The war on Indigenous rights in Brazil is intensifying

The war on Indigenous rights in Brazil is intensifying

Mark Harris and Denise Ferreira Da Silva write: Indigenous peoples in Brazil are under siege by the Brazilian government, which is waging war on two fronts. New legislation in the form of a bill known as PL 490/2007 threatens to cancel legal protections for Indigenous territories, while a landmark Supreme Court case over the so-called marco temporal, a 1988 cut-off date that threatens to strip the Indigenous peoples of existing land rights. Though not as visible as the effects of…

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The war on history is a war on democracy

The war on history is a war on democracy

Timothy Snyder writes: In March 1932, the cover of Fortune magazine featured a painting of Red Square by Diego Rivera. A numberless crowd of faceless men marched with red banners, surrounding a locomotive engine emblazoned with hammer and sickle. This was the image of communist modernization the Soviets wished to transmit during Stalin’s first five-year plan: The achievement was impersonal, technical, unquestionable. The Soviet Union was transforming itself from an agrarian backwater into an industrial power through sheer disciplined understanding…

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What Biden must do to right the wrongs of Guantanamo

What Biden must do to right the wrongs of Guantanamo

Benjamin R. Farley writes: Many Americans like to tell themselves a story about the choices the country makes in times of national crisis. We see our country’s policies as a pendulum. We may overreact at first, temporarily sacrificing principles and rights to meet the emergency at hand. But eventually the crisis recedes, and in restoring our commitment to foundational principles and the rule of law, we push the pendulum back toward equilibrium. This story is comforting; it makes sense of…

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Arizona ballot audit shows signs of backfiring on GOP

Arizona ballot audit shows signs of backfiring on GOP

Politico reports: When Arizona Republicans first pushed for a partisan audit of the 2020 presidential ballots cast in the Phoenix metropolitan area, they argued that they needed to know if any irregularities or fraud caused President Trump to lose this rapidly evolving swing state. But the audit itself could be damaging Republican prospects, according to a new Bendixen & Amandi International poll, which shows roughly half of Arizona voters oppose the recount effort. In addition, a narrow majority favors President…

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Congressman recruits Holocaust deniers into the Republican Party

Congressman recruits Holocaust deniers into the Republican Party

Jonathan Chait writes: Some of the most cartoonishly nutty members of the Republican caucus simply want to get famous, rich, or the affections of younger women. Representative Paul Gosar, on the other hand, has a plan. He wants to extend the rightward boundary of the Republican Party coalition and bring it right up to the edge of open Nazism. Gosar announced last night that he is holding a fundraiser with Nick Fuentes: Arizona GOP Congressman Paul Gosar isn’t even trying…

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The Justice Department is suing Georgia. Don’t expect Garland to end there

The Justice Department is suing Georgia. Don’t expect Garland to end there

Joyce White Vance writes: On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland delivered on his promise to use all his statutory authority to protect the right to vote: He announced he was suing the state of Georgia for enacting a law he said the legislature passed to deny Black people that right. The majority-Republican legislature adopted the law, S.B. 202, in the aftermath of historic Black turnout and the election of two Democratic senators in the last cycle. Originally just three pages…

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Fox News agrees to $1 million fine for violating human rights law

Fox News agrees to $1 million fine for violating human rights law

The Daily Beast reports: Despite Fox News’ claims to have repaired the company’s toxic workplace culture since the firing of founder and chairman Roger Ailes in July 2016, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has effectively admitted to ongoing misconduct that includes sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation against victimized employees, and has agreed to pay a million-dollar fine for what New York City’s Commission on Human Rights called “a pattern of violating of the NYC Human Rights Law.” The settlement agreement, reached…

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The heat in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver is off the charts

The heat in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver is off the charts

The New York Times reports: Heat waves and the “heat domes” that can cause them aren’t rare, but the recent weather that’s been smothering the Pacific Northwest has little precedent in at least four decades of record-keeping. To understand the magnitude of the departure from historical norms, it helps to visualize it. The map above, created by Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a climate scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, analyzes temperatures since 1979. It shows the extent of the…

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We’re learning the wrong lessons from the world’s happiest countries

We’re learning the wrong lessons from the world’s happiest countries

Joe Pinsker writes: Since 2012, most of the humans on Earth have been given a nearly annual reminder that there are entire nations of people who are measurably happier than they are. This uplifting yearly notification is known as the World Happiness Report. With the release of each report, which is published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the question is not which country will appear at the top of the rankings, but rather which Northern European country…

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Pfizer and Moderna vaccines likely to produce lasting immunity, study finds

Pfizer and Moderna vaccines likely to produce lasting immunity, study finds

The New York Times reports: The vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna set off a persistent immune reaction in the body that may protect against the coronavirus for years, scientists reported on Monday. The findings add to growing evidence that most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need boosters, so long as the virus and its variants do not evolve much beyond their current forms — which is not guaranteed. People who recovered from Covid-19 before being vaccinated…

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Virologist Danielle Anderson paints a very different picture of the Wuhan Institute

Virologist Danielle Anderson paints a very different picture of the Wuhan Institute

Bloomberg reports: From her first visit before it formally opened in 2018, Anderson was impressed with the institute’s maximum biocontainment lab. The concrete, bunker-style building has the highest biosafety designation, and requires air, water and waste to be filtered and sterilized before it leaves the facility. There were strict protocols and requirements aimed at containing the pathogens being studied, Anderson said, and researchers underwent 45 hours of training to be certified to work independently in the lab. The induction process…

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Biden wants to dismantle two weapons the richest 0.1% use to avoid taxes

Biden wants to dismantle two weapons the richest 0.1% use to avoid taxes

Bloomberg reports: An unpleasant surprise for wealthy Americans was lurking halfway through a 114-page document released by the U.S. Treasury late last month. Technical provisions in the proposal — not mentioned when President Joe Biden presented his plans to raise taxes on the rich in April — could disrupt or dismantle some of the most popular ways super wealthy people have legally avoided taxes for decades. One target is dynasty trusts, vehicles that wealthy families can use to benefit multiple…

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Trump’s derangement

Trump’s derangement

Michael Wolff writes: To the degree that Trump had, for four years, been running the government with scant idea of the rules and practices of running the government, he was now doing it virtually without anybody who did have some idea and desire to protect both him and themselves from embarrassment or legal peril. Jared Kushner was, to his own great relief, in the Middle East, wrapping up what he saw as his historic mission: his peace deals. The president…

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Clarence Thomas says federal laws against marijuana may no longer be necessary

Clarence Thomas says federal laws against marijuana may no longer be necessary

NBC News reports: Clarence Thomas, one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices, said Monday that because of the hodgepodge of federal policies on marijuana, federal laws against its use or cultivation may no longer make sense. “A prohibition on interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or proper to support the federal government’s piecemeal approach,” he wrote. His views came as the court declined to hear the appeal of a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary that…

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