New model examines how societal influences affect US political opinions

Tool could be used to simulate interventions on issues such as polarization

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern University researchers have developed the first quantitative model that captures how politicized environments affect U.S. political opinion formation and evolution.

Using the model, the researchers seek to understand how populations change their opinions when exposed to political content, such as news media, campaign ads and ordinary personal exchanges. The math-based framework is flexible, allowing future data to be incorporated as it becomes available.

"It's really powerful to understand how people are influenced by the content that they see," said David Sabin-Miller, a Northwestern graduate student who led the study. "It could help us understand how populations become polarized, which would be hugely beneficial."

"Quantitative models like this allow us to run computational experiments," added Northwestern's Daniel Abrams, the study's senior author. "We could simulate how various interventions might help fix extreme polarization to promote consensus."

The paper will be published on Thursday (Oct. 1) in the journal Physical Review Research.

Abrams is an associate professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering. Sabin-Miller is a graduate student in Abrams' laboratory.

Researchers have been modeling social behavior for hundreds of years. But most modern quantitative models rely on network science, which simulates person-to-person human interactions.

The Northwestern team takes a different, but complementary, approach. They break down all interactions into perceptions and reactions. A perception takes into account how people perceive a politicized experience based on their current ideology. A far-right Republican, for example, likely will perceive the same experience differently than a far-left Democrat.

After perceiving new ideas or information, people might change their opinions based on three established psychological effects: attraction/repulsion, tribalism and perceptual filtering. Northwestern's quantitative model incorporates all three of these and examines their impact.

"Typically, ideas that are similar to your beliefs can be convincing or attractive," Sabin-Miller said. "But once ideas go past a discomfort point, people start rejecting what they see or hear. We call this the 'repulsion distance,' and we are trying to define that limit through modeling."

People also react differently depending on whether or not the new idea or information comes from a trusted source. Known as tribalism, people tend to give the benefit of the doubt to a perceived ally. In perceptual filtering, people -- either knowingly through direct decisions or unknowingly through algorithms that curate content -- determine what content they see.

"Perceptual filtering is the 'media bubble' that people talk about," Abrams explained. "You're more likely to see things that are consistent with your existing beliefs."

Abrams and Sabin-Miller liken their new model to thermodynamics in physics -- treating individual people like gas molecules that distribute around a room.

"Thermodynamics does not focus on individual particles but the average of a whole system, which includes many, many particles," Abrams said. "We hope to do the same thing with political opinions. Even though we can't say how or when one individual's opinion might change, we can look at how the whole population changes, on average."

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Subsidized cars help low-income families economically, socially

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

ITHACA, N.Y. - For one low-income woman, not having a car meant long commutes on public transit with her children in tow, sometimes slogging through cold or inclement weather. But after buying a subsidized car through a Maryland-based nonprofit, she was able to move to a home located farther from bus stops, send her children to better schools and reach less expensive medical services.

"So many different things open up to a person that is mobile," the woman told Nicholas Klein, assistant professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University.

In "Subsidizing Car Ownership for Low-Income Individuals and Households," published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Klein reports insights from interviews with 30 people who gained access to inexpensive, reliable cars through the nonprofit Vehicles for Change (VFC).

He found that the cars conferred wide-ranging benefits, not only shortening commutes and opening opportunities for higher-paying jobs, but also dramatically improving quality of life. The recipients of subsidized cars spent more time with family, visited doctors they preferred, shopped for groceries more efficiently, attended more school events and enrolled kids in previously inaccessible after-school enrichment programs.

"For a lot of families, it's a really transformative moment that allows them to move up the economic ladder, to access all sorts of sort of social benefits and to just make their lives easier," Klein said of the access to subsidized cars. "It permeated everyone's lives in all sorts of different ways."

Transportation planners and scholars have debated subsidizing car ownership for decades, and VFC, which has provided more than 6,000 cars in Maryland and Virginia since 1999, is one of only a handful of such programs across the country. Critics say subsidizing cars on a large scale would exacerbate environmental pollution, traffic congestion and sprawl, and impose new cost burdens on car owners.

Klein said his research took a longer, more nuanced view that suggested such answers are "not so clear-cut." Beyond interviewees' experiences with a subsidized car, he also learned about their personal and car-ownership histories.

Most had owned cars before and planned to purchase cars again, typically through used car dealers that Klein called "pernicious." The interviewees had typically paid significantly more for used cars that were less reliable than those provided by VFC, which cost less than $1,000 and passed thorough inspections (through a job training program for formerly incarcerated individuals).

Considering that context, Klein said, scholars and policymakers should be asking not only about the benefits and consequences of having a car, but about the consequences of not making subsidized car ownership available to low-income families.

"What I see is that a lot of low-income households are going out and spending quite a bit more on unreliable used cars, and those cars may be polluting much more," he said.

Klein concluded that subsidized car ownership should be implemented more broadly, along with complementary programs providing subsidized repairs or replacement of older, more polluting and less efficient cars.

Such programs shouldn't come at the expense of longer-term investments in public transit and infrastructure expanding alternatives to cars, Klein said. But that infrastructure takes time to build and can't support everyone living in suburban or rural areas.

