The Hunter Biden problem isn’t going away

The Hunter Biden problem isn’t going away

Jill Lawrence writes: It’s time to get nervous about Hunter Biden. It’s tempting to try to dismiss or ignore it all—the constant “Biden & Son” and “Biden Crime Family” emails, the intrusive attempted shaming over the seventh grandchild, the drug addiction, the unpaid taxes, the illegal gun, the investigation by a prosecutor who was named by Donald Trump, the plea deal that’s now on hold. And why not just tune it out? House Republicans can allege wrongdoing by President Joe…

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Just how fast will clean energy grow in the U.S.?

Just how fast will clean energy grow in the U.S.?

Dana Nuccitelli writes: To slash U.S. emissions of climate-warming carbon pollution, many experts have settled on a plan that can be largely described in two steps: Clean up the power grid and electrify everything. If electric vehicles, heat pumps, induction stoves, and some industrial processes can be powered by clean electricity and replace fossil-fueled alternatives, that transition will do most of the work toward decarbonizing the economy and helping the U.S. meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Carbon…

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Racism at heart of U.S. failure to tackle deadly heatwaves, expert warns

Racism at heart of U.S. failure to tackle deadly heatwaves, expert warns

The Guardian reports: Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet. Jeff Goodell, an award winning climate journalist, told the Guardian that people of color – including millions of migrant workers who are bearing the brunt of record-breaking temperatures as farmhands, builders and delivery workers – are not guaranteed lifesaving measures like water and shade breaks because…

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Amazon deforestation falls over 60% compared with last July, says Brazilian minister

Amazon deforestation falls over 60% compared with last July, says Brazilian minister

The Guardian reports: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by at least 60% in July compared to the same month last year, the environment minister, Marina Silva, has told the Guardian. The good news comes ahead of a regional summit that aims to prevent South America’s largest biome from hitting a calamitous tipping point. The exact figure, which is based on the Deter satellite alert system, will be released in the coming days, but independent analysts described the preliminary data…

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American conservatives are taking cues from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

American conservatives are taking cues from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

Michael Ignatieff writes: When in the Spring of 2017 Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, made it illegal for the Central European University to offer U.S.-accredited degrees at its Budapest campus, everyone there knew that this was more than an attack on George Soros, the Hungarian American businessman and philanthropist who’d founded the CEU. I was then the university’s president and rector, posts I held from 2016 to 2021, so I witnessed the more than 50,000 citizens of Budapest who marched…

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Prosecutors may not need to show that Trump knew he had lost the election

Prosecutors may not need to show that Trump knew he had lost the election

Hugo Lowell writes: Included in the indictment last week against Donald Trump for his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election was a count of obstructing an official proceeding – the attempt to stop the vote certification in Congress on the day his supporters mounted the January 6 Capitol attack. The count is notable, because – based on a review of previous judicial rulings in other cases where the charge has been brought – it may be one where prosecutors…

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Niger’s coup signals trouble

Niger’s coup signals trouble

Amanda Kadlec writes: On the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to the country earlier this year, Antony Blinken, speaking in the capital of Niamey, hailed Niger as a bastion of democratic stability in a sea of Sahelian chaos. But the internal reality is something quite different. Although their status is much improved over the past 20 years, Nigeriens are among the most economically, educationally and nutritionally deprived populations on the planet. The U.N. ranked Niger the least…

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James Webb Space Telescope prompts a rethink of how galaxies form

James Webb Space Telescope prompts a rethink of how galaxies form

Adam Mann writes: Katherine Whitaker was on a video call with colleagues last summer when NASA released the first pictures from the ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Among the many awe-inspiring images was one of a sliver of sky surrounding the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723: It was brimming with some of the oldest and most distant galaxies ever recorded. “We would zoom in and be like, ‘Oh wow,’ and ‘What the heck is that?’” recalls Whitaker, an astronomer at…

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Putin wants to lead Russians into a civilizational conflict with the West far larger than Ukraine

Putin wants to lead Russians into a civilizational conflict with the West far larger than Ukraine

Roger Cohen writes: Through towering pine forests and untouched meadows, the road to Lake Baikal in southern Siberia winds past cemeteries where bright plastic flowers mark the graves of Russians killed in Ukraine. Far from the Potemkin paradise of Moscow, the war is ever visible. On the eastern shore of the lake, where white-winged gulls plunge into the steel-blue water, Yulia Rolikova, 35, runs an inn that doubles as a children’s summer camp. She is some 3,500 miles from the…

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There is no First Amendment right to overturn an election

There is no First Amendment right to overturn an election

Ian Millhiser writes: Shortly after special counsel Jack Smith unveiled four new criminal charges against former president Donald Trump — all arising out of Trump’s failed efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election — one of Trump’s lawyers revealed one of the legal arguments he plans to use to defend the former president. “This is an attack on free speech and political advocacy,” Trump attorney John Lauro told CNN Tuesday evening. In a separate appearance on Fox News, Lauro claimed that Trump is being prosecuted for…

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Trump says he will seek a recusal, venue change in Jan. 6 case

Trump says he will seek a recusal, venue change in Jan. 6 case

Politico reports: Donald Trump will ask for the federal judge overseeing the case involving his attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election to recuse herself and will seek a venue change, he wrote in a post on social media Sunday. “There is no way I can get a fair trial with the judge ‘assigned’ to the ridiculous freedom of speech/fair elections case. Everybody knows this, and so does she!,” Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social. “We will be…

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U.S. company Haas appears to still indirectly supply Russian arms industry with technology

U.S. company Haas appears to still indirectly supply Russian arms industry with technology

  American machine tools giant Haas Automation faced allegations in March it sold technology to the Russian arms industry via a former distributor. Haas denied the story and said it halted sales when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. But research shows Haas may still be supplying the Russian arms industry indirectly. Special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky reports with support from the Pulitzer Center.

Russia and China sent large naval patrol near Alaska

Russia and China sent large naval patrol near Alaska

The Wall Street Journal reports: A combined Russian and Chinese naval force patrolled near the coast of Alaska last week in what U.S. experts said appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach American shores. Eleven Russian and Chinese ships steamed close to the Aleutian Islands, according to U.S. officials. The ships, which never entered U.S. territorial waters and have since left, were shadowed by four U.S. destroyers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft. “It is a historical first,” said Brent…

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RFK Jr’s presidential campaign is just a ‘vanity project’ says JFK’s grandson as Kennedy family backs Biden

RFK Jr’s presidential campaign is just a ‘vanity project’ says JFK’s grandson as Kennedy family backs Biden

The New York Times reports: Jack Schlossberg had enough. The only grandson of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Schlossberg had been watching the presidential campaign of his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with increasing dismay. To Mr. Schlossberg, the quixotic challenge to President Biden for the Democratic nomination was just a “vanity project” that was tarnishing the legacy of his grandfather and their storied family. Just days earlier last month, his conspiracy-minded cousin had suggested that the Covid-19 virus had…

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