Russia turns to old tanks as it burns through weapons in Ukraine, European officials say

Russia turns to old tanks as it burns through weapons in Ukraine, European officials say

Bloomberg reports: Russia is scraping across the country to find manpower and weapons, including old tanks based in the Far East, having used up much of its military capacity in the first 100 days of its invasion of Ukraine, according to senior European officials with knowledge of the situation on the ground. As a result, Russia may be only a few months from needing to slow operations for a major regroup, these people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to…

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New data reveals extraordinary global heating in the Arctic

New data reveals extraordinary global heating in the Arctic

The Guardian reports: New data has revealed extraordinary rates of global heating in the Arctic, up to seven times faster than the global average. The heating is occurring in the North Barents Sea, a region where fast rising temperatures are suspected to trigger increases in extreme weather in North America, Europe and Asia. The researchers said the heating in this region was an “early warning” of what could happen across the rest of the Arctic. The new figures show annual…

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Biden is simply too old to run in 2024

Biden is simply too old to run in 2024

Mark Leibovich writes: Let me put this bluntly: Joe Biden should not run for reelection in 2024. He is too old. Biden will turn 80 on November 20. He will be 82 if and when he begins a second term. The numbers just keep getting more ridiculous from there. “It’s not the 82 that’s the problem. It’s the 86,” one swing voter said in a recent focus group, referring to the hypothetical age Biden would be at the end of…

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Democrats’ risky bet: Aid GOP extremists in Spring while hoping to beat them in Fall

Democrats’ risky bet: Aid GOP extremists in Spring while hoping to beat them in Fall

The New York Times reports: Even as national Democrats set off alarms over the threats posed by far-right Republican candidates, their campaign partners are pursuing an enormously risky strategy: promoting some of those same far-right candidates in G.O.P. primaries in hopes that extremists will be easier for Democrats to beat in November. These efforts — starkest in the Central Valley of California, where a Democratic campaign ad lashed Representative David Valadao, a Republican, for voting to impeach Donald J. Trump…

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White parents rallied to chase a black educator out of town. Then, they followed her to the next one

White parents rallied to chase a black educator out of town. Then, they followed her to the next one

ProPublica reports: [Celia] Lewis was beginning to prepare for her move South, spending as much time with friends and family as possible, when she got a strange call from an official in her new school district. The person on the line — Lewis won’t say who — asked if she had ever heard of CRT. Lewis responded, “Yes — culturally responsive teaching.” She was thinking of the philosophy that connects a child’s cultural background to what they learn in school….

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How reporters can cover and distinguish threats to democracy from politics-as-usual

How reporters can cover and distinguish threats to democracy from politics-as-usual

Protect Democracy: Authoritarianism rarely happens overnight these days. Today’s authoritarian playbook is a process that happens piecemeal and is hard to distinguish from normal political jockeying. Our report, The Authoritarian Playbook: How reporters can contextualize and cover authoritarian threats as distinct from politics-as-usual outlines the seven fundamental tactics used by aspiring authoritarians, describes examples from in and outside the United States, and offers a framework journalists can use to differentiate between politics-as-usual and something more dangerous to democracy. The vigilance…

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Under Russian artillery fire, Ukrainians wait on Western arms

Under Russian artillery fire, Ukrainians wait on Western arms

Tom Mutch reports: We can see the rockets landing in the field in front of us, around a mile away from the frontline barracks we are holed up in. A shell whistles over our head only to smash into the forest next to us, but the birds don’t even wait for the smoke to clear before you can hear their melodic singing waft from the trees along with the plumes of white smoke. With a bright blue twilight sky and…

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Putin isn’t winning yet, but his military is finally waging the kind of campaign it knows best

Putin isn’t winning yet, but his military is finally waging the kind of campaign it knows best

Fred Kaplan writes: After a string of tactical defeats, the Russian army is making some headway in its campaign to capture the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, site of the war’s deadliest fighting. Its troops have taken nearly all of the region’s northern district, known as Luhansk, and all but surrounded the town of Severodonetsk. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops are exhausted, with 100 to 200 dying daily. While this is true of Russian troops as well, the Ukrainians are running out…

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Far-right Republicans press closer to power over future elections

Far-right Republicans press closer to power over future elections

The New York Times reports: The potential for far-right Republicans to reshape the election systems of major battleground states is growing much closer to reality. As the halfway point nears of a midterm year that is vastly friendlier to Republicans, the party’s voters have nominated dozens of candidates for offices with power over the administration and certification of elections who have spread falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest and sowed distrust in American democracy. The only way to restore trust,…

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GOP commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary vote

GOP commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary vote

The Associated Press reports: New Mexico’s secretary of state on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the Republican-led commission of rural Otero County to certify primary election results after it refused to do so over distrust of Dominion vote-tallying machines. Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Olive’s request came a day after the three-member Otero County commission, in its role as a county canvassing board, voted unanimously against certifying the results of the June 7 primary without raising…

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Sweeping legislation aims to ban the sale of location data

Sweeping legislation aims to ban the sale of location data

Motherboard reports: Sen. Elizabeth Warren and a group of other Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would essentially outlaw the sale of location data harvested from smartphones. The bill also presents a range of other powers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and individual victims to push back against the multibillion-dollar location data industry. The move comes after Motherboard reported multiple instances in which companies were selling location data of people who visited abortion clinics, and sometimes making subsets…

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Simone de Beauvoir on facing old age and avoiding bad faith

Simone de Beauvoir on facing old age and avoiding bad faith

Kate Kirkpatrick and Sonia Kruks write: Old age is not exactly a time of life that most of us welcome, although globally speaking it is a privilege to reach it. In Western societies, the shocked realisation that we are growing old often fills us with alarm and even terror. As Simone de Beauvoir writes in her magisterial study of the topic, La vieillesse (1970) – translated in the UK as Old Age, and in the US as The Coming of…

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The brain has a ‘low-power mode’ that blunts our senses

The brain has a ‘low-power mode’ that blunts our senses

Allison Whitten writes: When our phones and computers run out of power, their glowing screens go dark and they die a sort of digital death. But switch them to low-power mode to conserve energy, and they cut expendable operations to keep basic processes humming along until their batteries can be recharged. Our energy-intensive brain needs to keep its lights on too. Brain cells depend primarily on steady deliveries of the sugar glucose, which they convert to adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to…

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Russia’s oil revenue soars despite sanctions, study finds

Russia’s oil revenue soars despite sanctions, study finds

The New York Times reports: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered global condemnation and tough sanctions aimed at denting Moscow’s war chest. Yet Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels, by far its biggest export, soared to records in the first 100 days of its war on Ukraine, driven by a windfall from oil sales amid surging prices, a new analysis shows. Russia earned what is very likely a record 93 billion euros in revenue from exports of oil, gas and coal in…

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