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Government report can’t explain UFOs, but offers no evidence of aliens

Government report can’t explain UFOs, but offers no evidence of aliens

Politico reports: A new intelligence report sent to Congress on Friday concludes that virtually all of the 144 sightings of unidentified flying objects documented by the military since 2004 are of unknown origin, in an extremely rare public accounting of the U.S. government’s data on UFOs that is likely to fuel further speculation about phenomena the intelligence community has long struggled to understand. The report — the government’s first unclassified assessment in half a century — does not offer any…

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They seemed like Democratic activists. They were secretly conservative spies

They seemed like Democratic activists. They were secretly conservative spies

The New York Times reports: The young couple posing in front of the faux Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas fit right in, two people in a sea of idealistic Democrats who had arrived in the city in February 2020 for a Democratic primary debate. Large donations to the Democratic National Committee — $10,000 each — had bought Beau Maier and Sofia LaRocca tickets to the debate. During a cocktail reception beforehand, they worked the room of…

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Justice Department is suing Georgia over voter suppression law

Justice Department is suing Georgia over voter suppression law

Mother Jones reports: In its first major action to combat GOP voter suppression laws, the Biden Justice Department announced on Friday that it is suing the state of Georgia over its new voting restrictions. The lawsuit was first reported by Mother Jones. “Today the Department of Justice is suing the state of Georgia,” Attorney General Merrick Garland announced at a press conference at the Justice Department headquarters. Gov. Brian Kemp has said “there is nothing Jim Crow” about the Georgia…

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Discovery of ‘Dragon Man’ skull in China may add species to human family tree

Discovery of ‘Dragon Man’ skull in China may add species to human family tree

The New York Times reports: Scientists on Friday announced that a massive fossilized skull that is at least 140,000 years old is a new species of ancient human, a finding that could potentially change prevailing views of how — and even where — our species, Homo sapiens, evolved. The skull belonged to a mature male who had a huge brain, massive brow ridges, deep set eyes and a bulbous nose. It had remained hidden in an abandoned well for 85…

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Nearly all Covid deaths in U.S. are now among unvaccinated

Nearly all Covid deaths in U.S. are now among unvaccinated

The Associated Press reports: Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine. An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19…

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Why is there such a gender gap in Covid vaccination rates?

Why is there such a gender gap in Covid vaccination rates?

Angelica Puzio writes: For months, local, state and federal officials have been consumed with how to persuade Americans who are wary of the COVID-19 vaccine to get the shot anyway. The conversation has focused in large part on specific demographic groups and how to overcome certain cultural factors to get the vaccines into people’s arms. Experts worried about low turnout among women, who reported significantly more vaccination hesitancy than men prior to the vaccine rollout. And public health officials warned…

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Lab leaks happen, and not just in China. We need to take them seriously

Lab leaks happen, and not just in China. We need to take them seriously

David A. Relman writes: If we scientists are not forced to confront the issues of laboratory safety and risky research in a serious and sustained manner, history suggests that we will not do so. In 2012, controversy erupted when it transpired that two sets of researchers — at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands — were altering highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses to enhance their transmissibility among mammals (to understand their potential…

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‘Lean into the culture war’: White conservatives in House push fight against critical race theory

‘Lean into the culture war’: White conservatives in House push fight against critical race theory

Politico reports: The head of Congress’ largest conservative caucus is encouraging Republicans to embrace anti-critical race theory rhetoric, as the GOP looks to lean into the nation’s culture wars ahead of the looming battle for the House. In a memo sent to members of the Republican Study Committee, its chair Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana said the “backlash against Critical Race Theory is real.” Banks framed the GOP’s opposition to the ideology “as an effort to renew American patriotism and…

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House investigates possible shadow operation in Trump’s Justice Department

House investigates possible shadow operation in Trump’s Justice Department

The Guardian reports: Top Democrats in the House are investigating whether Trump justice department officials ran an unlawful shadow operation to target political enemies of the former president to hunt down leaks of classified information, according to a source familiar with the matter. The House judiciary committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, is centering his investigation on the apparent violation of internal policies by the justice department, when it issued subpoenas against Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell in 2018. The use…

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Afghan government may collapse six months or sooner after U.S. withdrawal

Afghan government may collapse six months or sooner after U.S. withdrawal

The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. intelligence community concluded last week that the government of Afghanistan could collapse as soon as six months after the American military withdrawal from the country is completed, according to officials with knowledge of the new assessment. American intelligence agencies revised their previously more optimistic estimates as the Taliban swept through northern Afghanistan last week, seizing dozens of districts and surrounding major cities. Afghan security forces frequently surrendered without a fight, leaving their Humvees…

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Same or different? The question flummoxes neural networks

Same or different? The question flummoxes neural networks

John Pavlus writes: The first episode of Sesame Street in 1969 included a segment called “One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.” Viewers were asked to consider a poster that displayed three 2s and one W, and to decide — while singing along to the game’s eponymous jingle — which symbol didn’t belong. Dozens of episodes of Sesame Street repeated the game, comparing everything from abstract patterns to plates of vegetables. Kids never had to relearn the rules….

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Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared, says draft UN report

Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared, says draft UN report

AFP reports: Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN’s climate science advisors obtained by AFP. Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas — these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30. The choices societies make now will…

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Global herd immunity remains out of reach because of inequitable vaccine distribution – 99% of people in poor countries are unvaccinated

Global herd immunity remains out of reach because of inequitable vaccine distribution – 99% of people in poor countries are unvaccinated

A COVID-19 field hospital in Santo Andre, Brazil. The pandemic has killed over 503,000 people in Brazil; just 11% of the population is fully vaccinated. Mario Tama/Getty Images By Maria De Jesus, American University School of International Service In the race between infection and injection, injection has lost. Public health experts estimate that approximately 70% of the world’s 7.9 billion people must be fully vaccinated to end the COVID-19 pandemic. As of June 21, 2021, 10.04% of the global population…

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Chinese Covid-19 genetic data that could have aided pandemic research removed from NIH database

Chinese Covid-19 genetic data that could have aided pandemic research removed from NIH database

The Wall Street Journal reports: Chinese researchers directed the U.S. National Institutes of Health to delete gene sequences of early Covid-19 cases from a key scientific database, raising concerns that scientists studying the origin of the pandemic may lack access to key pieces of information. The NIH confirmed that it deleted the sequences after receiving a request from a Chinese researcher who had submitted them three months earlier. “Submitting investigators hold the rights to their data and can request withdrawal…

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