Georgia is how American Democracy falls apart

Georgia is how American Democracy falls apart

Travis Waldron reports: David Dreyer just needed a nap. The morning of Jan. 6, Dreyer, a Georgia state representative, had spent most of the last 24 hours in the Georgia World Congress Center watching local officials tally absentee ballots in the two runoff elections that had taken place the day before. The outcome would determine majority control of the U.S. Senate. Overnight, The Associated Press had projected both Democratic candidates, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, as the winners….

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‘Justice for J6’ rally: 600 Capitol riot arrestees draw support from barely 100 protesters

‘Justice for J6’ rally: 600 Capitol riot arrestees draw support from barely 100 protesters

New York Magazine reports: About 100 people showed up on Saturday for a protest on the National Mall in support of people arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol during the pro-Trump insurrection on January 6. Considering the widespread media coverage and extensive security preparations ahead of the event, and the fact that journalists and police far outnumbered attendees, the so-called “Justice for J6” rally undoubtedly attracted more attention than it deserved. Indeed, the rally’s “D-list” organizer claimed on Friday that…

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Why Biden bet it all on vaccine mandates

Why Biden bet it all on vaccine mandates

Peter Nicholas writes: When president Joe Biden rolled out his plan requiring vaccinations on a mass scale, he sounded a bit like a gambler at a point of desperation. Biden’s presidency, and much of his legacy, hinges on defeating the prolonged pandemic. During a dismal summer of rising infections and deaths due to vaccine holdouts and the Delta variant, the pandemic seemed to have defeated him. Under the new rules, Biden hopes to pressure about 80 million more Americans to…

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Covid vaccine immunity is waning — but how much does that matter?

Covid vaccine immunity is waning — but how much does that matter?

Nature reports: Six months ago, Miles Davenport and his colleagues made a bold prediction. On the basis of published results from vaccine trials and other data sources, they estimated that people immunized against COVID-19 would lose approximately half of their defensive antibodies every 108 days or so. As a result, vaccines that initially offered, say, 90% protection against mild cases of disease might only be 70% effective after 6 or 7 months. “It felt a little bit out on a…

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Serious infections linked to autism, study finds

Serious infections linked to autism, study finds

The Scientist reports: While researchers have found plenty of gene variants that seem to increase the risk of an autism diagnosis, it’s not clear why some people carrying these mutations develop autism spectrum disorders and some do not. In a study published today (September 17) in Science Advances, researchers point to a potential answer: severe infections during early childhood. After an early immune challenge, male mice with a mutated copy of the tuberous sclerosis complex 2 (Tsc2) gene developed deficits…

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Pentagon’s ‘righteous strike’ turned out to be a ‘tragic mistake’ killing 10 civilians in Kabul

Pentagon’s ‘righteous strike’ turned out to be a ‘tragic mistake’ killing 10 civilians in Kabul

  When journalism forces government to admit mistakes. The @nytimes Visual Investigation team once against defy official stories and prove unnecessary targeting of civilians. Outstanding work from @heytherehaIey ,@trbrtc ,@whitney_hurst ,@ckoettl and othershttps://t.co/ffSt1mPVUm — Rasha Al Aqeedi (@RashaAlAqeedi) September 18, 2021 Almost everything senior defence officials said publicly in the hours, days and weeks after the August 29 drone strike turned out to be false. The car posed no threat at all. https://t.co/MHie1f8EbT — Louisa Loveluck (@leloveluck) September 18, 2021…

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Obama, Bush and Clinton join forces to help Afghan evacuees. Taliban ban girls from secondary education

Obama, Bush and Clinton join forces to help Afghan evacuees. Taliban ban girls from secondary education

CBS News reports: Three of the nation’s four most recent former presidents are coming together to offer their support to a new organization that aims to assist Afghan evacuees who are resettling in the United States after fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, are joining Welcome.US as honorary co-chairs “to lift up everyone else involved and remind us that this…

