Combatting cannibalism and jailing librarians: Idaho Democrats see opportunity in extreme GOP agenda

Combatting cannibalism and jailing librarians: Idaho Democrats see opportunity in extreme GOP agenda

Politico reports: Democrat Loree Peery knows she’s a long-shot candidate for the Idaho Legislature. But when her state House representative introduced a bill in February expanding an anti-cannibalism law — action prompted by a prank video — Peery decided she had to try to oust the far-right incumbent, Heather Scott. “You can’t win if you don’t run,” Peery said, adding that Scott’s focus on irrelevant issues like cannibalism shows she isn’t a serious lawmaker. “It forces the Republicans to work,…

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Living with the enduring pain of postcolonial trauma

Living with the enduring pain of postcolonial trauma

Farah Abdessamad writes: In 1952, the 27-year-old Frantz Fanon had just published his first book, Black Skin, White Masks, his controversial and rejected doctoral thesis on the effects of racism on health. Fanon had been interning at Saint-Alban hospital in southern France when he soon noticed that medical personnel often overlooked and minimised the concern of North African patients. At that time, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia (where my father was born) were either French colonies or protectorates, and these patients…

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‘Racist by default’: AOC talks to Mehdi Hasan and Zeteo about Gaza, genocide, and media bias

‘Racist by default’: AOC talks to Mehdi Hasan and Zeteo about Gaza, genocide, and media bias

  In a launch event for Zeteo, Mehdi Hasan sits down with US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to discuss the escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and both sides-ism in the media. — Founded by Mehdi Hasan, Zeteo has a strong bias for the truth and an unwavering belief in the media’s responsibility to the public. Unfiltered news, bold opinions.

Poll: 74% of Israelis oppose counterstrike on Iran if it harms security alliances

Poll: 74% of Israelis oppose counterstrike on Iran if it harms security alliances

The Times of Israel reports: Nearly three-quarters of the Israeli public oppose a retaliatory strike on Iran for its massive missile attack on the country if such action would harm Israel’s security alliance with its allies, according to a poll published Tuesday. The Hebrew University survey also found that over half the public believes Israel “respond[s] positively” to the military and political demands of allies. Israel has vowed to retaliate after Iran overnight Saturday fired over 300 missiles and drones…

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Leaked NYT memo tells journalists to avoid words ‘genocide,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘occupied territory’

Leaked NYT memo tells journalists to avoid words ‘genocide,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘occupied territory’

The Intercept reports: The New York Times instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept. The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of…

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Russian weapons help Iran harden defenses against Israeli airstrike

Russian weapons help Iran harden defenses against Israeli airstrike

The Washington Post reports: Last March, a Russian arms maker invited a delegation of Iranians to a VIP shopping tour of its weapons factories. The 17 visitors were treated to lunches and cultural shows and, on the final day, toured a plant that makes products long coveted by Tehran: advanced Russian air defense systems for shooting down enemy planes. The factory, NPP Start, in the city of Yekaterinburg, is under U.S. sanctions for supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine. Among its…

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Russian trolls target U.S. support for Ukraine, Kremlin documents show

Russian trolls target U.S. support for Ukraine, Kremlin documents show

The Washington Post reports: When President Biden proposed an additional $24 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine in August, Moscow spin doctors working for the Kremlin were ready to try to undermine public support for the bill, internal Kremlin documents show. In an ongoing campaign that seeks to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir…

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The paradox that’s supercharging climate change

The paradox that’s supercharging climate change

Wired reports: No good deed goes unpunished—and that includes trying to slow climate change. By cutting greenhouse gas emissions, humanity will spew out fewer planet-cooling aerosols—small particles of pollution that act like tiny umbrellas to bounce some of the sun’s energy back into space. “Even more important than this direct reflection effect, they alter the properties of clouds,” says Øivind Hodnebrog, a climate researcher at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway. “In essence, they make the clouds…

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Milky Way’s largest stellar black hole discovered 2,000 light years away from Earth

Milky Way’s largest stellar black hole discovered 2,000 light years away from Earth

The European Space Agency reports: Wading through the wealth of data from ESA’s Gaia mission, scientists have uncovered a ‘sleeping giant’. A large black hole, with a mass of nearly 33 times the mass of the Sun, was hiding in the constellation Aquila, less than 2000 light-years from Earth. This is the first time a black hole of stellar origin this big has been spotted within the Milky Way. So far, black holes of this type have only been observed…

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How Iran attacks exposed Israel’s weakness

How Iran attacks exposed Israel’s weakness

David Hearst writes: Israel, under Netanyahu’s stewardship, has become a pariah state. Once again, Israel needed to play the victim, to sustain the myth that it is fighting for its existence. What better time for Netanyahu, the gambler, to throw the dice and attack an Iranian consulate, knowing full well what that meant? The US also knew what Netanyahu was doing, which was to try to drag America into an attack on Iran for at least the third time in…

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Babies and children hit hardest as famine tightens hold on Gaza

Babies and children hit hardest as famine tightens hold on Gaza

The Guardian reports: Even if the war in Gaza ended tomorrow, for some of the Palestinian territory’s children, it would not help. Hunger and malnutrition have already claimed an estimated 27 young lives, and for many more, it may be too late to reverse the excruciating toll that starvation takes on small, growing bodies. Nuzha Awad’s triplets, Malek, Khader and Moustafa, born two months before the war began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, did not stop crying as…

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China says Iran can ‘handle situation,’ spare Middle East turmoil

China says Iran can ‘handle situation,’ spare Middle East turmoil

Reuters reports: China said it believed Iran could “handle the situation well and spare the region further turmoil” while safeguarding its sovereignty and dignity, referring to an attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria and its retaliatory strike over the weekend. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian via a phone call on Monday that China appreciated Iran’s emphasis on not targeting regional and neighboring countries, according to the official Xinhua news agency on Tuesday. Wang also said…

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Military aid to Israel cannot be unconditional

Military aid to Israel cannot be unconditional

The New York Times editorial board says: The suffering of civilians in Gaza — tens of thousands dead, many of them children; hundreds of thousands homeless, many at risk of starvation — has become more than a growing number of Americans can abide. And yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his ultranationalist allies in government have defied American calls for more restraint and humanitarian help. The United States commitment to Israel — including $3.8 billion a year in…

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Far right’s ties to Russia sow rising alarm in Germany

Far right’s ties to Russia sow rising alarm in Germany

The New York Times reports: To enter a secret session of Germany’s Parliament, lawmakers must lock their phones and leave them outside. Inside, they are not even allowed to take notes. Yet to many politicians, these precautions against espionage now feel like something of a farce. Because seated alongside them in those classified meetings are members of the Alternative for Germany, the far-right party known by its German abbreviation, AfD. In the past few months alone, a leading AfD politician…

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