Trump administration ordered to halt forcible drugging of migrant children

Trump administration ordered to halt forcible drugging of migrant children

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The Washington Post reports: A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. government officials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that…

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The Dossier Center exposes the ‘main beneficiaries’ of Russian corruption

The Dossier Center exposes the ‘main beneficiaries’ of Russian corruption

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The Associated Press reports: Over the past three months, a handful of highly placed Russians have discovered their secrets seeping onto the web. It happened to a Russian Interior Ministry official whose emails were published online in April. It happened again this month, when details about a former Kremlin chief of staff’s American energy investment were exposed by Britain’s Guardian newspaper. Last week, Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s son during the 2016 presidential…

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Europe shouldn’t fear Steve Bannon. It should fear the hype that surrounds him

Europe shouldn’t fear Steve Bannon. It should fear the hype that surrounds him

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Cas Mudde writes: If Steve Bannon didn’t exist, the media would have had to invent him. And, in fact, they largely did. US coverage has turned Bannon into Donald Trump’s Rasputin, single-handedly responsible for his shock election as the 45th president of the United States. And now, as Bannon crosses the Atlantic, breathless reports speak of his “Plan to Hijack Europe for the Far Right”. His meeting with the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson was apparently convened to plot “new…

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We are more than our brains

We are more than our brains

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Alan Jasanoff writes: Brains are undoubtedly somewhat computer-like – computers, after all, were invented to perform brain-like functions – but brains are also much more than bundles of wiry neurons and the electrical impulses they are famous for propagating. The function of each neuroelectrical signal is to release a little flood of chemicals that helps to stimulate or suppress brain cells, in much the way that chemicals activate or suppress functions such as glucose production by liver cells or immune…

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Coastal communities struggling to adapt to climate change are beginning to do what was once unthinkable: retreat

Coastal communities struggling to adapt to climate change are beginning to do what was once unthinkable: retreat

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Jen Schwartz writes: Retreating from the coasts, in concept or practice, is not popular. Why would people abandon their community, the thinking goes, unless no better alternatives remained? To emergency responders, retreat is a form of flood mitigation. To environmental advocates, it’s ecological restoration. To resilience planners, it’s adaptation to climate change. Everyone agrees, however, that retreat sounds like defeat. It means admitting that humans have lost and that the water has won. “American political institutions, even our national mythology,…

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California’s longer, hotter summers spark deadly, destructive fire season

California’s longer, hotter summers spark deadly, destructive fire season

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The Ventura County Star reports: California wildfires tore through mountains and foothills and into neighborhoods this week as record-breaking heat combined with increasingly dry conditions in the Golden State. On Friday, fires burned out of control, stretching resources thin in areas and forcing thousands to leave their homes. “We have a number of big destructive wildfires burning in very different parts of the state,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “There’s a lot going on right now in…

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TSA on the lookout for Americans who appear ‘abnormally aware of their surroundings’

TSA on the lookout for Americans who appear ‘abnormally aware of their surroundings’

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The Boston Globe reports: Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency. The previously undisclosed program, called “Quiet Skies,” specifically targets travelers who “are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base,” according to a Transportation Security Administration…

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Cairo court sentences 75 protesters to death

Cairo court sentences 75 protesters to death

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Al Jazeera reports: An Egyptian court has sentenced 75 people to death for participating in a 2013 protest against the overthrow of the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. Senior members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood organisation were among those ordered executed by the Cairo Criminal Court on Saturday for their involvement with the sit-in demonstration at Rabaa Square in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The rulings will be referred to Egypt’s chief Islamic legal authority, the Grand Mufti, for a…

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The liar’s dividend, and other challenges of deep-fake news

The liar’s dividend, and other challenges of deep-fake news

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Paul Chadwick writes: Do the notes taken by the interpreters at the recent Helsinki summit include the words “Snowden” and “swap”? We could ask the Russians to check their (assumed) audio recording and let us all know whether Presidents Trump and Putin discussed such a prospect during their long private chat. Trump wrong-footing his own country’s intelligence community by delivering their most-wanted, Edward Snowden, seems precisely the trolling that Putin would enjoy. What else might leak soon, in the form…

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Britons see Brexit turning sour, half want chance to vote again, poll indicates

Britons see Brexit turning sour, half want chance to vote again, poll indicates

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Reuters reports: Two-thirds of Britons now think the government will end up with a bad deal when Britain leaves the European Union early next year, and half want the chance to vote on what happens next, Sky News reported on Monday, citing its own poll. With less than eight months until Britain is due to leave the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to find a proposal to maintain economic ties with the bloc that pleases both sides of…

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Maria Butina is just the tip of the Russia iceberg

Maria Butina is just the tip of the Russia iceberg

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Anne Applebaum writes: By day, he ran a travel agency. Off hours, Jacob Golos worked for the Soviet Union. Unlike some of his fictional successors, he did not pretend to be a native. But from the time of its founding in 1927 until his death in 1943 , Golos did use the agency — “World Tourists” — as a front for his real activities: funding and enabling the activities of the American Communist Party. Though he also engaged in activities…

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Actually, Republicans do believe in climate change

Actually, Republicans do believe in climate change

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Leaf Van Boven and David Sherman write: It is widely believed that most Republicans are skeptical about human-caused climate change. But is this belief correct? In 2014 and 2016, we conducted two national surveys of more than 2,000 respondents on the issue of climate change. We found that most Republicans agreed that climate change is happening, threatens humans and is caused by human activity — and that reducing carbon emissions would mitigate the problem. To be sure, Democrats agreed more…

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Bush claimed power to override a torture ban. What did Brett Kavanaugh think about that?

Bush claimed power to override a torture ban. What did Brett Kavanaugh think about that?

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The New York Times reports: When Brett M. Kavanaugh came before the Judiciary Committee in May 2006 for his nomination to be an appeals court judge, senators pressed him on his role in President George W. Bush’s use of signing statements to claim the power to bypass new laws — like a much-disputed assertion the previous December that he could override a ban on torture. Judge Kavanaugh, who at the time was the White House staff secretary, acknowledged handling draft…

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Inside Google’s shadow workforce

Inside Google’s shadow workforce

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Bloomberg reports: Every day, tens of thousands of people stream into Google offices wearing red name badges. They eat in Google’s cafeterias, ride its commuter shuttles and work alongside its celebrated geeks. But they can’t access all of the company’s celebrated perks. They aren’t entitled to stock and can’t enter certain offices. Many don’t have health insurance. Before each weekly Google all-hands meeting, trays of hors d’oeuvres and, sometimes, kegs of beer are carted into an auditorium and satellite offices…

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