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Category: Politics

The Democrats’ stubborn refusal to learn from the campus protests for Palestine

The Democrats’ stubborn refusal to learn from the campus protests for Palestine

Ahmed Moor writes: In mid-November, I attended a public meeting organized by Reclaim Philadelphia, a progressive group founded in the aftermath of the first Trump presidency. The event served as an election post-mortem, but also as a place to begin to chart a way forward — to consider what the next four years may bring. Speakers, including members of the local Philadelphia community and Reclaim’s leadership, described the ways in which the Democratic party leadership had failed them: plenty of…

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Giant companies took secret payments to allow free flow of opioids

Giant companies took secret payments to allow free flow of opioids

The New York Times reports: In 2017, the drug industry middleman Express Scripts announced that it was taking decisive steps to curb abuse of the prescription painkillers that had fueled America’s overdose crisis. The company said it was “putting the brakes on the opioid epidemic” by making it harder to get potentially dangerous amounts of the drugs. The announcement, which came after pressure from federal health regulators, was followed by similar declarations from the other two companies that control access…

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How the renewable energy boom is remaking the American West

How the renewable energy boom is remaking the American West

Inside Climate News reports: Local conservationist Patrick Donnelly drove east along the Loneliest Road in America, a ribbon of pavement in north central Nevada that deserves its name. Before him, sprawling in every direction, was a green-gray sagebrush basin so large you could probably plop Las Vegas in it and still have room to spare. Save for a stiff wind and the occasional cow bleat, a heavy silence sat on the valley. Not much moved aside from skittish grouse and…

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Amazon disregarded internal warnings on injuries, Senate investigation claims

Amazon disregarded internal warnings on injuries, Senate investigation claims

The New York Times reports: For years, worker advocates and some government officials have argued that Amazon’s strict production quotas lead to high rates of injury for its warehouse employees. And for years, Amazon has rejected the criticism, arguing that it doesn’t use strict quotas, and that its injury rates are falling close to or below the industry average. On Sunday, the majority staff of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which is chaired by Senator Bernie…

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Hegseth’s guard left the Army after the beating of a civilian during training

Hegseth’s guard left the Army after the beating of a civilian during training

The New York Times reports: When Pete Hegseth visited senators on Capitol Hill this month in an effort to show that he has the qualifications and judgment to lead the Defense Department, he was escorted by a security guard with a dark episode in his past. The guard, a former Army Special Forces master sergeant named John Jacob Hasenbein, left the military after a 2019 training event in which witnesses said he beat a civilian role player — kicking him,…

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Questions ABC News should answer following the $16 million Trump settlement

Questions ABC News should answer following the $16 million Trump settlement

Richard J. Tofel writes: As someone who practiced press law for more than twenty years, and served as a senior executive of news organizations for just as long, I was shocked by the decision of ABC News last week to pay $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s libel case over George Stephanopoulos’s This Week broadcast in March. The shock came, and still lingers, because I—and every experienced press lawyer not involved in the case with whom I have discussed it—considered…

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True scale of Assad’s slaughter revealed at Syrian mass grave

True scale of Assad’s slaughter revealed at Syrian mass grave

  His prisons held hundreds of thousands of people: relentlessly tortured and abused, many of them did not survive. But since Bashar Al-Assad fell from power – the full horror of the regime’s crimes is being revealed. Syria was largely cut off to journalists during his 24 years in power. But now the daunting task of documenting Assad’s atrocities can begin: starting with the country’s mass graves. Including one where around 150 thousand people may have been buried.

