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The Supreme Court’s uncharacteristic moment of sanity

The Supreme Court’s uncharacteristic moment of sanity

Ian Millhiser writes: Imagine that the Supreme Court of the United States spent an entire morning debating whether penguins are the primary cause of colon cancer or whether John F. Kennedy was assassinated by aliens from the planet Venus. That’s more or less the quality of arguments that former Trump Solicitor General Noel Francisco presented to the Court on Tuesday, as part of a quizzical effort to convince the justices to declare an entire federal agency unconstitutional. The good news…

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‘They’re just meat’: Russia deploys punishment battalions in echo of Stalin

‘They’re just meat’: Russia deploys punishment battalions in echo of Stalin

Reuters reports: Drunk recruits. Insubordinate soldiers. Convicts. They’re among hundreds of military and civilian offenders who’ve been pressed into Russian penal units known as “Storm-Z” squads and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine this year, according to 13 people with knowledge of the matter, including five fighters in the units. Few live to tell their tale, the people said. “Storm fighters, they’re just meat,” said one regular soldier from army unit no. 40318 who was deployed near the fiercely contested…

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Unique voice prints in parrots could help birds be recognized in a flock, no matter what they say

Unique voice prints in parrots could help birds be recognized in a flock, no matter what they say

Max Planck Society reports: Parrots are exceptional talkers. They can learn new sounds during their entire lives, amassing an almost unlimited vocal repertoire. At the same time, parrots produce calls so they can be individually recognized by members of their flock—raising the question of how their calls can be very variable while also uniquely identifiable. A study on monk parakeets conducted by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona might have the answer:…

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One reason the Trump fever won’t break

One reason the Trump fever won’t break

David French writes: In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, there was a tremendous surge of interest in Christian nationalism. Christian displays were common in the crowd at the Capitol. Rioters and protesters carried Christian flags, Christian banners and Bibles. They prayed openly, and a Dispatch reporter in the crowd told me that in the late afternoon Christian worship music was blaring from loudspeakers. I started to hear questions I’d never heard before: What is Christian nationalism and…

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David Cay Johnston talks about Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial

David Cay Johnston talks about Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial

  Politico reports: Donald Trump came face-to-face in a Manhattan court Monday with the attorney general who is suing him for massive business fraud and the judge who last week revoked his business licenses, as the former president attended the first day of a $250 million civil trial. A scowl on his face as he entered the courtroom, Trump showed up to see opening statements in the trial. New York Attorney General Tish James alleges that Trump, his adult sons,…

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Putin’s next target: U.S. support for Ukraine, officials say

Putin’s next target: U.S. support for Ukraine, officials say

The New York Times reports: Russia’s strategy to win the war in Ukraine is to outlast the West. But how does Vladimir Putin plan to do that? American officials said they are convinced that Mr. Putin intends to try to end U.S. and European support for Ukraine by using his spy agencies to push propaganda supporting pro-Russian political parties and by stoking conspiracy theories with new technologies. The Russia disinformation aims to increase support for candidates opposing Ukraine aid with…

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GOP senators weigh go-big-or-go-home strategy on Ukraine

GOP senators weigh go-big-or-go-home strategy on Ukraine

Politico reports: From Mitch McConnell on down, the Senate’s pro-Ukraine coalition is trying to reassure the U.S. ally that help will soon be on the way — even after a bruising GOP confrontation over keeping the government open snuffed out billions in immediate new aid. But for that bipartisan group — which has served as a bulwark against growing House Republican opposition to continued aid — the past week has been a rude awakening. Not until now has the depth…

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Leaked U.S. strategy on Ukraine sees corruption as the real threat

Leaked U.S. strategy on Ukraine sees corruption as the real threat

Politico reports: Biden administration officials are far more worried about corruption in Ukraine than they publicly admit, a confidential U.S. strategy document obtained by POLITICO suggests. The “sensitive but unclassified” version of the long-term U.S. plan lays out numerous steps Washington is taking to help Kyiv root out malfeasance and otherwise reform an array of Ukrainian sectors. It stresses that corruption could cause Western allies to abandon Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, and that Kyiv cannot put off the anti-graft…

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Laphonza Butler will be the first Black, openly LGBTQ+ woman in the Senate or House

Laphonza Butler will be the first Black, openly LGBTQ+ woman in the Senate or House

HuffPost reports: Laphonza Butler, who California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) appointed Sunday to finish out the late Dianne Feinstein’s Senate term, will make history when she’s sworn in. She will be the first Black, openly LGBTQ+ woman to serve in either chamber of Congress. “Today she shatters a rainbow ceiling in becoming the first out Black LGBTQ+ U.S. senator and she will serve knowing her presence and impact will be felt in countless ways,” Annise Parker, the president and CEO…

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Supernovae blasts struck the Earth 3 million and 7 million years ago

Supernovae blasts struck the Earth 3 million and 7 million years ago

Universe Today reports: A recent study examines how the Earth was hit by blasts from supernovae (plural form of supernova (SN)) that occurred 3 million years ago (Mya) and 7 Mya with the goal of ascertaining the distances of where these blasts originated. Using the live (not decaying) radioactive isotope 60-Fe, which is produced from supernovae, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois was able to determine the approximate astronomical distances to the blasts, which they refer to…

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The rightwing intellectuals who are laying the groundwork for ‘post-Constitutional’ autocratic rule

The rightwing intellectuals who are laying the groundwork for ‘post-Constitutional’ autocratic rule

Jason Wilson writes: In June, rightwing academic Kevin Slack published a book-length polemic claiming that ideas that had emerged from what he called the radical left were now so dominant that the US republic its founders envisioned was effectively at an end. Slack, a politics professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, made conspiratorial and extreme arguments now common on the antidemocratic right, that “transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, cronyism … are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class…

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How a ‘Trump train’ attack on a Biden campaign bus foreshadowed Jan 6 — and echoed bloody history

How a ‘Trump train’ attack on a Biden campaign bus foreshadowed Jan 6 — and echoed bloody history

Diane McWhorter writes: The bane of raw intelligence – and history – is that you can always look back and find the signs, but you can’t necessarily look ahead and see where they’re pointing. Many questions remain about the intelligence failures that enabled an insurrectionist mob to lay siege virtually unimpeded to the US Capitol. But here’s one sign that’s been flashing in my head since 6 January 2021. Four days before the 2020 election, a “Trump Train” of motorists…

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How the right’s elevation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could now backfire

How the right’s elevation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could now backfire

Aaron Blake writes: The American right’s efforts to elevate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were as transparent as they were cynical. The idea, as advanced by Stephen K. Bannon and the like, was clearly to try to embarrass President Biden in the Democratic primary. So they used Kennedy’s inflated early poll standing as an excuse to treat the primary challenge from a fringe figure as something real and threatening. Fox News picked up the ball and ran with it, publishing many dozens of stories…

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Energy consumption ‘to dramatically increase’ because of AI

Energy consumption ‘to dramatically increase’ because of AI

Yahoo Finance reports: Artificial intelligence is expected to have the most impact on practically everything since the advent of the internet. Wall Street sure thinks so. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is up 26% year to date thanks to the frenzy over AI-related stocks. But AI’s big breakout comes at a cost: much more energy. Take for example OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT. Research done at the University of Washington shows that hundreds of millions of queries on ChatGPT can cost around 1 gigawatt-hour…

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