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John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh really did just save the Voting Rights Act

John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh really did just save the Voting Rights Act

Mark Joseph Stern writes: The Supreme Court’s 5–4 decision in Allen v. Milligan on Thursday, which found that Alabama’s congressional map violates the Voting Rights Act’s ban on racial vote dilution, sends two clear messages. First, a bare majority of the court—Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the three liberals—believes that the VRA still plays a meaningful role in maintaining a multiracial democracy (or is willing to defer to Congress’ judgment on the matter). Second, that same majority of the court does…

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GOP’s booming support for guns is turning off millennial, Gen Z Republicans

GOP’s booming support for guns is turning off millennial, Gen Z Republicans

Politico reports: Young Republicans aren’t clinging to guns like the rest of the GOP. As former President Donald Trump and new campaign entrants, including former Vice President Mike Pence, tout their Second Amendment bonafides and opposition to “gun confiscation” to 2024 primary voters, some Gen Z and millennial Republicans are moving in the opposite direction: A significant share of younger conservatives, reared in an age of mass violence, embrace firearm restrictions. One poll conducted by Harvard’s political institute this spring…

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House is paralyzed as far-right rebels continue mutiny against McCarthy

House is paralyzed as far-right rebels continue mutiny against McCarthy

The New York Times reports: Hard-right Republicans pressed their mutiny against Speaker Kevin McCarthy into a second day on Wednesday, keeping control of the House floor in a raw display of their power that raised questions about whether the speaker could continue to govern his slim and fractious majority. Mr. McCarthy, who enraged ultraconservative Republicans by striking a compromise with President Biden to suspend the debt limit, has yet to face a bid to depose him, as some hard-right members…

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Cuba to host secret Chinese spy base focusing on U.S.

Cuba to host secret Chinese spy base focusing on U.S.

The Wall Street Journal reports: China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, in a brash new geopolitical challenge by Beijing to the U.S., according to U.S. officials familiar with highly classified intelligence. An eavesdropping facility in Cuba, roughly 100 miles from Florida, would allow Chinese intelligence services to scoop up electronic communications throughout the southeastern U.S., where many military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic. Officials…

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Merlin Sheldrake wants us to understand the genius of fungi

Merlin Sheldrake wants us to understand the genius of fungi

Jennifer Kahn writes: One evening last winter, Merlin Sheldrake, the mycologist and author of the best-selling book “Entangled Life,” was headlining an event in London’s Soho. The night was billed as a “salon,” and the crowd, which included the novelist Edward St. Aubyn, was elegant and arty, with lots of leggy women in black tights and men in perfectly draped camel’s-hair coats. “Entangled Life” is a scientific study of all things fungal that reads like a fairy tale, and since…

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Where Earth got its water

Where Earth got its water

Sean Raymond writes: When Carl Sagan famously called Earth the “pale blue dot,” he was judging a book by its cover. Even though three quarters of our planet’s surface is covered by oceans, our planet is actually very dry. Water makes up about one part in a thousand of Earth’s mass (most of it is simply rock and iron). I say “about” because we don’t know exactly how much water is trapped in Earth’s interior. Estimates range from less than…

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Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges

Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges

The Independent reports: Over the course of the last year, grand jurors have heard testimony from numerous associates of the ex-president, including nearly every employee of Mar-a-Lago, former administration officials who worked in Mr Trump’s post-presidential office and for his political operation, and former high-ranking administration officials such as his final White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Mr Meadows has already given evidence before the grand jury and is said to be cooperating with the investigation into his former…

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Look for a ‘speaking indictment’ of Donald Trump

Look for a ‘speaking indictment’ of Donald Trump

Andrew Weissmann and Ryan Goodman write: An indictment does not have to spell out the alleged facts; it just needs to track the legal elements of a criminal charge. However, to explain to the American public why this is a righteous case, this indictment could (and should) be what is known as a “speaking indictment” and lay out specific obstruction evidence, such as former White House counsel and personal Trump lawyers advising the former president to return the documents; Trump’s…

