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Biden said the U.S. would protect Taiwan. But it’s not that clear-cut

Biden said the U.S. would protect Taiwan. But it’s not that clear-cut

The New York Times reports: American presidents have spent decades trying to sidestep the question of how forcefully the United States would come to the aid of Taiwan if China invaded it or, more likely, tried to slowly strangle the island in an effort to force it back under the control of the mainland. The American policy — called “strategic ambiguity” because it leaves vague exactly how the United States would react — does not lend itself to a tough-sounding…

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In major shift, NIH admits funding risky virus research in Wuhan

In major shift, NIH admits funding risky virus research in Wuhan

Vanity Fair reports: “I totally resent the lie you are now propagating.” Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared to be channeling the frustration of millions of Americans when he spoke those words during an invective-laden, made-for-Twitter Senate hearing on July 20. You didn’t have to be a Democrat to be fed up with all the xenophobic finger-pointing and outright disinformation, coming mainly from the right, up to and including the claim that COVID-19 was a bioweapon cooked up in a lab. The…

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Ants could help explain why human brains mysteriously shrank thousands of years ago

Ants could help explain why human brains mysteriously shrank thousands of years ago

Science Alert reports: In the 6 million years since our ancestors first branched off from our ancient primate relatives, the volume of the human brain has nearly quadrupled. What many people don’t realize, however, is that sometime after the last ice age, that very brain actually began to shrink. The result is that today, our brains are slightly smaller than those of early humans living 100,000 years ago, and yet no one really knows when or why this happened. Now,…

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Signs that we are nearing a point of no return in the Amazon rainforest

Signs that we are nearing a point of no return in the Amazon rainforest

Reuters reports: Gertrudes Freire and her family came to the great forest in search of land and rain. They found both in abundance on that day half a century ago, but the green wilds of the southwestern Amazon would prove tough to tame. When they reached the settlement of Ouro Preto do Oeste in 1971, it was little more than a lonely rubber-tapper outpost hugging the single main road that ran through the jungle like a red dust scar. Sitting…

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Trump’s Truth Social media platform plans to go public via SPAC

Trump’s Truth Social media platform plans to go public via SPAC

The Wall Street Journal reports: Former President Donald Trump unveiled a new digital-media venture Wednesday and said it would go public by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company. Also called a blank-check firm, a SPAC is a shell company that lists on a stock exchange with the sole intent of merging with a private firm to take it public. The private company then gets the SPAC’s place in the stock market. SPAC mergers have exploded in popularity in the past…

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Calling Sinema an obstacle to progress, five veterans quit her advisory council

Calling Sinema an obstacle to progress, five veterans quit her advisory council

The New York Times reports: Five veterans tapped to advise Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, resigned from their posts on Thursday, publicly accusing her of “hanging your constituents out to dry” in the latest sign of growing hostility toward a centrist who has emerged as a key holdout on President Biden’s agenda. In a scathing letter obtained by The New York Times, the veterans took Ms. Sinema to task for her refusal to abolish the filibuster and her opposition…

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How many users does Facebook have? The company struggles to figure it out

How many users does Facebook have? The company struggles to figure it out

The Wall Street Journal reports: Facebook is struggling to detect and deal with users’ creating multiple accounts on its flagship platform, according to internal documents that raise new questions about how the social-media giant measures its audience. An internal Facebook presentation this spring called the phenomenon of single users with multiple accounts “very prevalent” among new accounts. The finding came after an examination of roughly 5,000 recent sign-ups on the service indicated that at least 32% and as many as…

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What Lebanon, Hong Kong, and Afghanistan have lost

What Lebanon, Hong Kong, and Afghanistan have lost

Kim Ghattas writes: From my home in Beirut, I think of Hong Kong all the time. Even though I’ve never been and have no real ties to it, I feel as though I have a stake in its future. I stare at news headlines that read, “Hong Kong Families, Fearing a Reign of Terror, Prepare to Flee the City,” and feel a strange, visceral sense of familiarity. I’ve become obsessed with trying to understand—to feel—Hong Kongers’ angst as their city…

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People mistake the internet’s knowledge for their own

People mistake the internet’s knowledge for their own

John Timmer writes: Many of us make jokes about how we’ve outsourced part of our brain to electronic devices. But based on a new paper by the University of Texas at Austin’s Adrian Ward, this is just a variation on something that has been happening throughout human history. No person could ever learn everything they need to know. But that’s OK, according to Ward: “No one person needs to know everything—they simply need to know who knows it.” Over time,…

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The world’s second-largest rainforest is key to limiting climate change — it needs urgent study and protection

The world’s second-largest rainforest is key to limiting climate change — it needs urgent study and protection

Lee J. T. White et al write: Earth’s second-largest expanse of tropical forest lies in central Africa, in the Congo Basin. The region supports the livelihoods of 80 million people. The rainfall that the forest generates as far away as the Sahel and the Ethiopian highlands supports a further 300 million rural Africans. These forests are crucial to regulating Earth’s climate, and are home to forest elephants, gorillas and humans’ closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. Such services to people and…

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Manchin leads opposition to Biden’s climate bill, backed by support from oil, gas and coal

Manchin leads opposition to Biden’s climate bill, backed by support from oil, gas and coal

The Guardian reports: In the tumult of negotiations over the most consequential climate legislation ever proposed in the US, there is growing scrutiny of the fossil fuel industry connections of the man poised to tear down the core of the bill – the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin. Manchin, a centrist Democrat, has objected to key provisions of a multitrillion-dollar reconciliation bill that would slash planet-heating emissions and help the US, and the world, to avert catastrophic climate breakdown. In…

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How Joe Manchin and Republicans could destroy the world

How Joe Manchin and Republicans could destroy the world

Brian Kahn writes: The United Nations climate conference happening in Glasgow in less than two weeks will essentially chart a course for humanity for generations to come. That’s because this decade is one where the world must start cutting carbon emissions by nearly 8% per year or blow past a key climate guardrail. The U.S. was slated to be a big player, showing up to the meeting known as COP26 with a major new tool to reduce carbon pollution from…

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How chemical companies avoid paying for pollution

How chemical companies avoid paying for pollution

The New York Times reports: One humid day this summer, Brian Long, a senior executive at the chemical company Chemours, took a reporter on a tour of the Fayetteville Works factory. Mr. Long showed off the plant’s new antipollution technologies, designed to stop a chemical called GenX from pouring into the Cape Fear River, escaping into the air and seeping into the ground water. There was a new high-tech filtration system. And a new thermal oxidizer, which heats waste to…

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Trump organization, already under indictment, faces new criminal inquiry

Trump organization, already under indictment, faces new criminal inquiry

The New York Times reports: Former President Donald J. Trump’s family business, which is already under indictment in Manhattan, is facing a criminal investigation by another prosecutor’s office that has begun to examine financial dealings at a golf course the company owns, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In recent months, the district attorney’s office in suburban Westchester County, N.Y., has subpoenaed records from the course, Trump National Golf Club Westchester, and the town of Ossining, which sets…

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