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Marjorie Taylor Greene forming caucus to promote racism (aka ‘Anglo-Saxon political traditions’)

Marjorie Taylor Greene forming caucus to promote racism (aka ‘Anglo-Saxon political traditions’)

Forbes reports: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) are starting a right-wing caucus in Congress that seeks to “follow in President Trump’s footsteps,” which could prove yet another thorn in the side of Republican leaders already struggling to unite a bitterly divided party. According to a seven-page policy platform published by Punchbowl News, the group wants members to display “a certain intellectual boldness” and be willing to “step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows” – in…

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The GOP is raising money off Tucker Carlson’s racism

The GOP is raising money off Tucker Carlson’s racism

David Corn reports: Recent Republican fundraising efforts have been ugly and, worse, have fueled conspiracy theories, hatred, and demagoguery. Sen. Josh Hawley and Donald Trump have raised millions off the Big Lie about the 2020 election. Sen. Ted Cruz this week sent out an email enticing contributions by offering anyone who donates to his campaign war chest a vote on whether “we machine gun [John Boehner’s new memoirs], take a chainsaw to it, or burn the book to light cigars.”…

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Capitol riot defendant pleads guilty, will cooperate with government

Capitol riot defendant pleads guilty, will cooperate with government

Politico reports: Jon Schaffer, a heavy metal guitarist and self-described “lifetime member” of the Oath Keepers, on Friday became the first Capitol rioter to plead guilty to charges based on his participation in the attack and has entered into a cooperation agreement with the government. The move from Schaffer came at an unannounced proceeding before U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta on Friday morning. During a lengthy plea dialogue with Metha, Schaffer acknowledged that the deal requires him to “cooperate…

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Why humans find it so hard to let go of false beliefs

Why humans find it so hard to let go of false beliefs

Elitsa Dermendzhiyska writes: There’s a new virus in town and it’s not fooling around. You can catch it through face-to-face contact or digitally – that is, via a human or bot. Few of us possess immunity, some are even willing hosts; and, despite all we’ve learned about it, this virus is proving more cunning and harder to eradicate than anyone could have expected. Misinformation isn’t new, of course. Fake news was around even before the invention of the printing press,…

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U.S. Treasury provides missing link: Manafort’s partner gave campaign polling data to Kremlin in 2016

U.S. Treasury provides missing link: Manafort’s partner gave campaign polling data to Kremlin in 2016

Just Security reports: The U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday that Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate and ex-employee of Paul Manafort, “provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy,” during the 2016 election, an apparently definitive statement that neither Special Counsel Robert Mueller nor the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation made in their final reports. “This is new public information that connects the provision of internal Trump campaign data to Russian intelligence,” Andrew Weissmann, who led the prosecution…

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America’s corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

America’s corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

Becca Dzombak reports: Seth Watkins has been farming his family’s land in southern Iowa for decades, growing pasture for his cows as well as corn and other row crops. His great-grandfather founded the farm in 1848. “He came in with one of John Deere’s steel plows and pierced the prairie,” Watkins recounted. With its rolling hills and neat lines of corn stretching to the horizon, broken by clumps of trees, it’s a picturesque scene. But centuries of farming those hills…

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Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose likely needed within 12 months

Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose likely needed within 12 months

CNBC reports: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will “likely” need a third dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. His comments were made public Thursday but were taped April 1. Bourla said it’s possible people will need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually. “We need to see what would be the sequence, and for how often we need to do that, that remains to be seen,” he told CNBC’s Bertha Coombs during an…

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‘I never thought China could ever be this dark’

‘I never thought China could ever be this dark’

Melissa Chan writes: On a summer afternoon nearly four years ago, Maryam Muhammet thought her family’s long journey to freedom was almost complete. The Uyghur woman had arrived in Istanbul from Egypt weeks prior with her two sons, a toddler and an infant, after fleeing the Chinese region of Xinjiang. Her husband had not yet joined the family in Turkey. The couple had heard from others in their community that Egyptian immigration officials—ostensibly acting at the behest of the Chinese…

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Facebook planned to remove fake accounts in India – until it realized a BJP politician was involved

Facebook planned to remove fake accounts in India – until it realized a BJP politician was involved

The Guardian reports: Facebook allowed a network of fake accounts to artificially inflate the popularity of an MP from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), for months after being alerted to the problem. The company was preparing to remove the fake accounts but paused when it found evidence that the politician was probably directly involved in the network, internal documents seen by the Guardian show. The company’s decision not to take timely action against the network, which it had already…

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The brain ‘rotates’ memories to shield them from new sensations

The brain ‘rotates’ memories to shield them from new sensations

Jordana Cepelewicz writes: During every waking moment, we humans and other animals have to balance on the edge of our awareness of past and present. We must absorb new sensory information about the world around us while holding on to short-term memories of earlier observations or events. Our ability to make sense of our surroundings, to learn, to act and to think all depend on constant, nimble interactions between perception and memory. But to accomplish this, the brain has to…

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How bipedalism led humans down a strange evolutionary path

How bipedalism led humans down a strange evolutionary path

Riley Black writes: No other animal moves the way we do. That’s awfully strange. Even among other two-legged species, none amble about with a straight back and a gait that, technically, is just a form of controlled falling. Our bipedalism doesn’t just set us apart, paleoanthropologist Jeremy DeSilva posits; it’s what makes us human. There’s no shortage of books that propose this or that feature — tool use or self-awareness, for example — as the very definition of humankind. But much of our supposed…

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Welcome to the new progressive era

Welcome to the new progressive era

Anand Giridharadas writes: Washington in the first days of the Biden administration is a place for double takes: A president associated with the politics of austerity is spending money with focused gusto, a crisis isn’t going to waste, and Senator Bernie Sanders is happy. People like to tell you they saw things coming. But as I talked to many of the campers in Joe Biden’s big tent, particularly those who, like me, were skeptical of Biden, I found that the…

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The mRNA vaccines are looking better and better

The mRNA vaccines are looking better and better

Sarah Zhang writes: A year ago, when the United States decided to go big on vaccines, it bet on nearly every horse, investing in a spectrum of technologies. The safest bets, in a way, repurposed the technology behind existing vaccines, such as protein-based ones for tetanus or hepatitis B. The medium bets were on vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which use adenovirus vectors, a technology that had been tested before but not deployed on a large scale….

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Why would a Covid vaccine cause rare blood clots? Researchers have found clues

Why would a Covid vaccine cause rare blood clots? Researchers have found clues

STAT reports: A week after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, a 37-year-old woman in Norway went to the emergency department with fever and persistent headaches. A CAT scan of her head showed a blood clot in blood vessels involved in draining the brain, but her levels of platelets, involved in clotting, were low. She was treated with platelet infusions and a blood thinner, but had a bleed in her brain the next day. She underwent surgery to relieve the pressure…

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