Music: Snarky Puppy — ‘What About Me?’ (Alternate Take)
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…
‘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 —…
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…
It’s both class war and culture war
Timothy Snyder writes: Trump is staffing his cabinet with billionaires, who will break the government out of incompetence, spite, or avarice. So why not just go for class politics, and forget about everything else? As the country reaches unprecedented levels of inequality, why not just tear off the oligarchs’ masks? Why not present them as merchants of death? We should all know who they are, how wealthy they are, from what sources, and how they profit from holding power. And,…
Spending impasse threatens to close National Park System
National Parks Traveler reports: The National Park System could close this weekend if Congress can’t move past its budget impasse and fund the federal government. While Congress appeared on track this week to adopt a bipartisan proposal to fund the government through March under what’s known as a Continuing Resolution, hard conservative members in the House of Representatives were balking against it, and then President-elect Donald Trump urged Congress to reject the agreement. Along with forcing a government shutdown, rejection…
Latakia, long Assad’s heartland, is grappling with the prospect of a new era
Kamal Shahin writes: Late on the night of Dec. 7, a trusted friend in Damascus leaked an extraordinary piece of news to me: President Bashar al-Assad was set to announce his resignation within hours. I found it impossible to believe. To protect my credibility as a journalist and avoid falling victim to misinformation, I posted a vague message on my Facebook page: “A big surprise tomorrow.” Like many Syrians, I doubted the news. Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis…
Hyundai is becoming the new Tesla
Patrick George writes: Hyundai has a lot riding on a patch of rural Georgia. In October, the South Korean auto giant opened a new electric-vehicle factory west of Savannah at the eye-watering cost of $7.6 billion. It’s the largest economic-development project in the state’s history (one that prompted the Georgia statehouse to pass a resolution recognizing “Hyundai Day”). For now, workers at the so-called Metaplant are building the company’s popular electric SUV, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, and soon more EVs will be built there, too….
Music: Snarky Puppy — ‘Shofukan’ (Alternate Take)
Trump is going after Canada now – but everyone else is next
Stephen Collinson writes: Donald Trump is stoking political mayhem in Canada by intensifying a crisis that threatens to oust Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The president-elect’s bullying of an embattled political foe, whom he mocks as the governor of the 51st state in an insult to America’s loyal northern neighbor, is a preview of a belligerent strategy as he scours the globe for big second-term wins before even taking office. And his willingness to plunge into an ally’s domestic politics ought…
Trump planning to target progressive non-profits, watchdog warns
The Guardian reports: Donald Trump and his Republican allies are planning to target progressive groups they perceive as political enemies in a sign of deepening “authoritarianism”, a US watchdog has warned. The president-elect could potentially use the justice department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to target non-profits and researchers, launch politically motivated investigations and pass legislation to restrict their activities. “Trump has made it clear that he plans to use his second term to attack the progressive ecosystem and his…
Now is not the time for Democrats to surrender
Jamelle Bouie writes: Democrats may be in the minority, but they are not yet an opposition. What’s the difference? An opposition would use every opportunity it had to demonstrate its resolute stance against the incoming administration. It would do everything in its power to try to seize the public’s attention and make hay of the president-elect’s efforts to put lawlessness at the center of American government. An opposition would highlight the extent to which Donald Trump has no intention of…
How billionaires have sidestepped a tax aimed at the rich
By Paul Kiel This story was originally published by ProPublica Fourteen years ago, Congress set out to remedy a basic unfairness in the tax code. The tax that funds Medicare, because it’s aimed mainly at wages, hits even the poorest American workers. But the wealthy could easily avoid paying their share. So lawmakers created a new type of Medicare tax to capture the kinds of income the rich often enjoy: interest, dividends and capital gains from investments. A host of…
The Sunbelt’s growing population faces increasing climate hazards
Inside Climate News reports: Counties across the southern half of the U.S., especially those with large and socially vulnerable populations, will be much more exposed to wildfire, drought and extreme heat than other parts of the country as the region’s climate warms in the coming decades, according to new research from the U.S. Forest Service and Resources for the Future. The report, “Changing Hazards, Exposure, and Vulnerability in the Conterminous United States, 2020–2070,” builds on the Forest Service’s 2020 Resources…
Meta censorship is having a ‘devastating’ impact on Palestinian news sources
Middle East Eye reports: Meta’s policy of censorship is having a “devastating” impact on Palestinians, according to a new report by a prominent Arab media watchdog. The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, also known as 7amleh, collected 20 first-hand testimonies from Palestinian influencers, journalists and media outlets who have experienced the tech conglomerate’s discriminatory practices. Since October 2023, with the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Meta has been accused of censoring Palestinian content and groups on…
AI chatbots show dementia-like cognitive decline in tests, raising questions about their future in medicine
The British Medical Journal reports: Almost all leading large language models or “chatbots” show signs of mild cognitive impairment in tests widely used to spot early signs of dementia, finds a study in the Christmas issue of the BMJ. The results also show that “older” versions of chatbots, like older patients, tend to perform worse on the tests. The authors say these findings “challenge the assumption that artificial intelligence will soon replace human doctors.” Huge advances in the field of…