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Biden’s new constitutional amendment on women’s rights is nothing more than his opinion

Biden’s new constitutional amendment on women’s rights is nothing more than his opinion

Vox reports: Three days before leaving office, President Joe Biden has made a surprising announcement: He declared that a decades-old proposed Constitutional amendment enshrining equal rights on the basis of sex is now “the law of the land.” Except it isn’t. A senior administration official told CNN that Biden was not taking executive action but merely “stating an opinion” that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was in effect. The National Archives — the federal government agency that is the official…

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Early hominin, Homo erectus, lived in a brutal desert, study finds

Early hominin, Homo erectus, lived in a brutal desert, study finds

The New York Times reports: Chimpanzees live only in African rainforests and woodlands. Orangutans live only in the jungles of Indonesia. But humans live pretty much everywhere. Our species has spread across frozen tundras, settled on mountaintops and called other extreme environments home. Scientists have historically seen this adaptability as one of the hallmarks of modern humans and a sign of how much our brains had evolved. But a new study hints that maybe we aren’t so special. A million…

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How Stephen Miller has become one of the most powerful unelected people in America

How Stephen Miller has become one of the most powerful unelected people in America

The New York Times reports: When Stephen Miller met with Mark Zuckerberg at Mar-a-Lago late last year, the 39-year-old Trump adviser was in a position of power that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Back then, Mr. Miller was a mere Senate staffer railing about the evils of immigration. Now he was holding forth on U.S. policy with the billionaire chief executive of Meta, a man he had vilified for years as a globalist bent on destroying the nation….

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Trump’s billionaire Treasury pick stresses importance of tax cuts for billionaires

Trump’s billionaire Treasury pick stresses importance of tax cuts for billionaires

Rolling Stone reports: President-elect Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary pick, a billionaire who has been accused of evading taxes, says that “the most important economic issue of the day” is extending Trump’s tax cuts for the ultra rich. Scott Bessent spoke about his economic plans while sitting for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. Bessent is an investor, political donor, and a hedge fund manager. He is a former partner at Soros Fund Management, liberal philanthropist George…

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A euphoric tech industry is ready to celebrate Trump and itself

A euphoric tech industry is ready to celebrate Trump and itself

The New York Times reports: A party at the Beaux-Arts mansion of the venture capitalist Peter Thiel. A blowout organized by hosts of the popular tech podcast “All-In” at a brand-new members-only club. A viewing ceremony hosted by an ascendant, Silicon Valley-inflected network of wealthy donors. Some of the most coveted parties during President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inaugural weekend will be hosted by the Silicon Valley donors who are flush with power at the dawn of his second administration. The…

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Biden warns of the threat posed by the ‘tech-industrial’ complex

Biden warns of the threat posed by the ‘tech-industrial’ complex

HuffPost reports: President Joe Biden never mentioned his successor by name in his goodbye speech to the nation Wednesday, but nevertheless made it clear he believes that American democracy is at risk. “I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern,” Biden said in a 16-minute address from the Oval Office. He then ticked off allusions to Trump and his wealthy advisers as threats to Americans’ freedom. The outgoing president referred to Republican President Dwight…

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A ceasefire won’t stop Israel’s genocidal agenda

A ceasefire won’t stop Israel’s genocidal agenda

Tariq Kenney-Shawa writes: Steven Witkoff, Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, reportedly didn’t bother with pleasantries when he informed the Israelis that he would be arriving to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Saturday. When told his visit coincided with Shabbat, meaning the prime minister would be unavailable until the evening, Witkoff made it clear that the Jewish holiday would not interfere with his schedule. Netanyahu, understanding the stakes, went to his office that afternoon to meet the envoy,…

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Israel has declared war on the promise of a strong, democratic Syria

Israel has declared war on the promise of a strong, democratic Syria

Omar Sabbour writes: The end of 2024 delivered a surprising turn of events in the 13-year-long war in Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed spectacularly when faced with a limited operation by rebel forces. Amid the turmoil, Israel expanded its occupation of Syrian land in the south of the country, expelling hundreds of Syrians from their homes. It also launched a devastating campaign of aerial bombardment, wiping out the Syrian air force and military capabilities. Some of the bombardment was so…

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John Vaillant: ‘Virtually any city on Earth can burn now’

John Vaillant: ‘Virtually any city on Earth can burn now’

Kiley Bense writes: The journalist John Vaillant’s book “Fire Weather” begins in the spring of 2016 in the boreal forests surrounding the remote Canadian city of Fort McMurray, where a fire is growing. Although wildfire is a regular part of life in northern Alberta, this fire was destined to be different. “A new kind of fire introduced itself to the world,” Vaillant writes. Ushered in by soaring temperatures, drought and high winds, this wildfire obliterated thousands of buildings, forced 88,000…

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Ceasefire: Trump envoy swayed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did all year, say Arab officials

Ceasefire: Trump envoy swayed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did all year, say Arab officials

  The Times of Israel reports: A “tense” weekend meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and incoming Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff led to a breakthrough in the hostage negotiations, with the top aide to US President-elect Donald Trump doing more to sway the premier in a single sit-down than outgoing President Joe Biden did all year, two Arab officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. Witkoff has been in Doha for the past week to take part in the…

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No child should ever see the horrors of Gaza

No child should ever see the horrors of Gaza

Hadeel Awad writes: For 15 months now, Gaza’s children have been reduced to a statistic. The death toll reported gives a specific count for children. Malnourishment and starvation are reported in terms of numbers of children they have affected and killed. Even the cold weather is measured in terms of how many babies it has killed in makeshift tents. But behind these numbers lie heartbreaking stories of Palestinian children whose childhood has been cut short. As a nurse working at…

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The Assads’ houses of death

The Assads’ houses of death

Yezid Sayigh interviews Anne-Marie McManus: Yezid Sayigh: It’s been over a month since a coalition of groups led by the Islamist militia, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime, ending a 50-year family dictatorship. Can you give some context to the images that came out of Syrian prisons during and after those events? Anne-Marie McManus: The liberation of the prisons and intelligence branches was not marginal to the fall of the regime. In ways that are really unparalleled in modern…

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Trump’s half billion dollar post-election windfall

Trump’s half billion dollar post-election windfall

Axios reports: President-elect Trump is being inundated with so much money from corporations and wealthy donors that his team expects to raise about $500 million by summer — even though he can’t run again, sources in his operation tell Axios. Why it matters: By stockpiling so much cash, Trump is signaling he doesn’t want to be seen as a lame duck in his second term, and is ready to help political allies, punish opponents and help Republicans keep full control of Congress…

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The one Trump pick Democrats actually like: Lori Chavez-DeRemer

The one Trump pick Democrats actually like: Lori Chavez-DeRemer

Russell Berman writes: Democrats spent more than $20 million last year to end then-Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s congressional career. Now, however, the Republican they worked so hard to defeat is their favorite nominee for President-Elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Trump’s selection of Chavez-DeRemer for labor secretary came as a pleasant surprise to many Democrats and union leaders, who expected him to follow past Republican presidents and name a conservative hostile to organized labor. But Chavez-DeRemer endeared herself to unions during her two…

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