"In the meantime, these families are struggling, and we can think about ways to help them while also investing in high-quality public transit, and biking and walking infrastructure," Klein said.

Klein said his research relying on interviews proved valuable in a transportation field that emphasizes quantitative methods - for example, to measure economic outcomes such as how car ownership affects income or employment.

"When we only do that, we miss a lot of important nuance and details and we miss people's voices and stories," he said. "Qualitative research lets us understand the broader scope of effects that we might miss if we only rely on what's in the data, allowing us to see a broader range of possibilities."

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Yan report's claims that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a Chinese lab are misleading, unethical

New Peer Reviews

THE MIT PRESS

Research News

 

CAMBRIDGE, MA - September 30, 2020--The MIT Press Journal Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 (RRC:19) has openly published the first official scholarly peer reviews of pre-print research from Li-Meng Yan, Shu Kang, Jie Guan, and Shanchang Hu that claims to show that unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome suggest sophisticated laboratory modification rather than natural evolution. Reviewers Robert Gallo, Takahiko Koyama, and Adam Lauring rate the study as misleading and write that the "manuscript does not demonstrate sufficient scientific evidence to support its claims."

Find peer reviews and information about this study at Rapid Reviews website.

While this research has been widely debunked in popular media, scholarly peer review represents a different type of rebuke from the scientific community. The original study was posted on a public pre-print server without the benefit of peer review--a necessary part of the scientific publishing process in which scientists review one another's work, vetting research for accuracy and evaluating methods and evidence. Pre-prints enable researchers to share information quicker, but they have created a need for rapid and transparent peer review to correct misinformation about COVID-19 and to minimize the influence of unverified research.

"While pre-print servers offer a mechanism to disseminate world-changing scientific research at unprecedented speed, they are also a forum through which misleading information can instantaneously undermine the international scientific community's credibility, destabilize diplomatic relationships, and compromise global safety," explains the RR:C19 Editorial Office.

RR:C19 was launched in June 2020 to provide rapid and transparent peer review of COVID-19 pre-prints. When the 'Yan Report' was published in September, RR:C19 quickly sought out peer reviews from world-renowned experts in virology, molecular biology, structural biology, computational biology, vaccine development, and medicine.

These reviews are now openly published, along with a response from the RR:C19 Editorial Office, that states, "Collectively, reviewers have debunked the authors' claims that: (1) bat coronaviruses ZC45 or ZXC21 were used as a background strain to engineer SARS-CoV-2, (2) the presence of restriction sites flanking the RBD suggest prior screening for a virus targeting the human ACE2 receptor, and (3) the furin-like cleavage site is unnatural and provides evidence of engineering. In all three cases, the reviewers provide counter-arguments based on peer-reviewed literature and long-established foundational knowledge that directly refute the claims put forth by Yan et al. There was a general consensus that the study's claims were better explained by potential political motivations rather than scientific integrity."

Reviewer Dr. Robert Gallo, biomedical researcher and co-founder of The Institute of Human Virology Evidence Scale Rating: Misleading "Widely questionable, spurious, and fraudulent claims are made throughout the paper about the thought-to-be precursor of SARS-2, RaTG13, found in bat caves. The author's attacks include quotes which have not been referenced, including how this 'has been disputed and its truthfulness widely questioned. Soon a paper proving that will be submitted.' She then goes on to attack several genome sequences as fraudulent, ranging from pangolin coronaviruses to bat coronaviruses, again without evidence. The reference she cites for that, in fact, does not make that claim."

Reviewer Dr. Takahiko Koyama, IBM Research, Computational Biology Center Evidence Scale Rating: Misleading "[The] authors' speculation of furin cleavage insert PRRA in spike protein seemed quite interesting at first. Nevertheless, recently reported RmYN02 (EPI_ISL_412977), from a bat sample in Yunnan Province in 2019, has PAA insert at the same site[2]. While the authors state that RmYN02 is likely fraudulent, there are no concrete evidences to support the claim in the manuscript. In addition, argument of codon usage of arginine in PRRA is not convincing since these are likely derived from some kind of mobile elements in hosts or other pathogens. Further investigations are necessary to unravel the mystery of the PRRA insert. For these reasons, we conclude that the manuscript does not demonstrate sufficient scientific evidences to support genetic manipulation origin of SARS-CoV-2."

Reviewer Dr. Adam Lauring, University of Michigan, Internal Medicine Evidence Scale Rating: Misleading "A key aspect of research ethics and the responsible conduct of research is to include information on who supported the work - financially or otherwise. The authors' affiliation is the "Rule of Law Society & Rule of Law Foundation." It is not clear who supports this Foundation or what its purpose is. It is important for there to be transparency regarding research support, especially for a manuscript that is based on conjecture as opposed to data or empiricism. It is also unethical to promote what are essentially conspiracy theories that are not founded in fact."

Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 is an open-access overlay journal that seeks to accelerate peer review of COVID-19-related research pre-prints. The journal is edited by Stefano M. Bertozzi, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the School of Public Health at University of California Berkeley, and published by the MIT Press.

