U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump’s racist immigration policy take effect

U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump’s racist immigration policy take effect

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court gave the go-ahead on Monday for one of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, allowing his administration to implement a rule denying legal permanent residency to certain immigrants deemed likely to require government assistance in the future. The justices, on a 5-4 vote, granted the administration’s request to lift a lower court’s injunction that had blocked the so-called public charge policy while litigation over its legality continues. The rule has been criticized by immigrant…

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Amazon employees defy ban on speaking out on company’s role in climate crisis

Amazon employees defy ban on speaking out on company’s role in climate crisis

The Washington Post reports: More than 350 Amazon employees violated the e-commerce giant’s communications policy Sunday, in an unprecedented public display of support for colleagues who were warned they could be fired for speaking out to criticize the company’s climate practices. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers concerned about the company’s business with the oil and gas industry as well as its carbon footprint, published quotes from 357 workers in a post on Medium. The comments, all…

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Syrian and Russian mercenaries fighting in Libya

Syrian and Russian mercenaries fighting in Libya

Frederic Wehrey writes: At a mud-caked intersection this month, some hundred-and-fifty feet from the front line, a lanky militia fighter approached and then abruptly turned around when he saw me, a Westerner. I’ve been covering Libya’s conflicts for years and noticed some minor but distinctive details about his appearance: a do-rag tied around his head, an olive green tactical vest, and perhaps a certain military bearing. The Libyan commander I was with confirmed it, with a chuckle: “That’s not a…

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Stone tools reveal epic trek of nomadic Neanderthals

Stone tools reveal epic trek of nomadic Neanderthals

Neanderthal hunting grounds in southern Siberia — the Charysh River valley, with Chagyrskaya Cave in the centre of the photo. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Author provided By Kseniya Kolobova, Russian Academy of Sciences; Maciej T. Krajcarz, Polish Academy of Sciences, and Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts, University of Wollongong Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) fossils were first discovered in western Europe in the mid nineteenth century. That was just the first in a…

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Trump’s lawyers know Bolton’s testimony would be devastating

Trump’s lawyers know Bolton’s testimony would be devastating

George T. Conway III writes: Search the transcript of Saturday’s impeachment trial, as President Trump’s lawyers began their opening arguments, and you’ll see there’s a name nowhere to be found: John Bolton, the former national security adviser. The president’s lawyers made no mention of him. And now there’s no need to speculate why. Because the news about what’s in Bolton’s forthcoming book is out — and it shows that his testimony would be devastating to Trump. The New York Times…

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Executive privilege cannot block Bolton’s testimony

Executive privilege cannot block Bolton’s testimony

Just Security reports: All relevant judicial precedents make clear that Bolton should not be able to invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying in the Senate impeachment trial. As a threshold matter, there is no precedent for the president invoking executive privilege to preclude the private testimony of a witness who is able and willing to testify. Bolton is a private citizen who is no longer a member of the executive branch. He has already indicated his willingness to testify, and…

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John Roberts could call witnesses to Trump’s trial, but will he?

John Roberts could call witnesses to Trump’s trial, but will he?

Neal K. Katyal, Joshua A. Geltzer and Mickey Edwards write: An overwhelming number of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, believe the Senate should hear from relevant witnesses and obtain documents during President Trump’s impeachment trial. Striking new revelations about the president’s role in the Ukraine affair, as reported from an unpublished manuscript by John Bolton, underscore the need for his testimony and that of others. Yet Republican members of the Senate have signaled that they intend to uphold Mr….

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This is a test of the Constitution itself

This is a test of the Constitution itself

Maya Wiley writes: The Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump has begun. Senators now face the monumental question of whether to remove the president from office—and yet, something bigger is at stake here. The Constitution’s fundamental design is on trial too. This is clear from the articles of impeachment themselves. Start with the first article, which charges that the president abused his power by holding support for an ally foreign government hostage to better his chances at reelection, rather…

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Investing in humanity: British Medical Journal launches campaign for fossil fuel divestment

Investing in humanity: British Medical Journal launches campaign for fossil fuel divestment

A BMJ editorial says: How do we restore hope for humanity? Many of us feel despair at a disintegrating political consensus to save our planet from fire, flood, disease, and conflict. We feel trapped in our high carbon lives and disempowered by commercial influence of companies whose products damage the planet and people’s wellbeing. Evidence for the effects of the politico-commercial complex is clear and alarming. On our current trajectory we will miss carbon emission targets and sustainable development goals,…

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Auschwitz survivors warn of rising anti-Semitism 75 years on

Auschwitz survivors warn of rising anti-Semitism 75 years on

The Associated Press reports: Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp prayed and wept as they marked the 75th anniversary of its liberation, returning Monday to the place where they lost entire families and warning about the ominous growth of anti-Semitism and hatred in the world. “We have with us the last living survivors, the last among those who saw the Holocaust with their own eyes,” Polish President Andrzej Duda told those at the commemoration, which included the German president as…

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How smart were our ancestors? Turns out the answer isn’t in brain size, but blood flow

How smart were our ancestors? Turns out the answer isn’t in brain size, but blood flow

Skulls hold clues to intelligence. (Clockwise from left: Australopithecus, orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee) Roger Seymour, Author provided By Roger S. Seymour, University of Adelaide How did human intelligence evolve? Anthropologists have studied this question for decades by looking at tools found in archaeological digs, evidence of the use of fire and so on, and changes in brain size measured from fossil skulls. However, working with colleagues at the Evolutionary Studies Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, we…

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How does a nation adapt to its own murder?

How does a nation adapt to its own murder?

Richard Flanagan writes: The name of the future is Australia. These words come from it, and they may be your tomorrow: P2 masks, evacuation orders, climate refugees, ocher skies, warning sirens, ember storms, blood suns, fear, air purifiers and communities reduced to third-world camps. Billions of dead animals and birds bloating and rotting. Hundreds of Indigenous cultural and spiritual sites damaged or destroyed by bush fires, so many black Notre Dames — the physical expression of Indigenous Australians’ spiritual connection…

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The climate crisis is reshaping the world of finance

The climate crisis is reshaping the world of finance

Bill McKibben, Alec Connon and Elana Sulakshana write: Historians should mark the date. On Jan 14, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, with more than $7.4 trillion under management, announced that the climate crisis has now grown so severe that it has become a force that will “fundamentally reshape” the world of finance. In his annual letter to CEOs, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock and one of the most powerful corporate executives in America, warned that BlackRock now expects to…

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Inequality makes climate crisis much harder to tackle

Inequality makes climate crisis much harder to tackle

Larry Elliot writes: Almost 15 years ago, Nick Stern, then head of the Government Economic Service, produced a report on the economics of climate change in which he called the failure to deal with a heating planet the greatest market failure of all time, and argued that the benefits of early action outweighed the costs. Last week, Professor Stern, now chair of both the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change…

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