Month: May 2020

President Donald Trump has built his political brand by posting a steady stream of misleading information, conspiracy theories, and personal attacks on Twitter. Now that Twitter did something unprecedented and fact-checked two of his tweets, he’s escalating his typical behavior.

On Tuesday after Twitter called out Trump’s false statements about vote-by-mail ballots, the president fired back, tweeting that social media platforms “totally silence conservatives voices” [sic] and threatening to “strongly regulate” social media companies or “close them down” altogether.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Wednesday that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China — a dramatic step that could transform the US’s relationship with the territory.

Pompeo’s announcement comes one day before China is expected to pass a controversial national security law that will criminalize “treason, secession, sedition (and) subversion” against the government in Beijing, CNN reports. It will also allow Chinese security forces to operate in Hong Kong “to fulfill relevant duties to safeguard national security in accordance with the law.”

Critics fear it will be used to target not just protesters but also the …

In Minneapolis on Tuesday, thousands of people gathered to condemn the police violence against George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died Monday after an officer knelt on his neck for more than seven minutes. The protest, which included chants of “It could have been me,” was met at times with tear gas and rubber bullets. It’s a response that was incredibly harsh — and one that marks a stark contrast with how law enforcement has reacted to lockdown protests, several of which have included armed white men.

Tuesday’s protest was prompted by officers’ violence toward Floyd, actions that …

Joe Biden has a problem. Silicon Valley billionaires think they have a solution.

Election Day is less than six months away, and Democrats are scrambling to patch the digital deficits of their presumptive nominee. And behind the scenes, Silicon Valley’s billionaire Democrats are spending tens of millions of dollars on their own sweeping plans to catch up to President Donald Trump’s lead on digital campaigning — plans that are poised to make them some of the country’s most influential people when it comes to shaping the November results.

These billionaires’ arsenals are funding everything from nerdy political science experiments to …

After the coronavirus interrupted schooling for more than 1.5 billion children worldwide, some of them are heading back to the classroom — and offering lessons for American students and educators.

In Germany, students administer coronavirus tests on themselves to track if they have the disease or not. In Vietnam, children and adults get their temperatures checked before entering the school building and wear masks once inside. And in New Zealand, parents or students worried about returning too soon can delay returning until they feel comfortable.

These and other policies aim to help resume schooling safely and …

For the first time ever, Twitter has fact-checked President Trump’s tweets.

Until now, Twitter hasn’t taken any action against Trump’s account or tweets even when he has flouted the social media platform’s rules by posting false, harmful, or misleading content. Twitter’s rationale for letting Trump post these kinds of tweets has been that because he is a world leader, his posts are considered newsworthy and are therefore an exception to its policies. But after years of criticism about that stance, on Tuesday, the company added fact-check labels on two of Trump’s recent tweets that shared misleading information about voting …

President Donald Trump’s impromptu news conference late on Tuesday afternoon began with him musing about taking insulin just for fun and ended with him explaining his opposition to mail-in voting by characterizing voting as “an honor” (it’s actually a right). The stuff he said in between wasn’t any less wacky.

The event, which came on the same day that the official US coronavirus death toll closes in on 100,000 and was ostensibly about what his administration is doing to bring down the price of insulin, revealed how out of his depth Trump is in trying to respond to a public …

White House economics adviser Kevin Hassett went viral over the weekend for referring to American workers as “human capital stock” — a racially charged, dehumanizing turn of phrase that conjured up images of livestock.

“Our human capital stock is ready to get back to work,” Hassett told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, as part of his argument that the US economy is poised for a quick turnaround, even as he acknowledged that the unemployment rate will linger in double figures through November’s election.

While many, including the House Democratic Caucus, took umbrage with Hassett’s remarks, others, such as …

The idea of 20,000 people traveling from all parts of the United States to pack themselves into an arena amid an outbreak of a highly communicable, deadly disease that spreads especially efficiently indoors might sound ill-advised to most of us. But most of us are not President Donald Trump.

Ahead of the coronavirus pandemic, the GOP planned to have its 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. For obvious reasons, that’s no longer a sure thing — and Trump isn’t coping well with the uncertainty.

Despite new coronavirus cases continuing to show an upward trajectory in the state, …

Emma thought that going off to Carleton College would be the beginning of a new life. The 18-year-old trans girl had struggled to come out in high school after repeated outings to her strict Italian Catholic parents in New Jersey.

“Those were difficult,” she told Vox. “I like to say that I negotiated my way back into the closet” to finish high school.

She thought college would become her salvation and chose the liberal arts school of about 2,000 students in Northfield, Minnesota, because of a visit, during one of her tours, to the on-campus LGBTQ center.

While Emma’s dad …