U.S. suffers sharpest rise in poverty rate in more than 50 years

U.S. suffers sharpest rise in poverty rate in more than 50 years

Bloomberg reports: The end of 2020 brought the sharpest rise in the U.S. poverty rate since the 1960s, according to a study released Monday. Economists Bruce Meyer, from the University of Chicago, and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame found that the poverty rate increased by 2.4 percentage points during the latter half of 2020 as the U.S. continued to suffer the economic impacts from Covid-19. That percentage-point rise is nearly double the largest annual increase in poverty…

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As Trump seeks to remain a political force, new targets emerge

As Trump seeks to remain a political force, new targets emerge

The New York Times reports: Former President Donald J. Trump, determined to remain a force in G.O.P. politics, is gaining new opportunities with a crucial Senate seat unexpectedly coming open in Ohio, an ally announcing for governor of Arkansas and rising pressure on Republicans in Congress who did not stand with him during this month’s impeachment vote. The surprise announcement on Monday by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio that he would not seek a third term sparked a political land…

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John Roberts ducks the spotlight by skipping the second Trump impeachment trial

John Roberts ducks the spotlight by skipping the second Trump impeachment trial

CNN reports: Chief Justice John Roberts has long been a student of history, but this is one part of history — presiding at the second trial of Donald Trump — he can do without. Roberts won a reprieve from another ordeal with Trump, a man who challenged judicial integrity, declared he could get his way at the Supreme Court and then called the justices “totally incompetent and weak” when he failed to prevail. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and…

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Watchdog probes if DOJ officials tried to overturn election

Watchdog probes if DOJ officials tried to overturn election

The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department’s inspector general is launching an investigation to examine whether any former or current department officials “engaged in an improper attempt” to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Monday that the investigation will investigate allegations concerning the conduct of former and current Justice Department officials but will not extend to other government officials. The investigation comes after The New York Times reported that a former assistant attorney…

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Rudy Giuliani sued by Dominion Voting Systems over false election claims

Rudy Giuliani sued by Dominion Voting Systems over false election claims

The New York Times reports: Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation lawsuit on Monday against Rudolph W. Giuliani, the lawyer for Donald J. Trump and former mayor of New York City who played a key role in the former president’s monthslong effort to subvert the 2020 election. The 107-page lawsuit, filed in the Federal District Court in Washington, accuses Mr. Giuliani of carrying out “a viral disinformation campaign about Dominion” made up of “demonstrably false” allegations, in part to enrich…

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In Aleksei Navalny protests, Russia faces biggest dissent in years

In Aleksei Navalny protests, Russia faces biggest dissent in years

The New York Times reports: From the frozen streets of Russia’s Far East and Siberia to the grand plazas of Moscow and St. Petersburg, tens of thousands of Russians rallied in support of the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny on Saturday in the biggest nationwide showdown in years between the Russian authorities and critics of the Kremlin. The protests largely drew young Russians and did not immediately pose a dire threat to President Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power….

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The dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

The dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

Joseph Fridman writes: The machine they built is hungry. As far back as 2016, Facebook’s engineers could brag that their creation ‘ingests trillions of data points every day’ and produces ‘more than 6 million predictions per second’. Undoubtedly Facebook’s prediction engines are even more potent now, making relentless conjectures about your brand loyalties, your cravings, the arc of your desires. The company’s core market is what the social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff describes as ‘prediction products’: guesses about the future, assembled…

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The people who invaded the Capitol have spent years showing us who they are online

The people who invaded the Capitol have spent years showing us who they are online

Abby Ohlheiser writes: Maybe you saw this coming nearly a decade ago, when #YourSlipIsShowing laid bare how racist Twitter users were impersonating Black women on the internet. Maybe, for you, it was during Gamergate, the online abuse campaign targeting women in the industry. Or maybe it was the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, when a gunman steeped in the culture of 8chan livestreamed himself murdering dozens of people. Maybe it was when you, or your friend, or your community,…

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Trump pressed Justice Department to go directly to Supreme Court to overturn election results

Trump pressed Justice Department to go directly to Supreme Court to overturn election results

The Wall Street Journal reports: In his last weeks in office, former President Donald Trump considered moving to replace the acting attorney general with another official ready to pursue unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, and he pushed the Justice Department to ask the Supreme Court to invalidate President Biden’s victory, people familiar with the matter said. Those efforts failed due to pushback from his own appointees in the Justice Department, who refused to file what they viewed as a legally…

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Son tipped off FBI about his father, who is charged in Capitol riot

Son tipped off FBI about his father, who is charged in Capitol riot

The New York Times reports: Two days after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, Jackson Reffitt’s father, Guy W. Reffitt, returned to the family’s home in Texas. He told his son that he had stormed the Capitol, according to an F.B.I. affidavit. Then his father leveled a threat: If Jackson, 18, reported him to the police, he would have no choice but to do his “duty” for his country and “do what he had to do.” In interviews with investigators,…

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State Republicans push new voting restrictions after Trump’s loss

State Republicans push new voting restrictions after Trump’s loss

Politico reports: Republican legislators across the country are preparing a slew of new voting restrictions in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s defeat. Georgia will be the focal point of the GOP push to change state election laws, after Democrats narrowly took both Senate seats there and President Joe Biden carried the state by an even smaller margin. But state Republicans in deep-red states and battlegrounds alike are citing Trump’s meritless claims of voter fraud in 2020 — and…

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Asia’s Covid recovery: Vietnam’s breakout moment

Asia’s Covid recovery: Vietnam’s breakout moment

Nikkei Asia reports: On a recent Friday in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, friends kissed hello as they entered the Racha Room, a tunnel-shaped bar lit by warm, ochre lamps. Inside, patrons shouted over booming classic rock and sipped from each other’s Old-Fashioneds. It was a scene to strike a chill into the hearts of the COVID-conscious. A standing-room-only venue, windows clamped shut against the night air, and not a mask in sight. It might have been a glimpse into…

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Mahatma Gandhi’s killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India

Mahatma Gandhi’s killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India

The Guardian reports: Last Sunday, in a nondescript building in the India city of Gwalior, 200 miles south of Delhi, a large crowd of men gathered. Most wore bright saffron hats and scarves, a colour evoking Hindu nationalism, and many held strands of flowers as devotional offerings. They were there to attend the inauguration of the Godse Gyan Shala, a memorial library and “knowledge centre” dedicated to Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi. The devotional yellow and pink…

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To counter climate change, we need to stop burning things

To counter climate change, we need to stop burning things

Bill McKibben writes: If one wanted a basic rule of thumb for dealing with the climate crisis, it would be: stop burning things. Human beings have made use of combustion for a very long time, ever since the first campfires cooked the first animals for dinner, allowing our brains to get larger. Now those large brains have come to understand that burning stuff is destroying the stable climate on which civilization depends. By this point, it’s pretty clear to almost…

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