How Israelis turned atrocity denial into an art

How Israelis turned atrocity denial into an art

Ron Dudai writes: A decade ago, in the final days of the weekly joint Palestinian–Jewish protests against Israel’s construction of the separation wall in the West Bank village of Al-Ma’asara, one of our pre-demonstration rituals was a speech by Mahmoud, a local community leader. Phone in hand, he would declare: “We will not have another Nakba, because now we have this. We have a smartphone. We have Facebook. They will try to drive us away again, but everyone will see…

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Human connection to nature has declined 60% over the last 200 years, study finds

Human connection to nature has declined 60% over the last 200 years, study finds

The Guardian reports: People’s connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800, almost exactly mirroring the disappearance of nature words such as river, moss and blossom from books, according to a study. Computer modelling predicts that levels of nature connectedness will continue to decline unless there are far-reaching policy and societal changes – with introducing children to nature at a young age and radically greening urban environments the most effective interventions. The study by Miles Richardson, a…

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Is ChatGPT making us stupid?

Is ChatGPT making us stupid?

By Aaron French, Kennesaw State University Back in 2008, The Atlantic sparked controversy with a provocative cover story: Is Google Making Us Stupid? In that 4,000-word essay, later expanded into a book, author Nicholas Carr suggested the answer was yes, arguing that technology such as search engines were worsening Americans’ ability to think deeply and retain knowledge. At the core of Carr’s concern was the idea that people no longer needed to remember or learn facts when they could instantly…

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Trump’s stunning power grab on elections

Trump’s stunning power grab on elections

Barton Gellman writes: At first glance, President Trump’s Truth Social post alleging voting fraud did not look especially alarming — not, anyway, by this president’s singular standards. Mr. Trump’s long-debunked lies about stolen elections are no less malignant in 2025 than they were in 2020 and 2021, during his concerted effort to overturn his loss at the polls. Still, by now, persistent repetition has diminished the power of those lies to shock. And yet something quite shocking did emerge from…

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Supreme Court could give immigration agents broad power to indiscriminately stop and question Latinos

Supreme Court could give immigration agents broad power to indiscriminately stop and question Latinos

The Los Angeles Times reports: This year’s most far-reaching immigration case is likely to decide if immigration agents in Los Angeles are free to stop, question and arrest Latinos they suspect are here illegally. President Trump promised the “largest mass deportation operation” in American history, and he chose to begin aggressive street sweeps in Los Angeles in early June. The Greater Los Angeles area is “ground zero for the effects of the border crisis,” his lawyers told the Supreme Court…

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Maine oyster farmer’s bid to unseat Sen. Susan Collins gains national attention

Maine oyster farmer’s bid to unseat Sen. Susan Collins gains national attention

  The Guardian reports: One of Graham Platner’s high school yearbooks shows him babyfaced with a buzzcut, holding a sign proclaiming, in part: “Free Palestine.” The image is accompanied by a superlative his classmates bestowed upon him: “Most Likely To Start A Revolution.” “We’ll see!” Platner wrote on X Thursday, posting a photo of the yearbook page, in a post that’s been viewed 4.5m times. Now bearded, burly and tattooed, with a sweep of dirty blond hair above a sunburnt…

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Trump regime orders work halted on wind farm that is close to completion

Trump regime orders work halted on wind farm that is close to completion

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Friday ordered that all construction stop on Revolution Wind, a $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is already mostly built. The 65-turbine project had obtained all necessary permits from the Biden administration, and nearly 70 percent of the turbines have been installed. The developers behind the project had said it was on track to produce enough electricity for more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and…

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Israel’s iron grip on the American right is slipping away

Israel’s iron grip on the American right is slipping away

Ben Lorber writes: On Oct. 12, 2017, then Congressmember Matt Gaetz spoke on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce a resolution condemning the United Nations for ostensible anti-Israel bias. “I rise today to support our friend and ally, Israel,” the representative from Florida announced, claiming that the UN was trying to “rewrite history, to condemn Israel and call it an occupying power in Jerusalem.” Gaetz slammed the international body’s “antisemitism” and “attempts to punish and delegitimize…

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Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

The Guardian reports: The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has resigned after a cabinet meeting failed to secure sanctions against Israel, weakening the Netherlands’ already fragile caretaker government. Veldkamp’s colleagues from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party also walked out after the cabinet debate late on Friday reached an impasse over adopting harsher measures against Israel. The discussions about taking further steps against Israel came after the Netherlands joined 20 other countries in signing a joint declaration on Thursday…

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Neuroscientists find evidence of an internal brain rhythm that orchestrates memory

Neuroscientists find evidence of an internal brain rhythm that orchestrates memory

PsyPost reports: A new study sheds light on how our brains rhythmically organize memories at the level of individual nerve cells. Researchers in Germany have found that single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe tend to synchronize their activity with slow brain waves, particularly during memory formation and retrieval. These patterns, known as theta-phase locking, appear to reflect an internal rhythm that helps structure cognitive processes. The findings were published in Nature Communications. The study, led by neuroscientists at…

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After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

The New York Times reports: A report by a panel of food security experts that found there was famine in parts of Gaza prompted outrage from many European countries, but not from the United States — Israel’s main backer — and the Trump administration. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s arguments against the report in posts on social media, saying that Hamas was to blame for any hunger in Gaza. “Tons of…

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Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, gives away the game

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, gives away the game

Adam Klasfeld writes: For two days of meandering questioning in Tallahassee, Fla., Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney turned Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche gave convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell ample opportunity to rehabilitate herself at the expense of victims like Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley, who represents hundreds of Jeffrey Epstein survivors, said that Maxwell “repeatedly and brazenly lied on the record to the government” in these transcripts. “Maxwell ruined countless young lives with impunity for too long,”…

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Wajahat Ali and Zev Shalev discuss the Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts

Wajahat Ali and Zev Shalev discuss the Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts

  Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview transcripts reveal a cover-up in real time, attempting to help Donald Trump distract America from his shady relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. I joined Zev Shalev to discuss what we learned from today’s transcripts, Maxwell’s endgame, and the financial trail and characters that corporate media are still missing when it comes to the Epstein story.

MAGA influencers express confidence in testimony of convicted sex trafficker who hopes to be pardoned

MAGA influencers express confidence in testimony of convicted sex trafficker who hopes to be pardoned

Politico reports: President Trump’s close allies are welcoming convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell telling top Justice Department officials she never witnessed him “in any inappropriate setting” with young girls in his history of dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. MAGA loyalists quickly began circulating passages of Maxwell’s interview transcript released by DOJ on Friday in which Epstein’s former girlfriend says she never witnessed the president committing any wrongdoing. The DOJ’s announcement earlier this year that it would not release files connected to…

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