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Republicans fear Trump’s ‘retribution’ campaign: ‘If you are not for him he’s against you’

Republicans fear Trump’s ‘retribution’ campaign: ‘If you are not for him he’s against you’

The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump has promised a presidency of “retribution” if he wins another term in office. Many Republicans fear they might face the brunt of it. The former president has threatened to have donors to his Republican opponent Nikki Haley “permanently barred” from his orbit. A top adviser has vowed to destroy the career of Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), House Freedom Caucus chairman, after he endorsed another Trump challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Trump campaign has…

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Sponge skeletons indicate climate change might be worse than thought

Sponge skeletons indicate climate change might be worse than thought

The New York Times reports: Since the dawn of the industrial age, our species has warmed the planet by considerably more than today’s most widely accepted estimates imply, according to a team of scientists who have gleaned detailed new information about Earth’s past climate from an unusual source: centuries-old sponges living in the Caribbean Sea. Networks of satellites and sensors have measured the rising temperatures of recent decades with great precision. But to assess the full arc of global warming,…

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AI used to decipher the Greek text of 2,000-year-old charred Herculaneum scroll

AI used to decipher the Greek text of 2,000-year-old charred Herculaneum scroll

Nature reports: A team of student researchers has made a giant contribution to solving one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology by revealing the content of Greek writing inside a charred scroll buried 2,000 years ago by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The winners of a contest called the Vesuvius Challenge trained their machine-learning algorithms on scans of the rolled-up papyrus, unveiling a previously unknown philosophical work that discusses senses and pleasure. The feat paves the way for artificial intelligence…

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Through controlled demolitions, Israel is systematically destroying Gaza

Through controlled demolitions, Israel is systematically destroying Gaza

The New York Times reports: A resort hotel overlooking the Mediterranean. A multistory courthouse built in 2018. Dozens of homes, obliterated in seconds, with the pull of a trigger. The damage caused by Israel’s aerial offensive in Gaza has been well documented. But Israeli ground forces have also carried out a wave of controlled explosions that has drastically changed the landscape in recent months. At least 33 controlled demolitions have destroyed hundreds of buildings — including mosques, schools and entire…

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Humanitarian aid agencies appeal for restoration of funding for UNRWA

Humanitarian aid agencies appeal for restoration of funding for UNRWA

In a joint statement, CARE, Interaction, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Refugees International, and Save the Children, said: The U.S. decision to temporarily pause funding for UNRWA will dramatically weaken the backbone of the humanitarian response for 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. It is important to ensure a thorough investigation into the grave allegations by the Israeli government that 12 UNRWA employees directly participated in the heinous attacks on October 7, and to ensure full transparency…

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Jill Habig’s amicus brief gives the Supreme Court’s originalists a taste of their own medicine

Jill Habig’s amicus brief gives the Supreme Court’s originalists a taste of their own medicine

The Guardian reports: When Jill Habig had an office down the hall from Kamala Harris in California, Barack Obama was US president, abortion was a constitutional right and January 6 was just another date on the calendar. A lot has happened since then. On Thursday Habig, now president of the non-profit Public Rights Project (PRP), hopes her arguments will persuade the supreme court that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who should be disqualified from the 2024 presidential election. Habig has…

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Insurrection and Trump’s ineligibility for office

Insurrection and Trump’s ineligibility for office

Timothy Snyder writes: Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment bans oath-breaking insurrectionists from holding office. The Supreme Court of Colorado has ruled that Trump’s name should not appear on primary ballots in that state. In Trump v. Anderson, the Supreme Court will consider whether Colorado erred. Oral argument begins on Thursday. Under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Trump disqualified himself from office on January 6th, 2021, at the very latest, when he violated his oath of office and took…

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Chutkan contemplates Trump trial extending deep into 2024, as case remains in limbo

Chutkan contemplates Trump trial extending deep into 2024, as case remains in limbo

Politico reports: The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., criminal case acknowledged Monday that the former president’s trial could extend deep into 2024 — though significant uncertainty continues to cloud the timeline. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan told attorneys in another criminal case that she intended to be out of the country in early August — unless Trump’s trial is underway. “I hope not to be in the country on August 5,” Chutkan said in a sparsely attended conference…

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Study of Indigenous and local communities finds happiness doesn’t cost much

Study of Indigenous and local communities finds happiness doesn’t cost much

Autonomous University of Barcelona: Many Indigenous peoples and local communities around the world are leading very satisfying lives despite having very little money. This is the conclusion of a study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), which shows that many societies with very low monetary income have remarkably high levels of life satisfaction, comparable to those in wealthy countries. Economic growth is often prescribed as a sure way of increasing the…

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What your brain is doing when you’re doing nothing

What your brain is doing when you’re doing nothing

Nora Bradford writes: Whenever you’re actively performing a task — say, lifting weights at the gym or taking a hard exam — the parts of your brain required to carry it out become “active” when neurons step up their electrical activity. But is your brain active even when you’re zoning out on the couch? The answer, researchers have found, is yes. Over the past two decades they’ve defined what’s known as the default mode network, a collection of seemingly unrelated…

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What South Africa really won at the ICJ

What South Africa really won at the ICJ

Sasha Polakow-Suransky writes: For those with long memories, the seed of South Africa’s case against Israel—accusing it of genocidal acts in the Gaza Strip—might be traced to a spring day nearly 50 years ago. On Apr. 9, 1976, South Africa’s white supremacist prime minister, Balthazar Johannes Vorster, was welcomed with full red-carpet treatment to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The moment, for those who knew the prime minister’s past, was incongruous. A former Nazi sympathizer who had proudly…

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No justification or excuse could ever cover up this horror of 11,500 children killed in Gaza

No justification or excuse could ever cover up this horror of 11,500 children killed in Gaza

Gideon Levy writes: Two hundred and sixty names of babies whose age was 0; names of babies who didn’t get to celebrate their first birthday, nor will they ever celebrate anything else. Here are some of their names: Abdul Jawad Hussu, Abdul Khaleq Baba, Abdul Rahim Awad, Abdul Rauf al-Fara, Murad Abu Saifan, Nabil al-Eidi, Najwa Radwan, Nisreen al-Najar, Oday al-Sultan, Zayd al-Bahbani, Zeyn al-Jarusha, Zayne Shatat. What dreams did their parents have for them? Then there are hundreds of…

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CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’

CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’

The Guardian reports: CNN is facing a backlash from its own staff over editorial policies they say have led to a regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinians perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza. Journalists in CNN newsrooms in the US and overseas say broadcasts have been skewed by management edicts and a story-approval process that has resulted in highly partial coverage of the Hamas massacre on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory attack on…

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Hamas returns to reestablish order in parts of northern Gaza

Hamas returns to reestablish order in parts of northern Gaza

The Associated Press reports: In a sign of Hamas’ resilience despite Israel’s deadly air and ground campaign in the past four months, four residents and a senior official in the militant group said it has begun to resurface in areas where Israel withdrew the bulk of its forces a month ago, deploying police officers and making salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City. Four Gaza City residents told The Associated Press that in recent days, police…

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