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Category: Politics

One billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, but mostly in wealthy countries

One billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, but mostly in wealthy countries

Forbes reports: The Associated Press reported last week that 87% of doses had been administered in rich countries, with 1 in 4 people in wealthy nations having received a jab, versus 1 in more than 500 in impoverished countries. According to the New York Times‘ vaccination tracker, only 0.2% of doses have been dispensed in low-income countries. Up to 60 of those nations might not receive any additional supply of the vaccine until June. Conversely, the supply of available shots…

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As Covid-19 devastates India, deaths go undercounted

As Covid-19 devastates India, deaths go undercounted

The New York Times reports: India’s coronavirus second wave is rapidly sliding into a devastating crisis, with hospitals unbearably full, oxygen supplies running low, desperate people dying in line waiting to see doctors — and mounting evidence that the actual death toll is far higher than officially reported. Each day, the government reports more than 300,000 new infections, a world record, and India is now seeing more new infections than any other country by far, almost half of all new…

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Hollywood’s anti-Black bias costs it $10 billion a year

Hollywood’s anti-Black bias costs it $10 billion a year

Franklin Leonard writes: Days after a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, suffocated George Floyd and the video went viral, I watched my social media feed fill with blackout tiles and corporate publicity statements. They poured in from every industry, proclaiming solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Hollywood — where I have worked for almost two decades — was no exception. Far from offering relief, each new assertion by a talent agency, film studio, television network or streaming service that…

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Why Biden’s Armenian genocide declaration really is a big deal

Why Biden’s Armenian genocide declaration really is a big deal

Charles Mahtesian writes: President Joe Biden on Saturday issued the document Armenian Americans have pursued for decades: a declaration that the Ottoman Empire’s slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian civilians was genocide. It’s a deceptively simple action, carrying no force of law. Yet it’s a bold move for Biden, who has gone beyond what any American president has ever been willing to do. Until now, presidents have declined to formally apply the term “genocide” for fear of sparking a…

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If the apocalypse had an image, it would be of India’s hospitals overwhelmed by the pandemic

If the apocalypse had an image, it would be of India’s hospitals overwhelmed by the pandemic

Rana Ayyub writes: Increasingly, people are dying in plain sight. On Friday, Delhi’s leading Gangaram Hospital issued an SOS that it only had enough oxygen left for two hours and that 25 patients had already lost their lives in the hospital due to oxygen shortages. Videos show people stealing oxygen cylinders for their relatives. One devastating video from the BBC shows a woman trying to help her dying brother regain consciousness. “Bajali, why don’t you wake up?” she cries. As…

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White House dances around a big contributor to climate change: Agriculture

White House dances around a big contributor to climate change: Agriculture

Politico reports: President Joe Biden needs the help of the powerful farm industry to reach his sky-high climate goals. But his plans for cutting agricultural emissions might not have enough teeth to take a big bite out of global warming. Biden on Thursday pledged a drastic reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. But the White House hasn’t set any specific targets yet for agriculture, which accounts for 10 percent of all U.S. emissions, according to the EPA. Those…

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The Trump administration is over, but the Trump crisis is not

The Trump administration is over, but the Trump crisis is not

Susan B. Glasser writes: When Walter Mondale, the former Vice-President, died on Monday, C-span circulated a video clip of him on the rostrum of the House of Representatives, from January 6, 1981. It is a remarkable visual snippet of a lost Washington. Mondale and President Jimmy Carter had just been defeated in a landslide by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, receiving only forty-nine Electoral College votes to the Republicans’ four hundred and eighty-nine. The video shows Mondale dutifully…

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Trumpians are having a venomous panic attack

Trumpians are having a venomous panic attack

David Brooks writes: Those of us who had hoped America would calm down when we no longer had Donald Trump spewing poison from the Oval Office have been sadly disabused. There are increasing signs that the Trumpian base is radicalizing. My Republican friends report vicious divisions in their churches and families. Republican politicians who don’t toe the Trump line are speaking of death threats and menacing verbal attacks. It’s as if the Trump base felt some security when their man…

