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The military dictatorship now ruling the Southeast Asian nation has brushed aside the entreaties and threats, even as the country of 54 million people hurtles toward paralysis and possibly civil war that could destabilize the region.

Confident in Its Impunity, the Myanmar Junta Ignores Diplomacy

The generals who seized power five months ago have shown no inclination to heed international pleas to reverse themselves, even as Myanmar slides into a failed state.

Most Americans likely don’t know that approximately 40 percent of the world’s polysilicon, a key component of solar panels, is manufactured in China’s northwest Xinjiang region, where the United States has determined the Chinese government is perpetrating a genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities. As evidence amassed in recent months that the Chinese solar industry was employing these minorities without giving them any say in the matter, pressure mounted on the Biden administration to act.

More than 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died with Covid-19 in the U.S. even though they’ve been fully vaccinated, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC says roughly 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died with Covid breakthrough infections after vaccination

At least 750 fully vaccinated people have died after contracting Covid but the CDC noted that 142 of those fatalities were asymptomatic or unrelated to Covid.

His comments included telling Sky News that bodies like the Australian Institute of Marine Science “can no longer be trusted” and saying that many scientists examining the health of the Great Barrier Reef were “emotionally attached” and “not objective”.

He was also accused of “failing to act in the collegial and academic spirit”, and of denigrating the university and one of his colleagues.

Controversial scientist gets chance to fight his dismissal in High Court

A Queensland academic who was sacked from James Cook University after making critical comments about the research of his colleagues gets the chance to argue his case in the High Court.

It turns out China is a geopolitical threat too

The 2018 announcement in China by He Jianqui who genetically altered human embryos via CRISPR—producing twins known as Lulu and Nana—helped strengthen policies about germline gene editing. Despite the worldwide scorn leveled against him for conducting a brazen act of human experimentation, his research also helped usher in a more moderate point of view regarding the manipulation of germline genes. Policy makers followed with a softer tone in guidelines on the feasibility of research involving the genes of heredity. As it turned out, a bourgeoning number of scientists were expressing interest in developing potential cures by manipulating genetic sequences in germline DNA.

Are we ready? Advances in CRISPR means the era of germline gene editing has arrived

Quick, accurate and easy-to-use, CRISPR-Cas9 has made genomic editing more efficient—but at the same time has made human germline editing much more feasible, erasing many of the ethical barriers erected to prevent scientists from editing the genes of heredity.

WASHINGTON—President Biden walked back comments tying the fate of a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure agreement to a separate, Democratic effort to pass a broad antipoverty plan, recommitting to the bipartisan deal after Republicans threatened to withdraw their support.

Biden Walks Back Threat on Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal

President Biden walked back comments tying the fate of a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure agreement to a separate, Democratic effort to pass a broad antipoverty plan, after Republicans threatened to withdraw their support for the bipartisan plan.

Twenty-four years ago, while in charge of a small television operation at Al Quds University, my team and I decided to broadcast live sessions of the Palestinian Legislative Council dealing with corruption in the newly established Palestinian Authority. The broadcast angered people in Yasser Arafat’s entourage and I was arrested and jailed for seven days without any explanation.

Op-Ed: How the autocratic rule of Mahmoud Abbas fails Palestinians

The killing of a critic of the Abbas government has enraged Palestinians who want free elections and political reform.

(Bloomberg) — Frank McCourt, the billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is pouring $100 million into an attempt to rebuild the foundations of social media. The effort, which he has loftily named Project Liberty, centers on the construction of a publicly accessible database of people’s social connections, allowing users to move records of their relationships between social media services instead of being locked into a few dominant apps.

The undercurrent to Project Liberty is a fear of the power that a few huge companies — and specifically Facebook Inc. — have amassed over the last decade. “I never thought I would be questioning the security of our underlying systems, namely democracy and capitalism,” McCourt said.

A Real Estate Mogul Has a $100 Million Plan to Save the Internet

(Bloomberg) — Frank McCourt, the billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is pouring $100 million into an attempt to rebuild the foundations of social media. The effort, which he has loftily named Project Liberty, centers on the construction of a publicly accessibl…

The Gettysburg Address speech that no one gives before it turns into a pie fight

The best political speech in many years was not delivered. Instead, incoming Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid set it aside and reprimanded members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s departing coalition for their nonstop heckling of incoming Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which was outrageous even by the standards of the Knesset. Several members were hauled out of the parliament’s chambers.

Opinion | Lessons From an Israeli Crack-Up

A new government strikes a conciliatory tone that American politicians should emulate.

A boolean variable can have values true, false and null. Most of the universe is still a mystery whatever the fact checkers say.

No ET, no answers: Intel report is inconclusive about UFOs

WASHINGTON (AP) — A long-awaited U.S. government report on UFOs released Friday makes at least one thing clear: The truth is still out there. Investigators did not find extraterrestrial links in reviewing 144 sightings of aircraft or other devices apparently flying at mysterious speeds or trajector…

Covid is set to cost the world at least £21.5 trillion

But scientists say the world needs to spend just £35 billion to make sure it never happens again.

Authorities in Israel and Australia imposed new Covid-19 restrictions in response to the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus, while India warned of a worrying new mutation, emphasizing how the morphing pathogen continues to challenge a return to pre-pandemic life world-wide…

“The entrance of the Delta variant has changed the transmission dynamics,” said Prof. Balicer, who is also the chief innovation officer for Israel’s largest health-management organization, Clalit.

Delta Coronavirus Variant Prompts Limits in Australia, Israel, as India Warns of New Mutation

The developments underscore how the morphing pathogen continues to challenge a return to pre-pandemic life world-wide.

Other countries are discovering that certain vaccines may not be as effective as others in preventing infections caused by these variants. …

Dr. Adib said that the association is now discussing the possibility of administering to medical workers a third shot of another vaccine, such as Oxford-AstraZeneca. Some countries are supporting a mix-and-match scheme to boost immunity. Sinovac, which is produced by a Chinese pharmaceutical company and promoted by the Chinese government, has been criticized for a lack of transparency about its clinical trials.

Indonesia’s Doctors Got Vaccinated With Sinovac, and Got Sick

Facing increased cases and a deadly variant, the Indonesian health system is under strain, as doctors become patients.

by Jeff Kao, ProPublica, and Raymond Zhong, Paul Mozur and Aaron Krolik, The New York Times

How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life for Uyghurs

Thousands of videos of Uyghurs denying abuses against their community are showing up on Twitter and YouTube. They’re part of an elaborate influence campaign by Chinese officials to counter reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang.

It was only in 2004 that a prominent virologist, Peter Palese, wrote that Chi-Ming Chu, a respected virologist and a former member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told him that “the introduction of this 1977 H1N1 virus” was indeed thought to be due to vaccine trials involving “the challenge of several thousand military recruits with live H1N1 virus.”

For the first time, science itself seemed to have caused a pandemic while trying to prepare for it.

Now, for the second time in 50 years, there are questions about whether we are dealing with a pandemic caused by scientific research.

Opinion | Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

Even if the coronavirus did not emerge from a lab, the groundwork for a potential disaster had been laid for years, and learning its lessons is essential to preventing others.