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A psychologist plumbs the cultural roots of emotion

A psychologist plumbs the cultural roots of emotion

By Emily Cataneo, August 19, 2022 When the Australian anthropologist Christine Dureau traveled to the Solomon Islands for research, she brought her toddler along, at first imagining that the universal experience of maternal love would help her relate to the Simbo women living in this foreign culture. But it soon became clear that maternal love for an Australian was different than maternal love for a Simbo woman: She learned that maternal taru, the Simbo word for love, could often be…

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The Five-Million-Year Odyssey reveals how migration shaped humankind

The Five-Million-Year Odyssey reveals how migration shaped humankind

Bruce Bower writes: Archaeologist Peter Bellwood’s academic odyssey wended from England to teaching posts halfway around the world, first in New Zealand and then in Australia. For more than 50 years, he has studied how humans settled islands from Southeast Asia to Polynesia. So it’s fitting that his new book, a plain-English summary of what’s known and what’s not about the evolution of humans and our ancestors, emphasizes movement. In The Five-Million-Year Odyssey, Bellwood examines a parade of species in…

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Trump supporters’ threats to judge spur concerns for the viability of democracy

Trump supporters’ threats to judge spur concerns for the viability of democracy

The Associated Press reports: Hundreds of federal judges face the same task every day: review an affidavit submitted by federal agents and approve requests for a search warrant. But for U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the fallout from his decision to approve a search warrant has been far from routine. He has faced a storm of death threats since his signature earlier this month cleared the way for the FBI to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part…

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Trump rakes in millions off FBI search at Mar-a-Lago

Trump rakes in millions off FBI search at Mar-a-Lago

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump bombarded his supporters with more than 100 emails asking for money based on the FBI’s search of the Mar-a-Lago Club for classified materials last week. They paid off. Contributions to Trump’s political action committee topped $1 million on at least two days after the Aug. 8 search of his Palm Beach, Fla., estate, according to two people familiar with the figures. The daily hauls jumped from a level of $200,000 to $300,000…

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‘I don’t see justice in this war’: Russian soldier exposes rot at core of Ukraine invasion

‘I don’t see justice in this war’: Russian soldier exposes rot at core of Ukraine invasion

The Guardian reports: Pavel Filatyev knew the consequences of what he was saying. The ex-paratrooper understood he was risking prison, that he would be called a traitor and would be shunned by his former comrades-in-arms. His own mother had urged him to flee Russia while he still could. He said it anyway. “I don’t see justice in this war. I don’t see truth here,” he said over a tucked-away cafe table in the Moscow financial district. It was his first…

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Crimea attacks point to Ukraine’s newest strategy, official says

Crimea attacks point to Ukraine’s newest strategy, official says

The Washington Post reports: Ukrainian forces are pursuing a new strategy of attacking key military targets deep inside Russian-occupied territory in hopes of undermining Moscow’s ability to hold the front lines ahead of an eventual Ukrainian counteroffensive to reclaim territory, Ukraine’s defense minister said Wednesday. Ukraine’s conventional forces lack the weapons and ammunition needed to launch a full-scale ground offensive to retake territory from the Russians, Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview. He said he expects that sufficient quantities will…

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Corruption is the glue that sustains Putin’s grip on power

Corruption is the glue that sustains Putin’s grip on power

Oleg Kashin writes: What’s easier to imagine — Vladimir Putin suddenly declaring an end to the war on Ukraine and withdrawing his troops or a Russia without Mr. Putin that revises his policies, ends the war and begins to build relations with Ukraine and the West on a peaceful new foundation? It’s a hard one to answer. The war in Ukraine is, to a significant degree, the result of Mr. Putin’s personal obsession, and it’s hardly likely that he will…

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Home appraised with a Black owner: $472,000. Same home with a white owner: $750,000

Home appraised with a Black owner: $472,000. Same home with a white owner: $750,000

The New York Times reports: Last summer, Nathan Connolly and his wife, Shani Mott, welcomed an appraiser into their house in Baltimore, hoping to take advantage of historically low interest rates and refinance their mortgage. They believed that their house — improved with a new $5,000 tankless water heater and $35,000 in other renovations — was worth much more than the $450,000 that they paid for it in 2017. Home prices have been on the rise nationwide since the pandemic;…

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Octopus brains are nothing like ours — yet we have much in common

Octopus brains are nothing like ours — yet we have much in common

James Bridle writes: It turns out there are many ways of “doing” intelligence, and this is evident even in the apes and monkeys who perch close to us on the evolutionary tree. This awareness takes on a whole new character when we think about those non-human intelligences which are very different to us. Because there are other highly evolved, intelligent, and boisterous creatures on this planet that are so distant and so different from us that researchers consider them to…

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Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but ‘everyone is saying no’

Trump is rushing to hire seasoned lawyers — but ‘everyone is saying no’

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump and close aides have spent the eight days since the FBI searched his Florida home rushing to assemble a team of respected defense lawyers. But the answer they keep hearing is “no.” The struggle to find expert legal advice puts Trump in a bind as he faces potential criminal exposure from a records dispute with the National Archives that escalated into a federal investigation into possible violations of the Espionage Act and…

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Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg to implicate Trump companies in guilty plea

Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg to implicate Trump companies in guilty plea

Rolling Stone reports: Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s finance chief, will say in Manhattan court Thursday that he conspired with several of the ex-president’s companies when he pleads guilty to state tax crimes, two sources familiar with the case tell Rolling Stone. As part of Weisselberg’s plea deal, he has agreed to testify against The Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation at trial, which is scheduled for October. If called to the witness stand during trial, Weisselberg will provide…

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What Liz Cheney’s lopsided loss says about the state of the GOP

What Liz Cheney’s lopsided loss says about the state of the GOP

The New York Times reports: Representative Liz Cheney’s martyr-like quest to stop Donald J. Trump has ensured her place in Republican Party history. But her lopsided defeat in Wyoming on Tuesday also exposed the remarkable degree to which the former president still controls the party’s present — and its near future. Ten House Republicans voted to impeach Mr. Trump in early 2021 for his role inciting the mob that stormed the Capitol. Only two have survived the 2022 Republican primaries,…

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Did the U.S. failure in Afghanistan lead to the war in Ukraine?

Did the U.S. failure in Afghanistan lead to the war in Ukraine?

Carl Bildt writes: Why did the West’s Afghanistan policy fail so spectacularly? Was it doomed from the very beginning, and have any lessons been learned? More to the point, did the end of one 20-year war pave the way for another? One year after the fall of Kabul and the Taliban’s return to power, these and other questions are hanging in the air. They remain unanswered, partly because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and renewed Sino-American tensions have consumed much of…

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Ukraine war: Thousands of Jews quit Russia amid fears of persecution

Ukraine war: Thousands of Jews quit Russia amid fears of persecution

BBC News reports: Russia is facing the mass migration abroad of large numbers of its Jewish population, with at least one in eight leaving the country since its war with Ukraine began. The Jewish Agency helps Jews around the world move to Israel. It says an astonishing 20,500 of Russia’s estimated total of 165,000 Jews have gone since March. Thousands more have moved to other countries. Undoubtedly the spectre of historical Jewish persecution has loomed large in the minds of…

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