The heart sends messages to the brain

The heart sends messages to the brain

Science News reports: Everyone knows that the brain influences the heart. Stressful thoughts can set the heart pounding, sometimes with such deep force that we worry people can hear it. Anxiety can trigger the irregular skittering of atrial fibrillation. In more extreme and rarer cases, emotional turmoil from a shock — the death of a loved one, a cancer diagnosis, an intense argument — can trigger a syndrome that mimics a heart attack. But not everyone knows that the heart…

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How the war on Gaza is shaping the 2024 elections — and the future of the Democratic Party

How the war on Gaza is shaping the 2024 elections — and the future of the Democratic Party

Samer Badawi writes: In a public park just outside Cleveland, Ohio, a small plaque marks the last stop on the Underground Railroad, the secret network that helped tens of thousands of enslaved people flee to freedom in the decades leading up to America’s Civil War. Etched into a paved walkway that leads to the water, the marker at Lakewood Park is easy to miss, a fitting emblem of a region that is nothing if not understated. Yet it was here,…

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We’re only in it for the money: Biden sees more value in donations than votes

We’re only in it for the money: Biden sees more value in donations than votes

Eli Clifton reports: A New York Times poll released this week found that 13% of voters defecting from President Joe Biden, those who voted for him in 2020 but will not do so in November, cite his handling of foreign policy and Israel’s war in Gaza as the reason for pulling their support. But an investigation by Responsible Statecraft finds that those same policies likely benefit the president’s re-election campaign in a different way: his biggest funders happen to support…

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Bernie Sanders: Don’t let Biden’s stance on Israel become the reason Trump gets elected

Bernie Sanders: Don’t let Biden’s stance on Israel become the reason Trump gets elected

Bernie Sanders writes: Biden is not popular and many progressives, including me, strongly disagree with his policies regarding Israel and this disastrous war in Gaza. But, let’s be clear. Biden is not running against God. He is running against Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in American history whose second term, if he is re-elected, will be worse than his first. And, on his worst day, Biden is a thousand times better than Trump. Are you concerned about the extreme…

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Sonoma State University president placed on leave for ‘insubordination’ — an agreement with protesters

Sonoma State University president placed on leave for ‘insubordination’ — an agreement with protesters

The Press Democrat reports: Sonoma State University was rocked Wednesday afternoon when President Mike Lee announced he is stepping aside, at least temporarily, in the wake of a controversial email he sent to students and faculty regarding the demands of campus pro-Palestinian protesters. It’s not known how long Lee will be away. In a Wednesday statement, California State University Chancellor Mildred Garcia wrote: “On Tuesday evening, Sonoma State University President Mike Lee sent a campuswide message concerning an agreement with…

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Amnesty International: Syrian refugees face detention, torture and death on return

Amnesty International: Syrian refugees face detention, torture and death on return

The security forces in Syria have subjected Syrian refugees who returned to the country to detention, disappearance and horrific torture – including sexual violence – Amnesty International said today in a shocking new report. Amnesty’s 51-page report – You’re Going To Your Death – documents appalling human rights violations committed by Syrian intelligence officers against 66 returnees, including 13 children. Five people died in custody, while the fate of 17 forcibly disappeared people remains unknown. The report – coming against…

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Texas gov. pardons Daniel Perry, who murdered a police brutality protester in 2020

Texas gov. pardons Daniel Perry, who murdered a police brutality protester in 2020

The Texas Tribune reports: More than a year after a Travis County jury convicted Daniel Perry of murdering a protester in Austin, Gov. Greg Abbott pardoned Perry on Thursday shortly after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended a full pardon. A Texas state district court judge sentenced Perry in May 2023 to 25 years in prison for shooting and killing U.S. Air Force veteran Garrett Foster during a 2020 demonstration protesting police brutality against people of color. One…

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Increase in infectious diseases strongly associated with loss of biodiversity

Increase in infectious diseases strongly associated with loss of biodiversity

Anthropocene reports: When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world in 2020, it drew attention to the ways environmental damage can set the stage for disease outbreaks. Scientists pointed to the potential roles of urbanization, habitat loss, and trade in live animals for helping to fuel a disease that many scientists think leapt from wild animals to people. While all those factors might have influenced this particular pandemic, they aren’t the main ways that environmental destruction threatens to amplify infectious disease….

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This is what Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia, wants you to know

This is what Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia, wants you to know

  For over seven months, a dominant conversation in the U.S. news media has been about alleged and increased antisemitism on American campuses – culminating in the coverage around student encampments. The “Gaza solidarity encampment” at Columbia University, in particular, has received a lot of attention which sparked encampments across the country — as well as university-backed police repression and violence. In this interview, AJ+ speaks to Dr. Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia University who supported students protesting…

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U.S. doctor (who saved Sen. Duckworth’s life in Iraq) now trapped in Gaza, appeals to Biden to stop the war

U.S. doctor (who saved Sen. Duckworth’s life in Iraq) now trapped in Gaza, appeals to Biden to stop the war

  Democracy Now! speaks with Dr. Adam Hamawy, one of around 20 American medical workers trapped in Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. A plastic surgeon and Army veteran, Hamawy is on a volunteer mission with the Palestinian American Medical Association at the European Hospital in Khan Younis. Like many Gazans, the U.S. medical workers are now facing dehydration and other deadly health conditions. “We’re continuing to do our job. … It’s tiring, but this is…

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Interior Dept staffer becomes first Jewish political appointee to publicly resign over war in Gaza

Interior Dept staffer becomes first Jewish political appointee to publicly resign over war in Gaza

The Associated Press reports: An Interior Department staffer on Wednesday became the first Jewish political appointee to publicly resign in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Lily Greenberg Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff in the Interior Department, accused President Joe Biden of using Jews to justify U.S. policy in the conflict. Call had worked for the presidential campaigns of both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and was a longtime activist and advocate…

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White House opposes House bill to force Israeli arm shipments as it approves $1 billion more weapons

White House opposes House bill to force Israeli arm shipments as it approves $1 billion more weapons

Politico reports: The White House announced on Monday that it opposes a Republican-led bill that would force President Joe Biden to send withheld military assistance to Israel. “We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the president’s ability to deploy a U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. House Republicans introduced the bill over the weekend in response to Biden’s decision to pause a shipment of weapons in an effort…

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She campaigned for a Texas school board seat as a GOP hard-liner. Now she’s rejecting her party’s extremism

She campaigned for a Texas school board seat as a GOP hard-liner. Now she’s rejecting her party’s extremism

By Jeremy Schwartz, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, May 15, 2024 This story was originally published by ProPublica Weeks after winning a school board seat in her deeply red Texas county, Courtney Gore immersed herself in the district’s curriculum, spending her nights and weekends poring over hundreds of pages of lesson plans that she had fanned out on the coffee table in her living room and even across her bed. She was searching for evidence of the sweeping national movement…

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The New York Trump case embodies the defendant

The New York Trump case embodies the defendant

George T. Conway III writes: Not all that long ago, I thought that the trial currently being held in The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump would be the last one I’d want to see as the first one tried against the former president. It seemed the least serious of the cases against him. Here’s a man who tried to overthrow American democracy by launching a coup to stay in power. A man who allegedly stole dozens of boxes of classified…

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