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Biden should end America’s longest war: The War on Drugs

Biden should end America’s longest war: The War on Drugs

John Hudak writes: The War on Drugs, not the war in Afghanistan, is America’s longest war. It has used trillions of American taxpayer dollars, militarized American law enforcement agencies (federal, state, and local), claimed an untold number of lives, railroaded people’s futures (especially among Black, Latino, and Native populations), and concentrated the effort in the country’s most diverse and poorest neighborhoods. The War on Drugs has been a staggering policy failure, advancing few of the claims that presidents, members of…

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China is financing infrastructure projects around the world – many could harm nature and Indigenous communities

China is financing infrastructure projects around the world – many could harm nature and Indigenous communities

Chinese engineers pose after welding the first seamless rails for the China-Laos railway in Vientiane, Laos, June 18, 2020. Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua via Getty Images By Blake Alexander Simmons, Boston University; Kevin P. Gallagher, Boston University, and Rebecca Ray, Boston University China is shaping the future of economic development through its Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious multi-billion-dollar international push to better connect itself to the rest of the world through trade and infrastructure. Through this venture, China is providing over…

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23,000-year-old footprints suggest people reached the Americas early

23,000-year-old footprints suggest people reached the Americas early

Ars Technica reports: Footprints left behind in layers of clay and silt at New Mexico’s White Sands National Park may be between 23,000 and 21,000 years old. That’s based on radiocarbon dating of the remains of grass seeds buried in the layers of sediment above and below the tracks. If the dates are correct, the tracks are evidence that people walked beside the now-dry Lake Otero during the height of the last ice age, when kilometers of ice covered the…

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Trump’s plans for a coup are now public

Trump’s plans for a coup are now public

Adam Serwer writes: Last year, John Eastman, whom CNN describes as an attorney working with Donald Trump’s legal team, wrote a preposterous memo outlining how then–Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 election by fiat or, failing that, throw the election to the House of Representatives, where Republicans could install Trump in office despite his loss to Joe Biden. The document, which was first reported by the Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their new book,…

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Tucker Carlson blows up Murdoch’s white supremacy denial on air

Tucker Carlson blows up Murdoch’s white supremacy denial on air

Jonathan Chait writes: Last spring, Fox News host Tucker Carlson used one of his inflammatory monologues to accuse the Biden administration of “​​trying to replace the current electorate” with “more obedient voters from the Third World.” Carlson has spent years edging up to the border of explicit white-supremacist rhetoric, but here he crossed over by echoing the precise theories of neo-Nazis, using their preferred terms. An alarmed Anti-Defamation League wrote to Carlson’s employers demanding they sack him. Lachlan Murdoch wrote…

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U.S. special envoy for Haiti resigns amid deportations

U.S. special envoy for Haiti resigns amid deportations

Reuters reports: The U.S. special envoy for Haiti, Ambassador Daniel Foote, has resigned, a senior State Department official said on Thursday, amid mass deportations of Haitians who fled recent political turmoil and natural disasters at home. The U.S. government has continued to fly hundreds of people, including families, back to Haiti, with conditions deteriorating in migrant camps on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. “I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of…

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No, vaccinated people are not ‘just as likely’ to spread the coronavirus as unvaccinated people

No, vaccinated people are not ‘just as likely’ to spread the coronavirus as unvaccinated people

Craig Spencer writes: For many fully vaccinated Americans, the Delta surge spoiled what should’ve been a glorious summer. Those who had cast their masks aside months ago were asked to dust them off. Many are still taking no chances. Some have even returned to all the same precautions they took before getting their shots, including avoiding the company of other fully vaccinated people. Among this last group, a common refrain I’ve heard to justify their renewed vigilance is that “vaccinated…

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America’s billionaires pay an average income tax rate of just 8.2%, Biden administration says

America’s billionaires pay an average income tax rate of just 8.2%, Biden administration says

CBS News reports: The wealthiest 400 families in the United States are paying an average income tax rate of just 8.2%, according to a new analysis from the Biden administration. President Joe Biden and Democrats are pushing to raise taxes on the richest Americans as they look for ways to pay for their ambitious agenda, making its way through Congress as a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package. The analysis estimated billionaires paid 8.2% of their income between 2010 and 2018,…

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Taliban official: Strict punishment, executions will return

Taliban official: Strict punishment, executions will return

The Associated Press reports: One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public. In an interview with The Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the…

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Is there a symmetry between metacognition and mindreading?

Is there a symmetry between metacognition and mindreading?

Stephen M Fleming writes: In 1978, David Premack and Guy Woodruff published a paper that would go on to become famous in the world of academic psychology. Its title posed a simple question: does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? In coining the term ‘theory of mind’, Premack and Woodruff were referring to the ability to keep track of what someone else thinks, feels or knows, even if this is not immediately obvious from their behaviour. We use theory…

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Why the fine words of Biden’s UN speech rang hollow

Why the fine words of Biden’s UN speech rang hollow

Fred Kaplan writes: President Joe Biden delivered his first address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday morning, a speech of fine words but discordant resonances. He hailed “the noble mission of this institution” and reaffirmed the central role of “partners and allies,” declaring that “our own success is bound up with others succeeding as well.” The speech must have struck many in the chamber as a refreshing contrast to Donald Trump’s final address to the Assembly, a seven-minute drone…

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President Xi declares end to Chinese support for new coal power abroad

President Xi declares end to Chinese support for new coal power abroad

Climate Change News reports: China will end its support for new coal power projects overseas, president Xi Jinping told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. For years, China has been the biggest public financer of foreign coal, particularly in rapidly-growing Asian economies, but has slowed down recently. President Xi’s speech was translated as: “China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.” The announcement…

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The anonymous meta-analysis that’s convincing people to use ivermectin

The anonymous meta-analysis that’s convincing people to use ivermectin

Ars Technica reports: If you’ve looked into the controversy regarding the use of ivermectin for treating COVID-19, chances are you’ve come across links to a site called c19ivermectin.com (or one of its many relatives) that claims to host a regularly updated aggregation of all the latest studies into a single meta-analysis of the effects of the drug. We here at Ars have been asked—by email, in the comments, and via our feedback form—to check out c19ivermectin.com, which purports to provide…

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Pfizer CEO rallies staff to fight Democrats’ drug price negotiation

Pfizer CEO rallies staff to fight Democrats’ drug price negotiation

Politico reports: Pfizer’s CEO sent a video message to company employees urging them to fight proposed government drug price negotiations and expressing frustration with Congress, which is considering using the projected savings to help pay for a $3.5 trillion social spending package. Albert Bourla said he was “particularly disappointed” that a House Democratic leadership-backed drug pricing plan and similar proposals “will have a little positive impact on patients where it really matters at the pharmacy,” according to the three-minute video,…

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