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Missouri high court restores abortion measure to ballot

Missouri high court restores abortion measure to ballot

The New York Times reports: The Missouri Supreme Court rejected a bid on Tuesday to throw out a question on the ballot in November that will ask voters whether to establish a right to abortion in the state Constitution. The seven-member court handed down a one-page ruling less than three hours before the state’s deadline for printing ballots for absentee voters, capping a furious few days of legal maneuvers, as anti-abortion groups and state Republicans made a last-ditch effort to…

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Elon Musk is uniquely dangerous as a purveyor of election misinformation

Elon Musk is uniquely dangerous as a purveyor of election misinformation

The Washington Post reports: The chairman of the board of elections in Montgomery County, Pa., was well acquainted with the regular attendees at his monthly meetings who peddled old, debunked voting conspiracy theories. But something changed after April 4, the chairman, Neil Makhija, explained in an interview. That was the day Elon Musk retweeted a false claim that as many as 2 million noncitizens had been registered to vote in Texas, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Suddenly, the same people were coming…

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Has the tide turned against TikTok, Telegram and X?

Has the tide turned against TikTok, Telegram and X?

Alexander B. Howard writes: Three major events have shaken up the social-media world in the past two weeks. First, French authorities detained Pavel Durov, the iconoclastic billionaire behind the online platform Telegram. Then, a judge suspended the microblogging service X in Brazil. Soon after, a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled that the mother of a 10-year-old child who died copying a TikTok self-asphyxiation video can sue the service, circumventing a blanket legal immunity the company has long claimed. While each of these events took place in a…

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Biden’s ‘red line’ did nothing to prevent Israel from erasing Rafah

Biden’s ‘red line’ did nothing to prevent Israel from erasing Rafah

In March Reuters reported: Asked whether an Israeli invasion of Rafah would be a red line for him with Netanyahu, Biden said: “It is a red line but I’m never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there’s no red line (in which) I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.” Biden's "red line" was literally erased by Israel https://t.co/mDJZuZxmJE — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) September 10,…

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People tend to exaggerate the immorality of their political opponents

People tend to exaggerate the immorality of their political opponents

PsyPost reports: A series of eight studies conducted in the United States found that people generally tend to overestimate their political opponents’ willingness to accept basic moral wrongs. This tendency to exaggerate the immorality of political opponents was observed not only in discussions of hot political topics but also regarding fundamental moral values. Many people believe that the opposing political side finds blatant wrongs acceptable. The research was published in PNAS Nexus. Political animosity in the U.S. has been steadily…

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Here is what will happen on day one of Trump’s presidency, according to Project 2025

Here is what will happen on day one of Trump’s presidency, according to Project 2025

Daniel Martinez HoSang writes: It’s a cold day in Washington DC in late January 2025. Though Donald Trump has lost the popular vote for a third consecutive election, his narrow capture of the electoral college has delivered the presidency. During the campaign, Trump offered some symbolic gestures to distance himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led policy blueprint for the next Republican administration, matched with a database of conservative personnel to execute those plans. “Personnel is politics,” they explain. But…

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U.S. investigating the killing of Hersh Goldberg-Polin but not the ‘kill shot’ on Ayşenur Eygi

U.S. investigating the killing of Hersh Goldberg-Polin but not the ‘kill shot’ on Ayşenur Eygi

  Al Jazeera reports: Officials in the United States have said that Washington still does not “know with full certainty what transpired” when a US citizen was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank last week, stressing that they were waiting for the findings of an Israeli investigation. The US on Monday also appeared to reject calls for an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to acknowledge that…

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Daniel Levy: In the Middle East the U.S. acts in its own interests, not the interests of peace

Daniel Levy: In the Middle East the U.S. acts in its own interests, not the interests of peace

  Public anger in Israel towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza has brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis on to the streets. But while Israelis push for a ceasefire deal that would bring captives in Gaza home, there has been noticeably little criticism of the war crimes being committed in Gaza. Richard Gizbert speaks with Daniel Levy, a former senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office and negotiator, who knows Israeli politics from the…

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Feds say white supremacist leaders of ‘Terrorgram Collective’ plotted assassinations, inspired attacks

Feds say white supremacist leaders of ‘Terrorgram Collective’ plotted assassinations, inspired attacks

CBS News reports: Federal prosecutors in California unsealed an indictment Monday charging two people with leading an online group of white supremacists that maintained a list of high-profile targets to assassinate and urging group members to commit hate crimes. A 37-page indictment filed on Sept. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California alleges that Dallas Erin Humber and Matthew Robert Allison led the group known as “Terrorgram,” a network of channels, group chats and users…

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Americans misunderstand their contribution to the deteriorating environment

Americans misunderstand their contribution to the deteriorating environment

Inside Climate News reports: Roughly one in two Americans said they are not very or not at all exposed to environmental and climate change risks. Those perceptions contrast sharply with empirical evidence showing that climate change is having an impact in nearly every corner of the United States. A warming planet has intensified hurricanes battering coasts, droughts striking middle American farms and wildfires threatening homes and air quality across the country. And climate shocks are driving up prices of some…

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Americans lost $5.6 billion last year in cryptocurrency fraud scams, the FBI says

Americans lost $5.6 billion last year in cryptocurrency fraud scams, the FBI says

The Associated Press reports: Americans were duped out of more than $5.6 billion last year through fraud schemes involving cryptocurrency, the FBI said in a report released Monday that shows a 45% jump in losses from 2022. The FBI received nearly 70,000 complaints in 2023 by victims of financial fraud involving bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies, according to the FBI. The most rampant scheme was investment fraud, which accounted for $3.96 billion of the losses. “The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency,…

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Do animals know that they will die?

Do animals know that they will die?

Ross Andersen writes: Moni the chimpanzee was still new to the Dutch zoo when she lost her baby. The keepers hadn’t even known that she was pregnant. Neither did Zoë Goldsborough, a graduate student who had spent months jotting down every social interaction that occurred among the chimps, from nine to five, four days a week, for a study on jealousy. One chilly midwinter morning, Goldsborough found Moni sitting by herself on a high tree stump in the center of…

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‘You’re a loser’: DOJ vindicated, says Fuentes, after Trump admits he lost 2020 election ‘by a whisker’

‘You’re a loser’: DOJ vindicated, says Fuentes, after Trump admits he lost 2020 election ‘by a whisker’

The Daily Beast reports: White nationalist Nick Fuentes may have once dined with former president Donald Trump but he has now turned on him for finally admitting that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. “He’s admitting… ‘I lost by a whisker’. So what was the point? What’s the point of any of it you lost in 2020? Seriously? What are we even doing anymore then? You’re a loser… you lost to Joe Biden, you deserve to be charged….

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Trump cashes in on for-profit merchandise during final weeks of his presidential campaign

Trump cashes in on for-profit merchandise during final weeks of his presidential campaign

The Washington Post reports: With less than 10 weeks before the presidential election, Donald Trump had a message for voters in late August: He would be selling more digital trading cards for $99 each. “Fifty all new stunning digital trading cards — it’s really something,” Trump says in the ad. “These cards show me dancing and even holding some bitcoins.” Buy 15 or more of the digital cards, he said, and he would mail a single physical trading card. Those…

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