Media Contacts Jessica Pellien Associate Director of Publicity Fortier Public Relations jessica@fortierpr.com

Kate Silverman-Wilson Community and Resource Development Associate The MIT Press kswilson@mit.edu

About the MIT Press Established in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design. MIT Press books and journals are known for their intellectual daring, scholarly standards, interdisciplinary focus, and distinctive design.

About the UC Berkeley School of Public Health For 75 years and counting, the UC Berkeley SPH has been dedicated to making a transformative impact on the health of populations through its values of health as a right, strength through diversity, think forward, and impact first. To eliminate inequity and injustice that affects the health and dignity of all people, SPH is committed to radical public health collaborations that challenge conventional thinking, leverage technology, and build bridges between research, public policy, education, and action.

About the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation is dedicated to improving lives globally with information technology, neuroscience, and AI. The Foundation is the legacy of IDG founder Patrick J. McGovern, who believed in the potential for technology to democratize information, improve the human condition, and advance social good.

About the Knowledge Futures Group The Knowledge Futures Group, a nonprofit originally founded as a partnership between the MIT Press and MIT Media Lab, builds and sustains technology for the production, curation, and preservation of knowledge in service of the public good.

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Ice Age manatees may have called Texas home

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Research News

 

IMAGE: MANATEES LIVED IN TEXAS DURING THE LAST ICE AGE, ACCORDING TO FOSSIL EVIDENCEFOUND ALONG TEXAS BEACHES. view more 

CREDIT: ROBERT BONDE / U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

Manatees don't live year-round in Texas, but these gentle, slow-moving sea cows are known to occasionally visit, swimming in for a "summer vacation" from Florida and Mexico and returning to warmer waters for the winter.

Research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found fossil evidence for manatees along the Texas coast dating back to the most recent ice age. The discovery raises questions about whether manatees have been making the visit for thousands of years, or if an ancient population of ice age manatees once called Texas home somewhere between 11,000 and 240,000 years ago.

The findings were published in Palaeontologia Electronica.

"This was an unexpected thing for me because I don't think about manatees being on the Texas coast today," said lead author Christopher Bell, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. "But they're here. They're just not well known."

The paper co-authors are Sam Houston State University Natural History Collections curator William Godwin, SHSU alumna Kelsey Jenkins (now a graduate student at Yale University), and SHSU Professor Patrick Lewis.

The eight fossils described in the paper include manatee jawbones and rib fragments from the Pleistocene, the geological epoch of the last ice age. Most of the bones were collected from McFaddin Beach near Port Arthur and Caplen Beach near Galveston during the past 50 years by amateur fossil collectors who donated their finds to the SHSU collections.

"We have them from one decade to another, so we know it's not from some old manatee that washed up, and we have them from different places," Godwin said. "All these lines of evidence support that manatee bones were coming up in a constant way."

The Jackson Museum of Earth History at UT holds two of the specimens.

A lower jawbone fossil, which was donated to the SHSU collections by amateur collector Joe Liggio, jumpstarted the research.

"I decided my collection would be better served in a museum," Liggio said. "The manatee jaw was one of many unidentified bones in my collection."

Manatee jawbones have a distinct S-shaped curve that immediately caught Godwin's eye. But Godwin said he was met with skepticism when he sought other manatee fossils for comparison. He recalls reaching out to a fossil seller who told him point-blank "there are no Pleistocene manatees in Texas."

But examination of the fossils by Bell and Lewis proved otherwise. The bones belonged to the same species of manatee that visits the Texas coast today, Trichechus manatus. An upper jawbone donated by U.S. Rep. Brian Babin was found to belong to an extinct form of the manatee, Trichechus manatus bakerorum.

The age of the manatee fossils is based on their association with better-known ice age fossils and paleo-indian artifacts that have been found on the same beaches.

It's assumed that the cooler ice age climate would have made Texas waters even less hospitable to manatees than they are today. But the fact that manatees were in Texas -- whether as visitors or residents -- raises questions about the ancient environment and ancient manatees, Bell said. Either the coastal climate was warmer than is generally thought, or ice age manatees were more resilient to cooler temperatures than manatees of today.

The Texas coast stretched much farther into the Gulf of Mexico and hosted wider river outlets during the ice age than it does now, said Jackson School Professor David Mohrig, who was not part of the research team.

"Subsurface imaging of the now flooded modern continental shelf reveals both a greater number of coastal embayments and the presence of significantly wider channels during ice age times," said Mohrig, an expert on how sedimentary landscapes evolve.

If there was a population of ice age manatees in Texas, it's plausible that they would have rode out winters in these warmer river outlets, like how they do today in Florida and Mexico.

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Venom glands similar to those of snakes are found for first time in amphibians

Brazilian researchers discover that caecilians, limbless amphibians resembling worms or snakes that emerged some 150 million years before the latter, can probably inject venom into their prey while biting

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

Research News

 

IMAGE: UPPER JAW OF A CAECILIAN SHOWING GLANDS THAT EXPEL A PROBABLY VENOMOUS SECRETION view more 

CREDIT: CARLOS JARED, BUTANTAN INSTITUTE

A group led by researchers at Butantan Institute in Brazil and supported by FAPESP has described for the first time the presence of venom glands in the mouth of an amphibian. The legless animal is a caecilian and lives underground. It has tooth-related glands that, when compressed during biting, release a secretion into its prey - earthworms, insect larvae, small amphibians and snakes, and even rodent pups. A paper reporting the study is published in iScience.

