How do bats live with so many viruses?

How do bats live with so many viruses?

James Gorman writes: If previous outbreaks of coronavirus are any indication, the Wuhan strain that is now spreading may eventually be traced back to bats. Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, who has been working in China for 15 years studying diseases that jump from animals to people, said, “We don’t know the source yet, but there’s pretty strong evidence that this is a bat origin coronavirus.” He said, “It’s probably going to be the Chinese horseshoe bat,” a…

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Fossil fuel greenwashing

Fossil fuel greenwashing

Climate Reality Project reports: It’s no secret that fossil fuel companies have cast doubt on climate science for decades. What’s more, it should be no surprise that they’ve spent billions lobbying against any serious regulation of their emissions. What might be less well known, however, is the extent of their greenwashing: the tactic oil, coal, and gas companies have increasingly turned to as public sentiment against their products has grown. What exactly is greenwashing, you may ask? It’s a form…

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Savaging Trump plan, Abbas says Palestinians cutting all ties with Israel and the U.S.

Savaging Trump plan, Abbas says Palestinians cutting all ties with Israel and the U.S.

The Times of Israel reports: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was cutting all ties, including security coordination, with both Israel and the US on Saturday, in a lengthy speech delivered at an Arab League meeting in Egypt’s capital denouncing the new White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We’ve informed the Israeli side…that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties,” Abbas declared. The PA leader said he’d stated…

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The next big privacy hurdle? Teaching AI to forget

The next big privacy hurdle? Teaching AI to forget

Darren Shou writes: When the European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) a year ago, one of the most revolutionary aspects of the regulation was the “right to be forgotten”—an often-hyped and debated right, sometimes perceived as empowering individuals to request the erasure of their information on the internet, most commonly from search engines or social networks. Since then, the issue of digital privacy has rarely been far from the spotlight. There is widespread debate in governments, boardrooms,…

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Brexit isn’t ‘done’

Brexit isn’t ‘done’

In an editorial, The Guardian says: Brexit is not over. The separation has been agreed. But not the terms. We are now in transition for a further 11 months to an unknown destination. In practice, everyday life today will be the same as before. The country will not plunge into the abyss, a fact that will be shamelessly misrepresented over the coming weeks by Brexit supporters. For the rest of this year, EU rules and obligations still apply. But it…

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Trump extends travel ban to 6 countries — but is OK with selling arms to those same places

Trump extends travel ban to 6 countries — but is OK with selling arms to those same places

A. Trevor Thrall and Jordan Cohen write: The Trump administration announced Friday that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. The ban means that citizens living in these nations cannot get visas to travel to the United States without getting a special waiver, dramatically reducing the number of people from these countries visiting the United States. The administration’s rationale for the ban is that conditions in those countries, especially…

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Justice Department acknowledges 24 emails reveal Trump’s thinking on Ukraine

Justice Department acknowledges 24 emails reveal Trump’s thinking on Ukraine

The Washington Post reports: Hours after the Senate voted against seeking new evidence in the impeachment case against President Trump, the administration acknowledged the existence of two dozen emails that could reveal the president’s thinking about withholding military aid to Ukraine. In a midnight court filing, the Department of Justice explained why it shouldn’t have to unredact copies of more than 100 emails written by officials at the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department about the hold…

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New emails show how Trump roiled NOAA during Hurricane Dorian

New emails show how Trump roiled NOAA during Hurricane Dorian

The Washington Post reports: A trove of documents released on Friday evening provide the clearest glimpse yet into how President Trump’s inaccurate statements, altered forecast map and tweets regarding Hurricane Dorian’s forecast path rattled top officials along with rank and file scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in September. The documents, released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Washington Post and other media outlets, show that the No. 2 official at the agency,…

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Unprecedented data confirms that Antarctica’s most dangerous glacier is melting from below

Unprecedented data confirms that Antarctica’s most dangerous glacier is melting from below

The Washington Post reports: Warm ocean water has been discovered underneath a massive glacier in West Antarctica, a troubling finding that could speed its melt in a region with the potential to eventually unleash more than 10 feet of sea-level rise. The unprecedented research, part of a multimillion-dollar British and U.S. initiative to study the remote Thwaites Glacier, involved drilling through nearly 2,000 feet of ice to measure water temperatures in a narrow cavity where the glacier first connects with…

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As coronavirus spreads, so do misinformation and xenophobia

As coronavirus spreads, so do misinformation and xenophobia

Frankie Schembri writes: In a reversal of its decision last week, the World Health Organization on Thursday officially declared the spread of a novel coronavirus a global health emergency. The virus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December, has according to the WHO been confirmed in 7,818 cases globally, though China itself has reported higher numbers. Most infections reported by the WHO — 7,736 as of Thursday — remained in China, as have all of…

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Twitter bans Zero Hedge for doxing Chinese scientist it falsely accused of creating the coronavirus

Twitter bans Zero Hedge for doxing Chinese scientist it falsely accused of creating the coronavirus

BuzzFeed reports: A popular pro-Trump website has released the personal information of a scientist from Wuhan, China, falsely accusing them of creating the coronavirus as a bioweapon, in a plot it said is the real-life version of the video game Resident Evil. On Wednesday, far-right news site Zero Hedge claimed without evidence that a scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology created the strain of the virus that has led the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency….

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Bernie’s message and media machine could be potent against Trump

Bernie’s message and media machine could be potent against Trump

Peter Hamby writes: The Bernie bed-wetting has reached full-blown rubber sheet mode. With Bernie Sanders hanging on to a slim polling lead in Iowa and an even bigger one in New Hampshire, panicked Democrats are sounding the alarm that Bernie Sanders could surf a wave of unstoppable momentum all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. Nominating Sanders to run against Donald Trump would be an “Act of Insanity,” according to New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait. “Dems Tormented…

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Republicans now say Trump did what he was accused of — they just don’t care

Republicans now say Trump did what he was accused of — they just don’t care

BuzzFeed reports: After days of arguments and questioning in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, many Republican senators have come to the same conclusion: The president did it, and they don’t care. House Democrats voted to impeach Trump on claims he abused his power by withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an announcement the country would investigate political rival, Joe Biden. Democrats also argued the president stonewalled the House’s investigation leading to the second article of impeachment, obstruction of…

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Trump told Bolton to help his Ukraine pressure campaign

Trump told Bolton to help his Ukraine pressure campaign

The New York Times reports: More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton. Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney,…

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