RFK Jr.’s latest tweet widely understood as white supremacist dog whistle

RFK Jr.’s latest tweet widely understood as white supremacist dog whistle

HuffPost reports: A tweet from the account of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday used language that many observers say evokes the known Nazi hate symbol “1488.” A post on the candidate’s official Twitter account used the numbers 14 and 88 in close proximity. Kennedy has not responded to HuffPost’s request for comment or explained the post elsewhere as of Friday afternoon. It’s not clear whether he personally approved the tweet. His post on Twitter (which recently…

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‘Era of global boiling has arrived,’ says UN chief as July set to be hottest month on record

‘Era of global boiling has arrived,’ says UN chief as July set to be hottest month on record

The Guardian reports: The era of global warming has ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record. “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” Guterres said. “It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels], and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only…

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As the world confronts the reality of the climate crisis, the GOP remains stuck in denial

As the world confronts the reality of the climate crisis, the GOP remains stuck in denial

HuffPost reports: Unless you’ve been living underground or have a vested interest in turning a blind eye to reality, you know that climate change has sent temperatures soaring to dangerous levels around the planet this summer. Two global climate organizations on Thursday confirmed that July is on track to be the single hottest month on record. It is also likely the hottest monthlong stretch in 120,000 years. Nearly 200 million people — 60% of the U.S. population — are currently…

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Events that never happened could influence the 2024 presidential election – a cybersecurity researcher explains situation deepfakes

Events that never happened could influence the 2024 presidential election – a cybersecurity researcher explains situation deepfakes

The volatile mix of deepfakes and political campaigns is a good reason to be on guard. Sean Anthony Eddy Creative/E+ via Getty Images By Christopher Schwartz, Rochester Institute of Technology Imagine an October surprise like no other: Only a week before Nov. 5, 2024, a video recording reveals a secret meeting between Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The American and Ukrainian presidents agree to immediately initiate Ukraine into NATO under “the special emergency membership protocol” and prepare for a nuclear…

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As nuclear threats grow, the ranks of experts in arms control are dwindling

As nuclear threats grow, the ranks of experts in arms control are dwindling

Bryan Bender writes: This summer, as the public is treated to a rare thriller about the development of the atomic bomb in director Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer, the nation’s leading nuclear policy wonks like [Ed] Geist [at RAND] are more concerned than ever about the specter of a nuclear war — and warn that we are far less prepared than during the Cold War to deal with a more expansive threat. As Oppenheimer reminds us, the bomb itself was the…

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Netanyahu won’t commit to abiding by ruling if Israel’s Supreme Court blocks controversial law

Netanyahu won’t commit to abiding by ruling if Israel’s Supreme Court blocks controversial law

CNN reports: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to say if he would abide by any potential Supreme Court ruling striking down his controversial judicial reform law, as Israelis agonize over a looming showdown between their government and the court. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Netanyhu warned that the country could enter “uncharted territory” if the Supreme Court overturned the law, which strips the court of its power to block government actions. “What you’re talking about is…

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Let the tragedy in my homeland be a lesson

Let the tragedy in my homeland be a lesson

Tahir Hamut Izgil writes: About seven years ago, people around me started disappearing. It began slowly, quietly. The editors of a well-known literature textbook were suddenly nowhere to be found. A friend of mine left for work and never came home. My family and I are Uyghurs, and at the time we were living in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China. The political situation in our region had been growing gradually more tense for…

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What makes the debilitating fatigue in many chronic illnesses so different from everyday tiredness

What makes the debilitating fatigue in many chronic illnesses so different from everyday tiredness

Ed Yong writes: Alexis Misko’s health has improved enough that, once a month, she can leave her house for a few hours. First, she needs to build up her energy by lying in a dark room for the better part of two days, doing little more than listening to audiobooks. Then she needs a driver, a quiet destination where she can lie down, and days of rest to recover afterward. The brief outdoor joy “never quite feels like enough,” she…

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Modern ‘sixth mass extinction’ event will be worse than first predicted, says report

Modern ‘sixth mass extinction’ event will be worse than first predicted, says report

GrrlScientist writes: Tragically, the global mass extinction event that we find ourselves in the midst of will be even worse than originally predicted, according to a recent study (ref). The international team of scientists came to their conclusion after analyzing population trends data for more than 71,000 animal species — including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and insects — from around the world to see how their numbers have changed since record-keeping first began. Generally, scientists agree that an extinction…

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Trump faces major new charges in documents case

Trump faces major new charges in documents case

The New York Times reports: Federal prosecutors on Thursday added major accusations to an indictment charging former President Donald J. Trump with mishandling classified documents after he left office, saying he told a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago that he wanted security camera footage there to be deleted. The new accusations were revealed in a superseding indictment that named the maintenance worker, Carlos De Oliveira, as a new defendant in the case. The revised indictment also added three serious charges against…

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Trump needed $225 million. A little-known bank came to the rescue

Trump needed $225 million. A little-known bank came to the rescue

The Washington Post reports: As Donald Trump considered another White House run last year, his company’s finances were at risk of spiraling into crisis. The former president’s longtime lender and several banks with his deposits had cut ties in the days around the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, at a time when Trump had hundreds of millions in loans coming due. In February 2022, the accounting firm that had worked for him for two decades dropped…

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Moms, a target of the right, lean heavily left

Moms, a target of the right, lean heavily left

Philip Bump writes: To hear prominent Republicans tell it, theirs is the party of parents. This is somewhere downstream from Donald Trump’s eagerness to turn the corner on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which intertwined with parents’ frustration about their kids not being in school. After President Biden was inaugurated, the party and its media allies elevated and stoked parental discontent about how race was taught and gender addressed in schools. Stephen K. Bannon advocated that conservatives run for local…

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Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

Reuters reports: In March, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery. He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convinced the car had a serious defect. “We’re…

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U.S. intel report details increasing importance of Chinese technology to Russia’s war in Ukraine

U.S. intel report details increasing importance of Chinese technology to Russia’s war in Ukraine

CNN reports: China is providing technology and equipment to Russia that is increasingly important to Moscow’s war in Ukraine, according to a newly released report compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The report, titled “Support Provided by the People’s Republic of China to Russia” and dated 2023, is unclassified and largely cites open-source data and western press reporting to support its claims. But it includes the US intelligence community assessment that China “has become an increasingly…

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