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Category Archives: Government Documents

Lancet Countdown on health and climate change

Climate change is the greatest global health threat facing the world in the 21st century, but it is also the greatest opportunity to redefine the social and environmental determinants of health. In 2015, countries committed to limit global warming to “well below 2°C” as part of the landmark Paris Agreement. The annual Countdown report provides… Continue Reading

Harris, Trump Voters Differ Over Election Security, Vote Counts and Hacking Concerns

Pew: More than seven-in-ten registered voters in the U.S. (73%) think the election this November will be run and administered at least somewhat well. Nine-in-ten Harris supporters say this, compared with 57% of Trump supporters. Just 20% of voters are highly confident the Supreme Court would be politically neutral if it rules on legal issues… Continue Reading

There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth.

The New York Times Opinion [unlocked], Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors of government at Harvard and the authors of “Tyranny of the Minority.” :”…In the United States, the civic response to the Trump threat has been tepid. For a moment, business leaders seemed poised to defend democracy. After the Jan. 6 insurrection, many leading… Continue Reading

Can someone find out who you voted for?

NPR – No. Here is what you should know – “With less than [12 days] until Election Day and with early voting taking place across the U.S., many Americans are questioning the secrecy of their ballots. Election officials, voter registration organizations and election law experts — including New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver… Continue Reading

Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind

The New York Times unlocked article Robert Paxton thought the label was overused. But now he’s alarmed by what he sees in global politics — including Trumpism…Paxton, who is 92, is one of the foremost American experts on fascism and perhaps the greatest living American scholar of mid-20th-century European history. His 1972 book, “Vichy France:… Continue Reading

Online Talk About ‘Civil War’ Could Inspire Real-World Violence, DHS Warns Cops

Wired [unpaywalled]: “The agency also cautioned that it’s unable to get a grasp on the full scale of the threat, due to extremists increasingly using encrypted chat tools…Last month, the agency’s intelligence office emphasized in a report that “perceptions of voter fraud” had risen to become a primary “trigger” for the “mobilization to violence.” This… Continue Reading

A baseline structure inventory with critical attribution for the US and its territories

Data is Plural: “Leveraging high performance computing, remote sensing, geographic data science, machine learning, and computer vision,” Hsiuhan Lexie Yang et al., researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have “partnered with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to build a baseline structure inventory covering the US and its territories to support disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.”… Continue Reading

Modernizing Congressional Data – Senate Legislation and Amendments on Congress.gov

In Custodia Legis: “Continuing our series on modernizing the legislative data exchange behind Congress.gov, we are going to look at the next phase of the project – modernizing the exchange of Senate measures and amendments data. The Legislation collection is comprised of bills and resolutions, along with associated actions (including Action Codes), titles, sponsors, cosponsors, and committee-related activity. Legislation text… Continue Reading

FCC Requires All Mobile Phones To Be Hearing Aid Compatible

The Federal Communications Commission today adopted new rules establishing that 100% of all mobile handsets—such as smartphones—must be compatible with hearing aids. With this change, the 48 million Americans with hearing loss will be able to choose among the same mobile phone models that are available to all consumers. Under the new rules, after a… Continue Reading