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Category: Politics

Trump officials celebrated efforts to change CDC reports on coronavirus, emails show

Trump officials celebrated efforts to change CDC reports on coronavirus, emails show

The Washington Post reports: Trump appointees in the Department of Health and Human Services last year privately touted their efforts to block or alter scientists’ reports on the coronavirus to more closely align with then-President Donald Trump’s more optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to newly released documents from congressional investigators. The documents provide further insight into how senior Trump officials approached last year’s explosion of coronavirus cases in the United States. Even as career government scientists worked to combat…

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Vaccine slots go unused in Mississippi and other states

Vaccine slots go unused in Mississippi and other states

The New York Times reports: When it comes to getting the coronavirus vaccine, Mississippi residents have an abundance of options. On Thursday, there were more than 73,000 slots to be had on the state’s scheduling website, up from 68,000 on Tuesday. In some ways, the growing glut of appointments in Mississippi is something to celebrate: It reflects the mounting supplies that have prompted states across the country to open up eligibility to anyone over 16. But public health experts say…

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U.S. intelligence report warns of global consequences of social fragmentation

U.S. intelligence report warns of global consequences of social fragmentation

The New York Times reports: U.S. intelligence officials warned in a report issued on Thursday about the potential fragmentation of society and the global order, holding out the possibility of a world where international trade is disrupted, groups of countries create online enclaves and civic cohesion is undermined. The report, compiled every four years by the National Intelligence Council, mixes more traditional national security challenges like the potentially disruptive rise of China with social trends that have clear security implications,…

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Twelve months of trauma: more than 3,600 U.S. health workers died in Covid’s first year

Twelve months of trauma: more than 3,600 U.S. health workers died in Covid’s first year

The Guardian reports: More than 3,600 US healthcare workers died in the first year of the pandemic according to Lost on the Frontline, a 12-month investigation by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News (KHN) to track such deaths. Lost on the Frontline is the most complete accounting of US healthcare worker deaths. The federal government has not comprehensively tracked this data. But calls are mounting for the Biden administration to undertake a count as the Guardian/KHN project comes to a…

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Howard Dean pushes Biden to oppose generic Covid-19 vaccines for developing countries

Howard Dean pushes Biden to oppose generic Covid-19 vaccines for developing countries

The Intercept reports: Howard Dean, the former progressive champion, is calling on President Joe Biden to reject a special intellectual property waiver that would allow low-cost, generic coronavirus vaccines to be produced to meet the needs of low-income countries. Currently, a small number of companies hold the formulas for the Covid-19 vaccines, limiting distribution to many parts of the world. “IP protections aren’t the cause of vaccination delays,” Dean claimed in a column for Barron’s last month. “Every drug manufacturing…

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After pandemic, shrinking need for office space could crush landlords

After pandemic, shrinking need for office space could crush landlords

The New York Times reports: As office vacancies climb to their highest levels in decades with businesses giving up office space and embracing remote work, the real estate industry in many American cities faces a potentially grave threat. Businesses have discovered during the pandemic that they can function with nearly all of their workers out of the office, an arrangement many intend to continue in some form. That could wallop the big property companies that build and own office buildings…

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Marjorie Taylor Greene’s incredible fundraising haul reveals what the GOP is really about

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s incredible fundraising haul reveals what the GOP is really about

Vox reports: In preparation for what is likely to be a contentious reelection fight, freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has raised more than $3 million in the last three months, Politico reported Wednesday. It’s a shocking total, one that dwarfs the nearly $728,000 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) pulled in during the first three months of 2019, and it follows months of controversy that have dogged Greene since her election victory in November. “I’m just getting started,” Greene tweeted…

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Capitol riot defendant flips to help prosecutors against Proud Boys

Capitol riot defendant flips to help prosecutors against Proud Boys

CNN reports: At least one of the Capitol riot defendants has flipped against the Proud Boys, agreeing to provide information that could allow the Justice Department to bring a more severe charge against the group’s leadership, according to an attorney involved in the case. The development is the first indication that people charged in the insurrection are cooperating against the pro-Trump extremist group. Federal prosecutors have made clear they are focused on building conspiracy cases against leadership of the Proud…

