“Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court,” ProPublica reports.
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Biden administration announces $600M to produce COVID tests and will reopen website to order them
Good news via The Associated Press: “The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is providing $600 million in funding to produce new at-home COVID-19 tests and is restarting a website allowing Americans to again order up to four free tests per household — aiming to prevent possible shortages during a rise in coronavirus cases that has typically come during colder months.”
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DeSantis’ gerrymandered congressional map in Florida is unconstitutional and must be redrawn, state judge says
“A Florida redistricting plan pushed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis violates the state constitution and is prohibited from being used for any future U.S. congressional elections since it diminishes the ability of Black voters in north Florida to pick a representative of their choice.”
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Following Elon Musk’s lead, YouTube and Facebook are surrendering to disinformation
“Facebook and YouTube are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election,” The Washington Post’s report.
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No OB-GYNs left in town: What came after Idaho’s assault on abortion
“In Sandpoint, Idaho, the maternity ward closed down. Within months, medical care for women in the rural community was hollowed out,” explains The Guardian’s Kathleen McLaughlin.
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Facing threat of Trump’s return, Ukrainians ramp up homegrown arms industry
“It will be very difficult for us to fight alone with such a huge monster. But the civilized world has two options: to help us restore our 1991 borders, or to throw away all claims of shared values and just watch us bleed,” Serhiy Prytula says.
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This bold plan to kick the world’s coal habit might actually work
“Novel climate-financing deals are promising to shut off dirty energy plants in developing countries and retrain their staff to work in the green economy,” Wired reports.
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How climate scientists feel about seeing their dire predictions come true
The Los Angeles Times “spoke with several researchers and climate experts about how the recent string of record-breaking, precedent-setting events feel to them. Their comments have been lightly edited for clarity.”
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DeSantis, with a subtle maneuver, hides his small-dollar donations
“The campaign of the Florida governor, who is known to be reliant on rich donors, worked with a Republican fund-raising powerhouse to prevent the disclosure of information on small contributors,” The New York Times reports.
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How a U.S. tech mogul used nonprofits to sow Beijing’s propaganda
The New York Times unraveled a financial network that stretches from Chicago to Shanghai and uses American nonprofits to push Chinese talking points worldwide.
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What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán understand about your brain
“[T]hroughout history, speeches by dictators and autocrats have one thing in common: they use dehumanizing metaphors to instill and propagate hatred of others,” Marcel Danesi writes.
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It’s time to stop saying ‘woke,’ equity expert says
NPI guest contributor Erin Jones says the word has acquired deeply negative connotations after years of use as a pejorative insult. (NPI nominated “woke” for banishment five years ago, as 2018 began.)
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Pandemic deaths in Ohio and Florida show partisan divide after vaccine rollout
Via Ars Technica: “Amid the pandemic, Republican voters in Ohio and Florida had a significantly higher rate of excess deaths after the nationwide rollout of COVID-19 vaccines compared with those who voted Democratic, according to a study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine.”
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“This is a really big deal”: How college towns are helping power Democrats to victory in key states
“Growing population in America’s highly educated enclaves has led to huge gains for the Democratic Party. And Republicans are scrambling for answers,” Politico’s Charlie Mahtesian and Madi Alexander write.
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House Republicans seek billions in cuts to rail, water infrastructure spending
Ultra MAGA lackeys of Donald Trump who currently control the United States House of Representatives want to force the Senate and the Biden administration to reverse the investments made to Amtrak and clean drinking water infrastructure as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is unacceptable to Democrats.
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Report: Studio bosses plan to stay away from bargaining table in gambit to starve writers into submission
Via Deadline: “’The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,’ a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it ‘a cruel but necessary evil.'”
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Watch the 2023 Washington State Space Summit panel discussion
On July 5th, 2023, Blue Origin hosted the 2023 Washington State Space Summit, organized by Senator Maria Cantwell’s office. NPI recorded the panel discussion in high definition and it’s available to watch on demand. Simply click play above to check out the event.
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Putin gets caught in his own trap, with Russians not caring enough to save him
“After spending years cultivating public apathy, the Russian president found his people indifferent to his fate,” Anne Applebaum writes.
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Trump has long known how to manipulate the media
“The media have been covering Trump and his legal woes for 50 years, and he knows we have yet to get it right,” writes LZ Granderson, an opinion columnist for The Los Angeles Times.
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Tesla’s ‘self-driving’ system should never have been allowed on the road
“Elon Musk’s automatic driving technology seems to be roughly an order of magnitude more deadly than human drivers,” writes Ryan Cooper.
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As Canadian smoke darkens the New York sky, the future is clear
“Since 2000, growing wildfire pollution has reversed significant gains from the Clean Air Act, and over the coming decades, it is poised to become the country’s main source of particulate pollution,” David Wallace-Wells writes.
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