And another day of dissatisfied voters, Biden shifting far right, voting not a fundamental right in KS, protecting contraception, climate records, cardiovascular disease, internet addiction and your teen’s brain, and AI imitating the dead and dying comes to a close:
“We’re going off the rails on a crazy train.” -- Ozzy Osbourne
A year of elections in democracies around the world is revealing deep dissatisfaction among voters. “In many ways we’ve never had it so good, objectively speaking, and yet people are so unsatisfied,” said Matthias Matthijs, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.
Will Biden’s new border measures be enough to change voters’ minds? Biden has shifted far to the right on immigration since his winning campaign four years ago, when he criticized Trump’s immigration priorities and promised he would restore asylum protections. Many Democrats acknowledge Biden now faces a wholly different political reality, even as key parts of his base push him to repudiate border restrictions and compare his move with Trump’s policies as president.
GOP senators warn judge against sentencing Trump to prison. Senate Republicans are warning New York Judge Juan Merchan not to sentence former President Trump to prison or house arrest or take any other action that could disrupt the likely GOP nominee’s ability to campaign ahead of the November election.
Fauci pushes back partisan attacks in fiery House hearing over COVID origins and controversies. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, was back before Congress on Monday, calling “simply preposterous” Republican allegations that he’d tried to cover up origins of the COVID-19 pandemic...He’d already been grilled behind closed doors, for 14 hours over two days in January. But Monday, Fauci testified voluntarily in public and on camera at a hearing that quickly deteriorated into partisan attacks. Republicans repeated unproven accusations against the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist while Democrats apologized for Congress besmirching his name and bemoaned a missed opportunity to prepare for the next scary outbreak.
The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that voting is not a fundamental right. What’s next for voters? A determination that voting is not a fundamental right could embolden state lawmakers to push for further restrictions on advance voting and mail-in ballots, said Jamie Shew, election officer for Douglas County — Kansas’ fifth most populous county.
Republicans block bill to protect contraception access as Democrats make election-year push. Senate Republicans have blocked legislation designed to protect women’s access to contraception, arguing that the bill was just a political stunt as Democrats mount an election-year effort to put GOP senators on the record on reproductive rights issues. The test vote won a 51-39 majority, but that was well short of the 60 votes to move ahead on the legislation.
Colorado GOP calls for burning of Pride flags. Colorado’s Republican Party this week called for LGBTQ Pride flags to be burned, describing LGBTQ Americans as “godless groomers” in a fundraising email and multiple social media posts railing against Pride Month.
Two UT Austin professors sue over Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students, abortion patients. The professors are suing for the right to misgender their students, restrict teaching assistants’ dress and penalize students who miss class to receive an abortion.
Climate records keep getting shattered. Here is what you need to know. What do the shattered record mean for humans? More suffering. Human-induced climate change has brought wild weather swings, increasingly unpredictable storms and heat waves that stay over a particular area for longer periods of time.
Triple-digit temperatures to hit parts of California and Arizona in early-season heat wave. The National Weather Service is forecasting a heat wave throughout much of the Southwest and parts of California from Tuesday through Thursday as a ridge of high pressure centers over the region. The forecast suggests temperatures may climb to 113 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix and could reach 108 in California’s Central Valley. “It’s coming early.”
Being a patient is getting harder in a strained and complex US health care system. Patients are not getting enough help dealing with a healthcare system that is growing increasingly complex, according to researchers and other experts in care delivery. They say more frequent insurance complications, doctor and drug shortages, and a lack of communication all make life harder for people with serious or chronic illnesses. -- Healthcare is a human right.
More than half of US adults will have cardiovascular disease by 2050, research finds. About 61% of US adults will have cardiovascular disease by 2050, new research from the American Heart Association predicts. The biggest driver of this trend will be the large number of people who have or will develop high blood pressure, which makes them much more likely to develop dangerous problems like a heart attack or stroke.
WHO confirms first death in Mexico from bird flu never seen in humans. This was the first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with A(H5N2) subtype of bird flu reported globally and the first H5 virus infection in a person reported in Mexico.
Juror says someone left her bag with $120,000 cash and promise of more if she’ll acquit. She was serving on a case involving seven people charged with stealing more than $40 million from a program meant to feed children during the pandemic.
How internet addiction may affect your teen’s brain, according to a new study. Teens who spend lots of time on social media have complained of feeling like they can’t pay attention to more important things like homework or time with loved ones. A new study has possibly captured that objectively, finding that for teens diagnosed with internet addiction, signaling between brain regions important for controlling attention, working memory and more was disrupted.
X officially changes rules to allow NSFW content. Over the weekend, Elon Musk's X added new rules to the platform, specifically its "adult content policy" page. X's new NSFW rules explicitly allow consensual adult content, which includes full nudity and sexual acts.
Zoom CEO Wants an AI Avatar to Do Your Job While You’re at the Beach. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan told The Verge that AI avatars will one day do your job on your behalf. According to Yuan, the avatar will speak in your Zoom meetings for you, answer emails, and take phone calls, supposedly freeing you up for the rest of your life.
AI is imitating the dead and dying, raising new questions about grieving. Eternos, which got its name from the Italian and Latin word for “eternal,” says its technology will allow Bommer’s family “to engage with his life experiences and insights.” It is among several companies that have emerged in the last few years in what’s become a growing space for grief-related AI technology...While some have embraced this technology as a way to cope with grief, others feel uneasy about companies using artificial intelligence to try to maintain interactions with those who have passed away. Still others worry it could make the mourning process more difficult because there isn’t any closure...“What truly sets this era apart — and is even unprecedented in the long history of humanity’s quest for immortality — is that, for the first time, the processes of caring for the dead and immortalization practices are fully integrated into the capitalist market.” -- I saw this Black Mirror episode.
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