Victims object to ‘public legitimization’ of Maxwell as judge weighs fate of Epstein grand jury transcripts

Victims object to ‘public legitimization’ of Maxwell as judge weighs fate of Epstein grand jury transcripts

CNN reports: Numerous victims of Jeffrey Epstein took aim at the “public legitimization” of his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell as they urged a federal judge considering unsealing grand jury transcripts to take their privacy into account when making his decision. Lawyers Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, who represent numerous victims, including a woman who testified at Maxwell’s criminal trial, also questioned the motives of the Justice Department as the Trump administration tries to tamp down criticism from some of his most…

Read More Read More

Trump regime making plans to destroy NASA satellites designed for monitoring greenhouse gases

Trump regime making plans to destroy NASA satellites designed for monitoring greenhouse gases

NPR reports: The Trump administration has asked NASA employees to draw up plans to end at least two major satellite missions, according to current and former NASA staffers. If the plans are carried out, one of the missions would be permanently terminated, because the satellite would burn up in the atmosphere. The data the two missions collect is widely used, including by scientists, oil and gas companies and farmers who need detailed information about carbon dioxide and crop health. They…

Read More Read More

The hippocampus may have much wider functions than previously thought

The hippocampus may have much wider functions than previously thought

Natalia Mesa writes: The tiny hippocampus, deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe, has long resisted easy explanation. Its prominent role in navigation seems at odds with its contributions to episodic memory. It contains cognitive maps of the external world yet also stores abstract relationships between concepts, objects and events. And it actively encodes memories during our waking hours but also replays this information offline during rest. Scientists have long debated how, or even if, the same neural circuits support…

Read More Read More

Netanyahu willing to sacrifice hostages in pursuit of complete conquest of Gaza

Netanyahu willing to sacrifice hostages in pursuit of complete conquest of Gaza

The Times of Israel reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with senior security officials on Tuesday to hammer out Gaza war plans, and reportedly came out in favor of the military taking control of the entire enclave, even if it meant that the remaining hostages could be harmed or executed by Hamas. The meeting came amid multiple reports of rising tensions between the prime minister and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir over the prospect of Israeli forces…

Read More Read More

For Trump’s own deep state, ‘his usefulness has expired’

For Trump’s own deep state, ‘his usefulness has expired’

Wajahat Ali talks to Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote, who broke the news that someone waived Ghislaine Maxwell’s status as a sex offender so she could move to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. Gill also earlier broke news that Bloomberg confirmed today that the FBI’s FOIA team was asked to redact the names of Trump and other prominent individuals from thousands of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.   The Associated Press reports: The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed…

Read More Read More

Violence against women is global and enduring

Violence against women is global and enduring

Rebecca Solnit writes: On 2 July, the jury delivered a guilty verdict on some of the charges against the music mogul Sean Combs, accused of horrific sexual abuse of women with the help of his extensive staff and deep pockets. He’s also accused in many civil suits of sexual abuse of adults and minors. It seems like everyone promptly forgot about Combs when the facts about the financier Jeffrey Epstein’s decades of horrific sexual abuse of at least a 100…

Read More Read More

EPA moves to terminate $7 billion in grants for solar energy

EPA moves to terminate $7 billion in grants for solar energy

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is preparing to terminate $7 billion in federal grants intended to help low- and moderate-income families install solar panels on their homes, according to two people briefed on the matter. The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting termination letters to the 60 state agencies, nonprofit groups and Native American tribes that received the grants under the “Solar for All” program, with the goal of sending the letters by the end of this week,…

Read More Read More

White House prepares order to punish banks that supposedly discriminate against conservatives

White House prepares order to punish banks that supposedly discriminate against conservatives

The Wall Street Journal reports: The White House is preparing to step up pressure against big banks over perceived discrimination against conservatives and crypto companies with an executive order that threatens to fine lenders that drop customers for political reasons. A draft of the executive order, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, directs bank regulators to investigate whether any financial institutions might have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws or consumer financial-protection laws. Violators could be…

Read More Read More

U.S. defence firms scramble for rare earth minerals after China blocks exports

U.S. defence firms scramble for rare earth minerals after China blocks exports

The Telegraph reports: The US is scrambling to get hold of the rare earth metals needed to make weapons after China slashed its supply to American defence firms. Prices of some rare earths have increased more than 60-fold after Beijing restricted the export of the materials for defence purposes earlier this year, amid a trade war with the US. Beijing controls around 90 per cent of the world’s rare metal supply and dominates the production of many other critical minerals,…

Read More Read More

How letting your mind wander can make it sharper

How letting your mind wander can make it sharper

The brain needs time off, too. baranq/ Shutterstock By Anna Kenyon, University of Lancashire Every day, we’re faced with constant opportunities for stimulation. With 24/7 access to news feeds, emails and social media, many of us find ourselves scrolling endlessly, chasing our next hit of dopamine. But these habits are fuelling our stress – and our brains are begging for a break. What our brains really need is some much needed time off from concentrating. By not consciously focusing on…

Read More Read More

Plastic and other waste has penetrated our brains and virtually everything else on the planet

Plastic and other waste has penetrated our brains and virtually everything else on the planet

David Wallace-Wells writes: Everywhere they look, they find particles of pollution, like infinite spores in an endless contagion field. Scientists call that field the “exposome”: the sum of all external exposures encountered by each of us over a lifetime, which portion and shape our fate alongside genes and behavior. Humans are permeable creatures, and we navigate the world like cleaner fish, filtering the waste of civilization partly by absorbing it. There is plastic in salty sea foam freshly sprayed by…

Read More Read More

Trump is turning America into a banana republic

Trump is turning America into a banana republic

Tom Friedman writes: Of all the terrible things Donald Trump has said and done as president, the most dangerous one just happened on Friday. Trump, in effect, ordered our trusted and independent government office of economic statistics to become as big a liar as he is. He fired Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for bringing him economic news he did not like, and in the hours immediately following, the second most dangerous thing happened:…

Read More Read More

Judges no longer trust the government after DOJ lawyers have repeatedly misled courts

Judges no longer trust the government after DOJ lawyers have repeatedly misled courts

The New York Times reports: Justice Department lawyers have long enjoyed a professional benefit when they appear in court. As a general rule, judges tend to take them at their word and assume they are telling the truth. But in the past several months, as members of President Trump’s Justice Department have repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders and demonized judges who have ruled against them, some jurists have started to show an angry loss of faith in the…

Read More Read More

Trump regime turns domestic disaster relief into a tool for shielding Israel from boycotts

Trump regime turns domestic disaster relief into a tool for shielding Israel from boycotts

Reuters reports: U.S. states and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied federal aid for natural disaster preparedness, the Trump administration has announced, tying routine federal funding to its political stance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency stated in grant notices posted on Friday that states must follow its “terms and conditions.” Those conditions require they certify they will not sever “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies” to qualify for funding. The requirement applies to at least $1.9 billion that…

Read More Read More