Inside the Russian airbase in Syria where troops form fragile truce with rebels it once bombed

Inside the Russian airbase in Syria where troops form fragile truce with rebels it once bombed

The Guardian reports: Standing at the gates of the Khmeimim airbase, a fighter from the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) eyed a pink vape being puffed on by a Russian soldier. Catching his gaze, the soldier offered it to him. The bearded fighter took a drag and shrugged, giving a thumbs up to the Russian soldier, who let him keep it. Just over a week ago, Russian jets taking off from Khmeimim airbase were heading to northern Syria…

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Fears that Israel is engaging in an open-ended new occupation of Syrian territory

Fears that Israel is engaging in an open-ended new occupation of Syrian territory

The Guardian reports: Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel. The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon in positions they occupied last week. Katz’s office said in a…

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Congress keeps trying to hide the true Gaza death toll

Congress keeps trying to hide the true Gaza death toll

The Intercept reports: Tucked into a $895 billion Pentagon bill making its way through Congress is a little-noticed provision to further conceal the death toll in Gaza — the latest effort by U.S. policymakers to cast doubt on casualty figures reported by Palestinian health officials. The House approved this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, on Wednesday and sent it to the Senate for a vote, despite Democratic objections over a GOP proposal to prohibit transgender children on military…

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Israel to close Dublin embassy after Ireland supports ICJ genocide petition

Israel to close Dublin embassy after Ireland supports ICJ genocide petition

The Guardian reports: Israel has announced it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s decision last week to support a petition at the international court of justice accusing Israel of genocide. The move was announced by the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, who said it was prompted by the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israeli policies”, noting its decision to join the ICJ petition last week. The Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris, said on X: “This is a deeply regrettable decision from…

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Elon Musk spent $277 million on the election. His net worth has since increased more than $170 billion

Elon Musk spent $277 million on the election. His net worth has since increased more than $170 billion

The Washington Post reports: Elon Musk’s net worth has climbed by more than $200 billion in 2024, a massive increase in the same year that the world’s richest person spent at least $277 million backing Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. The bulk of the increase, more than $170 billion, has come since Election Day. Trump’s election sent stock in electric automaker Tesla, a company central to Musk’s wealth and where he is CEO, soaring. Shares were trading at prices…

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A new risk for employers: Losing millions of migrants with temporary work permits

A new risk for employers: Losing millions of migrants with temporary work permits

The Wall Street Journal reports: Nate Koetje, chief executive of an electrical contractor based in Grand Rapids, Mich., would like to hire as many as 200 workers next year. Despite a somewhat cooling labor market, he said he would be lucky to find 150. So if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his pledge to eliminate programs that provide temporary work permits to immigrants with no permanent legal status, Koetje’s growing company would face even more staffing challenges. The company,…

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Turkey exploits post-9/11 counterterrorism model to target critics in exile

Turkey exploits post-9/11 counterterrorism model to target critics in exile

The Washington Post reports: As abduction teams fanned out across neighborhoods in Nairobi in October, their targets — members of a Turkish religious movement — seemed to have few worries beyond the hassles of a hectic weekday. One was returning from a visa appointment with his family; a second was at the motor vehicle office for a driving test; still others were trying to beat traffic during the early Friday commute. By morning’s end, seven Turkish nationals had been abducted…

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The U.S. military is now talking openly about offensive space warfare

The U.S. military is now talking openly about offensive space warfare

Ars Technica reports: Earlier this year, officials at US Space Command released a list of priorities and needs, and among the routine recitation of things like cyber defense, communications, and surveillance was a relatively new term: “integrated space fires.” This is a new phrase in the esoteric terminology the military uses to describe its activities. Essentially, “fires” are offensive or defensive actions against an adversary. The Army defines fires as “the use of weapon systems to create specific lethal and…

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Why Israel captured Syria’s tallest mountain just hours after Assad fell

Why Israel captured Syria’s tallest mountain just hours after Assad fell

CNN reports: Mount Hermon’s summit is a tremendous asset under Israel’s control. At 9,232 feet (2,814 meters), it is higher than any point in Syria or Israel, and second to only one peak in Lebanon. “People sometimes say in the age of missiles, land is not important – it’s simply untrue,” Inbar said. In an academic paper published in 2011, he wrote of the many advantages presented by Mount Hermon. “It enables the use of electronic surveillance deep into Syrian…

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