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The electoral threat of another Trump indictment

The electoral threat of another Trump indictment

Aaron Blake writes: The pollster YouGov recently provided the most in-depth data on views of Trump’s legal jeopardy since shortly after his indictment in late March. It tested which of Trump’s various legal problems were viewed as potentially “serious crimes,” and how much people regard such “serious crimes” as being disqualifying. The first thing to note: As with previous polls, people are less concerned about the charges Trump faces in Manhattan. While 52 percent of Americans regard it as a…

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So-called ‘parents’ rights’ groups such as Moms for Liberty are anti-government extremists, says SPLC

So-called ‘parents’ rights’ groups such as Moms for Liberty are anti-government extremists, says SPLC

USA Today reports: The Southern Poverty Law Center is for the first time labeling Florida-headquartered Moms for Liberty and 11 other right-wing “parents’ rights” groups as extremist groups in its annual report, released Tuesday. Moms for Liberty and the other organizations are being designated as “anti-government extremist groups,” based on longstanding criteria, explained SPLC Intelligence Project Director Susan Corke. Corke said the grassroots conservative groups are part of a new front in the battle against inclusivity in schools, though they…

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Kakhovka dam breach raises risk for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – receding waters narrow options for cooling

Kakhovka dam breach raises risk for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – receding waters narrow options for cooling

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant seen across the Dnieper River, which was receding after a downstream dam was destroyed. Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images By Najmedin Meshkati, University of Southern California A blast on June 6, 2023, destroyed the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in eastern Ukraine. The rupture lowered water levels in a reservoir upriver at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Enerhodar. The reservoir supplies water necessary for cooling the plant’s shutdown reactors and…

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The PGA Tour’s stunning hypocrisy in a deal that promises to benefit Trump and the Saudis

The PGA Tour’s stunning hypocrisy in a deal that promises to benefit Trump and the Saudis

Jemele Hill writes: When PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan was asked last year about his indefinite suspension of 17 players for joining the rival LIV Golf league, Monahan chastised the golfers for choosing money over morality. Because LIV gets its money from Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy notorious for its human-rights abuses, Monahan implied that players who chose LIV over professional golf’s preeminent league would regret their association with the kingdom. “I would ask any player that has left or any player that would…

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Nearly 20% of the cultural differences between societies boil down to ecological factors – new research

Nearly 20% of the cultural differences between societies boil down to ecological factors – new research

How much of a culture could be due to things like the grain it traditionally grew? Visoot Uthairam/Moment via Getty Images By Alexandra Wormley, Arizona State University and Michael Varnum, Arizona State University In some parts of the world, the rules are strict; in others they are far more lax. In some places, people are likely to plan for the future, while in others people are more likely to live in the moment. In some societies people prefer more personal…

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Water level behind Russian-controlled Kakhkovka Dam was at historic high before it was destroyed

Water level behind Russian-controlled Kakhkovka Dam was at historic high before it was destroyed

The Washington Post reports: A critical dam in southern Ukraine was heavily damaged after a reported explosion early Tuesday, sending water gushing toward dozens of communities, including some occupied by Russia, and prompting officials to evacuate thousands of people at risk of catastrophic flooding. Russia seized the dam, which is part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, on the first day of its invasion in February 2022 because of its crucial role in supplying fresh water to Crimea, the Ukrainian…

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NYT reported in May, Russian-controlled dam risked flooding in southern Ukraine

NYT reported in May, Russian-controlled dam risked flooding in southern Ukraine

On May 17, the New York Times reported: Water levels at a reservoir that supplies southern Ukraine with drinking water have reached a 30-year high, increasing the possibility of flooding in the area and signaling a lack of regulation. The sudden increase in levels at the Kakhovka reservoir appears in altimetry data — which uses satellites to measure height — published on Friday by Theia, a French earth data provider. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service has not…

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