723 epidemiologists on when and how the U.S. can fully return to normal

723 epidemiologists on when and how the U.S. can fully return to normal

The New York Times reports: Covid-19 cases are decreasing in the United States, and masks are no longer required everywhere, but the pandemic is not over — and won’t be until younger children can also be vaccinated, epidemiologists said in a new survey by The New York Times. The true end of the pandemic — when it becomes safer to return to most activities without precautions — will arrive once at least 70 percent of Americans of all ages are…

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Federal mask retreat sets off confusing scramble for states and cities

Federal mask retreat sets off confusing scramble for states and cities

The New York Times reports: Minnesota’s statewide mask mandate is over. But in Minneapolis, the state’s largest city, face coverings are still required. In Michigan, Kentucky and Oregon, governors cheerily told vaccinated people that they could go out maskless. But mask mandates remained in force for New Yorkers, New Jerseyans and Californians. So unexpected was new federal guidance on masks that in Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Quinton Lucas went from saying he would not change his mask order, to saying…

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The Colonial Pipeline attack is a dark omen

The Colonial Pipeline attack is a dark omen

Zeynep Tufekci writes: Our software infrastructure is not built with security in mind. That’s partly because a lot of it depends on older layers, and also because there has been little incentive to prioritize security. More operating systems could have been built from the start with features such as “sandboxing,” in which a program can play only in a defined, walled-off area called a “sandbox” that is unreachable by anything else. If that program is malicious, it can do damage…

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Joe Biden’s deliberative process

Joe Biden’s deliberative process

The New York Times reports: The commander in chief was taking his time, as usual. It was late March, and President Biden was under increasing pressure to penalize President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for election interference and the biggest cyberattack ever on American government and industry. “I have to do it relatively soon,” he said to Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser. Mr. Biden had already spent the first two months of his presidency debating how to respond to…

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Israel has chosen a two-tiered society. Violence is the inevitable result

Israel has chosen a two-tiered society. Violence is the inevitable result

Hagai El-Ad writes: Most Jewish Israelis spend their time pretending that Gaza and its 2 million Palestinians have fallen off the face of the Earth. The besieged civilian population, the polluted water, the denial of exit permits even for essential medical care — the endless ways in which Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are humiliated by Israel day in and day out — all are largely invisible to the Jewish half of the population living between the Jordan River and…

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Lies on social media inflame Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Lies on social media inflame Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The New York Times reports: In a 28-second video, which was posted to Twitter this week by a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip appeared to launch rocket attacks at Israelis from densely populated civilian areas. At least that is what Mr. Netanyahu’s spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, said the video portrayed. But his tweet with the footage, which was shared hundreds of times as the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis escalated, was not…

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Hundreds of epidemiologists expected mask-wearing in public for at least a year

Hundreds of epidemiologists expected mask-wearing in public for at least a year

The New York Times reports: When federal health officials said on Thursday that fully vaccinated Americans no longer needed to wear masks in most places, it came as a surprise to many people in public health. It also was a stark contrast with the views of a large majority of epidemiologists surveyed in the last two weeks by The New York Times. In the informal survey, 80 percent said they thought Americans would need to wear masks in public indoor…

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Just 12 people are behind most vaccine hoaxes on social media, research shows

Just 12 people are behind most vaccine hoaxes on social media, research shows

NPR reports: Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. “The ‘Disinformation Dozen’ produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts. Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have…

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Colonial Pipeline hacker DarkSide says it will shut operations, security firms say

Colonial Pipeline hacker DarkSide says it will shut operations, security firms say

The Wall Street Journal reports: The criminal group linked to a cyberattack that disrupted gasoline delivery across parts of the southeastern U.S. this week has told hacking associates that it is shutting down, according to security research firms. A website operated by ransomware group DarkSide, which U.S. officials have said they believe originates in Eastern Europe, has been down since Thursday. DarkSide has told associates it has lost access to the infrastructure it uses to run its operation and would…

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Dark money group brags in leaked video about writing GOP voter suppression bills across the country

Dark money group brags in leaked video about writing GOP voter suppression bills across the country

Mother Jones reports: In a private meeting last month with big-money donors, the head of a top conservative group boasted that her outfit had crafted the new voter suppression law in Georgia and was doing the same with similar bills for Republican state legislators across the country. “In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” she said, “or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.”…

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Trump ‘wants cash money up front’ from an ‘indestructible’ social media platform

Trump ‘wants cash money up front’ from an ‘indestructible’ social media platform

The Wall Street Journal reports: Donald Trump, sidelined by Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc., has been talking with numerous platforms as he seeks a new online megaphone. Jeff Brain, the chief executive of CloutHub, a fledgling social media network that has become popular with conservatives, thinks his company fits the bill. He took a trip to Mar-a-Lago last month and chatted with the former president, and has been talking to Mr. Trump’s advisers as they consider what his new social-media…

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The old Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dead — long live the emerging Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The old Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dead — long live the emerging Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Nathan J Brown writes: It is time to admit what most observers already know: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that diplomats have been dealing with for half a century is over. It is not that a solution has been found. Just the opposite: all the injustices and insecurities that afflict inhabitants of the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are now so deeply ingrained in daily life that no diplomatic framework can address them now. This leaves some people…

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As rival gangs of Jews and Arabs clash on streets, fears mount of irreparable damage to Israeli society

As rival gangs of Jews and Arabs clash on streets, fears mount of irreparable damage to Israeli society

The Washington Post reports: As bands of Jewish and Arab citizens fought one another and police in towns across Israel for a third night early Thursday, Israelis worried that the battle inside the country may be harder to stop than the air war still being waged with Gaza. Chaos erupted in Israeli cities with mixed Jewish-Arab populations on Wednesday night, marking an escalation in the country’s worst communal violence in two decades. The Israeli media and local residents alike have…

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Why Biden can’t look away from the Israeli-Palestinian crisis

Why Biden can’t look away from the Israeli-Palestinian crisis

The New York Times reports: The United States deployed a top diplomat to Israel on Wednesday, in hopes of calming hostilities that have broken out between Israelis and Palestinians. After throngs of Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets of East Jerusalem in recent days to protest Israeli settlements and the evictions of Palestinians there, particularly in the heavily Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a crackdown by security forces gave way to escalating violence. Hamas militants have launched rockets into Israel,…

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