“Facebook plans to announce Friday that it will no longer automatically give politicians a pass when they break the company’s hate speech rules, a major reversal after years of criticism that it was too deferential to powerful figures during the Trump presidency.
Since the 2016 election, the company has applied a test to political speech that weighs the newsworthiness of the content against its propensity to cause harm. Now the company will throw out the first part of the test and will no longer consider newsworthiness as a factor, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to speak publicly.
But Facebook doesn’t plan to end the newsworthiness exception entirely. In the cases where an exception is made, the company will now disclose it publicly, the person said — after years of such decisions being closely held. And it will also become more transparent about its strikes system for people who violate its rules.” Read more at Washington Post
“The Biden administration said Thursday it would work through the international Covax effort to share the bulk of the 80 million Covid-19 vaccine doses it plans to send to other countries by the end of June.
Officials had previously announced the number of doses they would be sending overseas, but they hadn’t detailed where they would be going. Dozens of countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, petitioned the U.S. for a portion of the doses.
About 75% of the vaccines will go to Covax, a multibillion-dollar program to immunize the world against Covid-19 that has been struggling with supply, and they will be targeted to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, in coordination with the African Union, the White House said. The remaining 25% will go to countries experiencing surges in cases, neighbors and those who have requested help from the U.S.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have found no evidence that aerial phenomena witnessed by Navy pilots in recent years are alien spacecraft, but they still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military, according to senior administration officials briefed on the findings of a highly anticipated government report.
The report determines that a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology, the officials said. That determination would appear to eliminate the possibility that Navy pilots who reported seeing unexplained aircraft might have encountered programs the government meant to keep secret.
But that is about the only conclusive finding in the classified intelligence report, the officials said. And while a forthcoming unclassified version, expected to be released to Congress by June 25, will present few other firm conclusions, senior officials briefed on the intelligence conceded that the very ambiguity of the findings meant the government could not definitively rule out theories that the phenomena observed by military pilots might be alien spacecraft.” Read more at New York Times
“Talks have dragged on over what began as Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan , with Republicans rejecting what they see as liberal social programs that don’t belong to an infrastructure package. Biden made a major concession Wednesday: In lieu of scrapping the previous administration’s corporate tax cuts, the plan will instead beef up tax enforcement for the wealthiest and ensure the largest corporations pay at least a minimum of 15%. Biden plans to keep the conversation going Friday with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the lead negotiator for a group of six Republicans working to seal the infrastructure deal with the White House.” Read more at USA Today
“WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over past campaign fundraising activity involving a North Carolina logistics company where he served as chief executive, people familiar with the matter said.
Prosecutors issued a subpoena to Mr. DeJoy this week related to his employees’ campaign contributions during his time in the private sector, one person said.
Mr. DeJoy, a onetime financial backer of former President Donald Trump and GOP donor, became head of the U.S. Postal Service in 2020. The federal investigation is examining fundraising related to his former business, New Breed Logistics, a North Carolina-based logistics and supply-chain services provider, where he served as chief executive for about three decades before it was sold in 2014 to XPO Logistics Inc.
Mr. DeJoy ‘has always been scrupulous in his adherence to the campaign contribution laws and has never knowingly violated them,’ said his spokesman Mark Corallo, who confirmed the investigation.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The U.S. and China have backed a proposal by developing countries at the World Trade Organization to suspend patent protections for the Covid-19 vaccines. The European Union, however, is preparing a rival plan that seeks to boost vaccine production in other countries and lift export restrictions without waiving patent rights. The WTO’s proposal is led by South Africa, India and more than 60 other countries that say that IP rights held by pharmaceutical companies are preventing them from manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines locally, at a time where richer countries have bought up much of this year's supply. The EU says vaccine-patent waivers won't do much to boost production in the short term and would slow further innovation. The EU stance means that the waiver proposal is unlikely to be passed quickly or could be sunk all together, because the WTO works on consensus.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Two Senate committees are expected to release a 100-page-plus report next week on the security failures that led to January’s Capitol riots. The findings from the Senate Rules and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees will likely provide the basis of a new funding package to beef up Capitol security. However, the report will stop short of examining former President Donald Trump's role in the run-up to the attack. That’s likely to fuel partisan fighting about whether further investigation into the attack is necessary. Two Capitol Police officers shared their experiences for the first time with CNN, saying rioters beat them, threatened to shoot them, and called them traitors.” Read more at CNN
“WASHINGTON — The military judge presiding in the death penalty case of a man accused of orchestrating the U.S.S. Cole bombing has agreed to consider information obtained during the man’s torture by C.I.A. interrogators to support an argument in pretrial proceedings at Guantánamo Bay.
Defense lawyers cast the decision as the first time that a military judge at the war court is publicly known to have agreed to consider information obtained through the C.I.A. torture of a prisoner, and on Thursday they asked a higher court to reverse it.
