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IMPORTANT
| | | | | School’s Out | Biden Cancels $10,000 on Student Loans, $20,000 for Pell Grantees Reactions to Biden’s campaign promise fulfillment have been mixed. Republicans and conservative pundits are incensed, saying debt forgiveness could see inflation rise further. Leading Democrats have swatted away the criticism. “No president or Congress has done more to relieve the burden of student debt and help millions of Americans make ends meet,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. Warren, along with Senate colleague Chuck Schumer of New York, had pushed the White House for a much larger forgiveness — $50,000 per borrower. A pandemic-era pause on student loan repayments will also be extended until the end of the year. (Sources: WaPo, The Hill) |
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| | | Battlegrounds | Strike Kills 22 at Ukrainian Train Station, Google Takes On Disinfo Five victims are believed to have burned to death in a car in the Chaplyne, Dnipropetrovsk, strike. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the attack during a U.N. Security Council meeting, and said 50 were injured. He warned that the number of fatalities could increase. The Wednesday attack came amid relatively muted celebrations for the country’s Independence Day — and at the six-month mark from when Russia invaded. Elsewhere, Google confirmed it will launch a campaign using “inoculation theory” against disinformation about Ukrainian refugees spreading online in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, using research from across all large social media platforms. (Sources: BBC, DW) |
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| | | Dismissed | Uvalde Police Chief Fired Three Months After School Tragedy Pete Arredondo was placed on unpaid administrative leave in July, two months after the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, left 19 students and two teachers dead. He is the first law enforcement officer to lose his job over the event, in a unanimous vote by the school district’s board of trustees, exactly three months after the tragedy. Arredondo, who has carried much of the blame for the botched response, did not attend the hearing. Through his lawyers, he said he “will not participate in his own illegal and unconstitutional public lynching and respectfully requests the board immediately reinstate him.” (Sources: NPR, The Guardian) |
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| | | Jobs Wanted | China Unveils Stimulus Amid Spiraling Unemployment Job creation tops the agenda, with July youth unemployment hitting a record high of 19.9%. The economy has been throttled by ongoing lockdowns across the country, and watchers wonder if the $146 billion spending will be enough to stave off a devastating hit to the previously booming economy. The State Council, in a meeting led by Premier Li Keqiang, vowed to use “all tools in the toolbox” to prevent it. Still, the council warned the country it will fall well short of the previously expected 5.5% growth this year. One poll of economists predicts growth under 4%. (Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg) |
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| | | Briefly | Here are some things you should know about today: Vigilance. Parents in India have been warned of an emergent but non-life-threatening virus among children under the age of five. Tomato flu has infected dozens of children, usually appearing with high fever and joint pain. (Source: The Hindu) ‘Robodebt.’ The Australian government will launch an inquiry into an automated welfare debt-recovery system under the previous government. It is believed the system unlawfully claimed nearly $1.4 billion from recipients. (Source: ABC) Whistleblower. France will investigate claims made by a U.S.-based former Twitter employee, the data protection watchdog said Wednesday, following revelations of potential misrepresentations to regulatory agencies. (Source: Politico) |
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INTRIGUING
| | | Magic Cure | Want to Quit Drinking? Try Shrooms Psychedelic mushrooms have shown promise in helping heavy drinkers cut back or quit, and scientists think this has potential for wide usage. A small study published Wednesday featured 93 participants. Half of them were given a dose of psilocybin twice — the active ingredient in the mushrooms — and the other half a placebo, alongside 12 sessions of talk therapy. Eight months later, researchers found the psilocybin group were drinking heavily just once every 10 days, compared to one in four days for the control group. Nearly half the psilocybin group quit drinking completely, compared to 24% of the other group. (Source: AP) |
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| | | Trending | Facebook, Twitter Crack Down on Pro-US Campaigns Abroad Researchers identified hundreds of inauthentic accounts across both platforms pushing pro-U.S. sentiments across central Asia and the Middle East. Most of the posting is concentrated on criticizing China, Iran and Russia, according to a new report from Stanford University and Graphika. While it remains a mystery who is behind the campaign, it is clear that it began in 2017 and is based in the U.S. and U.K. But it hasn’t been a roaring success, the report notes: “The vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than just a handful of likes and retweets.” (Source: NBC) |
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| | | Binge Watch | ‘Funeral Screenings’ Give ‘Batgirl’ One Last Life Industry insiders have flocked to secret screenings at the Warner Bros. lot for what has turned out to be the most exclusive Hollywood event in years. The studio announced it would shelve the Batgirl project earlier this month, after preliminary marketing on the film had begun, amid heated speculation that Discovery CEO David Zaslav was looking for a tax write-off. Fans are hoping that the film will one day see the big screen — or at least a streaming service — like the resurrected Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which was released years after filming ended following a public campaign. (Source: Hollywood Reporter) |
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| | | Up, Up and Away | British-Belgian Teen Youngest Ever Pilot to Solo Fly Across World It’s one way to spend your summer holidays. Mack Rutherford, 17, set off from Bulgaria in March to fly an ultralight to Italy and Greece, then Asia, Africa, the U.S. and over two oceans. Rutherford had plenty of challenges, including sandstorms in Sudan and airport closures in India. But it’s all part of the fun. “Just follow your dreams, no matter how old you are. Work hard and move forward to achieve your goals,” he said in Sofia on his return trip. He broke the short-lived Guinness World Record set by Travis Ludlow last year at 18 years 150 days old. (Source: Sky News) |
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| | | | | Shamed | LA County to Pay Out $31 Million in Kobe Bryant Case Jurors took just a few hours to rule in favor of Chris Chester and Vanessa Bryant, who each lost their partners and a daughter in the January 2020 helicopter crash. The jury found Los Angeles County first responders, including deputies and firefighters, violated the privacy of the victims by taking photos of the scene. Chester and Bryant’s legal team slammed the county for its bungled investigation, noting that it is impossible to say how widely the images were shared. Jurors pointed to inadequate training within the Sheriff’s Department, adding that sharing images of dead bodies has become a norm there. (Source: LA Times) |
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