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Secret talks and a hidden agenda: Behind the U.S.–Australian defense deal that France calls a ‘betrayal’

Secret talks and a hidden agenda: Behind the U.S.–Australian defense deal that France calls a ‘betrayal’

The New York Times reports: The United States and Australia went to extraordinary lengths to keep Paris in the dark as they secretly negotiated a plan to build nuclear submarines, scuttling France’s largest defense contract and so enraging President Emmanuel Macron that on Friday he ordered the withdrawal of France’s ambassadors to both nations. Mr. Macron’s decision was a stunning and unexpected escalation of the breach between Washington and Paris, on a day that the two countries had planned to…

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The AUKUS pact, born in secrecy, will have huge implications for Australia and the region

The AUKUS pact, born in secrecy, will have huge implications for Australia and the region

By Patricia A. O’Brien, Georgetown University It has been announced the US, Australia and the UK are forming a new security partnership to be known as AUKUS. This alliance, announced by the leaders of the three countries, throws an entirely different light on the recent 70th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty and indeed key defence relationships of the past seven decades. Dubbed by some as ANZUS 2.0, AUKUS is a trilateral agreement, but one that notably excludes New Zealand. With…

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Facebook has known for a year and a half that Instagram is bad for teens despite claiming otherwise – here are the harms researchers have been documenting for years

Facebook has known for a year and a half that Instagram is bad for teens despite claiming otherwise – here are the harms researchers have been documenting for years

Instagram’s emphasis on filtered photos of bodies harms girls’ self-image. Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision via Getty Images By Christia Spears Brown, University of Kentucky Facebook officials had internal research in March 2020 showing that Instagram – the social media platform most used by adolescents – is harmful to teen girls’ body image and well-being but swept those findings under the rug to continue conducting business as usual, according to a Sept. 14, 2021, Wall Street Journal report. Facebook’s policy of pursuing profits…

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Harness the world’s aquatic ‘blue’ food systems to help end hunger

Harness the world’s aquatic ‘blue’ food systems to help end hunger

An editorial in Nature, says: Next week, world leaders will gather for the United Nations Food Systems Summit. The event will be hosted by UN secretary-general António Guterres, with the aim of giving a much-needed boost to efforts to get the agency’s flagship Sustainable Development Goals back on track. One of these goals is to end hunger by 2030. Nearly 700 million people (almost 9% of the world’s population) go hungry; of those, 250 million are potentially on the brink…

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A massive subterranean ‘tree’ is moving magma to Earth’s surface

A massive subterranean ‘tree’ is moving magma to Earth’s surface

Robin George Andrews writes: Réunion, a French island in the western Indian Ocean, is like a marshmallow hovering above the business end of a blowtorch. It sits above one of Earth’s mantle plumes — a tower of superheated rock that ascends from the deep mantle and flambés the bases of tectonic plates, the jigsaw pieces that make up the ever-changing face of the world. The plume’s effects are hard to miss: One of the island’s two massive volcanoes, the aptly…

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Will Biden’s Anglo anti-China alliance increase the risk of war?

Will Biden’s Anglo anti-China alliance increase the risk of war?

Tom McTague writes: A new world is beginning to take shape, even if it remains disguised in the clothes of the old. The United States, Britain, and Australia have announced what is in effect a new “Anglo” military alliance. The basics are these: In 2016, Australia struck a deal with France to buy a fleet of diesel-powered submarines, rejecting an Anglo-American alternative for nuclear-powered vessels. In March this year, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (or, “that fellow down under,” as…

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The most important statistic of the Biden presidency

The most important statistic of the Biden presidency

Susan Glasser writes: President Biden is moving on. His “summer of freedom” from Covid didn’t work out. His politically popular end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan resulted in the return of the Taliban to power and a chaotic U.S. withdrawal that left behind tens of thousands of Afghan allies, whose lives are now in danger. His poll numbers have dropped so low that, as Politico’s Playbook noted, on Thursday morning, his approval rating now hovers at that of Gerald…

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