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Suspected Russian plot used political cartoons to influence American voters

Suspected Russian plot used political cartoons to influence American voters

Bloomberg reports: Social media users tied to Russia are using political cartoons to try to influence the outcome of tight electoral races ahead of the U.S. midterms, according to research provided exclusively to Bloomberg News. Members of a Russian group accused of meddling in prior U.S. elections have pushed internet memes that promote right-wing conspiracy theories in a way that aims to undermine support for Democratic political candidates, according to the social media analysis firm Graphika Inc. The users, who…

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Republican opposition to helping Ukraine grows, WSJ poll finds

Republican opposition to helping Ukraine grows, WSJ poll finds

The Wall Street Journal reports: The majority of Americans support continuing aid to Ukraine in what will likely be a prolonged war with Russia, but support is becoming a partisan issue as Republican opposition grows to helping the country, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. Military and financial aid to Ukraine has emerged as one of many political flashpoints days before a midterm election in which control of the Congress is at stake. The continuing flow of aid…

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‘I’ll keep doing this until we win’: On the road with Ukraine’s aid suppliers

‘I’ll keep doing this until we win’: On the road with Ukraine’s aid suppliers

James Rushton and Michael Weiss write: It’s a cold and rainy morning as Yahoo News arrives at an anonymous industrial estate somewhere outside of Kyiv. We are here to meet the volunteers of Ukraine Aid Ops, one of a growing number of civilian organizations that supply Ukrainian troops and civilians with humanitarian and nonlethal military aid. Over the next four days they have more than 10 deliveries to make to Ukrainian troops spread across the east of the country, supplying…

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How online mobs act like flocks of birds

How online mobs act like flocks of birds

Renée DiResta writes: You’ve probably seen it: a flock of starlings pulsing in the evening sky, swirling this way and that, feinting right, veering left. The flock gets denser, then sparser; it moves faster, then slower; it flies in a beautiful, chaotic concert, as if guided by a secret rhythm. Biology has a word for this undulating dance: “murmuration.” In a murmuration, each bird sees, on average, the seven birds nearest it and adjusts its own behavior in response. If…

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Yet another Chinese rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth this week

Yet another Chinese rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth this week

LiveScience reports: The core stage of yet another Chinese Long March 5B rocket is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth this week after delivering the third and final module to China’s fledgling space station. The roughly 25-ton (23 metric tons) rocket stage, which launched Oct. 31 to deliver the Mengtian laboratory cabin module to the Tiangong space station, is predicted to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday, Nov. 5 at 11:51 p.m. EDT, give or take 14 hours, according to…

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Putin backed Trump in order to turn Ukraine into Russia’s vassal state

Putin backed Trump in order to turn Ukraine into Russia’s vassal state

Jim Rutenberg reports: On the night of July 28, 2016, as Hillary Clinton was accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in Philadelphia, Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, received an urgent email from Moscow. The sender was a friend and business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik. A Russian citizen born in Soviet Ukraine, Kilimnik ran the Kyiv office of Manafort’s international consulting firm, known for bringing cutting-edge American campaign techniques to clients seeking to have their way with fragile democracies around…

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U.S. officials divided over new intelligence suggesting Russian military discussed scenarios for using nuclear weapons

U.S. officials divided over new intelligence suggesting Russian military discussed scenarios for using nuclear weapons

CNN reports: Russian military officials have discussed how and under what conditions Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to a US intelligence assessment described to CNN by multiple sources who have read it. The assessment, drafted by the National Intelligence Council, is not a high confidence product and is not raw intelligence but rather analysis, multiple people who have read it told CNN. For that reason, some officials believe the conversations reflected in…

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The courts are the only thing holding back total election subversion

The courts are the only thing holding back total election subversion

Richard L. Hasen writes: The United States has failed its first important test for democracy since the 2020 election season: Election denialism has taken hold among a significant segment of Republican voters, and election deniers are poised to win elections next week. They will go on to oversee or certify some elections in 2024. The question that matters now is whether the next line of defense for American democracy—our system of state and federal courts—is strong enough for the task…

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Trump lawyers saw Justice Thomas as ‘only chance’ to stop 2020 election certification

Trump lawyers saw Justice Thomas as ‘only chance’ to stop 2020 election certification

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s attorneys saw a direct appeal to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as their best hope of derailing Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election, email messages newly disclosed to congressional investigators show. “We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt,” Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020 email to Trump’s legal…

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The Intercept’s story about government policing disinformation is total garbage

The Intercept’s story about government policing disinformation is total garbage

Mike Masnick writes: Do not believe everything you read. Even if it comes from more “respectable” publications. The Intercept had a big story this week that is making the rounds, suggesting that “leaked” documents prove the DHS has been coordinating with tech companies to suppress information. The story has been immediately picked up by the usual suspects, claiming it reveals the “smoking gun” of how the Biden administration was abusing government power to censor them on social media. The only…

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Ocean bacteria reveal an unexpected multicellular form

Ocean bacteria reveal an unexpected multicellular form

Carrie Arnold writes: Close your eyes and imagine bacteria. Perhaps you’re picturing our intestinal Escherichia coli, or the shiny golden balls of staphylococcus, or the corkscrewing ringlets of Lyme disease spirochetes. Regardless of the species and its shape, chances are your mind’s eye conjured up a single cell, or maybe several free-living cells. The problem with this image, says the microbiologist Julia Schwartzman, is that it doesn’t reflect how most bacteria are likely to live. Often, bacteria use sticky molecules…

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Ancient DNA reveals a hidden history of human adaptation

Ancient DNA reveals a hidden history of human adaptation

Chelms Varthoumlien / Unsplash By Yassine Souilmi, University of Adelaide; Christian Huber, Penn State, and Ray Tobler, Australian National University Humans may be just as vulnerable to environmental change as other animals, according to our new research analysing genetic data from more than a thousand people who lived across Europe and Asia over the past 45,000 years. We found traces of more than 50 “hard sweeps” in which a rare genetic variant rapidly swept through a population – most likely…

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Saudi Arabia, U.S. on high alert after warning of imminent Iranian attack

Saudi Arabia, U.S. on high alert after warning of imminent Iranian attack

The Wall Street Journal reports: Saudi Arabia has shared intelligence with the U.S. warning of an imminent attack from Iran on targets in the kingdom, putting the American military and others in the Middle East on an elevated alert level, Saudi and U.S. officials said. In response to the warning, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and several other neighboring states have raised the level of alert for their military forces, the officials said. They didn’t provide more details on the Saudi…

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Iran is preparing to send additional weapons including ballistic missiles to Russia to use in Ukraine, western officials say

Iran is preparing to send additional weapons including ballistic missiles to Russia to use in Ukraine, western officials say

CNN reports: Iran is preparing to send approximately 1,000 additional weapons, including surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones, to Russia to use in its war against Ukraine, officials from a western country that closely monitors Iran’s weapons program told CNN. The shipment is being closely monitored because it would be the first instance of Iran sending advanced precision guided missiles to Russia, which could give the Kremlin a substantial boost on the battlefield. The last shipment of…

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