Col. Lanny J. Acosta Jr. of the Army ruled on May 18 that prosecutors may invoke such information to be used narrowly, not necessarily for the truth of it, before a jury begins hearing a case.
‘No court has ever sanctioned the use of torture in this way,’ the defense lawyers wrote in their 20-page filing that asked a Pentagon panel, the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review, to intervene in the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi prisoner awaiting trial at Guantánamo Bay. ‘No court has ever approved the government’s use of torture as a tool in discovery litigation’ or as ‘a legitimate means of facilitating a court’s interlocutory fact-finding.’” Read more at New York Times
“President Biden will be heading out on his first international trip since taking office next week. His first stop will be the UK, where he’ll meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson ahead of the G7 summit in southwestern England. Biden is set to hold meetings with the other leaders of G7 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- during the visit. He’ll also meet with Queen Elizabeth II before heading to Brussels to participate in a NATO summit. There, he’ll meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ‘to discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues,’ the White House says. Finally, it’s off to Geneva, Switzerland, where Biden will hold a bilateral summit with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin on June 16. Meetings with several other world leaders are planned throughout.” Read more at CNN
“FBI director compares ransomware challenge to 9/11. Christopher Wray said the agency is investigating about 100 different types of ransomware, many of which trace back to actors in Russia, and called for a coordinated fight across U.S. society.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Global food prices have extended their rally to the highest in almost a decade, heightening concerns over bulging grocery bills as economies struggle to overcome the Covid-19 crisis. As Megan Durisin reports, the United Nations gauge of world food costs climbed for a 12th straight month in May, fueled by drought in South America and record grain purchases in China.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Lives Lived: F. Lee Bailey was the stuff of courtroom legend: an audacious defender of O.J. Simpson, Patty Hearst and others, who produced legal entertainment long before Court TV. He died at 87.” Read more at New York Times
“Arizona has refurbished and tested a gas chamber and purchased chemicals used to make hydrogen cyanide, a recent report said, drawing a backlash over its possible use on death row inmates.
Headlines noting that the chemicals could form the same poison found in Zyklon B, a lethal gas used by the Nazis, provoked fresh outrage, including among Auschwitz survivors in Germany and Israel, over the association with the Holocaust and hydrogen cyanide’s use in the death camps.
Internal documents about Arizona’s recent steps were published last week by The Guardian. Arizona officials have not confirmed that the state was preparing hydrogen cyanide for use.
Arizona last executed someone with lethal cyanide gas in 1999, when a death row inmate, Walter LaGrand, took 18 minutes to diein an execution that also fueled an outcry in Germany.” Read more at New York Times
“President Trump plans to make Anthony Fauci a top target at upcoming rallies, using increased attention to the Wuhan lab-leak theory as a weapon against an official long viewed as more trustworthy.
Why it matters: Trump and conservative media have made Fauci an improbable face of the opposition, trying to give him the cartoon-villain status once accorded to former Sen. Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or — in Trump’s case — Hillary Clinton.
Trump amped up his longtime Fauci rants yesterday in a statement calling for COVID reparations from China:
‘The correspondence between Dr. Fauci and China speaks too loudly for anyone to ignore. China should pay Ten Trillion Dollars to America, and the World, for the death and destruction they have caused!’
What we’re hearing: Look for Trump to light into Fauci tomorrow during dinner remarks to North Carolina annual Republican convention, in Greenville — Trump’s second big speech, after CPAC, since leaving office.
Jason Miller, Trump’s senior adviser, told me the base has a ‘visceral’ reaction to Fauci: ‘People see Anthony Fauci and they think of shuttered businesses, lost school.’
The big picture: Fox News' prime-time stars are amping up their Fauci rants based on new questions about COVID’s origins.
‘[A]ll the smirking morons in the American news media changed their view completely overnight,’ Tucker Carlson said last night, 24 hours after saying Fauci should be criminally investigated.
‘LORD FAUCI EXPOSED,’ said one Tucker graphic.
Sean Hannity jumped the gun last night with a graphic calling new revelations ‘the FALL of FAUCI.’
Reality check, from Axios health care editor Sam Baker: The theory most experts still believe to be most likely is that the virus was transmitted from a bat to some other species of animal, then to humans. That’s what happened with plenty of other viruses.
But it hasn't been proven. A cadre of experts — and now the Biden administration — are calling for a more thorough investigation into the possibility that the virus infected workers studying it at a Wuhan lab, who then infected others.
What's next: Trump plans a pair of rallies just before July 4. Look for him to try to make Fauci a punching bag.” Read more at Axios
“Former President Trump's blog — originally touted as his own social media ‘platform’ — generated engagement on par with top posts from mid-market local newspapers, Axios' Neal Rothschild writes from exclusive data from NewsWhip.
