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Trump can’t keep his Jan. 6 documents secret. And Biden can help

Trump can’t keep his Jan. 6 documents secret. And Biden can help

Aziz Huq writes: The select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection faces a potentially fatal roadblock: The committee wants to see a wide range of Executive Branch records and communications, presidential papers that could prove or disprove the reports that Donald Trump fully intended to undermine a fair election that he lost. And Trump, ever litigious, is going to court to stop the White House from sharing them. Trump is a master of using the courts to his own advantage,…

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QAnon is becoming even more antisemitic

QAnon is becoming even more antisemitic

Vice News reports: The organizer of a major QAnon conference in Las Vegas later this week, where at least four sitting GOP lawmakers speak on stage, shared a neo-Nazi film with his 70,000 followers on Sunday evening. John Sabal, who’s known online as QAnon John, is preparing for Thursday’s “For God and Country: Patriot Double Down” conference, but on Sunday night he took time out of his busy schedule to share a post about people who had praised “Europa –…

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What Colin Powell’s death really means about the vaccines

What Colin Powell’s death really means about the vaccines

Tim Requarth writes: Colin Powell, the nation’s first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state, a four-star general, and Iraq war supporter, has died from complications of COVID-19 at age 84. He was fully vaccinated. Already, right-wing pundits are using Powell’s vaccination status to question the effectiveness of vaccines and rail against mandates. The vaccines are not perfect—particularly at preventing infection. Breakthrough infections, and even hospitalization and deaths, among vaccinated people are real. But, for…

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Is this the beginning of techno-eugenics?

Is this the beginning of techno-eugenics?

Philip Ball writes: The birth of the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, in 1978 provoked a media frenzy. In comparison, a little girl named Aurea born by IVF in May 2020 went almost unnoticed. Yet she represents a significant first in assisted reproduction too, for the embryo from which she grew was selected from others based on polygenic screening before implantation, to optimise her health prospects. For both scientific and ethical reasons, this new type of genetic screening is highly…

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As Manchin protects coal and his investments, his own constituents are at increasing risk of drowning

As Manchin protects coal and his investments, his own constituents are at increasing risk of drowning

The New York Times reports: In Senator Joe Manchin’s hometown, a flood-prone hamlet of about 200 homes that hugs a curve on a shallow creek, the rain is getting worse. Those storms swell the river, called Buffalo Creek, inundating homes along its banks. They burst the streams that spill down the hills on either side of this former coal-mining town, pushing water into basements. They saturate the ground, seeping into Farmington’s aging pipes and overwhelming its sewage treatment system. Climate…

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Democrats weigh carbon tax after Manchin rejects key climate provision

Democrats weigh carbon tax after Manchin rejects key climate provision

The New York Times reports: Some House and Senate Democrats, smarting from a move by Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, to kill a major element of President Biden’s climate plan, are switching to Plan B: a tax on carbon dioxide pollution. A carbon tax, in which polluting industries would pay a fee for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit, is seen by economists as the most effective way to cut the fossil fuel emissions that are…

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‘We’re done’: Immigration advocates stage walkout on Biden administration

‘We’re done’: Immigration advocates stage walkout on Biden administration

Politico reports: Dozens of immigration advocates walked out, virtually, on top Biden officials Saturday in protest of the administration’s decision to continue border policies enacted during the Trump administration, according to several people who were in the meeting. Advocates asked for time before the beginning of a video meeting Saturday morning with several Biden administration officials, including people from the Department of Homeland Security officials and the White House Domestic Policy Council’s Esther Olavarria. The activists read a statement accusing…

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Is Biden doing enough to protect democracy?

Is Biden doing enough to protect democracy?

Peter Nicholas writes: As a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer in the early 2000s, I once received a call from a couple of Republican campaign operatives who said they had something to show me. We met at their office in Washington, D.C., a few days later. They presented printouts of recent election records and pointed to a few cases of what they suspected were people voting illegally. One after another, their examples of voter fraud turned out to be nothing….

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These Republicans torpedoed vaccine mandates — then slipped in the polls

These Republicans torpedoed vaccine mandates — then slipped in the polls

Politico reports: Republican governors crusading against vaccine mandates are facing significantly lower approval ratings on their handling of the coronavirus pandemic than their counterparts. But they’re not worried. From Florida to Texas to South Dakota, GOP governors have been on the front lines of the war against vaccine mandates, barring immunization requirements in their states and threatening to fight President Joe Biden’s federal vaccine mandate in court. Just last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott flat-out banned vaccine requirements, and Florida…

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World’s growth cools and the rich-poor divide widens

World’s growth cools and the rich-poor divide widens

The New York Times reports: As the world economy struggles to find its footing, the resurgence of the coronavirus and supply chain chokeholds threaten to hold back the global recovery’s momentum, a closely watched report warned on Tuesday. The overall growth rate will remain near 6 percent this year, a historically high level after a recession, but the expansion reflects a vast divergence in the fortunes of rich and poor countries, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest World…

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Facebook says AI will clean up the platform. Its own engineers have doubts

Facebook says AI will clean up the platform. Its own engineers have doubts

The Wall Street Journal reports: Facebook executives have long said that artificial intelligence would address the company’s chronic problems keeping what it deems hate speech and excessive violence as well as underage users off its platforms. That future is farther away than those executives suggest, according to internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Facebook’s AI can’t consistently identify first-person shooting videos, racist rants and even, in one notable episode that puzzled internal researchers for weeks, the difference between…

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Thanks to Joe Manchin, we’re on the edge of a devastating climate loss

Thanks to Joe Manchin, we’re on the edge of a devastating climate loss

Bill McKibben writes: Last night’s scoop from the New York Times was devastating: the paper reported that Joe Manchin had exercised a firm veto over the Clean Energy Performance Plan (CEPP) at the heart of the Biden administration’s climate efforts. “As a result,” the Times story said, “White House staffers are now rewriting the legislation without that climate provision, and are trying to cobble together a mix of other policies that could also cut emissions.” As Saturday dawned the Wall…

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Sinema rakes in Pharma and finance cash amid reconciliation negotiations

Sinema rakes in Pharma and finance cash amid reconciliation negotiations

Politico reports: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) raised more campaign money in the last three months than in any quarter since she became a senator. And she hit that $1.1 million haul with a big assist from the pharmaceutical and financial industries, whose political action committees and top executives stuffed her coffers in the middle of negotiations on Democrats’ massive infrastructure and social spending bills. Sinema has emerged as a key player in those negotiations, with the reconciliation bill needing support…

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As Afghanistan sinks into destitution, some sell children to survive

As Afghanistan sinks into destitution, some sell children to survive

The Wall Street Journal reports: Desperate to feed her family, Saleha, a housecleaner here in western Afghanistan, has incurred such an insurmountable debt that the only way she sees out is to hand over her 3-year-old daughter, Najiba, to the man who lent her the money. The debt is $550. Saleha, a 40-year-old mother of six who goes by one name, earns 70 cents a day cleaning homes in a wealthier neighborhood of Herat. Her much older husband doesn’t have…

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