"We were analyzing the mucus glands in the skin of the animal's head, which it uses to burrow down into the soil, when we discovered these structures. They're located at the base of the teeth and develop out of the dental lamina, the tissue that typically gives rise to teeth, as is the case with snakes' venom glands," said Pedro Luiz Mailho-Fontana, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral intern at Butantan Institute with a scholarship from São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP.

An article by the same group published in 2018 in Scientific Reports showed that in addition to mucus glands in the skin all over the body caecilians have many poison glands in the skin of the tail as a passive defense against predators. This system, which is also found in frogs, toads and salamanders, poisons predators when they bite caecilians.

In the new report the researchers show that caecilians can be venomous, and indeed are the first amphibians to have an active defense system. Biologists apply the term venomous to organisms that bite or sting to inject their toxins, such as snakes, spiders, and scorpions, whereas poisonous refers to organisms that deliver toxins when touched or eaten.

In these caecilians, the secretion released by the glands also serves to lubricate a prey so that it is easier to swallow.

"Snakes have pouches to accumulate venom, which they inject through fangs when the pouches are squeezed by muscles. In rattlesnakes and pit vipers, for example, the teeth are hollow like hypodermic needles. In caecilians, gland compression during biting releases the venom, which penetrates the puncture wound. The same goes for lizards like the Komodo dragon and Gila monster," said Carlos Jared, a researcher at Butantan Institute and principal investigator for the study.

The study was part of the FAPESP-funded project "Unraveling parental care in caecilians: nutritional and toxinological implications in Siphonops annulatus". In a paper published in Nature in 2006, the researchers were the first to show that offspring of the caecilian species Boulengerula taitanus feed solely on the mother's skin in the first two months of their lives. In 2008 the group described the same behavior for Siphonops annulatus in a paper published in Biology Letters .

Except for a group that lives in aquatic environments, caecilians spend their entire lives in burrows or underground tunnels. As a result, they have very small eyes, which sense light but do not form images. They are also the only vertebrates that have tentacles. In caecilians, these are near the eyes and act as feelers equipped with chemical sensors that test the environment for sensory data.

Characterization of venom

The researchers' biochemical analysis showed that the secretion released from the animal's mouth while it is biting contains phospholipase A2, an enzyme commonly found in the venom of bees, wasps, and snakes. They found the enzyme to be more active in caecilians than in rattlesnakes. However, this trait is not sufficient to prove they are more venomous than snakes.

The group will now conduct tests using molecular biology techniques to characterize caecilians' dental gland secretion more precisely and confirm that it is venomous. In the future they may test any proteins they find in order to explore possible biotechnological applications such as drug development.

Four species were analyzed in the study. In Typhlonectes compressicauda, the only one that lives in aquatic environments, the glands were found only in the lower jaw. The researchers believe it may have lost the upper-jaw glands during the evolutionary process (as did some water snakes) since the water in the environment naturally lubricates prey. The mandibular glands were retained, probably for venom.

Most of the 214 known species of caecilians live underground in the humid forests of South America, India, and Africa. Owing to their subterranean habits, biologists rarely have a chance to find out more about these animals.

More than new data about caecilians, the study offers important information regarding the evolution of amphibians and reptiles. "For snakes and caecilians, the head is the only tool for exploring the environment, fighting, eating and killing. This may have fueled evolutionary pressure for these limbless animals to develop venom," said Marta Maria Antoniazzi , also a researcher at Butantan Institute and a co-author of the study.

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About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at http://www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at http://www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

17 Republicans Voted Against Condemning QAnon After A Democrat Got Death Threats From Its Followers

The resolution passed the House 371–18 on Friday, with one Republican voting "present."

Sarah Mimms BuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From Washington, DC
Last updated on October 2, 2020, 

Scott Olson / Getty Images
A Donald Trump supporter holds a QAnon flag at Mount Rushmore National Monument on July 1.

WASHINGTON — The House voted to formally condemn QAnon — a collective delusion that alleges President Donald Trump is fighting a Satan-worshipping cabal of elites who abuse children — on Friday, three days after its followers targeted Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski with death threats.

The resolution, which passed the House 371–18, also comes as at least one avowed QAnon believer is expected to be elected to Congress next month. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has also posted a photo of herself holding a gun next to images of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the "Squad," won the Republican primary for a Georgia seat earlier this year and is very likely to win in November. Several other QAnon followers have won Republican primaries.

Malinowski coauthored the bipartisan resolution condemning QAnon with Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman back in August, two weeks after Greene won her primary and after Trump called her a “future Republican Star.” Trump has praised QAnon, despite Q’s frequent anti-Semitism, the fact that their followers have a history of turning their beliefs into real-world violence, and that the FBI has labeled the group a domestic terror threat.

