Republican lawyer is key player in voter suppression drive across U.S.

Republican lawyer is key player in voter suppression drive across U.S.

The Guardian reports: It was an abrupt end to two decades as a partner at legal giant Foley & Lardner for the influential and conservative election lawyer Cleta Mitchell. Days after Mitchell participated in Donald Trump’s controversial 2 January phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state where the then president pressured him to “find” him more votes to reverse Joe Biden’s win, Mitchell resigned her post in the midst of an internal firm review and mounting criticism. But Mitchell, a…

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Iran’s foreign minister, in leaked tape, says Revolutionary Guards set policies

Iran’s foreign minister, in leaked tape, says Revolutionary Guards set policies

The New York Times reports: In a leaked audiotape that offers a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes power struggles of Iranian leaders, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the Revolutionary Guards Corps call the shots, overruling many government decisions and ignoring advice. In one extraordinary moment on the tape that surfaced Sunday, Mr. Zarif departed from the reverential official line on Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the Guards’ elite Quds Force, the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s security apparatus, who…

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Natural GM: How plants and animals steal genes from other species to accelerate evolution

Natural GM: How plants and animals steal genes from other species to accelerate evolution

Grassland in Uganda. Luke Dunning, Author provided By Luke Dunning, University of Sheffield Little did biologist Gregor Mendel know that his experiments with sweet peas in a monastery garden in Brno, Czech Republic, would lay the foundations for our understanding of modern genetics and inheritance. His work in the 19th century helped scientists to establish that parents pass their genetic information onto their offspring, and in turn, they pass it on to theirs. Indeed, this premise forms the basis of…

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More action, less talk, distinguish Biden’s 100-day sprint

More action, less talk, distinguish Biden’s 100-day sprint

The Associated Press reports: The card tucked in President Joe Biden’s right jacket pocket must weigh a ton. You can see the weight of it on his face when he digs it out, squints and ever-so-slowly reads aloud the latest tally of COVID-19 dead. Sometimes he’ll stumble on a digit — after all, flubs come with the man. But the message is always clear: The toll of the virus weighs on him constantly, a millstone that helps explain why the…

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Young adults’ relocations are reshaping political geography

Young adults’ relocations are reshaping political geography

The Associated Press reports: The choices by … members of the millennial generation of where to live have reshaped the country’s political geography over the past decade. They’ve left New York and California and settled in places less likely to be settings for TV sitcoms about 20-something urbanites, including Denver, Houston and Orlando, Florida. Drawn by jobs and overlooked cultural amenities, they’ve helped add new craft breweries, condominiums and liberal voters to these once more-conservative places. The U.S. Census Bureau…

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Michigan’s Covid wards are filling up with younger patients

Michigan’s Covid wards are filling up with younger patients

The New York Times reports: At Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, in one of America’s worst coronavirus hot spots, entire units are still filled with Covid-19 patients. People weak with the virus still struggle to sit up in bed. And the phone still rings with pleas to transfer patients on the verge of death to units with higher-tech equipment. But unlike previous surges, it now is younger and middle-aged adults — not their parents and grandparents — who are taking up…

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Millions of Americans are skipping their second doses of Covid vaccines

Millions of Americans are skipping their second doses of Covid vaccines

The New York Times reports: Millions of Americans are not getting the second doses of their Covid-19 vaccines, and their ranks are growing. More than five million people, or nearly 8 percent of those who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, have missed their second doses, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is more than double the rate among people who got inoculated in the first several…

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Halting the vast release of methane is critical for climate, UN says

Halting the vast release of methane is critical for climate, UN says

The New York Times reports: A landmark United Nations report is expected to declare that reducing emissions of methane, the main component of natural gas, will need to play a far more vital role in warding off the worst effects of climate change. The global methane assessment, compiled by an international team of scientists, reflects a growing recognition that the world needs to start reining in planet-warming emissions more rapidly, and that abating methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, will…

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CEO pay remains stratospheric, even at companies battered by pandemic

CEO pay remains stratospheric, even at companies battered by pandemic

The New York Times reports: Boeing had a historically bad 2020. Its 737 Max was grounded for most of the year after two deadly crashes, the pandemic decimated its business, and the company announced plans to lay off 30,000 workers and reported a $12 billion loss. Nonetheless, its chief executive, David Calhoun, was rewarded with some $21.1 million in compensation. Norwegian Cruise Line barely survived the year. With the cruise industry at a standstill, the company lost $4 billion and…

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Ottoman cosmopolitanism and the myth of the sectarian Middle East

Ottoman cosmopolitanism and the myth of the sectarian Middle East

Ussama Makdisi writes: The Arab East was among the last regions in the world to be colonised by Western powers. It was also the first to be colonised in the name of self-determination. An iconic photograph from September 1920 of the French colonial general Henri Gouraud dressed in a splendid white uniform and flanked by two ‘native’ religious figures captures this moment. Seated to one side is the Patriarch of the Maronite Church, an Eastern Christian Catholic sect. On the…

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One billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, but mostly in wealthy countries

One billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, but mostly in wealthy countries

Forbes reports: The Associated Press reported last week that 87% of doses had been administered in rich countries, with 1 in 4 people in wealthy nations having received a jab, versus 1 in more than 500 in impoverished countries. According to the New York Times‘ vaccination tracker, only 0.2% of doses have been dispensed in low-income countries. Up to 60 of those nations might not receive any additional supply of the vaccine until June. Conversely, the supply of available shots…

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As Covid-19 devastates India, deaths go undercounted

As Covid-19 devastates India, deaths go undercounted

The New York Times reports: India’s coronavirus second wave is rapidly sliding into a devastating crisis, with hospitals unbearably full, oxygen supplies running low, desperate people dying in line waiting to see doctors — and mounting evidence that the actual death toll is far higher than officially reported. Each day, the government reports more than 300,000 new infections, a world record, and India is now seeing more new infections than any other country by far, almost half of all new…

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Hollywood’s anti-Black bias costs it $10 billion a year

Hollywood’s anti-Black bias costs it $10 billion a year

Franklin Leonard writes: Days after a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, suffocated George Floyd and the video went viral, I watched my social media feed fill with blackout tiles and corporate publicity statements. They poured in from every industry, proclaiming solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Hollywood — where I have worked for almost two decades — was no exception. Far from offering relief, each new assertion by a talent agency, film studio, television network or streaming service that…

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Why Biden’s Armenian genocide declaration really is a big deal

Why Biden’s Armenian genocide declaration really is a big deal

Charles Mahtesian writes: President Joe Biden on Saturday issued the document Armenian Americans have pursued for decades: a declaration that the Ottoman Empire’s slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian civilians was genocide. It’s a deceptively simple action, carrying no force of law. Yet it’s a bold move for Biden, who has gone beyond what any American president has ever been willing to do. Until now, presidents have declined to formally apply the term “genocide” for fear of sparking a…

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