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Sen. McConnell backs off warning to corporate America and still welcomes its money

Sen. McConnell backs off warning to corporate America and still welcomes its money

The Wall Street Journal reports: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday backed off his warning that businesses should stay away from politics but reiterated his frustration with some prominent companies’ criticism of Republican-led efforts to pass new election laws. Mr. McConnell had issued a statement on Monday threatening “serious consequences” for corporations that retaliate against GOP bills in Georgia and elsewhere, saying companies were capitulating to pressure from Democratic activists. The Kentucky Republican didn’t name any companies, or specify…

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Fears of white people losing out permeate Capitol rioters’ towns, study finds

Fears of white people losing out permeate Capitol rioters’ towns, study finds

The New York Times reports: When the political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the 380 or so people arrested in connection with the attack against the Capitol on Jan. 6, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession. But instead he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault came from places, his polling and demographic data showed,…

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‘We are doomed’: Devastation from storms fuels migration in Honduras

‘We are doomed’: Devastation from storms fuels migration in Honduras

The New York Times reports: Children pry at the dirt with sticks, trying to dig out parts of homes that have sunk below ground. Their parents, unable to feed them, scavenge the rubble for remnants of roofs to sell for scrap metal. They live on top of the mud that swallowed fridges, stoves, beds — their entire lives buried beneath them. “We are doomed here,” said Magdalena Flores, a mother of seven, standing on a mattress that peeked out from…

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The racism woven into America’s immigration policies

The racism woven into America’s immigration policies

Caitlin Dickerson writes: When David Dorado Romo was a boy growing up in El Paso, Texas, his great-aunt Adela told him about the day the U.S. Border Patrol melted her favorite shoes. Romo’s aunt was Mexican and had a visa that allowed her to commute into South Texas for her job as a maid. Every week she had to report to a Border Patrol station, in accordance with a program that ran from 1917 into the 1930s requiring most Mexican…

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Yes, the Georgia election law is that bad

Yes, the Georgia election law is that bad

Zack Beauchamp writes: Georgia’s new election law SB 202, which many experts decried as an attack on the fundamental fairness of the state’s elections, was compared to Jim Crow by many leading Democrats. Now some observers are pushing back, arguing the bill falls well short of a democratic apocalyptic. In the New York Times, Nate Cohn concluded that “the law’s voting provisions are unlikely to significantly affect turnout or Democratic chances.” Slate’s Will Saletan notes that some provisions really are…

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The forgotten history of the western Klan

The forgotten history of the western Klan

Kevin Waite writes: The Ku Klux Klan was on the rise in the spring of 1869. Vigilantes could measure their success that season by the carnage they left behind: marauded homesteads, assaulted politicians, a church burned to the ground. According to a local report, insurance companies considered canceling their policies, “owing to the Ku Klux threats.” A school serving students of color was supposedly next on the Klan’s hit list. Such havoc could describe almost any southern state in the…

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Trump and his allies abandon Gaetz

Trump and his allies abandon Gaetz

Politico reports: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) built a public profile as an unapologetic, unambiguous, omnipresent booster of President Donald Trump. But as his own political career skids toward disaster amid allegations that he had sex with a minor and paid for sex with women of legal age, neither Trump nor anyone in the ex-president’s orbit is rushing to Gaetz’s defense. A group that often instinctively decries any such charge as part of some nefarious, coordinated witch hunt from deep-state operators…

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Biden effort to combat hunger marks ‘a profound change’

Biden effort to combat hunger marks ‘a profound change’

The New York Times reports: With more than one in 10 households reporting that they lack enough to eat, the Biden administration is accelerating a vast campaign of hunger relief that will temporarily increase assistance by tens of billions of dollars and set the stage for what officials envision as lasting expansions of aid. The effort to rush more food assistance to more people is notable both for the scale of its ambition and the variety of its legislative and…

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