Seventeen Republicans voted against the resolution on Friday, as did Libertarian Rep. Justin Amash. One member, Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, voted “present.”

On Tuesday, Malinowski was targeted in a “Q-drop” — one of the self-proclaimed US government insider’s conspiracy-filled posts on message boards. As BuzzFeed News reported Wednesday, the post mentioned Malinowski’s resolution, but it also included a screenshot of a false attack from the National Republican Campaign Committee alleging that Malinowski “lobbied to protect sexual predators.”

The false attack — which the NRCC also included in a debunked TV ad in which a narrator says, “Tom Malinowski chose sex offenders over your family” — echoes a core belief of QAnon followers: that powerful Democrats and global elites are engaged in child trafficking. Adherents have actually hindered law enforcement going after child trafficking by overwhelming them with false conspiracy theories.

Malinowski quickly started getting death threats after Q’s post went up Tuesday, which his office reported to the Capitol Police. And the NRCC, the campaign arm of House Republicans, has only doubled down on the false attack since then. The NRCC is currently run by Rep. Tom Emmer, who voted for the resolution Friday. Malinowski told BuzzFeed News that he spoke to Emmer about the NRCC attacks and how they could play into QAnon's hands before the Q drop targeted him. “He said, ‘I don’t know what Q is’ and walked away. … He said, 'I can’t be responsible for, you know, how people use our stuff and I don’t know what that is,'” Malinowski said.

(Emmer traveled with Trump on Air Force One on Wednesday before the president tested positive for the coronavirus and was tested Friday, according to his office. He voted in person on Friday and has not announced any test results.)

The Republicans who voted against the anti-QAnon resolution are Reps. Jodey Arrington, Michael Burgess, Bill Flores, and Brian Babin of Texas; Rob Bishop of Utah; Mo Brooks of Alabama; Buddy Carter and Drew Ferguson of Georgia; Warren Davidson of Ohio; Jeff Duncan and Ralph Norman of South Carolina; Paul Gosar of Arizona; Mike Kelly and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania; Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin; Daniel Webster of Florida; and Steve King of Iowa.

King, a racist, lost the Republican primary for his seat this summer and will not return to Congress next year. Republicans removed King from his committee assignments in 2019 after he questioned why "white nationalist" and "white supremacist" are "offensive" in a New York Times interview. Congress did not, however, attempt to expel King from the House or even censure him. Instead, Democrats passed a resolution condemning white supremacy that only mentioned King once; even King voted for it.

The anti-QAnon resolution passed Friday isn't binding law; it expresses the sentiment of the House as a whole. In addition to condemning QAnon, it calls on the FBI and other federal law enforcement to “strengthen their focus on preventing violence, threats, harassment, and other criminal activity by extremists motivated by fringe political conspiracy theories.” It also “encourages” the intelligence community to investigate whether QAnon is getting financial support or online amplification from foreign actors and if it is coordinating with any “foreign extremist organizations or groups espousing violence."

Amash, who left the Republican Party in 2019, said in a statement that he voted no because the resolution "threatens protected speech" and argued that it "may make things worse" by encouraging the intelligence community and the FBI to go after QAnon, which would confirm followers' fears of a "deep state that's fighting against them."

Arrington said in a statement that he also voted against Friday's resolution because of First Amendment concerns. "There is a world of difference between conspiracy and criminal - one is protected by the First Amendment; the other should be condemned in all forms," he said.

But Arrington added that he also voted against it because the resolution made no reference to Antifa "and other radical Leftist groups."


MORE ON THIS
A Member Of Congress Is Facing Death Threats After QAnon Went After HimSarah Mimms · Sept. 30, 2020

Friends And Family Members Of QAnon Believers Are Going Through A “Surreal Goddamn Nightmare”Jane Lytvynenko · Sept. 18, 2020

Donald Trump Just Praised QAnon, Which The FBI Has Called A Domestic Terror ThreatJane Lytvynenko · Aug. 19, 2020

Sarah Mimms is an editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Judge orders Justice Department's police commission to halt work

Hundreds of protesters rally near the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama boulevards to mark Juneteenth in Los Angeles. On Thursday, a judge found that a policing commission established by the Trump administration lacked diversity because only law enforcement officials were named to the body. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 1 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Thursday ordered a law enforcement commission established by President Donald Trump not to release their findings in a report because their meetings violated transparency laws.

U.S. District Judge John Bates in the District of Columbia said the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act because it didn't include "fairly balanced" perspectives. Also, he said, the commission held meetings in private without first notifying the public.


Trump announced the commission in October 2019, naming 18 law enforcement officials to the body. He directed the commission to study policing and how best to ensure peace in American communities.

"The job of a cop is tougher now than ever before; and the expectation for a cop's responsibilities to blur the lines between law enforcement and public health is more pronounced now than ever before," Attorney General William Barr said in January when announcing details of the commission.

"And they must manage these demands in an environment in which their moral and legal legitimacy is under constant attack from a variety of voices."

The NAACP challenged the formation of the commission, saying that its composition of only law enforcement officials reflects the administration's rejection of policing reform efforts. The organization's Legal Defense and Educational Fund welcomed Thursday's ruling.

