Music: Tom Misch — ‘South Of The River’
Iran sends Russia hundreds of ballistic missiles
Reuters reports: Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources told Reuters, deepening the military cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned countries. Iran’s provision of around 400 missiles includes many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons, such as the Zolfaghar, three Iranian sources said. This road-mobile missile is capable of striking targets at a distance of between 300 and 700 km (186 and 435 miles), experts say. Iran’s defence ministry and the…
GOP’s Biden impeachment witness told feds he got stories from Russian officials
The Daily Beast reports: The increasingly-discredited star witness for the GOP-led impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden admitted to federal authorities that he had ties to high-ranking Russian officials, according to a memo from special counsel David Weiss filed on Tuesday. “[Alexander] Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign,” the memo said. “During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a…
Israeli forces fired on food convoy in Gaza, UN documents and satellite analysis reveals
CNN reports: Israeli forces fired on a United Nations convoy carrying vital food supplies in central Gaza on February 5, before ultimately blocking the trucks from progressing to the northern part of the territory, where Palestinians are on the verge of famine, according to documents shared exclusively by the UN and CNN’s own analysis. CNN has seen correspondence between the UN and the Israeli military that show the convoy’s route was agreed upon by both parties prior to the strike….
These are the Jewish megadonors helping fund Biden’s reelection campaign
Haaretz reports: U.S. President Joe Biden’s reelection bid has some tough sledding ahead if the majority of polls that have emerged in recent months are to be believed. His fundraising efforts tell another story, though, with his reelection campaign already raking in significant donations – many coming from longtime Jewish Democratic megadonors. An analysis of campaign finance disclosures showing contributions to Biden’s campaign and pro-Biden PACs and super PACs for 2023 illustrates a deep groundswell of support from Jewish-Democratic benefactors….
Trump and allies planning militarized mass deportations, detention camps
The Washington Post reports: Faced with a surge of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 and 2019, Donald Trump’s White House discussed ways to more aggressively deploy the resources and the might of the U.S. military. Aides and officials spoke privately about detaining migrants on military bases and flying them out of the country on military planes — ideas that the Pentagon headed off. Throughout his presidency, Trump himself would frequently demand to send troops to the border…
More Republicans now want climate action. But Trump could derail everything
Politico reports: Former President Donald Trump’s hard-line positions on climate change aren’t deterring some members of his party from backing policies to stop global warming. But their challenges are likely to grow as the GOP is poised to nominate a presidential candidate openly hostile to climate science — after years in which Republicans have been divided over whether their party should address the problem at all. A Trump victory would likely strengthen the hand of the dominant strain of party…
Online images may be turning back the clock on gender bias, research finds
Berkeley Haas: A paper just published in the journal Nature finds that online images show stronger gender biases than online texts. Researchers also found that bias is more psychologically potent in visual form than in writing. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, and research has shown that the human brain does indeed better retain information from images than from text. These days, we are taking in more visual content than ever as we peruse picture-packed…
Music: Tom Misch — ‘Lost In Paris’ ft. GoldLink
Biden sees ongoing slaughter of Palestinians as useful leverage for securing release of Israeli hostages
Reuters reports: The United States on Tuesday again vetoed a draft United Nations Security Council resolution on the Israel-Hamas war, blocking a demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire as it instead pushes the 15-member body to call for a temporary ceasefire linked to the release of hostages held by Hamas. Thirteen council members voted in favor of the Algerian-drafted text, while Britain abstained. It was the third U.S. veto of a draft resolution since the start of the current fighting…
Biden campaign official in Michigan: Israel-Hamas war not likely to end ‘anytime soon’
The Detroit News reports: A top Biden campaign official maintained Monday that President Joe Biden was not ignoring the concerns of Michigan residents over the deaths of civilians in the Israel-Hamas war, but he doesn’t expect the conflict is “going to end anytime soon.” Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu said the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas militant group is “troublesome and problematic.” But no one’s concerns are being dismissed and the Democratic president is doing the best he…
Why the U.S. should start telling the whole truth about Israel’s nuclear weapons
William Burr, Richard Lawless, and Henry Sokolski write: With the Israel-Hamas war, a nuclear Rubicon of sorts has been crossed: Two elected Israeli officials — a government minister and a member of parliament — not only publicly referenced Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons but suggested that they be detonated over Gaza. This was a disturbing first. Meanwhile, in Washington, a long-standing secret executive order has prohibited American officials from even acknowledging that Israel has nuclear arms. Given the increasing risks…
Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration
Politico reports: An influential think tank close to Donald Trump is developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas in his administration should the former president return to power, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget during his first term and has remained close to him. Vought, who is frequently cited as a potential chief of staff in a second Trump White House, is…
Trump’s RNC takeover is on the brink of becoming a ‘purge’
The Daily Beast reports: First came the internal grumbling about Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Then came McDaniel’s decision to step down from her post at the end of February as she lost the support of Donald Trump. After that came Trump’s move to put forward a slate of loyalists to take over the party’s top spots—including an election-denying state party chair, a Trump campaign senior adviser, and the former president’s own daughter-in-law. Next could come…
Fani Willis turns the tables on her attackers
Jennifer Rubin writes: Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis took the stand last week under attack from Michael Roman, former henchman 0f four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump, and many in the media and legal community. At issue was whether her romantic relationship with a special counsel, Nathan Wade, was grounds for disqualifying her from the sprawling RICO case she brought against Trump and nearly 20 co-defendants (some of whom struck plea deals). What was legally at issue — the…
New neuroscience research uncovers the brain’s unique musical processing pathways
PsyPost reports: A new study by researchers at UC San Francisco provides insight into how the brain processes musical melodies. Through precise mapping of the cerebral cortex, the study uncovered that our brains process music by not only discerning pitch and the direction of pitch changes but also by predicting the sequence of upcoming notes, each task managed by distinct sets of neurons. The findings have been published in Science Advances. Previous research had established that our brains possess specialized…