Did the Proud Boys help coordinate the Capitol riot? Yes, U.S. suggests

Did the Proud Boys help coordinate the Capitol riot? Yes, U.S. suggests

The New York Times reports: When Ethan Nordean, the “sergeant of arms” for the Seattle Proud Boys, led a mob of his fellow far-right nationalists on a winding march to the Capitol last month, an angry crowd had already gathered at the barricades, facing off against a small detachment of the Capitol Police. It was then, court papers say, that Mr. Nordean had a brief exchange with a young man in the throng wearing goggles, a battle helmet and head-to-toe…

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Trump’s allies fear the impeachment trial could be a PR nightmare

Trump’s allies fear the impeachment trial could be a PR nightmare

Politico reports: Allies of former President Donald Trump are imploring his impeachment team to avoid one specific topic when they defend the ex-president at his Senate trial next week: the deadly riot that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol. Despite Trump’s likely acquittal on charges that he incited an insurrection, some of his most ardent supporters fear the trial could further damage his reputation if his attorneys wade into the events of Jan. 6, when five people were killed — including…

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Why QAnon survives after Trump

Why QAnon survives after Trump

NPR reports: Inauguration Day should have punctured the conspiracy theory at the heart of QAnon. Adherents of the discredited extremist ideology falsely believe that former President Trump is a savior who will stay in power as he wages a war against a cabal of satanic pedophiles. Indeed, for some believers, who saw President Biden get sworn in instead of Trump, the moment was a reality check. Yet even with their hero out of office, QAnon’s fiercest followers will find a…

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Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments

Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments

The Associated Press reports: Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments. Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state’s economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday. The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and…

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The mystery of India’s plummeting Covid-19 cases

The mystery of India’s plummeting Covid-19 cases

NPR reports: Last September, India was confirming nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day. It was on track to overtake the United States to become the country with the highest reported COVID-19 caseload in the world. Hospitals were full. The Indian economy nosedived into an unprecedented recession. But four months later, India’s coronavirus numbers have plummeted. Late last month, on Jan. 26, the country’s Health Ministry confirmed a record low of about 9,100 new daily cases — in a country…

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Biden will sign order rebuilding refugee program that Trump nearly dismantled

Biden will sign order rebuilding refugee program that Trump nearly dismantled

Vox reports: President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he will sign an executive order to rebuild the US’s refugee resettlement program, raising the annual cap on admissions to 125,000 starting in October. In a speech at the State Department, he acknowledged that the US refugee program suffered under former President Donald Trump, who slashed the cap on refugee admissions to just 15,000 this fiscal year — the lowest number since the refugee program was created in 1980 and down from…

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Movie at the Ellipse: A study in fascist propaganda

Movie at the Ellipse: A study in fascist propaganda

Jason Stanley writes: On January 6, Trump supporters gathered at a rally at Washington DC’s Ellipse Park, regaled by various figures from Trump world, including Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Directly following Giuliani’s speech, the organizers played a video. To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialist’s pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns…

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Militia alliance in Georgia signals new phase for extremist paramilitaries

Militia alliance in Georgia signals new phase for extremist paramilitaries

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: The leader of a private paramilitary group that provided security for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said he has formed alliances with other far-right groups to advocate for Georgia’s secession from the union, following the arrests of participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. “The way patriots are now being hunted down and arrested by fellow men and women who have taken the same oath has disheartened any faith I had in the redemption…

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Fox News is sued by election tech company, Smartmatic, for over $2.7 billion

Fox News is sued by election tech company, Smartmatic, for over $2.7 billion

The New York Times reports: Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation and three of its popular anchors are the targets of a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed on Thursday by a company that became a prominent subject of discredited theories about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Smartmatic, an election technology company, filed the suit in New York State Supreme Court against the Fox Corporation, Fox News, and the anchors Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro. As part of the…

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The terrifying warning lurking in the Earth’s ancient rock record

The terrifying warning lurking in the Earth’s ancient rock record

Peter Brannen writes: We live on a wild planet, a wobbly, erupting, ocean-sloshed orb that careens around a giant thermonuclear explosion in the void. Big rocks whiz by overhead, and here on the Earth’s surface, whole continents crash together, rip apart, and occasionally turn inside out, killing nearly everything. Our planet is fickle. When the unseen tug of celestial bodies points Earth toward a new North Star, for instance, the shift in sunlight can dry up the Sahara, or fill…

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Danish scientists see tough times ahead as they watch more contagious Covid-19 virus surge

Danish scientists see tough times ahead as they watch more contagious Covid-19 virus surge

Science reports: On its face, the curve of COVID-19 infections in Denmark looks reassuring enough. A nationwide lockdown has led numbers to plummet from more than 3000 daily cases in mid-December 2020 to just a few hundred now. But don’t be fooled. “Sure, the numbers look nice,” says Camilla Holten Møller of the Statens Serum Institute, who heads a group of experts modeling the epidemic. “But if we look at our models, this is the calm before the storm.” That’s…

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Why Biden’s actions are good news from front lines of the climate change war

Why Biden’s actions are good news from front lines of the climate change war

Michael E. Mann writes: President Joe Biden, in his first weeks in office, already has advanced a sweeping agenda to tackle the climate crisis by addressing the health, economic, inequity and foreign policy aspects of the problem. An executive order he issued last week establishes climate as an essential consideration in U.S. foreign policy and national security, recognizing the importance of restoring our role as a leader in the international effort to avert catastrophic climate change. By labeling climate change…

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On climate, Biden administration needs to combat zombie Trumpism quickly

On climate, Biden administration needs to combat zombie Trumpism quickly

Bill McKibben writes: The blizzard of federal climate initiatives last week (a blizzard that might help allow actual blizzards to persist into the future) is without precedent. For the first time in the thirty-plus years of our awareness of the climate crisis, Washington roused itself to urgent action; veterans of the cautious Obama Administration—the domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy and the global climate czar John Kerry chief among them—were suddenly going for broke. In fact, only one branch of the…

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Scientists for the people

Scientists for the people

Deborah R Coen writes: In the 1930s, as Jewish and dissident scientists were forced from their posts in Nazi Germany, many found refuge at universities in the United States. At the time, American scientists were trying to shield themselves from the winds of politics by honing arguments for the value of ‘pure’ science. It was in this spirit that Abraham Flexner had founded the hermetic Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey in 1930, expressly to pursue research for its…

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