Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

Gen Z influencers who supported Biden in 2020 turn against him

Gen Z influencers who supported Biden in 2020 turn against him

The Washington Post reports: In 2020, hundreds of top TikTok content creators banded together in service of a single goal: get Joe Biden elected. They posted videos, hosted online events and spent hours educating followers to help Biden defeat Donald Trump. Four years later, the coalition once known as TikTok for Biden is now called Gen-Z for Change — and so far, it has not endorsed Biden’s reelection. “Biden is out of step with young people on a number of…

Read More Read More

Record share of U.S. electorate is pro-choice and voting on it

Record share of U.S. electorate is pro-choice and voting on it

Gallup reports: A record-high 32% of U.S. voters say they would only vote for a candidate for major office who shares their views on abortion. The importance of a candidate’s abortion stance to one’s vote is markedly higher among pro-choice voters than it was during the 2020 presidential election cycle, while pro-life voters’ intensity about voting on the abortion issue has waned. Also, voters’ greater intensity on the issue today compared with 2020 is explained mainly by Democrats, while Republicans…

Read More Read More

Microsoft chose profit over security and left U.S. government vulnerable to Russian hack, whistleblower says

Microsoft chose profit over security and left U.S. government vulnerable to Russian hack, whistleblower says

By Renee Dudley, with research by Doris Burke This story was originally published by ProPublica. Microsoft hired Andrew Harris for his extraordinary skill in keeping hackers out of the nation’s most sensitive computer networks. In 2016, Harris was hard at work on a mystifying incident in which intruders had somehow penetrated a major U.S. tech company. The breach troubled Harris for two reasons. First, it involved the company’s cloud — a virtual storehouse typically containing an organization’s most sensitive data….

Read More Read More

More playful young male dolphins father more offspring

More playful young male dolphins father more offspring

Science reports: Leaping over waves or body surfing side by side, dolphins are a fun-loving bunch. But their frolicking—and that of species from hyenas to humans—has long baffled evolutionary biologists. Why expend so much energy on play? A new study offers an intriguing explanation: Juvenile male dolphins use play to acquire the skills required for fathering calves, researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Most significantly, the scientists found the most playful males go on…

Read More Read More

A January 6 rioter is leading an armed national militia from prison

A January 6 rioter is leading an armed national militia from prison

Wired reports: Years after being accused of swinging a baseball bat at police officers during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Edward “Jake” Lang is now using encrypted messaging channels to create a nationwide network of armed militias in all 50 states. Though he has been in prison for over 1,200 days, Lang is working with a network of election deniers and conspiracists to promote the North American Patriot and Liberty Militia, or Napalm for short. The…

Read More Read More

Modern revenge culture, explained by Mrs. and Mr. Alito

Modern revenge culture, explained by Mrs. and Mr. Alito

Timothy Snyder writes: We have the rule of law so as not to have a culture of revenge. For much of human history, it was an eye for an eye, as we read in the Bible. In a revenge culture, a chieftain decides who is to blame, and the shamans explain how the blood and chaos is just and necessary. In the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides, the grand problem is escaping from reciprocal violence within and among families….

Read More Read More

Senate Democrats launch probe of foreign payments to Jared Kushner’s firm

Senate Democrats launch probe of foreign payments to Jared Kushner’s firm

HuffPost reports: Democrats are increasing their scrutiny of Jared Kushner’s business activities. Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, for details about its investors on Wednesday, including the $2 billion it received from the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund in 2021. “Mr. Kushner’s limited track record as an investor, including his nonexistent experience in private equity or hedge funds, raise questions regarding the investment strategy behind the seeding investments and lucrative compensation that Affinity…

Read More Read More

Why the Southern Baptists’ vote opposing IVF could change national politics

Why the Southern Baptists’ vote opposing IVF could change national politics

Politico reports: The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest and most politically powerful Protestant denomination, voted Wednesday to oppose in vitro fertilization. The move may signal the beginning of a broad turn on the right against IVF, an issue that many evangelicals, anti-abortion advocates and other social conservatives see as the “pro-life” movement’s next frontier — one they hope will eventually lead to restrictions, or outright bans, on IVF at the state and federal levels. The vote comes as Democrats…

Read More Read More

U.S. scrambling to prevent Israel-Hezbollah war amid Gaza ceasefire push

U.S. scrambling to prevent Israel-Hezbollah war amid Gaza ceasefire push

Barak Ravid reports: The Biden administration has grown extremely concerned that escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah in recent days will deteriorate into an all-out war — and is scrambling to prevent it, according to U.S. officials. Why it matters: Amid the highly sensitive push to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza, a full-blown war with the Lebanese militant group would dramatically exacerbate the regional crisis and draw the U.S. deeper into the conflict. Behind the scenes: The Biden administration has cautioned Israel in recent weeks against the…

Read More Read More

The suppression of dissent inside Israel: A Palestinian professor arrested for opposing genocide

The suppression of dissent inside Israel: A Palestinian professor arrested for opposing genocide

The New York Times reports: Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a Palestinian professor at a prominent Israeli university, first waded into the debate over the Gaza war by joining academics worldwide in signing a letter that called for a cease-fire. It branded Israel’s assault on the territory a “genocide” and the leaders of her university responded by urging her to resign. That was soon after the war began on Oct. 7. Months later, the professor drew even more scrutiny for saying it was…

Read More Read More

Do plants have minds?

Do plants have minds?

Rachael Petersen writes: Gustav Theodor Fechner championed the idea that plants have souls – something we might call ‘consciousness’ today. I first learned of him in an interdisciplinary reading group on plant consciousness that I co-lead at Harvard University. We convene biologists, theologians, artists and ethologists to explore the burgeoning literature on plant life. We found Fechner covered in the New York Times bestselling book by Christopher Bird and Peter Tompkins titled The Secret Life of Plants (1973). Michael Pollan…

Read More Read More

Jewish U.S. army intel officer quits over Gaza. He says ‘impossible’ not to see echoes of Holocaust

Jewish U.S. army intel officer quits over Gaza. He says ‘impossible’ not to see echoes of Holocaust

  We speak with U.S. Army Major Harrison Mann, the first military and intelligence officer to publicly resign over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Mann left his role at the Defense Intelligence Agency after a 13-year career, saying in a public letter explaining his resignation that “nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel … has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.” Mann submitted his resignation on November…

Read More Read More

Israel’s war on Gaza takes record toll on journalists

Israel’s war on Gaza takes record toll on journalists

Committee to Protect Journalists: The Israel-Gaza war has taken an unprecedented toll on Gazan journalists since Israel declared war on Hamas following its attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. As of June 11, 2024, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 108 journalists and media workers were among the more than 38,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992. Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including…

Read More Read More

‘Worse than Guantanamo’: The prison holding suspected ISIS fighters

‘Worse than Guantanamo’: The prison holding suspected ISIS fighters

  More than 50,000 ISIS suspects and their families are being held in a constellation of some 27 detention facilities across Syria, by the US backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Officials warn the prisons and camps present a major security threat that needs to be dealt with. Human rights groups describe them as legal black holes and a stain on the world’s conscience. CNN’s Clarissa Ward travelled to Syria and gained unprecedented access to some of the detention centers.