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U.S. determines China’s repression of Uighurs is ‘genocide’

U.S. determines China’s repression of Uighurs is ‘genocide’

The New York Times reports: The State Department declared on Tuesday that the Chinese government is committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its wide-scale repression of Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in its northwestern region of Xinjiang, including in its use of internment camps and forced sterilization. The move is expected to be the Trump administration’s final action on China, made on its last full day, and is the culmination of a yearslong debate over how to…

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Federal court strikes down major Trump climate rollback

Federal court strikes down major Trump climate rollback

The Associated Press reports: In a last-minute slap at President Donald Trump, a federal appeals court struck down one of his administration’s most momentous climate rollbacks on Tuesday, saying officials acted illegally in issuing a new rule that eased federal regulation of air pollution from power plants. The Trump administration rule was based on a “mistaken reading of the Clean Air Act,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled, adding that the Environmental Protection Agency “fundamentally…

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Fox News launches ‘purge’ to ‘get rid of real journalists,’ insiders say

Fox News launches ‘purge’ to ‘get rid of real journalists,’ insiders say

The Daily Beast reports: Fox News on Tuesday fired the political editor who was tasked with defending the network’s election night decisions that especially angered President Donald Trump and his allies. Politics editor Chris Stirewalt’s exit from the network coincided with the sacking of at least 16 digital editorial staffers, including senior editors. People familiar with the situation said the layoffs—a “blood bath,” as multiple Fox News insiders described it—were perpetrated by Porter Berry, the Sean Hannity crony now in…

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U.S. life expectancy drops dramatically due to Covid-19

U.S. life expectancy drops dramatically due to Covid-19

Live Science reports: U.S. life expectancy just dropped by more than a year — the largest decline in decades — as a result of the sheer number of deaths from COVID-19, according to estimates from a new study. The study researchers project that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the average U.S. life expectancy in 2020 will drop by 1.13 years, bringing it to 77.48 years, according to the study, published Thursday (Jan. 14) in the journal Proceedings of the National…

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We mock the Capitol rioters as ignorant buffoons at our peril

We mock the Capitol rioters as ignorant buffoons at our peril

Jack Shafer writes: The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan wasted no time in her piece about the blitzkrieging of the Capitol on Jan. 6 to present her class-based critique of the mob. In her first sentence, Flanagan introduced the insurrectionists as “a coalition of the willing: deadbeat dads, YouPorn enthusiasts, slow students, and MMA fans” and went on to claim that they had “pulled into the swamp with bellies full of beer and Sausage McMuffins, maybe a little high on Adderall, ready…

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Biden needs to hit the ground running on climate

Biden needs to hit the ground running on climate

Michael E. Mann writes: First, Americans, let’s congratulate ourselves for having used the power of our vote to create an opportunity for meaningful progress on climate going forward. Joe Biden’s victory in the recent presidential race ushers in a new era of domestic progress and global cooperation. It allows us to begin to repair some of the damage that was done by Donald Trump’s presidency during the past four years—damage inflicted both to our own efforts to address the climate…

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Biden should break the dangerous pattern of nuclear competition with Russia

Biden should break the dangerous pattern of nuclear competition with Russia

Jerry Brown, William J. Perry, and David Holloway write: Dear Mr. President-elect, After the most bizarre presidency in US history, you are now about to take charge and begin restoring a sense of normalcy to our troubled nation. But these are anything but normal times, and your task will be enormous. The pandemic, the brazen attempts to overturn the presidential election, and now the assault on the Capitol itself make this a period of profound uncertainty. The challenges are both…

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New wave of violence and a growing uncertainty about Afghanistan’s future leaves Kabul gripped in fear

New wave of violence and a growing uncertainty about Afghanistan’s future leaves Kabul gripped in fear

The New York Times reports: In Kabul’s uncertain present, fear and dread intertwine in a vise. Fear has become a way of life. “When you’re in the car you feel fear, when you are walking you feel fear, and when you are in the shop you feel fear,” said Shamsullah Amini, a 22-year-old shopkeeper, while watching over his vats of dried grains and beans in the Taimani neighborhood. “If there was any security at all, we wouldn’t all be thinking…

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Why did Fox News keep its Seth Rich family settlement secret until after the election?

Why did Fox News keep its Seth Rich family settlement secret until after the election?

Ben Smith writes: On Oct. 12, 2020, Fox News agreed to pay millions of dollars to the family of a murdered Democratic National Committee staff member, implicitly acknowledging what saner minds knew long ago: that the network had repeatedly hyped a false claim that the young staff member, Seth Rich, was involved in leaking D.N.C. emails during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Russian intelligence officers, in fact, had hacked and leaked the emails.) Fox’s decision to settle with the Rich family…

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Attorney Roberta Kaplan is about to make Trump’s life extremely difficult

Attorney Roberta Kaplan is about to make Trump’s life extremely difficult

The Washington Post reports: On the other side of Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency, the lawyers are waiting. Leaving aside his Senate impeachment trial, mounting government investigations include a civil probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., and a federal probe by acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Michael Sherwin that may include Trump’s role in the catastrophic storming of the U.S. Capitol this month. But already pending for the soon-to-be…

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QAnon is destroying the GOP from within

QAnon is destroying the GOP from within

Sen. Ben Sasse writes: Eugene Goodman is an American hero. At a pivotal moment on January 6, the veteran United States Capitol Police officer single-handedly prevented untold bloodshed. Staring down an angry, advancing mob, he retreated up a marble staircase, calmly wielding his baton to delay his pursuers while calling out their position to his fellow officers. At the top of the steps, still alone and standing just a few yards from the chamber where senators and Vice President Mike…

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Prospect of pardons in final days fuels market to buy access to Trump

Prospect of pardons in final days fuels market to buy access to Trump

The New York Times reports: As President Trump prepares to leave office in days, a lucrative market for pardons is coming to a head, with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the White House for clemency, according to documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers. The brisk market for pardons reflects the access peddling that has defined Mr. Trump’s presidency as well as his unorthodox approach to exercising…

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Proud Boys, seizing Trump’s call to Washington, helped lead Capitol attack

Proud Boys, seizing Trump’s call to Washington, helped lead Capitol attack

The Wall Street Journal reports: On Jan. 3, three days before the attack on the Capitol, Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right organization known as the Proud Boys, shared a cryptic post on the messaging app Telegram: “What if we invade it?” The message was sent to his more than 7,000 followers on the app, with the first reply reading “January 6th is D day in America.” The Wall Street Journal reviewed thousands of posts from the Proud Boys…

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U.S. pundits keep comparing Washington to a war zone. People who know war disagree

U.S. pundits keep comparing Washington to a war zone. People who know war disagree

The Washington Post reports: A massive security operation is underway in Washington ahead of President-elect Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, two weeks after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. As images of National Guard troops circulate online, some in the United States have compared the capital to a war zone. The commentary has drawn pushback from people who have lived or worked in areas actually beset by conflict, who say such remarks are misleading and trivializes the reality of war. “It’s…

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Social-media algorithms rule how we see the world. Good luck trying to stop them

Social-media algorithms rule how we see the world. Good luck trying to stop them

Joanna Stern writes: It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when we lost control of what we see, read—and even think—to the biggest social-media companies. I put it right around 2016. That was the year Twitter and Instagram joined Facebook and YouTube in the algorithmic future. Ruled by robots programmed to keep our attention as long as possible, they promoted stuff we’d most likely tap, share or heart—and buried everything else. Bye-bye, feeds that showed everything and everyone we followed in an…

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