"The country has been demanding accountability for police misconduct and violence, and clamoring for a reimagined notion of public safety for many months following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black people," said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

"Any federal committee designed to make recommendations about law enforcement must include representation from people and communities impacted by police violence, civil rights organizations, the criminal defense bar, and other stakeholders."

Bates ordered the commission to halt its work and not publish its findings.

"LDF has an interest in and is directly impacted by the commission's function of studying policing," he wrote in his ruling. "Because Attorney General [William] Barr appointed the commissioners at the same time as establishing the commission, and only selected from those with law enforcement backgrounds, it does not appear that LDF and its representatives had an opportunity to formally apply for commission membership."

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The Trump Administration Lost Millions of Dollars of Food and Water Meant For Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria

Trump has recently tried to rewrite the history of the US’s bungled recovery efforts in Puerto Rico.

Nidhi PrakashBuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From
Washington, DC
Posted on October 1, 2020

Ricardo Arduengo / Getty Images
Puerto Ricans protest on January 23, 2020, after a warehouse full of relief supplies, reportedly dating back to Hurricane Maria in 2017, were found having been left undistributed to those in need.


WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has, in recent weeks, claimed that he is “the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico,” in an effort to win over Puerto Rican voters in Florida. But a new government report shows his administration lost track of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of potentially lifesaving food and water, as thousands died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

“FEMA lost visibility of about 38 percent of its commodity shipments to Puerto Rico, worth an estimated $257 million. Commodities successfully delivered to Puerto Rico took an average of 69 days to reach their final destinations,” the report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General found.

For the past three years, Trump has consistently blamed local authorities for the inadequate response to Puerto Rico’s devastating hurricane.

Some FEMA supplies intended for Puerto Rico never even left Florida, according to the report.

Most of those supplies consisted of food and water deliveries, in addition to blankets, cots, tarps, and sheeting. The inspector general’s findings, released Thursday, are in line with what BuzzFeed News and others reported seeing on the ground in Puerto Rico after the hurricane: inadequate federal deliveries of basic supplies, long waits for any supplies at all to arrive, and a lack of accountability at every level on how those supplies were being distributed.

FEMA shipped 97 million liters of water to Puerto Rico between September 2017, when Hurricane Maria made landfall, and April 2018, according to the report. Of that 97 million liters, just 36 million liters definitely reached local distribution points. In those first eight months following the hurricane, FEMA shipped 53 million meals to Puerto Rico. Just 24 million verifiably reached local distribution points

“The remaining commodity shipments for both water and meals that arrived in the Commonwealth either remained in FEMA’s custody were in contractor facilities, or had unknown destinations,” the report found.

Three years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover. In the months following the storm, at least three thousand Puerto Ricans died, many from a lack of access to clean water, food (harder to store because electricity on most parts of the island was down for several months), shelter, and timely medical care. Some residents of Puerto Rico lived with open roofs on their houses for months after the hurricane because emergency tarps had not reached them.

Last year, Trump fought against additional funding to help Puerto Rico recover from the disaster, repeating false claims that the island had already gotten more money than for any previous hurricane and blamed local officials for the US territory’s slow recovery. Trump claimed in 2018 that Puerto Rico’s death toll had been faked to make him look “as bad as possible.”

According to the report, FEMA knew from a 2011 exercise that Puerto Rico would need extra support from the federal agency to get supplies distributed throughout the island in an emergency. Despite that, the report says, the agency failed to prepare. The agency also failed to follow the regular standards of tracking deliveries and holding contractors to account by asking for documented proof of deliveries, the inspector general found.

“Given the lost visibility and delayed shipments, FEMA cannot ensure it provided commodities to Puerto Rico disaster survivors as needed to sustain life and alleviate suffering as part of its response and recovery mission,” the report says.

The issue was not just tracking the shipments after they’d reached the island — the report found that for these supplies, “FEMA headquarters did not record customer orders in a timely manner, or did not record them at all,” which lead to confusion and backing up of deliveries at the deployment point in Jacksonville, Florida.

“In response to the large volume of commodities ordered, FEMA had to open up two overflow sites in Jacksonville to store commodities awaiting shipment, as well as divert a significant amount of commodities to other locations,” the report says. “According to [FEMA] personnel in Jacksonville, some commodity shipments intended for Puerto Rico likely never left the continental United States.”


The supplies that did make it to Puerto Rico “sat in FEMA’s custody at various locations on the island approximately 48 days,” followed by another week of delivery time on average before reaching local distribution centers, according to the inspector general.

“Water and food, two of the most important life-sustaining commodities, experienced average shipping delays of 71 and 59 days, respectively,” the report says.

The end result of a shortfall in supplies and some of the available supplies never arriving was that after waiting at least ten days for any kind of assistance to arrive, just 20% of municipalities on the island received enough food and only 27% of municipalities received enough water to supply survivors of the hurricane.

There were also problems with the food that did arrive — 40% of the municipalities said they received expired food and some “‘meal’ boxes ... included junk food such as Oreos, candy, cereal bars, and other similar items that lacked sufficient nutritional value.”

