I was a juror in Roger Stone’s trial. I am proud of how we came to our decision

I was a juror in Roger Stone’s trial. I am proud of how we came to our decision

Seth Cousins writes: During the first half of November, I made a brief journey with 14 fellow Americans, all of them strangers to me. Together we were the 12 jurors (and two alternates) sitting in judgment of longtime political consultant Roger Stone. We sat through five days of testimony and half a day of closing arguments. After eight hours of deliberation, we returned guilty verdicts on each of the seven counts we were charged to consider. Since we delivered that…

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How American anti-Semitism reflects the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of religious liberty

How American anti-Semitism reflects the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of religious liberty

A mother hugs her son at the memorial of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2019, the first anniversary of the shooting at the synagogue. AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar By Tisa Wenger, Yale University Americans recently observed the first anniversary of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, in which 11 were killed and six wounded. A year earlier, white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanted the slogan, “Jews shall not replace us.”…

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The man behind China’s detention of a million Muslims

The man behind China’s detention of a million Muslims

The Associated Press reports: After bloody race riots rocked China’s far west a decade ago, the ruling Communist Party turned to a rare figure in their ranks to restore order: a Han Chinese official fluent in Uighur, the language of the local Turkic Muslim minority. Now, newly revealed, confidential documents show that the official, Zhu Hailun, played a key role in planning and executing a campaign that has swept up a million or more Uighurs into detention camps. Published in…

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Emails reveal extensive effort in White House to contrive justification for Trump’s decision to block Ukraine military aid

Emails reveal extensive effort in White House to contrive justification for Trump’s decision to block Ukraine military aid

The Washington Post reports: A confidential White House review of President Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal, according to three people familiar with the records. The research by the White House Counsel’s Office, which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email…

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Newly released documents reveal details of Pompeo’s role in Ukraine affair

Newly released documents reveal details of Pompeo’s role in Ukraine affair

The New York Times reports: Internal State Department emails and documents released late Friday further implicate Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a campaign orchestrated this year by President Trump and his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to pressure Ukraine for political favors. The emails indicate that Mr. Pompeo spoke at least twice by telephone with Mr. Giuliani in March as Mr. Giuliani was urging Ukraine to investigate Mr. Trump’s rivals, and trying to oust a respected American ambassador to…

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How street protests across Middle East threaten Iran’s power

How street protests across Middle East threaten Iran’s power

Martin Chulov writes: Turmoil in Baghdad, paralysis in Beirut and flames of unrest in Tehran; it has been a bad few months for Iran at home and elsewhere in the Middle East, where more than a decade of advances are being slowed, not by manoeuvrings on battlefields or legislatures – but the force of protest movements. Early last week, Iran went dark for four days by closing its internet connections down. Even for the country’s autocratic leadership, this was a…

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Chinese detention camps holding Uighurs and other minorities are ‘a form of cultural genocide’

Chinese detention camps holding Uighurs and other minorities are ‘a form of cultural genocide’

The Associated Press reports: The watch towers, double-locked doors and video surveillance in the Chinese camps are there “to prevent escapes.” Uighurs and other minorities held inside are scored on how well they speak the dominant Mandarin language and follow strict rules on everything down to bathing and using the toilet, scores that determine if they can leave. “Manner education” is mandatory, but “vocational skills improvement” is offered only after a year in the camps. Voluntary job training is the…

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Climate change threatens world heritage sites everywhere

Climate change threatens world heritage sites everywhere

Time reports: Venice is reeling from the worst flooding the city has experienced in 50 years, the city is “on its knees,” Venetian Mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted as water submerged much of the the famous historical city. The floods penetrated Saint Mark’s Basilica, a 1,000 year old church that is considered to be one of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture in the world and one of the city’s most famous landmarks. While floods are a normal part of life…

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Huge battery investments reduce energy-storage costs faster than expected, threatening natural gas

Huge battery investments reduce energy-storage costs faster than expected, threatening natural gas

Jeff McMahon writes: The global energy transition is happening faster than the models predicted, according to a report released today by the Rocky Mountain Institute, thanks to massive investments in the advanced-battery technology ecosystem. Previous and planned investments total $150 billion through 2023, RMI calculates—the equivalent of every person in the world chipping in $20. In the first half of 2019 alone, venture-capital firms contributed $1.4 billion to energy storage technology companies. “These investments will push both Li-ion and new…

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Our imagination has access to the pre-linguistic, ancestral mind

Our imagination has access to the pre-linguistic, ancestral mind

Stephen T Asma writes: Imagination is intrinsic to our inner lives. You could even say that it makes up a ‘second universe’ inside our heads. We invent animals and events that don’t exist, we rerun history with alternative outcomes, we envision social and moral utopias, we revel in fantasy art, and we meditate both on what we could have been and on what we might become. Animators such as Hayao Miyazaki, Walt Disney and the people at Pixar Studios are…

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Top military officials defy Trump and proceed with plans to expel commando from SEALs

Top military officials defy Trump and proceed with plans to expel commando from SEALs

The New York Times reports: The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday. The Navy is proceeding with the disciplinary plans against the commando, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who counts Mr. Trump as one of his most vocal supporters. The threats by the Navy…

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The Trump administration’s conspiracy against American democracy

The Trump administration’s conspiracy against American democracy

Adam Serwer writes: Over the past two weeks, a parade of sober and coldly furious civil servants has come forward to testify before Congress about President Donald Trump’s decision to withhold congressionally approved aid to Ukraine. Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor emphasized that “the security assistance we provide is crucial to Ukraine’s defense,” invoking the sacrifice of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russia. Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, testified that “the stakes for the United States in…

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All Trump’s lies

All Trump’s lies

Politico reports: CNN’s Jake Tapper thinks fact-checking Donald Trump is no longer enough — and he’s created an hourlong special exploring the effects on foreign policy, business and the national culture of the president’s compulsive lying. While news organizations including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have openly weighed when and whether to call Trump’s misstatements “lies” — a term that implies malice and forethought — Tapper thinks the media is well past the point of giving Trump…

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Elizabeth Warren grounds her campaign in a history of American protest and movement building

Elizabeth Warren grounds her campaign in a history of American protest and movement building

The Intercept reports: To launch her campaign, back in January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren had a number of locations to choose from. She could have started in Norman, Oklahoma, the setting of her ragged-edge-of-the-middle-class origin story, where her prairie populism could have been brought to the fore. She spent years in Houston, Philadelphia, and Boston, too, all chock full of their own useful imagery for a campaign. Instead, she chose Lawrence, Massachusetts, for her opening salvo, linking her campaign to the…

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