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What history reveals about the biggest new power player in U.S. politics: Moms for Liberty

What history reveals about the biggest new power player in U.S. politics: Moms for Liberty

Nicole Hemmer writes: When Moms for Liberty met in Philadelphia last week, they attracted the kind of attention, and controversy, that they have become accustomed to courting. Founded two years ago in the wake of President Joe Biden’s election, the organization attracted the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. They also drew a crowd of protesters and activists who oppose the group’s reactionary political projects, such as book bans…

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Abducted Princeton student’s friends warn ‘lies’ could get her killed

Abducted Princeton student’s friends warn ‘lies’ could get her killed

The Daily Beast reports: Friends and colleagues of Elizabeth Tsurkov, a dual Russian-Israeli citizen who was kidnapped by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq earlier this year, are slamming what they describe as dangerous lies spreading online about the Princeton doctoral student. Tsurkov, 36, went missing in March after traveling to Iraq on a research trip for her dissertation, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement this week, adding that she was abducted by Kataib Hezbollah, a notorious militia group…

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The U.S. and China must work together to combat climate change, says Yellen

The U.S. and China must work together to combat climate change, says Yellen

Reuters reports: The United States and China, as the world’s two largest economies, must work together to combat the “existential threat” of climate change, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese government officials and climate experts on Saturday. During a visit to Beijing, Yellen said previous cooperation on climate change between the U.S. and China had made possible global breakthroughs such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, adding that both governments wanted to support emerging markets and developing countries as they…

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Earth is at its hottest in thousands of years. Here’s how we know

Earth is at its hottest in thousands of years. Here’s how we know

The Washington Post reports: Observations from both satellites and the Earth’s surface are indisputable — the planet has warmed rapidly over the past 44 years. As far back as 1850, data from weather stations all over the globe make clear the Earth’s average temperature has been rising. In recent days, as the Earth has reached its highest average temperatures in recorded history, scientists have made a bolder claim: It may well be warmer than any time in the last 125,000…

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There have been an average of almost two mass shootings every day in the U.S. so far this year

There have been an average of almost two mass shootings every day in the U.S. so far this year

ABC News reports: The United States has faced at least 351 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This averages out to almost two mass shootings a day. Mass shootings are defined as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed, according to the archive. Though mass shootings don’t make up the majority of gun violence incidents in America, their impact on communities and victims is evident. Incidents like the mass…

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‘Sound of Freedom’: Box office triumph for QAnon believers

‘Sound of Freedom’: Box office triumph for QAnon believers

Miles Klee writes: “Based on a true story,” I heard from somewhere across the theater. The familiar words had appeared on screen, and an elderly man had taken it upon himself to read them aloud, to the rest of a sizable audience seated for a matinee showing of the anti-child-trafficking thriller Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel. For the seasoned moviegoer, this phrase is a joke — we know that cinema will stretch almost any “truth” to the breaking point — and the rank…

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Measurement of electron’s ‘shape’ dims hopes for discovery of new particles

Measurement of electron’s ‘shape’ dims hopes for discovery of new particles

Science reports: A measurement of the humble electron has dimmed particle physicists’ long-held hopes of discovering exotic new particles. The finding, reported today in Science, confirms to greater precision than ever before that the distribution of electric charge in the electron is essentially round. The result implies that any new fundamental particles lurking undiscovered in the vacuum might be too massive for even the world’s biggest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), to produce. “It’s a fantastic result,” says…

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How nationalist movements paved Ukraine’s way to freedom

How nationalist movements paved Ukraine’s way to freedom

Alexander Query writes: When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many in the West, and in the Kremlin too, expected the Ukrainian state to crumble in weeks, if not days. The government would flee, the state would be carved up – some lands absorbed by Russia, the rest perhaps being made into a Moscow-dominated puppet state. The war might continue, but it would be an insurgency in an occupied country, so the experts said. They were wrong, and part…

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Turkey’s Erdogan says Ukraine deserves NATO membership

Turkey’s Erdogan says Ukraine deserves NATO membership

CNN reports: Ukraine deserves to have NATO membership, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a joint press conference in Istanbul alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During the press conference Erdogan also said he hoped the Black Sea grain deal, which Turkey helped broker with Russia, will be extended. The deal, seen as vital for world food security, is expiring in just ten days. The Turkish president went on to say he will support the rebuilding of Ukraine and that…

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Biden approves cluster munition supply to Ukraine

Biden approves cluster munition supply to Ukraine

The Washington Post reports: President Biden has approved the provision of U.S. cluster munitions for Ukraine, with drawdown of the weapons from Defense Department stocks due to be announced Friday. The move, which will bypass U.S. law prohibiting the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1 percent, comes amid concerns about Kyiv’s lagging counteroffensive against entrenched Russian troops and dwindling Western stocks of conventional artillery. It follows months of internal administration debate…

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The world just broke a stunning slew of heat records. Why right now?

The world just broke a stunning slew of heat records. Why right now?

Bob Henson writes: Mid-2023 seems destined to go down as a pivotal period in climate change history — a time when planet Earth seemed to go from a simmer to a full rolling boil in a matter of weeks. What’s jumping out isn’t a single heat wave, but a one-after-another series of global and regional heat records astounding in both scope and persistence. The world just had the hottest June on record, with unprecedented sea surface temperatures and record-low Antarctic…

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Prosecutors in Trump classified documents case are facing threats

Prosecutors in Trump classified documents case are facing threats

The Washington Post reports: Individual prosecutors involved in the classified documents case against former president Donald Trump are facing substantial harassment and threats online and elsewhere, according to extremism experts and a government official familiar with the matter. At the same time, two officials said, federal agencies have not observed a general increase in threats against law enforcement in the weeks since Trump was indicted in South Florida — a sharp contrast from the surge of violent rhetoric in the…

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The brain-rotting contrarianism of the billionaire tech bros

The brain-rotting contrarianism of the billionaire tech bros

Paul Krugman writes: But for [Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s] last name, nobody would be paying him any attention — and despite that last name, he has zero chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet now that Ron DeSantis’s campaign (slogan: “woke woke immigrants woke woke”) seems to be on the skids, Kennedy is suddenly getting support from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter, has endorsed him, while some other prominent tech figures…

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How Twitter lost its place as the global town square

How Twitter lost its place as the global town square

The Washington Post reports: Alex Pearlman, a stand-up comedian in Philadelphia, woke up one morning in June and turned on the local news. A portion of Interstate 95 had collapsed. Pearlman thought it was the type of thing people should know about. Five years ago, he would have turned to Twitter to spread the news. But on that Sunday morning, he picked up his phone and made a TikTok — which quickly amassed more than 2 million views. A decade…

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