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Social trends: The experiences of U.S. adults who don’t have children

Social trends: The experiences of U.S. adults who don’t have children

Pew Research Center reports: The U.S. fertility rate reached a historic low in 2023, with a growing share of women ages 25 to 44 having never given birth. And the share of U.S. adults younger than 50 without children who say they are unlikely to ever have kids rose 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023 (from 37% to 47%), according to a Pew Research Center survey. In this report, we explore the experiences of two groups of U.S. adults: Those ages 50 and older who…

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Trump Media quietly enters deal with a Republican donor who could benefit from a second Trump administration

Trump Media quietly enters deal with a Republican donor who could benefit from a second Trump administration

By Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi and Alex Mierjeski This story was originally published by ProPublica This month, former President Donald Trump’s media company announced it was making its first major purchase: technology to help stream TV on Truth Social, its Twitter-like platform. There was a mystery at the center of the deal: One of the companies on the other side of the transaction, which went unmentioned in Trump Media’s press release but was named in securities filings, is an obscure…

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‘Metaphysical experiments’ probe our hidden assumptions about reality

‘Metaphysical experiments’ probe our hidden assumptions about reality

Amanda Gefter writes: Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals in the deep scaffolding of the world: the nature of space, time, causation and existence, the foundations of reality itself. It’s generally considered untestable, since metaphysical assumptions underlie all our efforts to conduct tests and interpret results. Those assumptions usually go unspoken. Most of the time, that’s fine. Intuitions we have about the way the world works rarely conflict with our everyday experience. At speeds far slower than the…

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Massive appropriation of labor from the Global South enables high consumption in rich countries

Massive appropriation of labor from the Global South enables high consumption in rich countries

Phys.org reports: The high levels of consumption enjoyed by wealthy countries in the Global North are only possible because of mass appropriation of labor from the population of the Global South. This is evidenced by research from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), which indicates that this appropriation takes place through unequal exchange in international trade and global commodity chains. The new study, published in Nature Communications, measured the flows of labor…

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The decimation of Gaza’s academia is ‘impossible to quantify’

The decimation of Gaza’s academia is ‘impossible to quantify’

Ibtisam Mahdi writes: Dr. Refaat Alareer was a good friend of mine. A poet, writer, and prominent activist for the Palestinian cause, Refaat taught English literature and poetry for many years at the Islamic University of Gaza. He loved the works of Shakespeare, Thomas White, John Donne, Wilfred Owen, and many others, and he was the editor of two books: “Gaza Unsilenced“ and “Gaza Writes Back.” Refaat is one of at least 105 Palestinian academics killed in Gaza since the start…

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Joe Biden’s plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law

Joe Biden’s plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law

Joe Biden writes: This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one. But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that…

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What Kamala Harris’s candidacy means for Black women

What Kamala Harris’s candidacy means for Black women

Nia Prater writes: More than half a century after New York Representative Shirley Chisholm became the first Black major-party candidate for president, Kamala Harris could do what seemed impossible in 1972. And while the vice-president’s rise to the top of the ticket has energized the entire Democratic Party, it has particularly thrilled Black voters and especially Black women. Still, Harris’s first week at the top of the ticket has been beset by a recent wave of racist attacks from commentators…

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Election interference: The group behind a massive effort to ‘clean’ voter rolls

Election interference: The group behind a massive effort to ‘clean’ voter rolls

CNN reports: Police officers in Texas, senior citizens at a nursing home in Pennsylvania and people who had registered to vote at a Marine base in California. They are among the thousands of voters whose right to cast a ballot has been needlessly challenged ahead of this November’s election by activists — many of whom have been inspired by conspiracy theories — seeking to prevent voter fraud. “My simple right as a voter is being attacked,” said Daniel Moss, a…

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How Elon Musk came to endorse Donald Trump

How Elon Musk came to endorse Donald Trump

The Washington Post reports: Elon Musk began privately gathering support for Donald Trump’s second presidency long before he tweeted his public endorsement on July 13. At least five months earlier, Musk made a pitch for Trump at the Palm Beach oceanfront mansion of Wendy’s co-founder Nelson Peltz, where some of the billionaires and top political strategists who had gathered to discuss 2024 campaign strategy were surprised to see him. The Feb. 16 event included a number of Trump skeptics: Karl…

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The picture of early-human origins in Africa grows more complex

The picture of early-human origins in Africa grows more complex

The Washington Post reports: For decades, scientists who studied early modern humans believed that our ancestors initially inhabited only small areas of Africa, the savannas of the eastern and southern part of the continent, and then moved north into Asia, Europe and beyond. In this view, early humans bypassed West and Central Africa, especially tropical forests. These areas, the argument went, were populated much later. But now, a growing group of researchers has cast doubt on this narrative. Working in…

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Sen. Warren: The Supreme Court is ‘actively undermining’ democracy

Sen. Warren: The Supreme Court is ‘actively undermining’ democracy

The Hill reports: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Sunday that the Supreme Court is “actively undermining” democracy in the U.S. Warren said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that she and her colleagues are working to put together reform measures for the Supreme Court, including looking at term limits and adding more justices to the bench. She echoed President Biden’s comments calling for reforms to the Supreme Court in his last six months of office. “Here’s a man who has…

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Inside the powerful Peter Thiel network that anointed JD Vance

Inside the powerful Peter Thiel network that anointed JD Vance

The Washington Post reports: In the weeks before former president Donald Trump announced his vice-presidential pick, some of tech’s biggest names launched a quiet campaign to push for one of their own: Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The former president fielded repeated calls from tech entrepreneur David Sacks, Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, and billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Vance’s former employer and mentor, imploring him to add the one-time Silicon Valley investor to the ticket, according to three people familiar with…

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Will Elon Musk ban himself from X after he clearly violated policy on deepfakes?

Will Elon Musk ban himself from X after he clearly violated policy on deepfakes?

Mashable reports: Amid a surge of political misinformation across the internet, X (formerly Twitter) CEO Elon Musk has taken to his own platform to share a manipulated video of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign video. The Tesla founder and billionaire reposted the video Friday afternoon featuring an AI voice of Vice President Harris calling herself the “ultimate diversity hire.” The video, a “parody” created by right-wing YouTuber Mr. Reagan, is a re-edited version of Harris’ “We Choose Freedom” campaign video. In…

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Trump campaign and candidate divided on promotion of unity

Trump campaign and candidate divided on promotion of unity

The Washington Post reports: Democratic lawmakers and Vice President Harris’s campaign joined a chorus of online critics in calling out remarks Donald Trump aimed at a Christian audience on Friday, arguing that the former president and current Republican presidential nominee had implied he would end elections in the United States if he won a second term. At the conclusion of his speech at the Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., Trump said, “Christians, get out and vote, just this…

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