Why it matters: Even with his considerable base of support, Trump was unable to defy the laws of social media physics by getting political followers to change their habits.
Leading up to the launch of ‘From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,’ Trump's allies teased an upcoming ‘platform.’
When it arrived on May 4, it was promoted with a dramatic video saying: ‘In a time of silence and lies, a beacon of freedom arises.’
After 29 days, the blog was shut down Wednesday. The Washington Post reported that Trump ordered the shutdown after learning of the lousy readership.
“Google removed a senior member of its diversity team over anti-Semitic remarks in a 2007 blog post, marking the second time in a month that a big tech company has been forced to make a staffing change in the wake of public outcry over an executive’s previous writing.
The subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. hired Kamau Bobb in 2018 as global lead of diversity strategy and research, a decade after he published a blog post titled ‘If I Were a Jew.’
In it Mr. Bobb, a recent Ph.D. graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, wrote that if he were Jewish that he would ‘be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself.’
The blog post surfaced this week in several news outlets, including the Washington Free Beacon.
In a statement, a Google spokeswoman condemned the post and acknowledged that it had caused ‘deep offense and pain to members of our Jewish community.’” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Apple maps out its return to offices. Chief Executive Tim Cook, in an email to staff, told office employees that they are expected to return to their workspace three days a week starting in September.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Detained Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich has appeared on Belarus state TV again, as critics continue to decry his detainment. Protasevich was arrested last month by Belarusian authorities after his Ryanair flight was unexpectedly diverted and grounded in the country's capital of Minsk. Family and supporters believe that his recorded admissions to organizing mass protests have been forced. Critics fear the latest video shows Protasevich, again, under duress. An adviser to an exiled Belarusian opposition candidate labeled Protasevich as a ‘hostage of the regime.’ Protasevich's treatment in Belarus has sparked international outrage, especially toward President Alexander Lukashenko, and the US recently imposed sanctions on some of Belarus' state-owned enterprises in the country. Belarus responded by slashing staff numbers at the US embassy in Minsk.” Read more at CNN
“The House Judiciary Committee is poised to question former White House counsel Don McGahn behind closed doors Friday, two years after House Democrats wanted his testimony as part of investigations into former President Donald Trump. The committee sought McGahn's testimony in May 2019 because he was a key figure in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. But McGahn defied the subpoena. The committee sued to enforce its subpoena and the case has bounced around federal courts ever since. While the House panel eventually won its fight for McGahn's testimony, the court agreement almost guarantees they won't learn anything new. “ Read more at USA Today
“More congressional Republicans are backing legislation that would ban Pride flags from US embassies after the flag was flown at some American outposts during the first week of LGBT Pride Month.
Representatives Louie Gohmert of Texas, Eric A. ‘Rick’ Crawford of Arkansas, and Brian Mast of Florida became co-sponsors of the ‘Only Old Glory Act,’ which Republican Jeff Duncan of South Carolina introduced to prevent all flags except for the American flag from flying over US embassies.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The White House is partnering with Anheuser-Busch to offer free beers if the country reaches President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 70 percent of all adults vaccinated by Independence Day, signs of a more targeted political approach to vaccine-hesitant populations.” [Vox] Read more at CNN
James Madison celebrating a win over Oklahoma yesterday.Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman, via Associated Press
“The Women’s College World Series, which began yesterday, is one of the most popular events in college sports.
It is an eight-team softball tournament held every year in Oklahoma City, and the games frequently sell out. The television audience on ESPN is substantial, too. In the most recent previous tournament, 1.8 million people watched the final game, substantially more than have watched recent championship games of college soccer, hockey or lacrosse — men’s or women’s.
The popularity of softball makes it a telling study in the different ways that the N.C.A.A. treats female and male athletes. In terms of fan interest, softball ranks near the top of college sports. It is well behind football and basketball, but ahead of almost every other sport.
Yet the N.C.A.A. treats softball as a second-class sport, many athletes and coaches say.
The stadium that hosts the championship tournament has no showers; players and coaches must instead shower at their hotels. Off days between games are rare, and some teams have to play twice on the same day, increasing injury risk. The N.C.A.A. prefers the condensed schedule to hold down hotel and meal costs, coaches have told Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman.
The men’s version of the College World Series — an eight-team baseball tournament held each year in Omaha — treats the players better. They have off days, as well as a golf outing, a free massage day and a celebratory dinner for coaches, players and dozens of guests, Molly Hensley-Clancy of The Washington Post reported.
The Oklahoma City softball stadium is also too small to hold all the fans who would like to attend, and many games sell out quickly. It has a capacity of about 13,000 (recently expanded from 9,000), compared with 24,000 for the baseball stadium in Omaha. ‘I think we could easily get 20,000, just like the men,’ one longtime coach told The Post. ‘But we won’t get that chance.’
