Sanders supporters have weaponized Facebook to spread angry memes about his Democratic rivals

Sanders supporters have weaponized Facebook to spread angry memes about his Democratic rivals

The Washington Post reports: A Democrat in Michigan scrolled through a surge of nasty Facebook memes about Sen. Elizabeth Warren last week before fixing on one that captured his growing dislike of the candidate. It depicted her smiling face as a mask. Behind it was Hillary Clinton. Matt Walters, 64, a retired factory worker and supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), shared the image onward to eight Facebook groups and tens of thousands of potential eyeballs with a few taps…

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Huge rally as Iraqis demand U.S. troops pull out

Huge rally as Iraqis demand U.S. troops pull out

BBC News reports: Huge crowds have taken to the streets of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, to demand that US forces leave Iraq. Powerful Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr earlier called for a million people to join Friday’s march, close to the US embassy in the capital. Iranian-backed militias were among those protesting in the city. The US killing of the top Iranian military commander, Gen Qasem Soleimani, on 3 January at Baghdad airport has fuelled tensions. [Continue reading…]

Venture capital shaped the past decade. It could destroy the next

Venture capital shaped the past decade. It could destroy the next

Nathan Heller writes: For a certain sort of nineteenth-century person—the sort with high risk tolerance and little revulsion to brutality—a natural career lay in whaling. The odds of success here were, by almost every measure, poor. An expedition first needed to find whales in the vastness of the oceans. If it succeeded, it had to approach the whales in silence, with a small craft; strike with a harpoon; stay afloat, intact, engaged, and oriented as the poor creatures thrashed about,…

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Do we live in a multiple universe?

Do we live in a multiple universe?

David J. Eicher writes: Decades of astrophysical research beginning in the late 19th century established the universe as we see it, culminating with the Big Bang theory. We now know the universe is about 13.8 billion years old and at least 150 billion trillion miles across. But in recent years, astronomers have begun to address a staggering possibility — the universe we can observe, and in which we live, may be one of many that makes up the cosmos. The…

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Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds from midnight

Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds from midnight

Live Science reports: Humanity’s headlong dash toward our own destruction is marked in minutes and seconds in the ticking of the hypothetical Doomsday Clock. How close we are to destroying ourselves registers in the nearness of the clock’s hands to midnight — the hour of absolute extinction. In 2019, the clock’s “timekeepers” with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) fixed the hands at 2 minutes to midnight; that time, set in 2018, is the closest the clock’s hands have…

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George Soros gives $1bn to fund universities ‘and stop drift towards authoritarianism’

George Soros gives $1bn to fund universities ‘and stop drift towards authoritarianism’

The Guardian reports: The philanthropist and former financier George Soros has announced that he is to donate $1bn to fund a new global network of universities designed to promote liberal values and his vision of an open society. In what he hailed as the “most important and enduring project of my life”, Soros said it was important to fund institutions that would help resist the drift towards growing authoritarianism in the US, Russia and China. He also launched a fresh…

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How the gun show became the Trump show

How the gun show became the Trump show

Tim Alberta writes: In a state Trump carried by fewer than 11,000 votes, out of more than 4.5 million cast, even the smallest ripple could be enough to tip the boat. Mid-Michigan may lack the raw numbers of Grand Rapids and metro Detroit, but its political volatility is far more pronounced. Given how dramatically the region swung from 2008 to 2016, it offers an ideal case study for the two questions that will define the 2020 election: Can Trump sustain…

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Rinaldo Nazzaro, American founder of U.S. neo-Nazi organization, ‘The Base,’ directs it from Russia

Rinaldo Nazzaro, American founder of U.S. neo-Nazi organization, ‘The Base,’ directs it from Russia

BBC News reports: The American founder of US-based militant neo-Nazi group The Base is directing the organisation from Russia, a BBC investigation has found. Rinaldo Nazzaro, 46, who uses the aliases “Norman Spear” and “Roman Wolf”, left New York for St Petersburg less than two years ago. The Base is a major counter terrorism focus for the FBI. Seven alleged members were charged this month with various offences, including conspiracy to commit murder. Court documents prepared by the FBI describe…

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Thanks to Fox News, Bloomberg has become an irritant Trump is incapable of ignoring

Thanks to Fox News, Bloomberg has become an irritant Trump is incapable of ignoring

The New York Times reports: The president’s focus on Mr. Bloomberg is not commensurate with the former mayor’s standing in the polls so far. Mr. Bloomberg is still below double digits in nearly every survey after spending more than $256 million on ads in less than two months. Mr. Bloomberg has benefited, however, from being mostly ignored by his primary rivals, some of whom don’t want to elevate him in the race, but also don’t want to alienate him and…

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Regime critic says Saudis tried to kidnap him on U.S. soil

Regime critic says Saudis tried to kidnap him on U.S. soil

The Daily Beast reports: A suspected agent of the Saudi government attempted to kidnap a regime critic on American soil, according to the critic and multiple U.S. and foreign sources familiar with the episode. The young Saudi man says the FBI saved him from becoming the next Jamal Khashoggi. Abdulrahman Almutairi is a 27-year-old comedian and former student at the University of San Diego with a big social-media presence. After Almutairi used social media to criticize the powerful Crown Prince…

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Prince Charles wishes Palestinian people ‘freedom, justice and equality’

Prince Charles wishes Palestinian people ‘freedom, justice and equality’

The London Economic reports: The Prince of Wales has sympathised with the Palestinian people speaking of the “hardships” they face and saying he wished them “freedom, justice and equality” in the future. Charles’s words of support – spoken during his first visit to the Palestinian Occupied Territories – came as US President Donald Trump was expected to unveil his long-awaited Middle East peace plan. But the initiative, intended to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is thought to be an unfavourable one…

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Poisoning America: Trump removes pollution controls on streams and wetlands

Poisoning America: Trump removes pollution controls on streams and wetlands

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Thursday will finalize a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands and other water bodies, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens. From Day 1 of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s “Waters of the United States” regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will…

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The Saudi connection: Inside the 9/11 case that divided the FBI

The Saudi connection: Inside the 9/11 case that divided the FBI

The New York Times reports: On the morning of Sept. 11 last year, about two dozen family members of those killed in the terror attacks filed into the White House to visit with President Trump. It was a choreographed, somewhat stiff encounter, in which each family walked to the center of the Blue Room to share a moment of conversation with Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, before having a photograph taken with the first couple. Still, it was…

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U.S.’s top intelligence official fails to turn over report, required by law, on Jamal Khashoggi’s killing

U.S.’s top intelligence official fails to turn over report, required by law, on Jamal Khashoggi’s killing

BuzzFeed reports: The country’s top intelligence official has failed to turn over to Congress a report on the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, sources said, flouting a law passed last month. In December, lawmakers passed a sweeping defense bill that included a provision ordering the director of national intelligence to send Congress an unclassified report identifying those responsible for Khashoggi’s death at a Saudi Arabian consulate in 2018. The legislation set the deadline for the report at 30…

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