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Democrats’ risky bet: Aid GOP extremists in Spring while hoping to beat them in Fall

Democrats’ risky bet: Aid GOP extremists in Spring while hoping to beat them in Fall

The New York Times reports: Even as national Democrats set off alarms over the threats posed by far-right Republican candidates, their campaign partners are pursuing an enormously risky strategy: promoting some of those same far-right candidates in G.O.P. primaries in hopes that extremists will be easier for Democrats to beat in November. These efforts — starkest in the Central Valley of California, where a Democratic campaign ad lashed Representative David Valadao, a Republican, for voting to impeach Donald J. Trump…

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White parents rallied to chase a black educator out of town. Then, they followed her to the next one

White parents rallied to chase a black educator out of town. Then, they followed her to the next one

ProPublica reports: [Celia] Lewis was beginning to prepare for her move South, spending as much time with friends and family as possible, when she got a strange call from an official in her new school district. The person on the line — Lewis won’t say who — asked if she had ever heard of CRT. Lewis responded, “Yes — culturally responsive teaching.” She was thinking of the philosophy that connects a child’s cultural background to what they learn in school….

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How reporters can cover and distinguish threats to democracy from politics-as-usual

How reporters can cover and distinguish threats to democracy from politics-as-usual

Protect Democracy: Authoritarianism rarely happens overnight these days. Today’s authoritarian playbook is a process that happens piecemeal and is hard to distinguish from normal political jockeying. Our report, The Authoritarian Playbook: How reporters can contextualize and cover authoritarian threats as distinct from politics-as-usual outlines the seven fundamental tactics used by aspiring authoritarians, describes examples from in and outside the United States, and offers a framework journalists can use to differentiate between politics-as-usual and something more dangerous to democracy. The vigilance…

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Under Russian artillery fire, Ukrainians wait on Western arms

Under Russian artillery fire, Ukrainians wait on Western arms

Tom Mutch reports: We can see the rockets landing in the field in front of us, around a mile away from the frontline barracks we are holed up in. A shell whistles over our head only to smash into the forest next to us, but the birds don’t even wait for the smoke to clear before you can hear their melodic singing waft from the trees along with the plumes of white smoke. With a bright blue twilight sky and…

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Putin isn’t winning yet, but his military is finally waging the kind of campaign it knows best

Putin isn’t winning yet, but his military is finally waging the kind of campaign it knows best

Fred Kaplan writes: After a string of tactical defeats, the Russian army is making some headway in its campaign to capture the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, site of the war’s deadliest fighting. Its troops have taken nearly all of the region’s northern district, known as Luhansk, and all but surrounded the town of Severodonetsk. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops are exhausted, with 100 to 200 dying daily. While this is true of Russian troops as well, the Ukrainians are running out…

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Far-right Republicans press closer to power over future elections

Far-right Republicans press closer to power over future elections

The New York Times reports: The potential for far-right Republicans to reshape the election systems of major battleground states is growing much closer to reality. As the halfway point nears of a midterm year that is vastly friendlier to Republicans, the party’s voters have nominated dozens of candidates for offices with power over the administration and certification of elections who have spread falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest and sowed distrust in American democracy. The only way to restore trust,…

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GOP commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary vote

GOP commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary vote

The Associated Press reports: New Mexico’s secretary of state on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the Republican-led commission of rural Otero County to certify primary election results after it refused to do so over distrust of Dominion vote-tallying machines. Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Olive’s request came a day after the three-member Otero County commission, in its role as a county canvassing board, voted unanimously against certifying the results of the June 7 primary without raising…

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Sweeping legislation aims to ban the sale of location data

Sweeping legislation aims to ban the sale of location data

Motherboard reports: Sen. Elizabeth Warren and a group of other Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would essentially outlaw the sale of location data harvested from smartphones. The bill also presents a range of other powers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and individual victims to push back against the multibillion-dollar location data industry. The move comes after Motherboard reported multiple instances in which companies were selling location data of people who visited abortion clinics, and sometimes making subsets…

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Simone de Beauvoir on facing old age and avoiding bad faith

Simone de Beauvoir on facing old age and avoiding bad faith

Kate Kirkpatrick and Sonia Kruks write: Old age is not exactly a time of life that most of us welcome, although globally speaking it is a privilege to reach it. In Western societies, the shocked realisation that we are growing old often fills us with alarm and even terror. As Simone de Beauvoir writes in her magisterial study of the topic, La vieillesse (1970) – translated in the UK as Old Age, and in the US as The Coming of…

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The brain has a ‘low-power mode’ that blunts our senses

The brain has a ‘low-power mode’ that blunts our senses

Allison Whitten writes: When our phones and computers run out of power, their glowing screens go dark and they die a sort of digital death. But switch them to low-power mode to conserve energy, and they cut expendable operations to keep basic processes humming along until their batteries can be recharged. Our energy-intensive brain needs to keep its lights on too. Brain cells depend primarily on steady deliveries of the sugar glucose, which they convert to adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to…

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Russia’s oil revenue soars despite sanctions, study finds

Russia’s oil revenue soars despite sanctions, study finds

The New York Times reports: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered global condemnation and tough sanctions aimed at denting Moscow’s war chest. Yet Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels, by far its biggest export, soared to records in the first 100 days of its war on Ukraine, driven by a windfall from oil sales amid surging prices, a new analysis shows. Russia earned what is very likely a record 93 billion euros in revenue from exports of oil, gas and coal in…

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Ukraine has received 10% of arms pledged, defense ministry says

Ukraine has received 10% of arms pledged, defense ministry says

AFP reports: Ukraine has received just 10 per cent of the weapons pledged by the West to help Kyiv to fight off the Russian offensive, the deputy defence minister said on Tuesday. “From what we said we need, we got about 10 per cent,” Anna Malyar said in televised remarks, saying the West should speed up its delivery schedule. “No matter how hard Ukraine tries, no matter how professional our army is, without the help of Western partners we will…

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Beware the ruinous optimism of Democratic leaders

Beware the ruinous optimism of Democratic leaders

Jamelle Bouie writes: If you want a sense of what separates much of the leadership of the Democratic Party from many of its supporters — of what illustrates their profound disconnect from younger cohorts of liberal and progressive voters — you could do much worse than to read this recent statement from Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. “Some things take longer than others, and you can only do what you can do at a given time,” she said in an…

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The January 6 committee isn’t messing around

The January 6 committee isn’t messing around

Quinta Jurecic writes: The open hearing last week of the committee investigating the January 6 coup attempt plunged viewers back into the brutality and terror of that day. The committee featured footage of insurrectionists beating the law-enforcement officers who attempted to stop them from entering the Capitol, material disturbing enough that YouTube later labeled video of the hearing as “inappropriate for some users.” Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who testified about her injuries at the hands of the rioters,…

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