Christian Picciolini’s descent into America’s most violent hate movement — and how he got out
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3.5 billion-year-old fossils challenge ideas about early life on Earth
Rebecca Boyle writes: In the arid, sun-soaked northwest corner of Australia, along the Tropic of Capricorn, the oldest face of Earth is exposed to the sky. Drive through the northern outback for a while, south of Port Hedlund on the coast, and you will come upon hills softened by time. They are part of a region called the Pilbara Craton, which formed about 3.5 billion years ago, when Earth was in its youth. Look closer. From a seam in one…
‘Weapons of math destruction’: The era of blind faith in big data must end
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How youth are once again challenging the ‘rotten old hulks who monopolize’ power
Jon Grinspan writes: [I]n the final years of the 19th century, a sudden burst of young people demanded new issues — their issues. Tired of, as one Coloradan put it, “rotten old hulks who monopolize the offices and dwell upon the past,” a generation of young men and women denounced their leaders and with them, partisanship. They demanded political reform, labor reform and social reform, and declared that they would withhold their votes from any party that didn’t respond. “The…
How white American terrorists are radicalized
David M Perry writes: When Mark Conditt was a teenager, he participated in a club called Righteous Invasion of Truth. RIOT kids were homeschooled and religious, and spent their club time playing war games, practicing weapons skills, and reading the Bible. As a community college student in 2012, he wrote blogs against homosexuality and abortion. In 2018, he planted bombs in Austin, Texas, appearing to target African-American communities, then blew himself up as police closed in. The question isn’t whether…
Western democracy isn’t just in retreat — it’s crumbling from the inside
Peter S Goodman writes: History was not supposed to turn out this way. In the aftermath of World War II, the victorious Western countries forged institutions — NATO, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization — that aimed to keep the peace through collective military might and shared prosperity. They promoted democratic ideals and international trade while investing in the notion that coalitions were the antidote to destructive nationalism. But now the model that has dominated geopolitical affairs for…
Expelling Russians, Europe and North America show unity with UK
The New York Times reports: European nations united in a rare coordinated rebuke of Russia on Monday, joining the United States and Canada in expelling scores of Russian diplomats. The expulsions, which were denounced by the Kremlin, were a show of solidarity with their ally Britain, which has accused the Kremlin of being behind the use of a nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy and his daughter. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said that 14…
Despite his ties to porn stars and Playboy models, Trump’s white Christian nationalist supporters remain loyal
Andrew L. Whitehead, Joseph O. Baker and Samuel L. Perry write: How much a U.S. voter feared Muslims was as significant in predicting who voted for Trump as Christian nationalism. Overall the strongest predictors of Trump voting were the usual suspects of political identity and race, followed closely by Islamophobia and Christian nationalism. Many voters believed, and presumably still believe, that regardless of his personal piety (or lack thereof), Trump would defend what they saw as the country’s Christian heritage…
Conspicuous corruption has become a trademark of the Trump administration
David A Graham writes: For spring cleaning this year, President Trump is looking at his Cabinet. The Associated Press reported Monday that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is near to being removed. When Trump fired H.R. McMaster as national-security adviser, that torpedoed a plan to dismiss McMaster, Shulkin, and Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, at once, according to Politico’s Eliana Johnson. Shulkin and Carson face the same problem: dubious use of taxpayer dollars in their duties…
Land degradation by human activities pushing Earth into sixth mass extinction and undermining well-being of 3.2 billion people
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): Worsening land degradation caused by human activities is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity, driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change. It is also a major contributor to mass human migration and increased conflict, according to the world’s first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation and restoration. The dangers of land degradation, which cost the equivalent of about 10% of the world’s annual gross product in 2010 through…
Brexit campaign was ‘totally illegal’, claims Vote Leave whistleblower
The Guardian reports: A whistleblower who worked for the official Vote Leave campaign has broken cover to raise concerns that the masterminds behind the 2016 vote – including key figures now working for Theresa May in Downing Street – may have flouted referendum spending rules and then attempted to destroy evidence. The allegations, from former volunteer Shahmir Sanni, are detailed in an interview in the Observer and supported by a mass of documents and files that he has passed…
69 percent of Americans support tougher gun laws
The Associated Press reports: Support for tougher gun control laws is soaring in the United States, according to a new poll that found a majority of gun owners and half of Republicans favor new laws to address gun violence in the weeks after a Florida school shooting left 17 dead and sparked nationwide protests. The poll, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that nearly 7 in 10 adults now favor stricter gun control measures. That’s…
After the Parkland shootings, the NRA went on a Facebook advertising rampage
Chicago Tribune reports: Immediately after the horror of the February 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the National Rifle Association halted all of its digital advertising, including ads on YouTube, banner ads on websites, and Facebook ads. Within four days, though, the NRA had returned in force, increasing its advertising aggressively on Facebook, and spending so widely and indiscriminately that its ads on YouTube showed up on videos for school-age kids. According to a…
The crisis in modern masculinity
Pankaj Mishra writes: Many straight white men feel besieged by “uppity” Chinese and Indian people, by Muslims and feminists, not to mention gay bodybuilders, butch women and trans people. Not surprisingly they are susceptible to [Jordan] Peterson’s notion that the ostensible destruction of “the traditional household division of labour” has led to “chaos”. This fear and insecurity of a male minority has spiralled into a politics of hysteria in the two dominant imperial powers of the modern era. In Britain,…
‘Shocking’ decline in birds across Europe due to pesticide use, say scientists
The Independent reports: Bird numbers across France have declined by a third in the past 15 years, according to new figures released by researchers. Linked to changes in agricultural practices such as pesticide use, the dramatic collapse is comparable with trends observed in other parts of Europe, including the UK. Nevertheless, the latest figures have shocked scientists who previously thought France’s bird population was relatively stable. “We had some idea because when you are working in the countryside you find…
John Bolton: The Mujahedeen Khalq’s man in the White House
Robert Mackey writes: Among the most alarmed by President Donald Trump’s selection of John Bolton as his new national security adviser on Thursday were supporters of the Iran nuclear deal, the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a partial lifting of economic sanctions. Rob Malley, who coordinated Middle East policy in the Obama administration, observed that Bolton’s appointment, along with the nomination of Iran deal critic Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, seemed to signal…