Some of the inspector general’s findings repeat what FEMA’s own internal post-disaster report revealed in 2018. The agency’s resources were already drained and in a state of disorder from responding to other high-intensity hurricanes that hit the US in 2017 by the time Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico, from Hurricane Harvey in Texas to Hurricane Irma, which hit the Florida panhandle and Puerto Rico.

Compounding the breakdowns in federal record-keeping and accountability, the inspector general found that Puerto Rican government staff used manual records haphazardly filed in random locations rather than having a formal system to keep track of food, water, and other supplies received from FEMA and distributed to local authorities.

“For example, we requested supporting documentation to verify commodity distribution numbers in the Puerto Rico government’s summary reports provided to FEMA,” the inspector general wrote. “Puerto Rico government officials could not provide the supporting commodity distribution records because they were dispersed throughout various locations on the island, including a personal residence."


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Nidhi Prakash is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Before Trump, Brazil’s President Got The Coronavirus. Here’s What We Can Learn From That.

Jair Bolsonaro downplayed the virus until he contracted it in July, and like Trump, promoted hydroxychloroquine as a therapy. His approval numbers surged after he recovered, but some say that wasn’t due to his improved health.

Posted on October 2, 2020

Jim Watson / Getty 
President Donald Trump with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 7, 2020.


Few world leaders are as often compared to President Donald Trump as Jair Bolsonaro. Like Trump, Brazil’s president is a polarizing right-wing populist prone to demeaning women and minorities, attacking the news media, and using Twitter to fire up his increasingly nationalistic base. Also — like Trump — Bolsonaro got COVID-19.

Now, with just 32 days to go before the US presidential election, those who have observed the parallel careers of the two leaders wonder whether Bolsonaro’s experience with the virus can help inform an understanding of what Trump’s illness could mean for his chances on Nov. 3.


Joshua Clinton, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University who studies the effect of public opinion on elections, said Trump’s diagnosis, like Bolsonaro’s, may end up pushing a topic he’d rather avoid back into the public conversation.

“If President Trump gets extremely sick, which I obviously hope is not the case, what does that mean?” Clinton said. “Are people more sympathetic? Or do people get the impression that he made policy mistakes and this is an example of the result of those mistakes?”

Like Trump, Bolsonaro, who has run Brazil since 2018, downplayed the virus in public, mockingly calling it “a little flu” and urging Brazilians to return to work despite the country having some of the highest infection rates in the world. Then, in early July, Bolsonaro announced he had contracted the disease. He emerged, after three weeks of quarantine, once again downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus and suddenly enjoying a surge in popularity.

"I knew I was going to catch it someday, as I think unfortunately nearly everyone here is going to catch it eventually,” Bolsonaro said at the end of the month. “I regret the deaths. But people die every day, from lots of things. That's life."


According to Datafolha, a Brazilian polling institute, 37% of the people polled described the Bolsonaro administration as good or great in August, up from 32% in June, with most gains occurring among Brazil’s poor sectors. That was a big turnaround for Bolsonaro, who had been facing calls for impeachment in the face of corruption scandals early in the year.

While some attributed the public opinion bump to his full recovery and vigorous dismissal of the seriousness of a disease that to date has killed more than 144,000 Brazilians — second only to the US — others point instead to a massive government handout initiated by Bolsonaro before he ever got sick.

The emergency assistance program authorized monthly payments equivalent to about $115. Those payments led to a drop in severe poverty rates in Brazil during the global pandemic, according to a study by Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a think tank.

Although Bolsonaro, 65, tried to use his recovery as a sign of his own political strength, the bigger concern for Brazilians appeared to be the economy, which has been devastated by the pandemic. Providing millions of people with a financial lifeline had a far larger impact on public sentiment.

Still, said Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, if Trump’s case remains mild, the outcome for him might be similar to Bolsonaro’s. “It plays to the same idea: ‘we're going to get through this,'” Winter said. Bolsonaro’s case “helped convince some Brazilians that the pandemic wasn’t that bad and that they could go back to their daily lives,” he added.

Unlike Bolsonaro, Trump, 74, doesn’t currently have a massive public assistance program to bolster his support. Although Congress authorized a $600 weekly federal payment to the unemployed as part of its coronavirus stimulus package in March, that money ran out at the end of July, and Trump has been unable to get a second round of aid through a deadlocked legislature.


Darren Davis, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, downplayed the idea that Trump could benefit from his own bout with the disease given the current economic and social climate.

“While it is possible for President Trump to receive some sympathy for his Covid-19 positive tests, I expect it to be marginal at best,” Davis said. “I would say many people are experiencing more schadenfreude than sympathy.”

A growing number of world leaders have contracted COVID-19 since the disease first emerged in China, including the presidents of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, the prime ministers of Russia and Armenia, and the second-in-command in Venezuela. None have died, although Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized and required supplemental oxygen, while the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, was briefly hospitalized as well after contracting the virus. The chief of staff of Nigeria’s president died from the coronavirus in April.

Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, initially called the disease a “psychosis” and claimed drinking vodka and going to the sauna could prevent infections. But in late July he disclosed that he had tested positive for the disease and recovered without serious symptoms

But Bolsonaro is perhaps the world leader who most closely tracks to Trump in terms of his handling of the pandemic, as well as his overall political approach.


Brazil now has the world’s third-worst coronavirus outbreak, with 4,847,092 positive cases, and the total number of deaths in the country is second only to the US.

In response to their massive public health crises, both presidents have minimized the severity of the pandemic, refusing to wear masks, contradicting their own top scientists, and prioritizing the economy. When a reporter asked Bolsonaro about the record number of deaths, he shrugged and asked, “So what?”

“What do you want me to do?” he continued, visibly irritated.

In March, Bolsonaro and Trump shared a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, after which at least 15 people traveling from Brazil, including close presidential aides, subsequently tested positive for the virus. Brazil’s health minister later called the journey home a “Corona Flight.”

Neither leader was infected at the time, but soon thereafter, Bolsonaro began advocating the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the disease — echoing similar sentiments from Trump — despite the fact that there is very little, if any, scientific evidence to suggest it’s a helpful therapy for COVID-19.

After contracting the virus, Bolsonaro said he was taking the anti-malarial drug and claimed it was aiding his recovery.

During the televised interview in which he announced he had tested positive in July, Bolsonaro removed his mask, prompting the Brazilian Press Association to file a criminal complaint to the Supreme Court for endangering journalists who were present at the news conference. Like Melania Trump, Bolsonaro’s wife also contracted COVID-19.

Many people viewed Bolsonaro’s positive test as inevitable. The former army captain had continued to tour the country, shaking hands with supporters, visiting shops, and dining in restaurants, often without wearing a mask.


Some Brazilians seemed unsurprised by Trump’s positive test as well, given his resistance to wearing masks and dismissal of the disease’s gravity. Some were quick to draw comparisons between him and their own president.

“It’s very symbolic that Trump and Bolsonaro have both been infected with the coronavirus,” the journalist Lucas Pedrosa wrote on Twitter early Friday morning.

Some even conjectured that Trump might be faking the diagnosis to get out of more debates following this week’s chaotic confrontation with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, which was widely viewed as a loss for the incumbent.

“Trump lost the last debate and now he's "got corona" and he won't participate in the next debate. Son of a bitch, I think Bolsonar[o] taught him how to get out of debates,” tweeted one Brazilian user.

Beyond the health issues and political implications of the president’s diagnoses, Clinton, the political science professor at Vanderbilt, noted that it also presented massive logistical issues at the worst possible time.

“This sidelines him at a time when he needs to be out there raising money. If he is lagging behind in the polls and he has to quarantine it makes it hard for him to get out there and change the narrative.”


Sergio Lima / Getty Images
Bolsonaro speaks holding a hydroxychloroquine box in Brasilia, on September 16, 2020.




Karla Zabludovsky is the Mexico bureau chief and Latin America correspondent for BuzzFeed News and is based in Mexico City.

Ken Bensinger is an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles. He is the author of "Red Card," on the FIFA scandal. His DMs are open.

Nazi shipwreck may solve 75-year-old Amber Room mystery, divers say

A replica of the Amber Room is seen in the Catherine Palace on July 13 near St. Petersburg, Russia. File Photo by Anatoly Maltsev/EPA-EFE

Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Polish divers said Thursday they have located a Nazi shipwreck from World War II that may help solve a 75-year-old mystery -- the location of the fabled Russian Amber Room.

The Nazis raided the Amber Room in 1941 near St. Petersburg, which was part of the Catherine Palace for three centuries.

The amber and gold artifacts taken from the room were last seen in the Russian Baltic port city of Kaliningrad four years later. At the time, it was called Koenigsberg and considered part of Germany.

The German steamship Karlsruhe left the city in 1945 with a heavy load of cargo, but never arrived at its destination. It was sunk by Soviet warplanes near the coast of Poland.

Divers from the Baltictech Group now believe they have found the Karlsruhe wreckage, and possibly the legendary Russian room.

"It was in Koenigsberg that the Amber Room was seen for the last time," Baltictech diver Tomasz Stachura said. "From there, the Karlsruhe left on its last voyage with a large cargo."

Tomasz Zwara, another member of the dive team, said much of the historical data suggests the Nazi ship left with the stolen treasures from the Amber Room.

"The history and available documentation show that the Karlsruhe was leaving the port in a great hurry and with a large load," he said. "All this put together stimulates the imagination.

"Finding the German steamer and the crates with contents as yet unknown resting on the bottom of the Baltic Sea may be significant for the whole story."

It wasn't initially known when divers might further explore the shipwreck site. The Russian government said in 2008 they would demand the return of the Amber Room if it is eventually found.

The Amber Room was given to Russian Czar Peter the Great in 1716 as a gift. Over the years, there have been many attempts to find the storied room. A U.S. explorer in the early 1990s suspected it might have been located beneath the German city of Weimar.

During World War II, the Nazis took the room apart and shipped it to Koenigsberg, where it disappeared during British bombing raids on the city, Marine Technology News reported. Many believe it was destroyed.

A replica Amber Room has since been built in the Catherine Palace