Iranian regime’s continued incitement for killing Salman Rushdie is integral to its identity

Iranian regime’s continued incitement for killing Salman Rushdie is integral to its identity

Arash Azizi writes: In April 2001, Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie was among the guests of honor at the Prague Writers’ Festival. Having only recently come out of years of hiding, Rushdie was clearly frustrated with the massive security detail that followed him everywhere. “To be here and to find a large security operation around me has actually felt a little embarrassing,” he told the reporters. “I spent a great deal of time before I came here saying that I…

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More Saudi brutality shows that MBS’s promises to Biden were a farce

More Saudi brutality shows that MBS’s promises to Biden were a farce

In an editorial, the Washington Post says: Salma al-Shehab, the mother of two young children, was studying for a PhD at the University of Leeds and took time off to go home to Saudi Arabia for a vacation. Ms. Shehab is a Shiite Muslim, a persecuted minority in the kingdom, and a women’s rights activist who spoke out on social media for the right of women to drive. Her vacation ended in prison. Saudi authorities detained Ms. Shehab in January…

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Ponder the miracle of a U.S. climate law

Ponder the miracle of a U.S. climate law

Bud Ward writes: Miracles indeed can happen. And sometimes do. Such is the case with enactment of major climate legislation, part of the Inflation Reduction Act now, with President Joe Biden’s signature, enacted. Not just passed by the Senate and the House on strict party-line votes, but passed by each chamber as presented to them, without amendments, without differences requiring a time-consuming and inscrutable House/Senate conference committee. And, it must be emphasized, without a single vote by the Republican narrow…

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America is going to have a ‘Heat Belt’

America is going to have a ‘Heat Belt’

The Atlantic reports: When the heat index—the temperature multiplied by humidity—reaches 80 degrees, the National Weather Service advises Americans to take caution. When it reaches 90, that advisory gets bumped to possibly dangerous; at 100, it’s likely so. At a heat index of 125 or above, the National Weather Service warns of “extreme danger” and describes its effect on the body concisely: “heat stroke highly likely.” Until now, that kind of extreme heat has been limited to relatively small parts…

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An Oval Office incident from 2019 perfectly illustrates Trump’s approach to state secrets, say ex intel officials

An Oval Office incident from 2019 perfectly illustrates Trump’s approach to state secrets, say ex intel officials

NBC News reports: Senior intelligence officials realized early on that President Donald Trump wasn’t going to read even short written summaries of his regular intelligence briefings. So the CIA officers who prepared the briefings made sure they came to the Oval Office laden with striking images, pared-down charts and slick graphics designed to grab the president’s fleeting interest, several officials familiar with the briefings told NBC News. “To secure his attention, you had to use images and catchy headlines, even…

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Trump’s investigation miscalculation

Trump’s investigation miscalculation

Paul Rosenzweig writes: Donald Trump is making a serious mistake. The FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago is, he apparently thinks, of great political benefit to him. Perhaps so—I am not one to judge politics. But public reports also suggest that he may accelerate his re-election announcement in response to the search. Trump seems to think that running for president makes it less likely that he will be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. That’s wrong. The more…

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The Arizona Republican Party’s anti-democracy experiment

The Arizona Republican Party’s anti-democracy experiment

Robert Draper writes: R​​ose Sperry, a state committeewoman for Arizona’s G.O.P., answered immediately when I asked her to name the first Republican leader she admired. “I grew up during the time that Joe McCarthy was doing his talking,” Sperry, an energetic 81-year-old, said of the Wisconsin senator who in the 1950s infamously claimed Communists had infiltrated the federal government. “I was young, but I was listening. If he were here today, I would say, ‘Get him in there as president!’”…

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Bolton: Trump’s lies expose ‘a real level of desperation’

Bolton: Trump’s lies expose ‘a real level of desperation’

The New York Times reports: Two of the laws referred to in the search warrant executed this week criminalize the taking or concealment of government records, regardless of whether they had anything to do with national security. And laws against taking material with restricted national security information are not dependent on whether the material is technically classified. Mr. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser over 17 months, said he had never heard of the standing order…

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Trump letter authorized Israeli sovereignty in West Bank

Trump letter authorized Israeli sovereignty in West Bank

The Jerusalem Post reports: Former US president Donald Trump authorized then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex parts of the West Bank, in a letter obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. In a three-page letter dated January 26, 2020, two days before Trump presented his Vision for Peace in the White House, the president summarized some of its details. These included that Israel would be able to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, as delineated in the…

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Russia’s goal in attack on nuclear plant: Steal the electricity, Ukraine says

Russia’s goal in attack on nuclear plant: Steal the electricity, Ukraine says

The Wall Street Journal reports: The first sign of danger came when the dwindling crew of Ukrainian technicians running the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power station noticed that officers from Russia’s state atomic energy company had left the premises without explanation. It was Aug. 5, and Russian soldiers were patrolling the facility. Then, at 2:40 p.m., explosions rocked an electrical switchboard, triggering the shutdown of one of only two remaining power lines running from the plant into southern Ukraine, according to plant workers….

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World’s largest ice sheet threatened by warm water surge

World’s largest ice sheet threatened by warm water surge

Nature reports: Westerly winds are thrusting warm waters towards the East Antarctic ice sheet, and have thinned the region’s ice masses at alarming rates over recent decades, a study has found. Scientists say that the research, published in Nature Climate Change on 2 August, also helps to resolve one of the largest uncertainties in projections of future sea-level rise: how vulnerable the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the world’s largest, is to ocean warming. Ice shelves float on the ocean, extending…

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‘Life hates surprises’: Can an ambitious theory unify biology, neuroscience and psychology?

‘Life hates surprises’: Can an ambitious theory unify biology, neuroscience and psychology?

Shutterstock By Ross Pain, Australian National University; Michael David Kirchhoff, University of Wollongong, and Stephen Francis Mann, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology In the early 1990s, British neuroscientist Karl Friston was poring over brain scans. The scans produced terabytes of digital output, and Friston had to find new techniques to sort and classify the massive flows of data. Along the way he had a revelation. The techniques he was using might be similar to what the brain itself was…

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Top House lawmakers ask intel officials to review national security damage from Trump document handling

Top House lawmakers ask intel officials to review national security damage from Trump document handling

Politico reports: Two top House lawmakers Saturday asked the nation’s intelligence chief to review potential damage to national security stemming from former President Donald Trump’s storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. “Former President Trump’s conduct has potentially put our national security at grave risk. This issue demands a full review, in addition to the ongoing law enforcement inquiry,” wrote House Intelligence committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Oversight committee chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) in a three-page letter to…

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Trump’s secrets: How a records dispute led the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago

Trump’s secrets: How a records dispute led the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago

The Washington Post reports: A Trump adviser said the former president’s reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term — photos, notes, even a model of Air Force One built to show off a new paint job he had commissioned — are now his personal property, despite a law dating to the 1970s that decreed otherwise. “He gave them what he believed was theirs,” the adviser said. “He gets his back up…

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