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FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in January 6 for more than a year

FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in January 6 for more than a year

The Washington Post reports: On Jan. 13, 2022, the department indicted Rhodes and 10 other Oath Keepers on charges of seditious conspiracy. It did not quiet the criticism, but instead put a spotlight on signs the Justice Department was not, in comparison with the House committee, working as actively to investigate Trump’s role in the attempted coup. Politico had reported that week that the House committee had demanded and received documents from several states about fake electors as well as…

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Well-funded Christian group behind U.S. effort to roll back LGBTQ+ rights

Well-funded Christian group behind U.S. effort to roll back LGBTQ+ rights

The Guardian reports: With the US besieged by a rightwing culture war campaign that aims to strip away rights from LGBTQ+ people and others, blame tends to be focused on Republican politicians and conservative media figures. But lurking behind efforts to roll back abortion rights, to demonize trans people, and to peel back the protections afforded to gay and queer Americans is a shadowy, well-funded rightwing legal organization, experts say. Since it was formed in 1994, Alliance Defending Freedom has…

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As the nation celebrates Juneteenth, it’s time to get rid of these three myths about slavery

As the nation celebrates Juneteenth, it’s time to get rid of these three myths about slavery

John Blake writes: Temple “Tempie” Cummins stoically stares at the camera with her arms folded in her lap, sitting stiffly in a chair in her dusty, barren backyard with her weather-beaten wooden shack behind her. Her dark, creased face reflects years of poverty and worry. The faded black and white image of Cummins from 1937 was snapped by a historian who stopped by her home in Jasper, Texas, to ask her about her childhood during slavery. Cummins, who did not…

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What the hell happened to Biden’s human rights agenda?

What the hell happened to Biden’s human rights agenda?

Matthew Duss writes: As president, Donald Trump made no secret of his admiration for repressive rulers around the world. Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to change that. He regularly criticized Donald Trump’s silence about repressive regimes and promised that a Biden administration would “hold to account those who perpetrate human rights abuses.” Since taking office he has repeated the refrain that “human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.” Not only has Biden not honored this promise,…

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Russia sought to assassinate defector in Florida

Russia sought to assassinate defector in Florida

The New York Times reports: As President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has pursued enemies abroad, his intelligence operatives now appear prepared to cross a line that they previously avoided: trying to kill a valuable informant for the U.S. government on American soil. The clandestine operation, seeking to eliminate a C.I.A. informant in Miami who had been a high-ranking Russian intelligence official more than a decade earlier, represented a brazen expansion of Mr. Putin’s campaign of targeted assassinations. It also…

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Blinken and Xi pledge to stabilize deteriorated U.S.-China ties, but the main U.S. request is rebuffed

Blinken and Xi pledge to stabilize deteriorated U.S.-China ties, but the main U.S. request is rebuffed

The Associated Press reports: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping and said they agreed to “stabilize” badly deteriorated U.S.-China ties, but America’s top diplomat left Beijing with his biggest ask rebuffed: better communications between their militaries. After meeting Xi, Blinken said China is not ready to resume military-to-military contacts, something the U.S. considers crucial to avoid miscalculation and conflict, particularly over Taiwan. Yet Blinken and Xi pronounced themselves satisfied with progress made…

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Brain waves synchronize when people interact

Brain waves synchronize when people interact

Lydia Denworth writes: Neuroscientists usually investigate one brain at a time. They observe how neurons fire as a person reads certain words, for example, or plays a video game. As social animals, however, those same scientists do much of their work together—brainstorming hypotheses, puzzling over problems and fine-tuning experimental designs. Increasingly, researchers are bringing that reality into how they study brains. Collective neuroscience, as some practitioners call it, is a rapidly growing field of research. An early, consistent finding is…

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Bill Barr: Trump’s ‘a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s’

Bill Barr: Trump’s ‘a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s’

  ROBERT COSTA: Would he put the country at risk if he was in the White House again? FMR. ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: He- he will always put his own interests, and gratifying his own ego, ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest, there’s no question about it. This is a perfect example of that. He’s like, you know, he’s like a nine year old, defiant nine year old kid who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the…

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How government rules for classified papers could help Trump delay his trial

How government rules for classified papers could help Trump delay his trial

The Washington Post reports: As former president Donald Trump prepares for trial on charges that he repeatedly violated government rules for handling classified information, his legal team may get a tactical timing advantage from an unlikely source: government rules for handling such secrets. Trump’s indictment on dozens of charges, including mishandling classified documents and trying to obstruct investigators’ efforts to recover that material, means his case will be tried under the rules of the Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA…

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Native Americans are major victims of Minneapolis police racism: DOJ

Native Americans are major victims of Minneapolis police racism: DOJ

Mother Jones reports: After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Native Americans stood beside Black protesters in Minneapolis and called for changes to policing. Now, the Justice Department is highlighting how the city’s cops have been racist against them, too. On Friday, the department released a blistering report showing that for years, the Minneapolis police have discriminated against Native Americans as well as Black residents, creating the conditions that led to Floyd’s death. The police are much more likely to stop…

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‘They enjoyed this’: Ukrainian woman recounts five-month nightmare of torture and imprisonment

‘They enjoyed this’: Ukrainian woman recounts five-month nightmare of torture and imprisonment

The Observer reports: Olena Yahupova was first taken by the Russian occupiers in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar last October. Neighbours she knew had informed on her, telling the FSB secret police that her husband was a Ukrainian military officer. What followed, she says, was two days of torture with the secret police – which turned out to be only a prelude to a nightmare of five months of detention and forced labour, during which she also had to act…

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Americans describe harsh life in remote Russian labor camp

Americans describe harsh life in remote Russian labor camp

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Russian national anthem blares from loudspeakers each morning at the IK-17 penitentiary in Russia’s Mordovia region, awakening prisoners to another day in a labor camp known for hazardous work, limited nourishment and summary stints in solitary confinement. Guards and inmates refer to IK-17 as a “fashion colony,” mainly for its brightly painted exteriors meant to impress occasional visitors. But accounts from current American inmates paint a much darker picture of the remote penitentiary, 300…

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Severe drought stunts Great Plains wheat crops

Severe drought stunts Great Plains wheat crops

The Wall Street Journal reports: Were this a normal mid-June morning, farmer Gary Millershaski would be looking out at waist-high fields of golden wheat almost ready to be harvested. Instead, he’s standing on a patch of mud, plucking at thin stalks of wheat that poke less than a foot out of the ground. It is the result of a multiyear drought that has left farmers in the country’s breadbasket with likely their worst wheat crop in more than 60 years….

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Fresh air matters

Fresh air matters

Emily Anthes writes: In January 1912, in the depths of a New York City winter, an unusual new apartment complex opened on the Upper East Side. The East River Homes were designed to help poor families fend off tuberculosis, a fearsome, airborne disease, by turning dark, airless tenements inside out. Passageways led from the street to capacious internal courtyards, where outdoor staircases wound their way up to each apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows opened onto balconies where ailing residents could sleep. The…

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