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Inside Aleppo, the city Assad left to rot as a lesson in the price of rising up

Inside Aleppo, the city Assad left to rot as a lesson in the price of rising up

The Guardian reports: Bashar al-Assad’s face has been ripped away from posters at the abandoned checkpoint that separates Sheikh Maqsoud, a neighbourhood in the north of Aleppo, from the rest of the city. No cars dare use the wide boulevard any more because the road is still watched by Kurdish snipers allied to the regime. The units retreated into the warren of bombed and burnt-out buildings when Islamist rebel groups launched an unprecedented attack on the city at the end…

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IDF shoots at Syrian villagers protesting against being blocked from accessing their own farmland

IDF shoots at Syrian villagers protesting against being blocked from accessing their own farmland

The Times of Israel reports: Israeli troops wounded one person after opening fire Friday on demonstrators in southern Syria, with the military saying the soldiers did so to remove “a threat.” According to the local Daraa 24 outlet, residents of towns in the Yarmouk River basin gathered near a former Syrian army post close to the village of Maariya to protest against the IDF presence in Syria. The outlet said the soldiers opened fire in the air to stop the…

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German Christmas market attacker is Saudi anti-Islamist who shared pro-Israel content, WSJ

German Christmas market attacker is Saudi anti-Islamist who shared pro-Israel content, WSJ

The Times of Israel reports: The suspect in the deadly ramming at a Christmas market in Germany on Friday was an anti-Islam activist who shared pro-Israel content on social media in the wake of the October 7 attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported. Five people were killed and some 200 injured when an SUV plowed through the festive crowd in Magdeburg. One of the victims was a young child. Regional premier Reiner Haselhoff said that the suspect is a 50-year-old…

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Our morals change with the seasons

Our morals change with the seasons

Alice Sun writes: The seasons have been shown to influence many elements of our psyches and behavior: mood, color preferences, how charitable we are, even cognitive performance. But recently, researchers found they may also affect what we tend to consider among our most profoundly held convictions: how we decide what is right and wrong. A team of researchers looked at a decade’s worth of responses to an online survey about morals and analyzed how these responses changed from one season…

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Elon Musk endorses Germany’s neo-Nazi AfD party

Elon Musk endorses Germany’s neo-Nazi AfD party

CNN reports: Elon Musk is wading into more than just American politics, throwing his support behind a far-right German political party. Musk, the billionaire Trump ally who is playing a public role in the incoming administration, posted in support Friday of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, after the German government collapsed this week. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote Friday while re-posting a video from far-right political activist Naomi Seibt. The AfD, which has recently seen its popularity…

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AfD: Germans float ban on elected far-right party after scandal

AfD: Germans float ban on elected far-right party after scandal

BBC News reports: Germany is wrestling with a potentially explosive debate over whether to ban the far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD. Germans have been shocked by revelations that senior figures attended a meeting where mass deportations were allegedly discussed. A growing backlash has sparked large protests and public condemnation. The AfD, which continues to poll second nationally, says it’s being scandalously smeared by opponents. “Panic is spreading. We can smell your fear,” AfD MP Bernd Baumann declared this…

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Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in

Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in

Alexander Hurst writes: Musk’s new obsessions (beyond the validation and human affection that he mistakenly believes he will find on social media) are attacking public servants, slashing social spending and going after the most vulnerable. “In most cases, the word ‘homeless’ is a lie,” Musk tweeted recently. “It’s usually a propaganda word for violent drug addicts with severe mental illness.” The most charitable interpretation is that Musk exists at various points along the Dunning Kruger scale. He’s a fantastic venture…

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Kurds in Syria fear a new war after fall of Assad

Kurds in Syria fear a new war after fall of Assad

Murtaza Hussain writes: The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has been a cause of celebration for opponents of his regime, including many of the country’s Kurds. During Syria’s chaotic civil war, political groups representing the historically oppressed ethnic group, whose population spans across multiple countries in the region, managed to carve out autonomous zones in Syria’s north while working closely with U.S. forces in the war against the Islamic State. But since Assad’s fall, the future has become increasingly…

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Journalist arrests surge in 2024 amid Israel-Gaza war protests

Journalist arrests surge in 2024 amid Israel-Gaza war protests

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reports: While revelers and protesters alike gathered near New York City’s Times Square on Dec. 31, 2023, a freelance reporter rang in the new year from a holding cell 10 blocks away. Roni Jacobson was attempting to cover a pro-Palestinian demonstration for the New York Daily News when she said she bumped into a rookie officer and was quickly arrested. She was released after nearly 24 hours in custody when the charges against her for obstruction…

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To escape extreme heat, farmers and fisherfolk worldwide are adopting overnight hours

To escape extreme heat, farmers and fisherfolk worldwide are adopting overnight hours

Modern Farmer reports: Every morning, for years, Josana Pinto da Costa would venture out onto the waterways lining Óbidos, Brazil, in a small fishing boat. She would glide over the murky, churning currents of the Amazon River Basin, her flat nets bringing in writhing hauls as the sun ascended into the cerulean skies above. Scorching temperatures in the Brazilian state of Pará have now made that routine unsafe. The heat has “been really intense” this year, said Pinto da Costa…

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The alchemy that powers the modern world

The alchemy that powers the modern world

December 13, 2024 by Sarah Scoles The astronomer Carl Sagan once said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” That universe must then invent the first atoms, which will make up the first stars, which will fuse those initial elements into larger ones. Stars will explode and die and crash into each other, those cataclysms building heavier elements. Eventually, billions of years later, the universe will produce an Earth whose insides…

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Human Rights Watch: Israel is guilty of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza

Human Rights Watch: Israel is guilty of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza

Middle East Eye reports: Israel is guilty of the crime of extermination and acts of genocide in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has concluded in a new report published on Thursday. The US-based human rights organisation found that Israel has inflicted conditions of life in Gaza calculated to destroy the enclave’s Palestinian population. This amounts to extermination, which is a crime against humanity, and acts of genocide. Coming two weeks after fellow rights group Amnesty International similarly concluded that Israel…

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‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp

‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp

+972 and Local Call report: In February, Rami was arrested by the Israeli army at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. The 42-year-old Palestinian was taken to the notorious Sde Teiman detention center, where, like thousands of Gazans detained there, he endured severe abuse at the hands of the guards. But he was soon transferred out. “I thought I was being returned to Gaza, but I found myself in another prison,” he told +972 and Local Call. That prison was Ofer Camp —…

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Understanding Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest

Understanding Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest

  Upon his reelection, President-elect Donald Trump tapped Tesla (TSLA) CEO and vocal supporter Elon Musk to co-lead a proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. The agency would aid in cutting down the government’s excess spending and overregulation. Could there be a conflict of interest in giving an industry titan such as Musk this much authority? Columbia Law School professor Richard Briffault explains the expectations from the public and lawmakers if this DOGE is formalized as an…

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