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DOJ says ’60-day rule’ doesn’t apply to Trump’s trials — he can be in court during the election

DOJ says ’60-day rule’ doesn’t apply to Trump’s trials — he can be in court during the election

The New Republic reports: Amid an ongoing spar over when Donald Trump’s classified documents case will begin, the Justice Department has clarified once and for all that he cannot continue to delay his legal trials by claiming that he has to focus on the election. On Friday, Judge Eileen Cannon asked about the DOJ’s “60-day rule” against taking actions that might affect an upcoming election. But the DOJ said that the “60-day rule” does not apply to Trump’s actual trials,…

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How to picture AI

How to picture AI

Jaron Lanier writes: A technology by itself is never enough. In order for it to be of use, it needs to be accompanied by other elements, such as popular understanding, good habits, and acceptance of shared responsibility for its consequences. Without that kind of societal halo, technologies tend to be used ineffectively or incompletely. A good example of this might be the mRNA vaccines created during the covid epidemic. They were an amazing medical achievement—and yet, because of widespread incomprehension,…

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Ancient Greek antilogic is the craft of suspending judgment

Ancient Greek antilogic is the craft of suspending judgment

Robin Reames writes: In Syracuse, 2,500 years ago, there was a famous teacher of rhetoric named Corax. This new discipline was in high demand: mastery of persuasive speaking, it was hoped, led to fame and wealth. As the story goes, Corax’s most talented student was Tisias. Corax agreed to teach Tisias with the understanding that the student would pay when he won his first court case. Tisias advanced so rapidly through his lessons that Corax wanted Tisias to hand over…

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Israeli forces fire on crowd waiting for aid, over 100 Palestinians dead and hundreds more injured

Israeli forces fire on crowd waiting for aid, over 100 Palestinians dead and hundreds more injured

  The New York Times reports: Gazan authorities said that more than 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a chaotic scene early Thursday morning in Gaza City, where a crowd gathered around a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed aid and the Israeli military opened fire. Drone footage released by the Israeli military shows hundreds of people circling around the trucks along the Al-Rashid coast road, and a video posted on social media includes audio of shots…

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Colombia suspends all purchases of weapons from Israel and president calls war in Gaza ‘genocide’

Colombia suspends all purchases of weapons from Israel and president calls war in Gaza ‘genocide’

The Associated Press reports: Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro announced Thursday his government is suspending purchases of weapons from Israel after Palestinians say Israeli troops fired at people seeking food in Gaza, marking an escalation of tensions between both countries over the Israel-Hamas war. Describing the deaths as “genocide,” Petro said he blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the violence around the aid convoy. Health officials in Gaza say at least 112 people were killed, bringing the war’s death toll…

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Why is Trump trying to make Ukraine lose?

Why is Trump trying to make Ukraine lose?

Anne Applebaum writes: Nearly half a year has passed since the White House asked Congress for another round of American aid for Ukraine. Since that time, at least three different legislative efforts to provide weapons, ammunition, and support for the Ukrainian army have failed. Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, was supposed to make sure that the money was made available. But in the course of trying, he lost his job. The Senate negotiated a border compromise (including measures border…

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Washington state’s largest labor union endorses ‘uncommitted’ over Biden

Washington state’s largest labor union endorses ‘uncommitted’ over Biden

NBC News reports: The biggest labor union in Washington state endorsed voting “uncommitted” in the state’s Democratic presidential primary next month, citing concerns about President Joe Biden’s political strength and his support for Israel’s war in Gaza. The Washington chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers has over 50,000 members, making it the largest chapter of that union in the nation. The deeply Democratic West Coast state holds its primary on March 12. In a statement shared first with…

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In taking up Trump’s immunity claim, Supreme Court bolstered his delay strategy

In taking up Trump’s immunity claim, Supreme Court bolstered his delay strategy

The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court that former President Donald J. Trump helped to shape tossed him a legal lifeline on Wednesday night, making a choice that substantially aided his efforts to delay his federal trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. By deciding to take up Mr. Trump’s claim that presidents enjoy almost total immunity from prosecution for any official action while in office — a legal theory rejected by two lower courts and…

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What I learned when I read 887 pages of plans for Trump’s second term

What I learned when I read 887 pages of plans for Trump’s second term

Carlos Lozada writes: Every new administration that wins power away from the opposing party contends that whatever its predecessors did was terrible and that victory constitutes a popular mandate to fix or get rid of it all. Elections have consequences, politicians love to remind us, and a big one entails trying to change everything, right away. It is possible to read “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” — an 887-page document proposing to remake the executive branch, department by department,…

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Generative AI is challenging a 234-year-old law

Generative AI is challenging a 234-year-old law

Alex Reisner writes: It took Ralph Ellison seven years to write Invisible Man. It took J. D. Salinger about 10 to write The Catcher in the Rye. J. K. Rowling spent at least five years on the first Harry Potter book. Writing with the hope of publishing is always a leap of faith. Will you finish the project? Will it find an audience? Whether authors realize it or not, the gamble is justified to a great extent by copyright. Who…

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The Supreme Court just gave Trump exactly what he wanted

The Supreme Court just gave Trump exactly what he wanted

Mark Joseph Stern writes: The Supreme Court has all but guaranteed that Donald Trump will not face trial for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election before this November’s presidential election. On Wednesday, after more than two weeks’ delay, the court issued an order refusing to lift the stay that’s preventing the Jan. 6 trial, prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, from moving forward. Instead, the court took up the case, scheduling oral arguments for the week of April 22—nearly…

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Former Rep. Andy Levin and James Zogby from the Arab American Institute discuss Michigan’s ‘uncommitted’

Former Rep. Andy Levin and James Zogby from the Arab American Institute discuss Michigan’s ‘uncommitted’

  President Joe Biden won the Michigan Democratic primary on Tuesday, but over 100,000 voters cast their ballots for “uncommitted” in an organized campaign protesting U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. The major battleground state is home to one of the largest Arab American populations in the country, but the movement to vote “uncommitted” is now expected to spread to other states, including Minnesota and Washington. “I’ve rarely seen such an organic and authentic movement come together,” says former…

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Jan Egeland: People in Gaza are traumatized beyond belief

Jan Egeland: People in Gaza are traumatized beyond belief

“I have never… seen a place… so bombarded for such a long time with such a trapped population without any escape. People are traumatized beyond belief.” Jan @NRC_Egeland of @NRC_Norway is in Gaza for the first time since Oct 7. “I’m pretty shaken, actually, from what I saw.” pic.twitter.com/7MFgRstrJl — Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) February 27, 2024

Aaron Bushnell’s act of political despair

Aaron Bushnell’s act of political despair

Masha Gessen writes: On Sunday afternoon, Aaron Bushnell, wearing a mustard-colored sweater under his combat fatigues, walked up to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. As he approached the building, he filmed himself saying, “I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but, compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers,…

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