What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign (Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow)

Donald Trump has pledged to scrap President Biden’s policies on electric vehicles and wind energy, as well as other initiatives opposed by the fossil fuel industry. As Donald Trump sat with some of the country’s top oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month, one executive complained about how they continued to face burdensome environmental regulations despite …

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The End of Old Left-wing Mythologies (Victor Davis Hanson)

The current radical and often violent protests on mostly blue-state, supposedly elite campuses have exposed in toxic fashion what the left has become. And yet, in a paradoxical fashion, the campus insanity has offered the nation some moral clarity. What’s surprising is not that the demonstrators are violent and nihilist, but that they are, on …

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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signs sweeping election overhaul bill as ACLU threatens to sue (Erin Mansfield)

The Republican governor of Georgia signed a bill Tuesday that makes dramatic changes to how elections are run in the battleground state just months before the presidential election. Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill on Monday, his spokesperson, Garrison Douglas, confirmed to USA TODAY. Kemp did not issue a statement or comment on the bill. Kemp’s announcement came …

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Handwriting vs Typing: A Study on Brain Benefits (Healthy Wellbeing)

The evolution of technology has precipitated profound changes in the way we communicate, learn, and process information. This shift is nowhere more evident than in the transition from traditional handwriting to typing, a change that has sparked both convenience and controversy in educational and cognitive science circles. A recent study published in January 2024 offers compelling evidence …

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Black voters won a big victory in Louisiana. Some White voters said it violated their ‘personal dignity’ (Tierney Sneed and Fredreka Schouten, CNN)

Nearly two years after a federal judge said that Louisiana’s congressional map diluted Black voting power, Black voters are at risk of voting for a second time in an election under a plan that likely violates the Voting Rights Act. In response to the judge’s ruling, the state’s Republican legislature had created a second majority-African …

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Too much talk? (Ellen Barry)

For years now, policymakers have sought an explanation for the mental health crisis among young people. Suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations were rising even before the pandemic. Then the rates of anxiety and depression doubled worldwide. Why is this happening? The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt points to smartphones, and the algorithms that draw kids away …

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Global State of Democracy Initiative: The Netherlands

The Netherlands is a high-performing democracy, exhibiting high levels of performance across all attributes of the Global State of Democracy Indices(GSoDI). Over the past five years, it has only seen a notable decline in the Effective Parliament sub-attribute (which still remains in the high-performingrange). Shortcomings in parliamentary scrutiny, particularly in the Childcare Allowance Case (known …

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