Political conservatism was associated with heightened susceptibility to believing fake news about COVID-19 in the early stages of the outbreak in the United States, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The study provides preliminary evidence that support for President Donald Trump plays a role in viewing COVID-19 as less of a personal threat and less severe in general.

The June 6 edition of the German newsweekly Der Spiegel described Donald Trump as a “fire devil” and a president who “sets fire to his country.” The English edition of Der Spiegel continues with this damningly accurate description of America in the Age of Trump: Should we be worried about the United States?

Journalist Rami Khouri says the Beirut explosion that killed at least 135 and injured thousands is the latest "body blow" to the Lebanese after decades of crisis, but it could prompt political change. "Whether it's no garbage collection, no electricity, salty water, no jobs, poor education, closed banks, inflation, no money, poverty rising — all of these have been happening in succession and simultaneously in the last year," said Khouri, a professor of journalism and director of global engagement at the American University of Beirut.

At the end of last week, the $600 federal unemployment insurance supplement expired after a congressional deadlock on passing a new stimulus bill, leaving millions of laid-off workers without income that was helping them support themselves and their families.

As if he weren’t unlikeable enough already, Adolf Hitler was a preachy vegetarian. He subjected his guests to rambling lectures on the health benefits of a meatless lifestyle, and he berated his wife for using lipstick containing animal products. He forced his companions to hear his graphic descriptions of the violence in slaughterhouses, and then triumphantly accused them of moral cowardice for being unable to listen. Hitler, a man without an ounce of virtue, took great pleasure in virtue-signaling.

Seventy-five years after the dropping of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima, one nuclear non-proliferation after the other is lapsing. A new arms race is already taking shape between Russia, the United States and China.

Famous actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio has told his 45 million Instagram followers that animals are worth more alive, as he called for an end to the wildlife trade. DiCaprio recently re-shared an Instagram post by wildlife protection organization WildAid, announcing the news of Vietnam’s wildlife trade ban.

The 70-year-old white supremacist had over 53,000 followers on Twitter as of Thursday.

Many wealthy Americans insist they aren’t rich, and that has profound implications in electoral politics as well as economic policy. On July 11, MarketWatch published a letter, presumably real, from a reader complaining that she and her husband didn’t qualify for a stimulus payment because they make too much money. Said the upset letter writer:

A massive study finds that regional differences in how slaves were treated throughout the Americas are reflected in the DNA of present-day Americans of African descent.

We cannot much longer ignore the discomforting truth that the economies we’ve inherited from the twentieth century are poorly designed for the production of human beings. As digital technologies weave economic logic deeper into the temporal fabric of everyday life, we’re debasing economic society’s most complex, valuable, and neglected production: human consciousness.

IN times of great peril, man turns to his deity or the unknown for his survival. This is how religion evolved over the millennia: The primordial longing to be extricated from whatever difficulties he is faced with. This is, perhaps, also the evolution of prayer, starting as incantations to implore the gods for a “deus ex machina.” These are the miracles, inexplicable events attributable to those greater than him.

America today faces a terrifying danger: political correctness. It is an existential threat not just to the United States, but all of human civilization. By this, obviously, I mean right-wing political correctness. Maybe you’re surprised to hear this. In the U.S. media, there’s no shortage of lamentations about political correctness and how it chills debate — but they’re almost always about the threat of left-wing PC.

Idris Elba has an issue with the handful of films and television programs being removed from streaming platforms and the airwaves over racist content such as blackface. Over the last couple months, episodes of “30 Rock,” “The Golden Girls,” “The Office,” “Scrubs,” and more have been pulled for featuring blackface. Elba says in a new interview with Radio Times that these controversial episodes should not have been erased but updated with a warning or rating to ensure viewers know what racist content the programs contain.

Bitcoin can benefit the black community and help create leverage against the current financial system, author Isaiah Jackson told the Decrypt Daily podcast.

Should everyone get to play moral police? Imagine if every single conversation or a heated discussion in our life was recorded and reviewed. Would all of our opinions pass through the filter of modern political correctness?

Whenever I talk to people who are suddenly concerned about “cancel culture” or “online mobs”, my first thought is always: “Where have you been for the last decade?” I’ve been online long enough and, like many others, been receiving criticism and abuse online for long enough, to know that what some see as a new pattern of virtual censure by moral purists is mostly a story about the internet, not ideology or identity.

There is no power on this earth that is capable of holding Facebook to account. No legislature, no law enforcement agency, no regulator. Congress has failed. The EU has failed. When the Federal Trade Commission fined it a record $5bn for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, its stock price actually went up.

In the United States, parks have always been used as spaces for public protest, places for commemorating acts of resistance and the struggle for a more perfect union, and stages for presidents to call for national unity or celebrate civic purpose.

Over half of Republicans and overwhelming shares of Democrats say they favor a range of initiatives to reduce the impacts of climate change.