Elon Musk’s SpaceX, already a leader in satellites, gets into the spy game

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, already a leader in satellites, gets into the spy game

The New York Times reports: The breakthrough came last month, about 600 miles above Earth. For the first time, the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency used lasers to more securely transmit data at light speed between military satellites, making it easier to track enemy missiles and if necessary shoot them down. It was a milestone not only for the Pentagon. This was a defining moment for a certain up-and-coming military contractor that had built key parts of this new system: Elon…

Read More Read More

‘Our job is to flatten Gaza. No one will stop us’

‘Our job is to flatten Gaza. No one will stop us’

Ryan Grim writes: Journalists Younis Tirawi and Sami Vanderlip have managed to find and archive all the Instagram stories and daily posts shared by the soldiers of one key unit, Israel’s 749 Combat Engineering Battalion. They’ve mapped out the structure of the unit and identified the individual soldiers and officers involved, along with their various roles in operations. They have tracked the activities of each company in the battalion, including what they were doing, when, and where, as the force…

Read More Read More

Some MAGA men seem to think women don’t have rights – starting with their wives

Some MAGA men seem to think women don’t have rights – starting with their wives

Rebecca Solnit writes: This week, the fundamentalist Christian pastor Dale Partridge argued in a series of tweets that “in a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction”. In other words, he pits his version of the religion against the constitution, which, since the 19th amendment passed a century ago, guarantees adult citizens the right to vote regardless of sex. He argues that in marriage, the husband annexes and owns his wife’s voice and rights, so that…

Read More Read More

Trump’s ‘grab them’ comment was history. Now TikTok is showing it to young voters

Trump’s ‘grab them’ comment was history. Now TikTok is showing it to young voters

The Washington Post reports: It’s been eight years since leaked audio from a conversation between Donald Trump and TV host Billy Bush made waves for the former president’s descriptions of kissing and grabbing women without their consent. Now, young people are encountering the tape for the first time on TikTok, where users are sharing videos of their reactions and, in some cases, reaching large audiences. Many first-time voters were young teens in 2016 when The Washington Post first reported the…

Read More Read More

A pregnant teenager died after trying to get care in three visits to Texas emergency rooms

A pregnant teenager died after trying to get care in three visits to Texas emergency rooms

By Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana This story was originally published by ProPublica Candace Fails screamed for someone in the Texas hospital to help her pregnant daughter. “Do something,” she pleaded, on the morning of Oct. 29, 2023. Nevaeh Crain was crying in pain, too weak to walk, blood staining her thighs. Feverish and vomiting the day of her baby shower, the 18-year-old had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours, returning home each time worse than before….

Read More Read More

Exterminate, expel, resettle: Israel’s endgame in northern Gaza

Exterminate, expel, resettle: Israel’s endgame in northern Gaza

+972 Magazine reports: The “Generals’ Plan,” published in early September, has a very simple goal: to empty the northern Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population. The plan itself estimated that about 300,000 people were still living north of the Netzarim Corridor — the Israeli-occupied zone that bisects Gaza — although the UN put the number closer to 400,000. During the first phase of the plan, the Israeli army would inform all of those people that they have a week to evacuate to the south…

Read More Read More

‘I couldn’t cry over my children like everyone else’: the tragedy of Palestinian journalist Wael al-Dahdouh

‘I couldn’t cry over my children like everyone else’: the tragedy of Palestinian journalist Wael al-Dahdouh

Nesrine Malik writes: Wael al-Dahdouh was live on air when he realised something was wrong. It was 25 October 2023, about 5pm, and Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza was standing on the roof of the channel’s office building, speaking about the day’s airstrikes. “It’s going to be a bloody night,” said Dahdouh, his voice playing over live images of the skyline, as explosions flared on the horizon. Out of the corner of his eye, Dahdouh noticed his nephew Hamdan,…

Read More Read More

Researchers are trying to ‘inoculate’ people against misinformation

Researchers are trying to ‘inoculate’ people against misinformation

Science reports: As a young boy growing up in the Netherlands in the 1990s, Sander van der Linden learned that most of his mother’s relatives, who were Jewish, had been killed by the Nazis, in the grip of racist ideology. At school, he was confronted with antisemitic conspiracy theories still circulating in Europe. It all got him wondering about the power of propaganda and how people become convinced of falsehoods. Eventually, he would make studying those issues his career. As…

Read More Read More

MAGA men are terrified at the fact that women can still vote however they choose

MAGA men are terrified at the fact that women can still vote however they choose

The Daily Beast reports: Two of former president Donald Trump’s most prominent backers in the right wing influencer sphere fretted Wednesday after early voting numbers showed massive early turnout among women that could imperil their candidate’s path to victory. “Male turnout in Pennsylvania for Trump has been a disaster,” tweeted Mike Cernovich on Wednesday. “Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes PA and it’s over.” Male turnout in Pennsylvania for Trump has been a disaster. Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes…

Read More Read More

Musk asks voters to brace for economic ‘hardship,’ deep spending cuts in potential Trump Cabinet role

Musk asks voters to brace for economic ‘hardship,’ deep spending cuts in potential Trump Cabinet role

NBC News reports: In the home stretch of the 2024 election, voters who’ve been weighing both campaigns’ proposals to tackle living costs are now hearing a new pitch from the Republican side: accept some short-term economic pain to rein in government spending. That message has emerged from former President Donald Trump’s wealthiest backer, Elon Musk, who says that the GOP nominee’s plans to put the U.S. on firmer fiscal footing would likely entail “temporary hardship” for ordinary Americans. At a…

Read More Read More

Elon Musk could have U.S. citizenship revoked if he lied on immigration forms

Elon Musk could have U.S. citizenship revoked if he lied on immigration forms

Wired reports: Elon Musk could have his United States citizenship revoked and be exposed to criminal prosecution if he lied to the government as part of the immigration process, according to legal experts. Musk, who was born and raised in South Africa and later emigrated to Canada before eventually settling in the US and becoming a citizen, has spent more than $100 million to support Donald Trump and his nativist presidential campaign, and has personally demonized immigrants. A recent Bloomberg…

Read More Read More

The stock market’s surprising bet on who will win the presidency

The stock market’s surprising bet on who will win the presidency

Politico reports: Wall Street executives, political gamblers and cryptocurrency traders are piling up their bets that former President Donald Trump is returning to the White House. But the stock market may be telling a different story. U.S. stocks have been on a tear, with the bellwether S&P 500 index climbing more than 10 percent since August. While the stock market is not necessarily representative of the broader economy, the S&P 500’s performance in the run-up to Election Day has historically…

Read More Read More

Trump would be worse for Palestinians

Trump would be worse for Palestinians

Nicholas Kristof writes: If Donald Trump is elected president on Tuesday, one factor may be anger at Biden administration policies in the Middle East. Some Arab Americans, including those in swing states like Michigan, are enraged at President Biden’s support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Their taxes are paying for weapons that may be killing their relatives. A poll found Arab American support for Kamala Harris is 18 percentage points below support for Biden in 2020. Many young…

Read More Read More