by Alexandra Martinez
This article was originally published at Prism
From the outside, the Greenidge power plant in Seneca Lake, New York, looks like a 1950s-era relic of New York’s coal-fired past. But behind the facade of the once moth-balled power plant, there are now 8,000 churning high-powered computers running software 24/7 to solve complex math problems.
Remember Glenn Beck? He’s still around and he’s still doing what he’s always done: grifting away. His modern look includes spectacles and a sort of Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel Sanders look. Surprising no one, Beck’s evidence-free conspiracy theory stylings, now common on the right, are focused on all of the same tropes of misinformation, disinformation, and anti-vaxxer clickbait that allows for making money on his BlazeTV network.
It’s hard to believe the media training Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, allegedly sought out from a Democratic consultant is paying off. The director, who started her position last January, has been criticized time and time again for ever-changing CDC guidance issued in light of the coronavirus pandemic and more poignantly how she communicates said guidance.
To say Donald Trump is a cartoon villain ascribes far too much humanity and gravitas to this oleaginous heap of gently used circus peanuts. Most people can fully size him up after hearing him purple-nurple the Queen’s English with his gauche, ungrammatical boasts for a just a few minutes, but many Americans remain in thrall to his, shall we say, “unique” charms.
China has stepped up its strict zero tolerance strategy in the run-up to the Winter Olympics, which open Feb. 4.
More than 800,000 noncitizens and “Dreamers” in New York City will have access to the ballot box for municipal elections as soon as next year.
“We need to be impartial,” GOP Sen. Scott Baldwin told a history teacher who noted his class was studying the rise of Nazism and fascism.
The documents, obtained by The Associated Press, underscore the uneven and muddled intelligence that circulated to Capitol Police officers ahead of the Jan. 6 riot.
During his 1964 acceptance speech for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Sidney Poitier, slightly winded from his trek to the stage, breathily asserted, “Because it is a long journey to this moment, I am naturally indebted to countless numbers of people.” Poitier’s labored emphasis on the “long journey to this moment” underscored both the stamina of his onscreen appeal and his protracted route to acclaim that began with his 1950 film debut in No Way Out.
Illustrations by Miki LoweThe poet W. S. Merwin was—like many of us, perhaps—preoccupied with his own mortality. He wrote about it often, most famously in “For the Anniversary of My Death”: “Every year without knowing it I have passed the day / When the last fires will wave to me / And the silence will set out.” But plenty of his works that seem to deal with the end of life are really about aliveness.
For fans of spy movies and television shows, a visit to CIA headquarters will be disappointing. The visitor center looks nothing like the high-tech offices of Jason Bourne and Carrie Mathison. Instead, the entry to America’s best-known intelligence agency has more of a shabby post-office feel. There are teller windows with bulletproof glass, soda machines, and an old-fashioned black landline phone mounted on the back wall.
For most of this century, America’s debate about policing took place against a backdrop of falling murder rates. But in 2020, the U.S. murder rate rose 30 percent from 2019. Now the earliest figures from 2021 are in––and in many cities murders are still rising.These are uncomfortable facts for those of us who argue against the “tough on crime” excesses of the 1980s and ’90s.
While the supply chain for once-scarce equipment remains intact, the sheer demand for testing is stretching sample collection sites and laboratory staff.
The advisory panel signed off on the recommendation following presentations by doctors suggesting boosters are likely to increase antibodies in young teens.
The recent guidance, updated Dec. 29, said individuals who test positive for Covid-19 and whose symptoms are resolving need only isolate for five days as long as they continue to wear masks for an additional five days.
The agency will also allow some immunocompromised children as young as age 5 to get an additional dose.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said his state is trying everything it can to ensure it has enough health care workers.
The four-week average, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, fell to just above 199,000, the lowest level since October 1969.
The results, which covered Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, were fueled by purchases of clothing and jewelry.
Nearly the entire increase came from the burst of federal spending as the government mobilized to contain the spread of the virus.
The Fed plans to cease its bond buys entirely by March, rather than its earlier target of June to give itself room to begin raising interest rates as early as the second quarter of next year.
Costs for key goods and services soared 0.8 percent for the month and 6.8 percent for the year, the highest since 1982, the Labor Department reported Friday.
We get an update from Sudan, where at least three pro-democracy protesters were killed by security forces on Thursday, bringing the death toll to at least 60 since the military coup on October 25. Thursday’s protest came four days following Abdalla Hamdok’s resignation as Sudan’s prime minister, after he was deposed in the October coup and then shortly restored to power by the military in November.
We look at the skyrocketing number of COVID infections. Coronavirus cases hit record highs this week, with global cases climbing 70% from last week to 9.5 million and the U.S. reporting a single-day record of 1 million new cases on Monday. In the U.S., the extraordinary volume of cases is filling up emergency rooms nationwide and exhausting healthcare workers, says emergency room physician Dr. Craig Spencer, who has been treating coronavirus patients since the pandemic began.
President Joe Biden warned about the looming threat of autocracy during his speech marking the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol attack on Thursday and denounced his predecessor Donald Trump for inciting the rioters. In a statement responding to Biden’s speech, Trump continued to falsely claim the 2020 election was rigged.
Former Pentagon adviser Ryan Goodman says former President Trump could have used the Insurrection Act to hold onto power during the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. “There needs to be reform of the Insurrection Act,” says Goodman, who authored the report “Crisis of Command: The Pentagon, the President, and January 6” for Just Security, where he is co-editor.
The former vice president wants to cooperate but probably won’t do it voluntarily, said Alyssa Farah Griffin.
On Wednesday, the United States’ oldest surviving World War II veteran died. Lawrence Brooks was 112 years old, according to the National WWII Museum. Brooks was the youngest of 15 children, born to sharecroppers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His family moved to Mississippi after the Great Depression.
When Brooks was 31 years old, he was drafted into the Army “and spent World War II in the predominantly African American 91st Engineer Battalion.
“What happened to you, man?” asked fellow Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger.
Okay, why would anyone try to exterminate large swaths of the population with vaccines millions of people still refuse to take when they can use effing space lasers instead! It makes absolutely no sense.