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Jews fear what follows after Republicans applauded Marjorie Taylor Greene

Jews fear what follows after Republicans applauded Marjorie Taylor Greene

Deborah Lipstadt writes: Having spent decades studying, teaching, researching and fighting antisemitism, [Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor] Greene’s claims were familiar territory. All of them – space lasers, 9/11, school shootings, Trump’s election loss and so much else – shared a common theme: conspiracy. In her QAnon-inspired worldview, behind them all was a small group of inordinately powerful people who had global – not national – loyalties. They conspired against the common welfare to advance their own interests. They mutilated…

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Merrick Garland faces resurgent peril after years fighting extremism

Merrick Garland faces resurgent peril after years fighting extremism

The New York Times reports: Judge Merrick B. Garland always made a point of wearing a coat and tie when he surveyed the wreckage at the site of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history. He had been dispatched from Washington to oversee the case for the Justice Department, and he told colleagues that he viewed his daily uniform as a gesture of respect for a community left devastated after Timothy J. McVeigh placed…

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Electric cars’ looming recycling problem

Electric cars’ looming recycling problem

By Perry Gottesfeld, Undark In September, Tesla announced that it would be phasing out the use of cobalt in its batteries, in an effort to produce a $25,000 electric vehicle within three years. If successful, this bold move will be an industry game changer, making electric vehicles competitive with conventional counterparts. But the announcement also underscores one of the fundamental challenges that will complicate the transition to electric vehicles. Without cobalt, there may be little financial incentive to recycle the…

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Economic growth has become a malignancy

Economic growth has become a malignancy

Here is Dr. Mike Ryan speaking at a @trocaire event yesterday about the catastrophe we're walking into. I genuinely think this is the most important clip you'll ever see. pic.twitter.com/eKxBWEu7SM — Eoghan Rice (@rice_e) February 18, 2021 Mike Ryan, World Health Organization

Martin Luther rewired your brain

Martin Luther rewired your brain

Joseph Henrich writes: Your brain has been altered, neurologically re-wired as you acquired a particular skill. This renovation has left you with a specialized area in your left ventral occipital temporal region, shifted facial recognition into your right hemisphere, reduced your inclination toward holistic visual processing, increased your verbal memory, and thickened your corpus callosum, which is the information highway that connects the left and right hemispheres of your brain. What accounts for these neurological and psychological changes? You are…

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Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is highly effective after one dose and can be stored in normal freezers, data shows

Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is highly effective after one dose and can be stored in normal freezers, data shows

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE generates robust immunity after one dose and can be stored in ordinary freezers instead of at ultracold temperatures, according to new research and data released by the companies. The findings provide strong arguments in favor of delaying the second dose of the two-shot vaccine, as the U.K. has done. They could also have substantial implications on vaccine policy and distribution around the world, simplifying the…

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More Oath Keeper suspects charged in Capitol riot plot

More Oath Keeper suspects charged in Capitol riot plot

The New York Times reports: The Justice Department lodged charges on Friday against six more suspected members of the Oath Keepers, adding new defendants to a case that had already accused others in the right-wing militia group of an organized plot to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stop the final certification of the presidential election. The charges, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Kelly Meggs, the self-described leader of the Oath Keepers’ Florida chapter, and his…

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Erik Prince, Trump ally, violated Libya arms embargo, UN report says

Erik Prince, Trump ally, violated Libya arms embargo, UN report says

The New York Times reports: Erik Prince, the former head of the security contractor Blackwater Worldwide and a prominent supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the internationally backed government, according to U.N. investigators. A confidential U.N. report obtained by The New York Times and delivered by investigators to the Security Council on Thursday reveals how Mr. Prince deployed a…

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Making peace with nature

Making peace with nature

UN Environment Programme: The world can transform its relationship with nature and tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution crises together to secure a sustainable future and prevent future pandemics, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) that offers a comprehensive blueprint for addressing our triple planetary emergency. The report, Making Peace with Nature, lays out the gravity of these three environmental crises by drawing on global assessments, including those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…

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U.S. life expectancy falls by a year in pandemic, most since WWII

U.S. life expectancy falls by a year in pandemic, most since WWII

The Associated Press reports: Life expectancy in the United States dropped a staggering one year during the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic caused its first wave of deaths, health officials are reporting. Minorities suffered the biggest impact, with Black Americans losing nearly three years and Hispanics, nearly two years, according to preliminary estimates Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This is a huge decline,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees the numbers for the CDC….

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Biden to announce U.S. will donate $4 billion for COVID-19 vaccines for poor countries

Biden to announce U.S. will donate $4 billion for COVID-19 vaccines for poor countries

ABC News reports: President Joe Biden plans to announce on Friday that the United States will contribute $2 billion to a U.N.-backed program seeking to distribute COVID-19 vaccine doses to people in the poorest countries in the world, according to senior Biden administration officials. Congress had already allocated the money in December for the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide to Gavi, an international vaccine distribution alliance. Congress provided a total of $4 billion and the officials said that…

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Texas officials didn’t heed warnings before winter storm power outages

Texas officials didn’t heed warnings before winter storm power outages

The Texas Tribune reports: Millions of Texans have gone days without power or heat in subfreezing temperatures brought on by snow and ice storms. Limited regulations on companies that generate power and a history of isolating Texas from federal oversight help explain the crisis, energy and policy experts told The Texas Tribune. While Texas Republicans were quick to pounce on renewable energy and to blame frozen wind turbines, the natural gas, nuclear and coal plants that provide most of the…

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The Supreme Court is still sitting on Trump’s tax returns, and justices aren’t saying why

The Supreme Court is still sitting on Trump’s tax returns, and justices aren’t saying why

CNN reports: Lawsuits involving Donald Trump tore apart the Supreme Court while he was president, and the justices apparently remain riven by him. For nearly four months, the court has refused to act on emergency filings related to a Manhattan grand jury’s subpoena of Trump tax returns, effectively thwarting part of the investigation. The Supreme Court’s inaction marks an extraordinary departure from its usual practice of timely responses when the justices are asked to block a lower court decision on…

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The Christian prophets who say Trump is coming again

The Christian prophets who say Trump is coming again

Julia Duin writes: Perched on a cream-colored armchair, Johnny Enlow, a 61-year-old, California-based Pentecostal pastor with short-cropped gray hair, a trim beard and Tom Selleck-style mustache, looked into the camera and prophesied that Donald Trump would become president again. Not in 2024. In 2021. “The January 20 inauguration date doesn’t really mean anything,” Enlow said in the January 29 video, which has gotten north of 100,000 views on YouTube. According to Enlow, more than 100 other “credible” Christian prophets around…

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