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The new House Speaker Mike Johnson is a far-right extremist who helped plot 2020 coup

The new House Speaker Mike Johnson is a far-right extremist who helped plot 2020 coup

Rolling Stone reports: Mike Johnson is the new Speaker of the House. The Louisiana Republican won the gavel on Wednesday, three chaos-filled weeks after the party ousted Kevin McCarthy from the position earlier this month. Republicans voted unanimously to make him second in line to the presidency. Johnson, who was elected to the House in 2016, is serving just his fourth term in Congress and is the least experienced Speaker elected to the position since the 1870s. Three other candidates,…

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Sidney Powell still pushing claims that 2020 election was rigged after pleading guilty to election interference

Sidney Powell still pushing claims that 2020 election was rigged after pleading guilty to election interference

Insider reports: On X, formerly known as Twitter, she has shared posts purporting that the 2020 election was rigged and that law enforcement was politically biased against conservatives. Over the weekend, Powell shared a post complaining that Trump “can’t even have attorney client privilege.” She also shared a post that said a new survey found many Democrats believed “cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 election.” On Monday, she asked her followers to watch “Police State,” a new movie from…

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As space gets more commercial how can it be governed ethically?

As space gets more commercial how can it be governed ethically?

Philip Ball writes: When he rode to the edge of space on board Jeff Bezos’s reusable New Shepard rocket, William Shatner found the experience was not quite as he’d imagined. The Canadian actor famous for his phlegmatic captaincy of the starship Enterprise said on his return to Earth that ‘when I looked … into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold … all I saw was death.’ ‘Everything I had expected to see was wrong,’ he went…

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Interview with former State Dept official, Josh Paul, who resigned over U.S. arms supplies to Israel

Interview with former State Dept official, Josh Paul, who resigned over U.S. arms supplies to Israel

  Josh Paul writes: For more than a decade, I worked in the State Department bureau responsible for arms transfers and security assistance to foreign governments. In that time, I was involved in many complex and morally challenging debates over what weapons to send where. What I had not seen until this month, however, was a complex and morally challenging transfer in the absence of a debate. So last week, I resigned. A basic premise of U.S. military assistance to…

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Two Gaza scenarios: Greater Israel vs. Oslo

Two Gaza scenarios: Greater Israel vs. Oslo

Gilbert Achcar writes: Announced as imminent several days ago, after over 1 million inhabitants of the northern half of the Gaza Strip were given only 24 hours to flee south, the Israeli armed forces’ land onslaught on Gaza is yet to start at the time of writing. Despite attempts to convey a contrary impression, this delay reflects the fact that Israel’s political leadership and military command had no oven-ready plan for the invasion of Gaza on the scale they have…

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Biden’s Israel stance angers Arab, Muslim Americans; could jeopardize 2024 votes

Biden’s Israel stance angers Arab, Muslim Americans; could jeopardize 2024 votes

Reuters reports: Arab and Muslim Americans and their allies are criticizing President Joe Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, asking him to do more to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza or risk losing their support in the 2024 election. Many Arab Americans are upset Biden has not pushed for any humanitarian ceasefire even as Palestinians are killed fleeing Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, more than a dozen academics, activists, community members and administration officials said. Their growing frustration…

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Intelligence shows Iranian-backed militias are ready to ramp up their attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East

Intelligence shows Iranian-backed militias are ready to ramp up their attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East

CNN reports: The US has intelligence that Iranian-backed militia groups are planning to ramp up attacks against US forces in the Middle East, as Iran seeks to capitalize on the backlash in the region to US support for Israel, according to multiple US officials. The militia groups have already launched multiple drone attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria. But the US now has specific intelligence that those same groups could escalate even further as the war between Israel…

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Ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows granted immunity, tells special counsel he warned Trump about 2020 claims

Ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows granted immunity, tells special counsel he warned Trump about 2020 claims

ABC News reports: Former President Donald Trump’s final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith’s team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter. The sources said Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations…

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Barack Obama: Thoughts on Israel and Gaza

Barack Obama: Thoughts on Israel and Gaza

Barack Obama writes: [I]n dealing with what is an extraordinarily complex situation where so many people are in pain and passions are understandably running high, all of us need to do our best to put our best values, rather than our worst fears, on display. That means actively opposing anti-semitism in all its forms, everywhere. It means rejecting efforts to minimize the terrible tragedy that the Israeli people have just endured, as well as the morally-bankrupt suggestion that any cause…

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Where did all those structures inside complex cells come from?

Where did all those structures inside complex cells come from?

Viviane Callier writes: More than 1.5 billion years ago, a momentous thing happened: Two small, primitive cells became one. Perhaps more than any event — barring the origin of life itself — this merger radically changed the course of evolution on our planet. One cell ended up inside the other and evolved into a structure that schoolkids learn to refer to as the “powerhouse of the cell”: the mitochondrion. This new structure provided a tremendous energetic advantage to its host…

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U.S. advises Israel to delay Gaza invasion, officials say

U.S. advises Israel to delay Gaza invasion, officials say

The New York Times reports: The Biden administration has advised Israel to delay a ground invasion of Gaza, hoping to buy time for hostage negotiations and to allow more humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians in the sealed-off enclave, according to several U.S. officials. American officials also want more time to prepare for attacks on U.S. interests in the region from Iran-backed groups, which officials said are likely to intensify once Israel moves its forces fully into Gaza. The administration is…

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Pentagon rushes defenses and advisers to Middle East as Israel’s ground assault in Gaza looms

Pentagon rushes defenses and advisers to Middle East as Israel’s ground assault in Gaza looms

The Associated Press reports: The Pentagon has sent military advisers, including a Marine Corps general versed in urban warfare, to Israel to aid in its war planning and is speeding multiple sophisticated air defense systems to the Middle East days ahead of an anticipated ground assault into Gaza. One of the officers leading the assistance is Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Glynn, who previously helped lead special operations forces against the Islamic State and served in Fallujah, Iraq, during some…

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Turnover has plagued local election offices since 2020. One swing state county is trying to recover

Turnover has plagued local election offices since 2020. One swing state county is trying to recover

The Associated Press reports: The polls had just opened for last year’s midterms in Pennsylvania when the phones began ringing at the election office in Luzerne County. Polling places were running low on paper to print ballots. Volunteers were frustrated, and voters were getting agitated. Emily Cook, the office’s interim deputy director who had been in her position for just two months, rushed to the department’s warehouse. She found stacks of paper, but it was the wrong kind — ordered…

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Trump plots to pull out of NATO — if he doesn’t get his way

Trump plots to pull out of NATO — if he doesn’t get his way

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump wanted to pull the United States out of NATO during his first term, but was repeatedly talked out of it by senior administration officials. For a possible second term in the White House, the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner is already discussing how he could actually get it done, if his demands aren’t met by NATO. He and his policy-wonk allies are also gaming out how he could dramatically wind down American involvement to merely a…

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