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Federal judge rules DOJ can ‘no longer’ be trusted in voter roll crusade

Federal judge rules DOJ can ‘no longer’ be trusted in voter roll crusade

Democracy Docket reports: A federal judge in Oregon issued a sweeping rebuke of the Justice Department’s nationwide push to seize state voter rolls, ruling that the department can no longer be presumed to be acting in good faith and warning that its conduct threatens voters and states’ rights. And the judge cited a recent letter sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi linking the voter roll crusade to the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota as one reason…

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Federal judge will let Marimar Martinez release text messages sent by Border Patrol agent who shot her

Federal judge will let Marimar Martinez release text messages sent by Border Patrol agent who shot her

Chicago Sun-Times reports: Federal prosecutors say the public release of text messages sent by the Border Patrol agent who shot Chicago’s Marimar Martinez last fall could only serve one purpose: to “sully” his reputation. But the Trump administration has shown “zero concern about the sullying of Ms. Martinez’s reputation,” a federal judge pointed out Friday. That’s partly why U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis said Martinez will be allowed to share the text messages with the public — as long as…

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ICE and CBP’s face-recognition app can’t actually verify who people are

ICE and CBP’s face-recognition app can’t actually verify who people are

Wired reports: The face-recognition app Mobile Fortify, now used by United States immigration agents in towns and cities across the US, is not designed to reliably identify people in the streets and was deployed without the scrutiny that has historically governed the rollout of technologies that impact people’s privacy, according to records reviewed by WIRED. The Department of Homeland Security launched Mobile Fortify in the spring of 2025 to “determine or verify” the identities of individuals stopped or detained by…

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GOP’s new fear: Losing the Senate in November

GOP’s new fear: Losing the Senate in November

Axios reports: Top Republicans are increasingly worried about private polling that paints a dire picture of the midterms — and it’s not just the House they’re afraid of losing, it’s also the Senate. Why it matters: President Trump has warned Republicans that losing their slim House majority could lead to a third impeachment. But a Democratic takeover of the Senate would be a political earthquake — and neuter his last two years in office. Zoom in: For the first time, GOP strategists are telling Axios that…

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Freedom, equality and democracy depend on our work. Journalists must not lie.

Freedom, equality and democracy depend on our work. Journalists must not lie.

Carlos Hernández de Miguel, a Spanish journalist and writer, died on 3 February. He didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye and sharing a few final thoughts: I decided to become a journalist because I truly believed that by reporting rigorously and honestly, we could improve this world. I still believe it now. I know that in my professional career I have made mistakes, I have put up with things (I hope only a few) that I should have rejected,…

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George Orwell called for a new way of thinking about science

George Orwell called for a new way of thinking about science

By Robert Colls, De Montfort University In October 1945, George Orwell responded to a letter from Mr J. Stewart Cook in the leftwing weekly newspaper Tribune calling for more science education. The call can hardly have come as a surprise. War had brought science and engineering to the fore – from the Spitfire fighter plane and radar to Bletchley Park’s codebreakers – and now that war was over, many thought it was time to build a brave new world. Science…

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U.S. secretly deporting Palestinians to West Bank in coordination with Israel

U.S. secretly deporting Palestinians to West Bank in coordination with Israel

+972 Magazine reports: The United States is quietly deporting Palestinians arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the occupied West Bank by private jet, with two such flights taking place in coordination with the Israeli authorities since the beginning of this year — part of a secretive and politically sensitive operation revealed through a joint investigation by +972 Magazine and The Guardian. Eight Palestinian men — shackled for the entire journey by their wrists and ankles — were flown…

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How the Epstein scandal has shaken the British government to its core

How the Epstein scandal has shaken the British government to its core

The Guardian reports: It was the one scandal that Donald Trump seemed unable to shake. No matter his best efforts to convince his supporter base that there was nothing to see here, the demands for the administration to release every document it had on the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein only grew. Yet even after the most shocking revelations in the latest drop about Trump’s inner circle – involving everyone from Elon Musk to the Maga honcho Steve Bannon to…

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‘You’re not going to investigate a federal officer’

‘You’re not going to investigate a federal officer’

By Andy Mannix, Melissa Sanchez and Nicole Foy This story was originally published by ProPublica Minutes after a federal agent shot and killed a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb last September, a group of police officers stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out the answer to a question of protocol: Who would investigate the shooting? “Wouldn’t it be state’s, at a minimum?” one Franklin Park officer asked, according to body camera footage. Chief Mike Witz shook his head….

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University of Illinois Republicans club adopt slogan used by white supremacists

University of Illinois Republicans club adopt slogan used by white supremacists

Chicago Tribune reports: The Illini Republicans club at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is facing backlash after posting an illustration on social media of a masked gunman holding a weapon to a kneeling man’s head — alongside the caption, “Only traitors help invaders.” The Instagram post, published Friday, also says Alex Pretti and Renée Good — who were both fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month — had “voided their liberties the moment they decided they were…

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Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics

Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics

The Guardian reports: Dozens of messages contained in the latest tranche of Epstein files lay bare the attempts by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon to tap Jeffrey Epstein for support and funding to bolster European far-right parties. The messages mostly date to 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being sacked by Trump, regularly visited Europe in his quest to forge a movement in the European parliament uniting ultra-rightwing and Eurosceptic forces from several countries including Italy, Germany, France,…

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Why the West needs migrants

Why the West needs migrants

Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, writes: Imagine you’re the leader of a nation, and you face a dilemma. Half a million or so people who are crucial to everyone’s daily lives inhabit your country. They care for aging parents, work at small and large companies, harvest the food that’s on the table. They are also part of your community. On weekends, they walk in the parks, go to restaurants and play on the local amateur soccer team. But…

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Neuroscientists reveal how jazz improvisation shifts brain activity

Neuroscientists reveal how jazz improvisation shifts brain activity

PsyPost reports: Recent findings in neuroscience provide new evidence that musical creativity is not a static trait but a dynamic process involving the rapid reconfiguration of brain networks. By monitoring the brain activity of skilled jazz pianists, an international research team discovered that high levels of improvisational freedom rely less on introspection and more on sensory and motor engagement. The study suggests that the brain shifts its processing strategy depending on how much creative liberty a musician exerts. These findings…

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Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon

Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon

The Washington Post reports: He had decided that the America he believed in would not make it if people like him didn’t speak up, so on a cool, rainy morning in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Jon, 67 and recently retired, marched up to his study and began to type. He had just read about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s case against an Afghan it was trying to deport. The immigrant, identified in The Washington Post’s Oct. 30 investigation as…

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