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Sick animals suggest COVID pandemic started in Wuhan market

Sick animals suggest COVID pandemic started in Wuhan market

Nature reports: The quest to understand where the COVID-19 pandemic started has revealed fresh clues. Researchers have re-analysed data collected from a market in Wuhan, China, during the early days of the pandemic and found that animals there were infected with a virus – although they could not confirm what exactly caused the infection. “The conclusion is convincing that there was infection in the animals,” says Spyros Lytras, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Tokyo. The results, which have…

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Russia is increasingly open about its national eugenics project

Russia is increasingly open about its national eugenics project

Alexey Kovalev writes: “Spare people” with low “social value” is how Russian parliamentarian Aleksandr Borodai described his compatriots sent as cannon fodder to Ukraine in a leaked tape, the authenticity of which he later confirmed. Expendable manpower, he explained, can be thrown at Ukraine’s “bravest [and] boldest,” and “exhaust the enemy to the maximum.” Borodai isn’t just anybody: He’s a political consultant from Moscow who declared himself prime minister of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic in Ukraine in 2014, and…

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Tulsi Gabbard — Russian asset or just a politically opportunistic sycophant who wants to please Trump?

Tulsi Gabbard — Russian asset or just a politically opportunistic sycophant who wants to please Trump?

ABC News reports: Since becoming President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard’s rosy posture toward Moscow has prompted some Democratic critics to suggest that she could be “compromised,” or perhaps even a “Russian asset” — claims the ex-Hawaii representative and Army officer has forcefully denied. But former advisers to Gabbard suggest that her views on Russia and its polarizing leader, Vladimir Putin, have been shaped not by some covert intelligence recruitment as far as they know…

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Islamist rebels seize strategic city of Hama from Syrian regime forces

Islamist rebels seize strategic city of Hama from Syrian regime forces

The Guardian reports: Islamist insurgents have captured the Syrian city of Hama in a battle to seize a vital location on the road to Damascus, marking the latest challenge to Bashar al-Assad’s control of the country. Militants led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered the city from the east on Thursday after surrounding it during five days of fighting with forces loyal to Assad. Video circulating online suggested that the insurgents had captured a military airport outside Hama,…

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Trump’s ugliest threats are stirring surprising GOP resistance

Trump’s ugliest threats are stirring surprising GOP resistance

Greg Sargent writes: There are still nearly two months to go before Donald Trump assumes the presidency again, but Republicans or GOP-adjacent industries have already begun to admit out loud that some of his most important policy promises could prove disastrous in their parts of the country. These folks don’t say this too directly, out of fear of offending the MAGA God King. Instead, they suggest gingerly that a slight rethink might be in order. But unpack what they’re saying,…

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An architect of Project 2025 is pressuring Republican senators to confirm Pete Hegseth

An architect of Project 2025 is pressuring Republican senators to confirm Pete Hegseth

The Associated Press reports: The think tank behind Project 2025, the conservative blueprint linked to President-elect Donald Trump, is launching an effort to back Trump’s imperiled selection for secretary of defense in its latest attempt to wield influence in the incoming Republican administration. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Thursday that his group will spend $1 million to pressure senators unwilling to back Pete Hegseth, whose nomination to lead the Pentagon has come into question due to his views on…

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Joe Biden should pardon Reality Winner for her actions as a whistleblower

Joe Biden should pardon Reality Winner for her actions as a whistleblower

Margaret Sullivan writes: In late November, Reality Winner – who turned 33 this week – finished her lengthy punishment for sending a government document to a news organization. It’s past time for her to be pardoned so that she can move on with her life and, particularly, her education. She wants to be a veterinary technician, get a good-paying job and move out of her mother’s Texas house, but having a felony in one’s background doesn’t help with any of…

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New study reveals hunter-gatherers, regardless of gender, are the ultimate athletes

New study reveals hunter-gatherers, regardless of gender, are the ultimate athletes

ZME Science reports: Across the dense forests of the Congo, the sunlit islands of the Pacific, and the icy reaches of the Arctic, the few remaining hunter-gatherers have thrived thanks to their astonishing athleticism. A new study led by George Brill and colleagues from the University of Cambridge reveals that hunter-gatherer societies worldwide practiced an extraordinary range of locomotory behaviors. These include walking, running, swimming, diving, and climbing. One of the most intriguing findings was that men and women across…

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Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, Amnesty International concludes

Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, Amnesty International concludes

Middle East Eye reports: Israel is carrying out a genocide in the Gaza Strip, a new report by Amnesty International has concluded. The report, titled ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza is based on research and legal analysis carried out since October 2023 and concludes that Israel’s war on the enclave is being carried out with “the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza”. Amnesty International is arguably the highest profile rights group to…

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Gazans face extreme hunger as ‘real famine’ spreads from north to south

Gazans face extreme hunger as ‘real famine’ spreads from north to south

Ruwaida Kamal Amer reports: Mustafa Al-Darsh, a 35-year-old father of three from Gaza City, spends hours every day searching for food for his family. Some days, he manages to secure a few canned goods; other days, his family has to settle for plain rice. “In the north, we yearn to eat bread with some thyme,” he told +972. He hasn’t been able to find flour for months. Since the start of October, when the Israeli army encircled northern Gaza and began subjecting…

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‘Progressive except for Palestine’: How a tech charity imploded over a statement on Gaza

‘Progressive except for Palestine’: How a tech charity imploded over a statement on Gaza

The Guardian reports: Miliaku Nwabueze, a senior program manager at Code for Science & Society, had been concerned for some time about the role of technology in state violence. Then, on 7 October of last year, Hamas entered Israel, killing and kidnapping about 1,400 people. Less than a week later, as Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians out of northern Gaza in the onset of its deadly retaliation, Nwabueze decided to write a message to her colleagues on the US-based non-profit…

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Biden White House is discussing preemptive pardons for those in Trump’s crosshairs

Biden White House is discussing preemptive pardons for those in Trump’s crosshairs

Jonathan Martin writes: President Joe Biden’s senior aides are conducting a vigorous internal debate over whether to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials who could be targeted with President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, according to senior Democrats familiar with the discussions. Biden’s aides are deeply concerned about a range of current and former officials who could find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments, a sense of alarm which has only accelerated…

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The operators behind four major neo-Nazi X accounts

The operators behind four major neo-Nazi X accounts

Texas Observer reports: Under owner Elon Musk, the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, has become a hotbed of white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. A recent headline in the Atlantic doesn’t mince words: “X is a white supremacist site.” Musk has allowed formerly banned far-right and neo-Nazi accounts back on the platform, and, in some instances, he’s directly responded to accounts that traffic in white supremacist and neo-Nazi rhetoric. Meanwhile, anonymous accounts that regularly promote racial hate on…

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Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

Andrew Dessler writes: One of the most important concepts in climate science is the idea of committed warming — how much future warming is coming from carbon dioxide that we’ve already emitted. Understanding the extent of committed warming is vital because it informs our current climate situation. If there is a significant amount of committed warming already “locked in,” then we have much less ability to avoid the levels of warming that policymakers judge as dangerous. In a previous post…

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