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Plastics pollution has become a ‘crisis,’ Biden administration acknowledges

Plastics pollution has become a ‘crisis,’ Biden administration acknowledges

Inside Climate News reports: Single-use plastic would be phased out of all U.S. government operations by 2035 under a new federal plastics pollution strategy unveiled Friday by President Joe Biden’s administration, which cited a “crisis” of littered oceans and poisoned air due to plastics. “The Federal government is—for the first time—formally acknowledging the severity of the plastic pollution crisis and the scale of the response that will be required to effectively confront it,” said Brenda Mallory and Ali Zaidi, the…

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Israel’s settlement policies break international law, International Court of Justice finds

Israel’s settlement policies break international law, International Court of Justice finds

The Guardian reports: The top United Nations court has ruled that Israel’s settlement policies and use of natural resources in the occupied Palestinian territories violate international law. The international court of justice said “the transfer by Israel of settlers to the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as Israel’s maintenance of their presence, is contrary to article 49 of the fourth geneva convention”. The panel of 15 judges from around the world also said the use of natural resources was…

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UK to resume funding to UN Palestine relief agency UNRWA

UK to resume funding to UN Palestine relief agency UNRWA

The Guardian reports: Britain will restore funding to the UN’s Palestine relief agency Unrwa, the foreign secretary has announced, in Labour’s first major departure from the previous government’s stance towards the Middle East crisis. David Lammy told MPs on Friday he had decided to unfreeze funding, which was suspended in January after Israel alleged that Unrwa staff were involved in the 7 October attack by Hamas. Catherine Colonna, a former French foreign minister, carried out a review of the allegations…

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For 18 years she worked in the U.S. government. Then came the war on Gaza

For 18 years she worked in the U.S. government. Then came the war on Gaza

  For 18 years, Hala Rharrit worked in the US State Department, most recently becoming its Arabic-language spokesperson. But the Biden administration’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza forced her to resign in April, becoming the first US diplomat to quit in protest over the US’s Gaza policy. In this wide-ranging Real Talk interview, Rharrit reveals what went on behind the scenes, how her Gaza reports were received by US officials, and why she ultimately decided to resign.

Biden campaign is finally realizing: ‘It’s a when, not if’

Biden campaign is finally realizing: ‘It’s a when, not if’

NBC News reports: In the hours after the assassination attempt on Trump last weekend, some Democrats said — even feared — that the calls for Biden to step aside would be “frozen” as the president dealt with a national crisis. But that faded quickly. Some allies now say that the shooting, which has caused an even more intense rallying around Trump within his party, only makes it more glaringly obvious that the nagging narrative of whether Biden is on a…

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Sharpton says he told Biden that staying in race could imperil his legacy

Sharpton says he told Biden that staying in race could imperil his legacy

The New York Times reports: The Rev. Al Sharpton said Thursday that he had told President Biden it was time for “a serious calculation” of his standing in the presidential campaign and that remaining in the race could imperil much of Mr. Biden’s legacy as president. “I said that whatever he does, I’ll always respect what we’ve done together,” Mr. Sharpton said in a phone interview. “I was not one to push him out of the race, but he needs…

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Retaliation: Biden campaign tries to punish dissent

Retaliation: Biden campaign tries to punish dissent

Politico reports: Democrats in Michigan cut off a vulnerable House Democrat from a major part of campaign operations after she called last week for President Joe Biden to step down from the ticket. Officials reversed that decision Thursday, after facing questions from POLITICO. Rep. Hillary Scholten, a first-term Democrat who flipped a traditionally Republican seat in 2022, was booted last week from a coordinated effort between the Biden campaign and the state party to elect candidates up and down the…

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Why tech titans are turning toward Trump

Why tech titans are turning toward Trump

Vox reports: Former President Donald Trump used to be persona non grata in Silicon Valley. Nearly all of the dollars spent by Silicon Valley elites in 2016 went to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. In 2020, those elites spent even more to defeat Trump. The few who supported Trump that year — such as venture capitalist Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Paypal and Palantir — did so knowing they were standing on a third rail, and many did not speak openly about it for fear…

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The United States of Suppression

