to a paper published on July 19, 2017, in Science Advances, humans have made 8.3 billion metric tons of new plastics since 1950. And, thanks in large part to…

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The death of truth: How we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump

The death of truth: How we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump

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Michiko Kakutani writes: Two of the most monstrous regimes in human history came to power in the 20th century, and both were predicated on the violation and despoiling of truth, on the knowledge that cynicism and weariness and fear can make people susceptible to the lies and false promises of leaders bent on unconditional power. As Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the…

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Trump’s ambassador lobbied Britain on behalf of jailed far-right English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson

Trump’s ambassador lobbied Britain on behalf of jailed far-right English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson

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Reuters reports: Sam Brownback, the U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, complained to the British ambassador in Washington D.C. about the treatment of an English right-wing activist who is in jail for disrupting a trial, according to three sources familiar with the discussion. Brownback raised the case of the activist known as Tommy Robinson in a June meeting with Sir Kim Darroch, Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, according to a British official and two sources close to the organizers…

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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the triumph of nothing over everyone

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the triumph of nothing over everyone

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Masha Gessen writes: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are about to hold a meeting that will reflect their shared understanding of power: the triumph of nothing over everyone. American journalists have been trying to guess what the two Presidents might discuss when they meet in Helsinki on Monday. The special counsel Robert Mueller apparently tried to create a topic they would not be able to avoid, by announcing the indictment of twelve Russian military-intelligence officers on Friday for allegedly interfering…

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The way Trump and the GOP deal with Russian attacks is ‘textbook treason’

The way Trump and the GOP deal with Russian attacks is ‘textbook treason’

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David Rothkopf writes: The indictments of the 12 Russian military officers who engaged in a coordinated attack on the United States to try to make their preferred candidate our president are a vital reminder that the Mueller investigation cannot and must not be seen as a political issue. The fact that Friday we also heard from our Director of National Intelligence, a conservative GOP former senator from Indiana, that the cyber offensive of which the GRU, Russian military intelligence, attacks…

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The new story of humanity’s origins in Africa

The new story of humanity’s origins in Africa

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Ed Yong writes: There is a decades-old origin story for our species, in which we descended from a group of hominids who lived somewhere in Africa around 200,000 years ago. Some scientists have placed that origin in East Africa; others championed a southern birthplace. In either case, the narrative always begins in one spot. Those ancestral hominids, probably Homo heidelbergensis, slowly accumulated the characteristic features of our species—the rounded skull, small face, prominent chin, advanced tools, and sophisticated culture. From…

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The ecosystem that controls a galaxy’s future — its circumgalactic medium — is coming into focus

The ecosystem that controls a galaxy’s future — its circumgalactic medium — is coming into focus

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Science News reports: There’s more to a galaxy than meets the eye. Galaxies’ bright stars seem to spiral serenely against the dark backdrop of space. But a more careful look reveals a whole lot of mayhem. “Galaxies are just like you and me,” Jessica Werk, an astronomer at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in January at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. “They live their lives in a constant state of turmoil.” Much of that turmoil takes…

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Is Donald Trump the kingpin in a major money-laundering enterprise?

Is Donald Trump the kingpin in a major money-laundering enterprise?

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Adam Davidson writes: Even before the financial crisis of 2008, Trump found it increasingly difficult to borrow money from big Wall Street banks and was shut out of the rapidly growing pool of institutional investment. Faced with a cash-flow problem, he could have followed other storied New York real-estate families and invested in the ever more rigorous financial-due-diligence capabilities required by pension funds and other sources of real-estate capital. This would have given him access to a pool of trillions…

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After being told of Russia indictments, Trump still aspired to be friends with Putin

After being told of Russia indictments, Trump still aspired to be friends with Putin

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The Washington Post reports: Before he embarked on a week of transatlantic diplomacy, President Trump sat down with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who previewed for the boss an explosive development: The Justice Department would soon indict 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking Democratic emails to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. For the first time, the United States would be charging Russian government agents with planning and executing a sustained cyberattack to disrupt America’s democratic process. Yet…

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Mueller reveals depth of states’ election vulnerabilities

Mueller reveals depth of states’ election vulnerabilities

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Politico reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest indictment offers new details of just how deeply Russian operatives have infiltrated state and local election agencies across the U.S. — adding to years of warnings about the technologies that underpin American democracy. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Friday that hackers within Russia’s GRU military intelligence service targeted state and local election boards, infiltrated a Florida-based company that supplies software for voting machines across the country, and broke into a state election…

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