Coronavirus, heat wave and locusts form a perfect storm in India

Coronavirus, heat wave and locusts form a perfect storm in India

The Associated Press reports: As if the coronavirus wasn’t enough, India grappled with scorching temperatures and the worst locust invasion in decades as authorities prepared for the end of a monthslong lockdown despite recording thousands of new infections every day. This triple disaster drew biblical comparisons and forced officials to try to balance the competing demands of simultaneous public health crises: protection from eviscerating heat but also social distancing in newly reopened parks and markets. The heat wave threatens to…

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Ancient mass extinction tied to ozone loss, warming climate

Ancient mass extinction tied to ozone loss, warming climate

Science reports: The end of the Devonian period, 359 million years ago, was an eventful time: Fish were inching out of the ocean, and fernlike forests were advancing on land. The world was recovering from a mass extinction 12 million years earlier, but the climate was still chaotic, swinging between hothouse conditions and freezes so deep that glaciers formed in the tropics. And then, just as the planet was warming from one of these ice ages, another extinction struck, seemingly…

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Trump’s new executive order isn’t really about Twitter; it’s about Mark Zuckerberg

Trump’s new executive order isn’t really about Twitter; it’s about Mark Zuckerberg

Zeynep Tufekci writes: Trump’s salvo on social-media companies has primarily an audience of one: Mark Zuckerberg. And it is already working. After the executive order was issued, Facebook’s CEO quickly gave an interview to Fox News in which he said, “I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.” He added, “Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.” It’s important to…

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Facebook employees warn the company may become complicit in election violence

Facebook employees warn the company may become complicit in election violence

The Verge reports: Facebook’s decision not to take action against recent posts about mail-in ballots and the Minnesota protests by President Trump is roiling employees, some of whom are calling on executives to reconsider their stance. In response to an internal post explaining the company’s rationale, some employees criticized the company’s neutral posture. “I have to say I am finding the contortions we have to go through incredibly hard to stomach,” one employee wrote in a comment about the shooting…

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Troll farms from Macedonia and the Philippines pushed coronavirus disinformation on Facebook

Troll farms from Macedonia and the Philippines pushed coronavirus disinformation on Facebook

NBC News reports: One of the largest publishers of coronavirus disinformation on Facebook has been banned from the platform for using content farms from Macedonia and the Philippines, Facebook said on Friday. The publisher, Natural News, was one of the most prolific pushers of the viral “Plandemic” conspiracy video, which falsely claimed that the coronavirus is part of an elaborate government plot to control the populace through vaccines, and erroneously claimed that wearing a mask increases the risk of catching…

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‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts’: The history behind Trump’s latest outburst of racist bigotry

‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts’: The history behind Trump’s latest outburst of racist bigotry

NPR reports: Responding to clashes between protesters and police in Minneapolis following George Floyd’s death, President Trump took to Twitter Friday morning to denounce demonstrators and wrote “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” That phrase goes back to the civil rights era, known to have been invoked by a white police chief cracking down on protests in the 1960s and a segregationist politician. ….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just…

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Voter suppression: Trump’s tweets this week signal he may dispute the 2020 election result

Voter suppression: Trump’s tweets this week signal he may dispute the 2020 election result

Lawrence Douglas writes: Unhinged as it may be for the president to accuse, without a scintilla of evidence, a morning television host of murder, that particular conspiracy theory was not the most disturbing accusation to issue from Trump’s Twitter feed this week. No, that prize goes to his tweet from 26 May, claiming: There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally…

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As America leads world in pandemic death toll, Trump announces U.S. withdrawal from World Health Organization

As America leads world in pandemic death toll, Trump announces U.S. withdrawal from World Health Organization

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Friday said he is terminating the U.S. relationship with the World Health Organization, making good on his April threat to withdraw from the U.N. health agency he’s repeatedly blamed for mishandling the coronavirus pandemic. “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and directing those funds to worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” Trump said in a brief statement from the White House Rose Garden. The move was…

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It’s healthy to be germophobic now — but not in the long run

It’s healthy to be germophobic now — but not in the long run

By Sophie Strosberg, Undark, May 28, 2020 Let’s face it. We’re all germaphobes now. Anecdotal reports suggest that health anxiety disorders are on the rise in the U.S., in part due to a pandemic-driven fear of contamination and germs. Even people who aren’t experiencing clinically significant health anxiety are likely to be fixated on cleanliness. Witness the depleted shelves of hand sanitizer and disinfectant in just about every store you encounter. I’m no exception. I used to wash my hands…

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America’s ‘persistent pandemic is racism’

America’s ‘persistent pandemic is racism’

USA Today reports: Headline after headline, the same story: a black American dead. George Floyd, after a police officer knelt on his neck. Ahmaud Arbery, while on a jog in Georgia. Breonna Taylor, while police raided her Louisville, Kentucky, home. And the ones before: Eric Garner, who couldn’t breathe. Philando Castile, in the car with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter. Trayvon Martin, only a boy. Scores of killings answered with acquittals. Now, as a pandemic rages, African Americans in…

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The murder of George Floyd

The murder of George Floyd

Steve Almond writes: On Monday, police in Minneapolis were called to the scene of an alleged check forgery. They detained the suspect, a 46-year-old African American security guard named George Floyd, and eventually forced him onto the ground. Police claim Floyd resisted arrest, though explosive video footage from a nearby restaurant calls that claim into question. Three officers then held Floyd’s body down, while one kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Because the entirety of the incident was filmed,…

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Warren as VP would lead to Biden victory, say prominent Democratic pollster

Warren as VP would lead to Biden victory, say prominent Democratic pollster

Politico reports: Stan Greenberg, one of the Democratic Party’s longtime leading pollsters, urged Hillary Clinton in 2016 to pick Elizabeth Warren as her vice president. He thinks Clinton would be president had she listened. Now Greenberg — who popularized the term “Reagan Democrats” and came to prominence as Bill Clinton’s lead pollster — is urging Joe Biden’s team to heed the same advice. Earlier this month, he briefed top Biden campaign officials on two battleground surveys conducted by his firm….

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Graham urges senior judges to step aside before November election so Republicans can fill vacancies

Graham urges senior judges to step aside before November election so Republicans can fill vacancies

The Washington Post reports: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday urged federal judges who are in their mid-to-late 60s to step aside so that Republicans, increasingly nervous about holding the Senate majority in the November election as they eye President Trump’s poll numbers, can fill the vacancies now. Graham made the comments in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “This is an historic opportunity,” Graham said. “We’ve put over 200 federal judges on the…

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How coronavirus contact tracing works in a state Dr. Fauci praised as a model to follow

How coronavirus contact tracing works in a state Dr. Fauci praised as a model to follow

Pairing widespread testing with fast, effective contact tracing is considered essential for controlling the coronavirus’s spread as the U.S. passes 100,000 deaths. AP Images/Rick Bowmer By Jenny Meredith, University of South Carolina After weeks of keeping people home to “flatten the curve,” restrictions on U.S. businesses are loosening and the coronavirus pandemic response is moving into a new phase. Two things will be critical to keep COVID-19 cases from flaring up again: widespread testing to quickly identify anyone who gets…

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