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Sidelining RFK Jr., states announce plans to coordinate on vaccines

Sidelining RFK Jr., states announce plans to coordinate on vaccines

The New York Times reports: California, Oregon and Washington announced plans on Wednesday to form a “health alliance” that would coordinate vaccine recommendations for the three states. The alliance is intended to provide residents with scientific data about vaccine safety and efficacy, and to issue guidance on vaccines for respiratory illnesses like Covid and the flu, as well as an array of childhood immunizations. The move comes at a time of unparalleled turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and…

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AI has a hidden water cost − here’s how to calculate yours

AI has a hidden water cost − here’s how to calculate yours

How many AI queries does it take to use up a regular plastic water bottle’s worth of water? kieferpix/iStock/Getty Images Plus By Leo S. Lo, University of Virginia Artificial intelligence systems are thirsty, consuming as much as 500 milliliters of water – a single-serving water bottle – for each short conversation a user has with the GPT-3 version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT system. They use roughly the same amount of water to draft a 100-word email message. That figure includes the…

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International Association of Genocide Scholars: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

International Association of Genocide Scholars: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

The Associated Press reports: The largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The determination by the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organizations that have used the term for Israel’s actions in Gaza. Israel rejects the accusation and called the resolution…

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Federal judge rules Trump can’t act as national police chief

Federal judge rules Trump can’t act as national police chief

Politico reports: A federal judge has declared President Donald Trump’s use of military troops in Los Angeles illegal, barring the Pentagon from using National Guard members and Marines from performing police functions, like arrests and crowd control. In a 52-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer warned that Trump appears intent on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.” Trump billed his deployment of troops to Los Angeles, starting in early June, as a way of…

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The anti-Trump strategy that’s showing results

The anti-Trump strategy that’s showing results

Michael Scherer writes: Days after Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to put an end to the Justice Department’s revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, captains of the legal resistance gathered by Zoom. Norm Eisen, a former attorney for Barack Obama’s White House, had convened lawyers, Democratic communications strategists, a neoconservative Trump critic, and a former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. This one was big, Eisen said from his parked car in Baltimore, where he had traveled for a lawsuit to overturn…

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Trump team’s contentious climate report ‘makes a mockery of science’, leading experts agree

Trump team’s contentious climate report ‘makes a mockery of science’, leading experts agree

The Guardian reports: A group of the US’s leading climate scientists have compiled a withering review of a controversial Trump administration report that downplays the risks of the climate crisis, finding that the document is biased, riddled with errors and fails basic scientific credibility. More than 85 climate experts have contributed to a comprehensive 434-page report that excoriates a US Department of Energy (DOE) document written by five hand-picked fringe researchers that argues that global heating and its resulting consequences…

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Alarm after FBI arrests army veteran for ‘conspiracy’ over protest against ICE

Alarm after FBI arrests army veteran for ‘conspiracy’ over protest against ICE

The Guardian reports: The arrest of a US army veteran who protested against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has raised alarms among legal experts and fellow veterans familiar with his service in Afghanistan. Bajun Mavalwalla II – a former army sergeant who survived a roadside bomb blast on a special operations mission in Afghanistan – was charged in July with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after joining a demonstration against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Spokane, Washington….

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Rising inequality is turning the U.S. into an autocratic state, billionaire Ray Dalio warns

Rising inequality is turning the U.S. into an autocratic state, billionaire Ray Dalio warns

The Guardian reports: One of the world’s most prominent hedge fund billionaires has warned that rising inequality is turning the US into an autocratic state and condemned business leaders for failing to speak out against Donald Trump’s policies. Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, said “gaps in wealth” and a collapse in trust were driving “more extreme” policies in the US. Speaking to the Financial Times, the veteran financier said many western countries were affected by growing inequality, leading…

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Let’s not get tricked again by Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

Let’s not get tricked again by Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

Philip Ball writes: In 2000, Bill Joy, the co-founder and chief scientist of the computer company Sun Microsystems, sounded an alarm about technology. In an article in Wired titled ‘Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us’, Joy wrote that we should ‘limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.’ He feared a future in which our inventions casually wipe us from the face of the planet. The concerns expressed in Joy’s…

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What chaos at the CDC could mean for the rest of the world

What chaos at the CDC could mean for the rest of the world

By Michael Toole, Burnet Institute Ever since Robert F Kennedy (RFK) Jr was appointed United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been under pressure to abandon its traditional evidence-based approach to public health in America and across the world. That pressure came to a head last week with the sacking of recently appointed CDC director Susan Monarez. According to her lawyers, the longtime government scientist, who had been in the…

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Trump’s immigration policy threatens key sectors of California’s economy, long reliant on immigrant workers

Trump’s immigration policy threatens key sectors of California’s economy, long reliant on immigrant workers

CNBC reports: From citrus farms in the Central Valley to construction sites where homes and businesses are being rebuilt after devastating wildfires in Pacific Palisades, California relies heavily on immigrant workers and entrepreneurs. As the Trump administration continues to ramp up immigration enforcement, industries key to the state’s $4 trillion economy like agriculture, construction and hospitality could be among those hardest hit by the loss of California’s immigrant workforce, according to new research. At stake are billions of dollars that…

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Trump’s troop deployments are targeting Democrats more than crime

Trump’s troop deployments are targeting Democrats more than crime

The New York Times reports: When Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, dispatched his National Guard troops to Washington to support President Trump’s crackdown on crime, Democrats and other critics wondered why he didn’t keep them within state lines. Memphis, after all, has long been one of the most dangerous cities in the country, with a murder rate about twice as high as the nation’s capital, according to F.B.I. statistics. Nashville has a higher rate of violent crime than Washington as…

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India was the economic alternative to China — until Trump ended that

India was the economic alternative to China — until Trump ended that

The New York Times reports: President Trump’s 50 percent tariffs landed like a declaration of economic war on India, undercutting enormous investments made by American companies to hedge their dependency on China. India’s hard work to present itself to the world as the best alternative to Chinese factories — what business executives and big money financiers have embraced as part of the China Plus One strategy — has been left in tatters. Now, less than a week since the tariffs…

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Climate.gov got shut down by the Trump regime. Its creators plan to bring it back to life

Climate.gov got shut down by the Trump regime. Its creators plan to bring it back to life

The Guardian reports: Earlier this summer, access to climate.gov – one of the most widely used portals of climate information on the internet – was thwarted by the Trump administration, and its production team was fired in the process. The website offered years’ worth of accessibly written material on climate science. The site is technically still online but has been intentionally buried by the team of political appointees who now run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Now, a team…

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