2021-06-03

Worthy

The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover Covid-19’s Origins

With disreputable wing nuts on one side of them and scornful experts on the other, the DRASTIC researchers often felt as if they were on their own in the wilderness, working on the world’s most urgent mystery. They weren’t alone. But investigators inside the U.S. government asking similar questions were operating in an environment that was as politicized and hostile to open inquiry as any Twitter echo chamber. When Trump himself floated the lab-leak hypothesis last April, his divisiveness and lack of credibility made things more, not less, challenging for those seeking the truth.

“A months long Vanity Fair investigation, interviews with more than 40 people, and a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. government documents, including internal memos, meeting minutes, and email correspondence, found that conflicts of interest, stemming in part from large government grants supporting controversial virology research, hampered the U.S. investigation into COVID-19’s origin at every step. In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.”

Supreme Court limits prosecutors’ use of anti-hacking law
- US Supreme Court Restricts Scope of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
Experts call it a 'clown show' but Arizona 'audit' is a disinformation blueprint

"It's an audit in name only," says Masterson, a former Department of Homeland Security official who helped lead the federal government's election security preparations leading up to November's election. "It's a threat to the overall confidence of democracy, all in pursuit of continuing a narrative that we know to be a lie."

NYPD Took Hours to Respond to Looting, Despite Quickly Cracking Down on Protests

A day of citywide mass protests on May 31, a week after Floyd’s death, was followed by chaos in the night. Hundreds of people who had no apparent connection to the protests commanded the streets of Manhattan’s SoHo district, home to many high-end stores. They looted businesses, and robbed each other, with impunity. Burglar alarms blended with the roaring of getaway engines, the chaotic medley punctuated every few moments by tumbling plywood, crashing plate glass, and grating steel. Then a gunshot went off, as a 21-year-old man was shot. The police were nowhere to be seen.
Government Finds No Evidence That Aerial Sightings Were Alien Spacecraft

Battle brews over banning natural gas to homes
Natural gas pipeline density higher overall in more vulnerable US counties - AGU Newsroom

Counties in the United States with more socially vulnerable populations have a higher density of natural gas pipelines overall, according to a new study. The findings suggest counties that are more socially vulnerable are also at greater risk of facing water and air pollution, public health and safety issues, and other negative impacts associated with the pipelines.
Single gene boosts climate resilience, yield and carbon capture in crops
Tasked to Fight Climate Change, a Secretive U.N. Agency Does the Opposite