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U.K. right-wing extremists, lifted by Trump, now turn to Russia

U.K. right-wing extremists, lifted by Trump, now turn to Russia

The New York Times reports: Two days after supporters of former President Donald J. Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, but failed to reverse his election defeat, a defiant shout sounded from across the ocean. Tommy Robinson, Britain’s loudest amplifier of anti-Islam, far-right anger, insisted the fight was not over. “You need to pick yourselves back up,” Mr. Robinson said in an online video viewed tens of thousands of times. “As Donald Trump says, it’s only just beginning.” A former soccer…

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The new swing voters: Latinos

The new swing voters: Latinos

Ronald Brownstein writes: The last election’s most unexpected twist is framing one of the most urgent questions confronting both parties today: What explains Donald Trump’s improved performance among Latino voters? The president who began his first national campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists,” drug smugglers, and criminals; who labored to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border; who separated undocumented children from their parents; who sought in court to end the “Dreamers” program; who maneuvered to reduce virtually every form of…

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Liz Cheney vs. MAGA

Liz Cheney vs. MAGA

Robert Draper writes: The regular conference meetings of the Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives, held most weeks behind closed doors in the Capitol Visitor Center, tend to be predictable and thus irregularly attended affairs. The party leaders — the House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, the minority whip Steve Scalise and the conference chairwoman Liz Cheney, whose job it is to run these meetings — typically begin with a few housekeeping matters and then proceed with a discussion of…

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Internal report shows how Facebook failed to prevent the ‘stop the steal’ movement

Internal report shows how Facebook failed to prevent the ‘stop the steal’ movement

BuzzFeed News reports: Last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of a House of Representatives committee that his company had done its part “to secure the integrity of the election.” While the social network did not catch everything, the billionaire chief executive said, Facebook had “made our services inhospitable to those who might do harm” in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Less than a week after his appearance, however, an internal company report reached a far…

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Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, is showing the world what courage means

Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, is showing the world what courage means

Anne Applebaum writes: When Alexei Navalny boarded a plane to Moscow on January 17, he turned his life into a metaphor. He knew it, his wife knew it, and everybody else on the plane knew it. So did the millions of people who had watched his documentary videos, who had seen the witty interviews he did on the plane, who have since joined demonstrations in his name. So did the leaders of Russia, including the country’s dictator and president, Vladimir…

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Putin warns West of harsh response if it crosses Russia’s unspecified ‘red lines’

Putin warns West of harsh response if it crosses Russia’s unspecified ‘red lines’

Reuters reports: President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday not to cross Russia’s “red lines”, saying Moscow would respond swiftly and harshly to any provocations and those responsible would regret it. At a time of acute crisis in ties with the United States and Europe, with Russian troops massed near Ukraine and opposition leader Alexei Navalny on hunger strike in jail, the Kremlin leader used his state of the nation speech to project a message of Russian strength and…

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As extreme weather increases, climate misinformation makes tactical shift

As extreme weather increases, climate misinformation makes tactical shift

The Associated Press reports: Climate scientists have warned for years that a warming planet would cause more extreme storms, like the one that walloped Texas in February, knocking out power and leaving millions in a deep freeze. Yet as the snow fell and the wind howled, some looked for other explanations for the storm and its resulting power outages. The conservative website The Gateway Pundit made the false claim that President Joe Biden’s energy policies somehow prevented Texas plants from…

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GOP bills target protesters — and absolve motorists who run them down

GOP bills target protesters — and absolve motorists who run them down

The New York Times reports: Republican legislators in Oklahoma and Iowa have passed bills granting immunity to drivers whose vehicles strike and injure protesters in public streets. A Republican proposal in Indiana would bar anyone convicted of unlawful assembly from holding state employment, including elected office. A Minnesota bill would prohibit those convicted of unlawful protesting from receiving student loans, unemployment benefits or housing assistance. And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed sweeping legislation this week that toughened existing laws…

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