Elite CIA unit that developed hacking tools failed to secure its own systems, allowing massive leak

Elite CIA unit that developed hacking tools failed to secure its own systems, allowing massive leak

The Washington Post reports: The theft of top-secret computer hacking tools from the CIA in 2016 was the result of a workplace culture in which the agency’s elite computer hackers “prioritized building cyber weapons at the expense of securing their own systems,” according to an internal report prepared for then-director Mike Pompeo as well as his deputy, Gina Haspel, now the director. The breach — allegedly committed by a CIA employee — was discovered a year after it happened, when…

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Facebook groups are destroying America

Facebook groups are destroying America

Nina Jankowicz and Cindy Otis write: The Covid-19 “infodemic” has laid bare how vulnerable the United States is to disinformation. The country is less than five months away from the 2020 presidential election, and Americans by the thousands are buying into conspiracy theories about vaccines containing microchips and wondering about the healing powers of hair dryers. Where does all this come from? Let’s not be too distracted by a fear of rumormonger bots on the rampage or divisive ads purchased…

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American police have a dangerous far-right media ecosystem of their own

American police have a dangerous far-right media ecosystem of their own

HuffPost reports: Around the time news broke on Monday afternoon that the New York City Police Department would disband plainclothes anti-crime units that had been tied to several high-profile police shootings, someone calling themselves “ltdad613” started a thread on Thee Rant, a police message board that purports to host current and former NYPD employees. “I wouldn’t want to be a [Commanding Officer] for the next few compstats,” ltdad613 wrote. “This is right from [New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio]….

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Sweeping change in U.S. views of police violence, poll shows

Sweeping change in U.S. views of police violence, poll shows

The Associated Press reports: A dramatic shift has taken place in the nation’s opinions on policing and race, as a new poll finds that more Americans today than five years ago believe police brutality is a very serious problem that too often goes undisciplined and unequally targets black Americans. The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest the death of George Floyd and the weeks of nationwide and global protests that followed have changed perceptions…

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People of color account for majority of coronavirus infections, new CDC study says

People of color account for majority of coronavirus infections, new CDC study says

Yahoo News reports: African-Americans and Latinos are vastly overrepresented when it comes to coronavirus infections, according to an analysis released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday morning. The findings provide additional confirmation that, as the CDC’s own report says, black and brown communities have been “disproportionately affected” by the pandemic. African-Americans account for only 13.4 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau, but the CDC says they accounted for 22 percent of coronavirus…

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Growing consensus on how people contract Covid-19

Growing consensus on how people contract Covid-19

The Wall Street Journal reports: Six months into the coronavirus crisis, there’s a growing consensus about a central question: How do people become infected? It’s not common to contract Covid-19 from a contaminated surface, scientists say. And fleeting encounters with people outdoors are unlikely to spread the coronavirus. Instead, the major culprit is close-up, person-to-person interactions for extended periods. Crowded events, poorly ventilated areas and places where people are talking loudly—or singing, in one famous case—maximize the risk. These emerging…

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‘They’re in denial’: How Trump’s White House is ignoring the pandemic

‘They’re in denial’: How Trump’s White House is ignoring the pandemic

CNN reports: President Donald Trump has largely tuned out the persistent coronavirus contagion — which is causing spikes in new cases across 21 states and daily death tolls that reach into the hundreds — to focus instead on reviving both the economy and his own political prospects. The insistence on pressing forward with reopening and a return to normal, even as cases increase in some areas, has led to concern among some administration officials that Trump and his aides are…

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Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, John Bolton writes

Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, John Bolton writes

The Washington Post reports: President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, telling Xi during a summit dinner last year that increased agricultural purchases by Beijing from American farmers would aid his electoral prospects, according to a damning new account of life inside the Trump administration by former national security adviser John Bolton. During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China…

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To understand who’s dying of Covid-19, look to social factors like race more than preexisting diseases

To understand who’s dying of Covid-19, look to social factors like race more than preexisting diseases

STAT reports: While early studies of who was dying of Covid-19 identified risks such as obesity and having diabetes, there is a growing realization that those initial conclusions might have been misleading, obscuring a more significant explanation. As researchers pull back their lens from individuals to population-level risk factors, they’re finding that, in the U.S., race may be as important as age in gauging a person’s likelihood of dying from the disease. The higher the percentage of Black residents in…

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Trump’s Covid data crunchers see coronavirus racing down America’s major highways

Trump’s Covid data crunchers see coronavirus racing down America’s major highways

The Daily Beast reports: Doctors behind a COVID-modeling study used by the president’s coronavirus task force are now warning that virus hot spots are beginning to converge and jump from county to county as people increase their travel for work and summer vacation. According to doctors working on a study put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the virus is moving along major highways and interstates—such I-10 in California, I-85 in the south and I-95 on the East…

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What makes Monday’s gay rights ruling so historic

What makes Monday’s gay rights ruling so historic

Charles Kaiser writes: More quickly and more permanently than any other American institution, the United States Supreme Court has the capacity to set the tone for the treatment of any minority group, often for decades to come. It was a string of Supreme Court cases that transformed the status of black Americans, for example, most famously in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The L.G.B.T.Q. legal establishment has spent the last generation following the model set by the black…

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Conservative Christians see ‘seismic implications’ in Supreme Court ruling

Conservative Christians see ‘seismic implications’ in Supreme Court ruling

The New York Times reports: For conservative Christian groups, Monday’s Supreme Court ruling protecting the rights of gay and transgender workers was not only the latest sign that they are losing the American culture wars over sexuality. It also caused widespread concern that it could affect how they operate their own institutions. Many faith-based organizations, like schools or nonprofits, do not allow L.G.B.T. people to work there, citing religious beliefs that sex should only be between a man and a…

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Brutality and dehumanization are deeply embedded in many police departments

Brutality and dehumanization are deeply embedded in many police departments

David Brooks writes: It’s one of the most remarkable poll results of the current moment. From May 29 to June 2, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll asked voters whether they were more troubled by the actions of the police and the death of George Floyd, or by protests that had turned violent. By a more than two-to-one margin, they said they were more troubled by the actions of the police. This is not how Americans reacted to the riots…

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Trump uses police reform event to lavish praise on police

Trump uses police reform event to lavish praise on police

Yahoo News reports: In remarks delivered Tuesday before he signed an executive order promoting modest police reforms, President Trump lavished praise on the nation’s law enforcement officers, claiming that cops like the ones charged in the killing of George Floyd represent “a small percentage” of the force. “They have to get our gratitude,” Trump said of the nation’s police officers, “and we have to give them great respect for what they do.” The event in the White House Rose Garden,…

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