The United States of Suppression

Teen Vogue reports: The backlash to progress is often swift. The response to the 2020 protests for Black lives and against police brutality — what may have been the biggest mobilization in US recorded history — was stunning. A bright spark of resistance and the expression of long-held frustration was met with suffocating state repression: arrests, beatings, prosecutions, and calls for more police funding from the highest levels of government. With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, authoritarianism in the…

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Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw. He’s ‘arrogant, narcissistic,’ says Michael Moore

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw. He’s ‘arrogant, narcissistic,’ says Michael Moore

The Associated Press reports: Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a new poll, sharply undercutting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” are turning on him. The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that…

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Schiff calls on Biden to drop out, citing ‘serious concerns’ he can’t win

Schiff calls on Biden to drop out, citing ‘serious concerns’ he can’t win

The Los Angeles Times reports: Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who is running for U.S. Senate in California, is calling for President Biden to drop out of the presidential race, he said in an exclusive statement Wednesday to The Times. Schiff, who is heavily favored to win his Senate race, cited “serious concerns” that Biden can beat former President Trump in November. He is the latest Democrat to call for the incumbent president of their own party to end his…

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Pelosi privately works to address Biden crisis after having herself made way for generational change

Pelosi privately works to address Biden crisis after having herself made way for generational change

Politico reports: One House Democrat anxious about President Joe Biden’s effect on the 2024 campaign recently sought out guidance from a trusted party leader: Nancy Pelosi. This lawmaker, who represents a swing seat and was granted anonymity to describe private conversations, said Pelosi asked detailed questions about congressional district-level polling and was “very receptive” to concerns that Biden couldn’t win in November. The member ended the phone call with the distinct impression that Pelosi believed Biden should exit the presidential…

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House Democrats left ‘aghast’ by Biden’s by ‘defensive,’ ‘incoherent,’ and ‘unintelligible’ exchange with Rep. Crow

House Democrats left ‘aghast’ by Biden’s by ‘defensive,’ ‘incoherent,’ and ‘unintelligible’ exchange with Rep. Crow

ABC News reported on a Zoom call Biden held with House Democrats on Saturday: [Colorado Democrat Rep. Jason] Crow questioned Biden’s mental fitness and if his age is a “national security risk.” The president was “defensive” in his responses, sources say. A member described to ABC News the exchange was “hard to watch” and detailed how Crow referenced voters’ concerns about Biden being “at the helm when they go to sleep at night.” The conversation became personal when Biden mentioned…

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In private speech, J.D. Vance said the ‘devil is real’ and praised Alex Jones as a truth-teller

In private speech, J.D. Vance said the ‘devil is real’ and praised Alex Jones as a truth-teller

By Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey, Documented This story was originally published by ProPublica. Sen. J.D. Vance, whom Donald Trump named as his vice presidential running mate Monday, told a group of influential young conservatives in a closed-door speech in 2021 that they should stand up for “nonconventional people” who speak truth, such as Infowars founder Alex Jones. “If you listen to Rachel Maddow every night, the basic worldview that you have is that MAGA grandmas who have family…

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Why planetary problems need a new approach to politics

Why planetary problems need a new approach to politics

Jonathan S Blake and Nils Gilman write: ‘Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world,’ Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared to the World Health Assembly on 29 November 2021, quoting Albert Camus’s The Plague. ‘Outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics are a fact of nature,’ Tedros, the director-general of the World Health Organization since 2017, continued in his own words. ‘But that does not mean we are helpless to prevent them, prepare for them or mitigate their impact.’ Exuding…

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Deceive, defy, and defer: Netanyahu’s time-tested strategy to outmaneuver Biden

Deceive, defy, and defer: Netanyahu’s time-tested strategy to outmaneuver Biden

Lev Grinberg writes: Watching President Joe Biden clumsily debate Donald Trump on June 27, many Israelis could instantly recognize how their own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been able to exploit the weaknesses of the aging commander-in-chief for so long. Netanyahu has had a close relationship with his “friend Joe” for decades, going back to Biden’s days in the U.S. Senate and especially during the early years of the Barack Obama administration. According to Biden’s biographer Evan Osnos, the then-vice…

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