Gender equality in sports has been the subject of growing debate in recent years, partly because of protests from the U.S. women’s soccer team over its treatment. The new attention on college sports was prompted by a video that Sedona Prince, a University of Oregon basketball star, posted on social media in March. In it, she contrasted the sprawling weight room for the men’s tournament with a single small rack of weights for the women’s tournament.
‘If you’re aren’t upset about this problem, then you are a part of it,’ she said. (Gillian Brassil has profiled Prince in The Times, focusing on her recovery from a life-threatening leg injury.)
The video received tens of millions of views and led athletes, coaches and parents in other sports to scrutinize other college tournaments, Alan Blinder, a Times sports reporter, told me. ‘It’s an issue that has wide resonance on social media, where student-athletes can make their views and experiences known without as much interference from a university gatekeeper,’ Alan said. Women’s volleyball players, for example, documented that their practice court consisted of a mat atop a cement floor.
Equity in sports can be a complicated topic, because men’s sports often draw larger crowds and television audiences. Officials who defend the differential treatment of female and male athletes — as executives at U.S. Soccer have — cite the revenue differences.
But the softball situation shows how incomplete those explanations are. The average television audience for the most recent softball World Series (1.05 million) was similar to that of the most recent college baseball World Series (1.13 million). And yet one sport’s players get showers, off days, massages and a festive dinner, while the others get doubleheaders and sweaty bus rides back to a hotel.
Jacquie Joseph, the longtime softball coach at Michigan State, has said that softball players are treated worse than women’s basketball players, who are in turn treated worse than men’s basketball players. ‘They’re the chosen ones,’ Joseph said, referring to women’s basketball teams, ‘and they’re treated like afterthoughts. What’s lower than an afterthought? That’s us.’
I asked N.C.A.A. officials for a response, and they did not address any of the specific differences between the baseball and softball tournaments. In an emailed statement, Joni Comstock, the senior vice president of championships, said the N.C.A.A. was looking forward to ‘another exciting championship series.’
In yesterday’s opening game, James Madison — appearing in its first World Series — upset top-seeded Oklahoma, 4-3. Today, James Madison plays Oklahoma State, and Alabama plays U.C.L.A.” Read more at New York Times
For more:
“The N.C.A.A. forbids women’s basketball from using the term ‘March Madness,’ The Wall Street Journal has explained. But that may soon change.” Read more at New York Times
“In the Division One N.C.A.A. lacrosse tournaments, all men’s games are televised and staggered so fans can watch every one. Most women’s games are available only online, and many overlap. ‘What a joke,’ Taylor Cummings, a former University of Maryland player, tweeted.” Read more at New York Times
“A high school football coach in Canton, Ohio, and seven assistant coaches have been suspended after punishing a 17-year-old for missing a voluntary practice by forcing him to eat pork against his religious beliefs, according to a lawyer representing the boy’s family.
The Canton City School District took action against the coaches at McKinley Senior High School after conducting an initial investigation, according to a statement on Wednesday by Jeff Talbert, the district’s superintendent. It also filed a report about the matter with the Canton Police Department, which is investigating it as a potential hazing episode.
On the last day of classes, May 24, four days after he had missed an optional practice session, the 17-year-old, a rising senior, was forced to eat an entire pepperoni pizza, even though the head coach, Marcus Wattley, and the other coaches knew that he did not eat pork because he was a Hebrew Israelite, according to his family’s lawyer, Ed Gilbert. He said that the boy’s family intended to sue the school district.
School district officials were not available for comment on Wednesday, but in a statement released in the afternoon, Mr. Talbert said, ‘The investigation found that the identified coaches engaged in actions that constituted inappropriate, demeaning, and divisive behavior in a misguided attempt to instill discipline in the student-athletes.’” Read more at New York Times
“An index of ‘pandemic misery’ released this week by USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research has found that 80% of people involved in the survey experienced hardships in the past year — and that number was even higher for Black and Latino people. The study found that those groups were more likely to know someone who died from COVID-19. More than 85% of both racial groups reported facing at least one hardship, compared to 80% of Asian people and 76% of white people. In other coronavirus news, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report coming out Friday will prompt a redoubling of efforts to have eligible youngsters get vaccinated.” Read more at USA Today
“A member of the influential Koch family donated to a crowdfunding campaign that peddled misinformation about the presidential election.” Read more at USA Today
“‘Staggering amount of power’: The Supreme Court has been asked to block the federal government from enforcing an eviction moratorium in response to the coronavirus pandemic.” Read more at USA Today
“NBA's defending champs eliminated: The Los Angeles Lakers lost star Anthony Davis early and then dropped Game 6 of their first-round playoff series to the Phoenix Suns.” Read more at USA Today
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