Tennessee abandons vaccine outreach to minors — not just for COVID-19  —  The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach - not just for coronavirus, but all diseases - amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers, according to an internal report and agency emails obtained by the Tennessean.

Inside Facebook's Data Wars  —  Executives at the social network have clashed over CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data tool that revealed users' high engagement levels with right-wing media sources.  —  One day in April, the people behind CrowdTangle, a data analytics tool owned by Facebook, learned that transparency had limits.

Senate Democrats reveal $3.5 trillion plan to invest in health care, climate change and more … WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders announced an agreement Tuesday evening to advance a $3.5 trillion spending plan to finance a major expansion of the economic safety net.

How Tucker Carlson became the voice of White grievance  —  Tucker Carlson huddled in a low-ceilinged dungeon that had served as a holding pen for Africans bound for enslavement in the United States.  It was a July day in 2003 in Ghana, and Carlson stood alongside some of America's most prominent civil rights leaders.

Drug overdoses soared to a record 93,000 last year  —  Deaths from drug overdoses soared to more than 93,000 last year, a staggering record that reflects the coronavirus pandemic's toll on efforts to quell the crisis and the continued spread of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in the illegal narcotic supply …

George W. Bush says ending U.S. military mission in Afghanistan is a mistake  —  Former president George W. Bush said he believes the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is a mistake, in rare public remarks on the military intervention he launched nearly two decades ago.

The Moral Collapse of J. D. Vance  —  What do we call a man who turns on everything he once claimed to believe?  For a practitioner of petty and self-serving duplicity, we use “sellout” or “backstabber.”  (Sometimes we impugn the animal kingdom and call him a rat, a skunk, or a weasel.)

Bolsonaro in hospital as hiccups persist for more than 10 days  — President, 66, to be observed by doctors for next 48 hours  — Speculation grows over health of Brazil's far-right leader  —  The Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been admitted to hospital complaining of abdominal pain …

Michigan GOP executive who blamed Trump for election loss resigns leadership post  —  Dave Boucher Clara HendricksonDetroit Free Press  —  A Michigan Republican Party leader who faced grassroots pushback after saying the 2020 presidential election wasn't stolen and blaming ex-President Donald Trump …

Poll: 1.8 million Americans have turned down jobs due to unemployment benefits  —  About 1.8 million out-of-work Americans have turned down jobs because of the generosity of unemployment insurance benefits, according to Morning Consult poll results released Wednesday.

‘We are seeing people passing quicker than before’: What hospitals look like in US Covid hot spots  —  (CNN)Dr. Sergio Segarra says when Covid-19 patient numbers in the Miami hospital he works in dipped below 20 last month, he began feeling optimistic.  —  “I remember seeing articles …

Robin DiAngelo Wants White Progressives to Look Inward  —  The author of “White Fragility” discusses her new book, “Nice Racism.”  —  In 2018, Robin DiAngelo, an academic and anti-racism consultant, published the surprise best-seller “White Fragility.”  The book, which argues that white people tend …

‘He wished he had gotten the vaccine:’ Local man battling COVID-19 from ICU for months  —  GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Blake Bargatze, 24, was the only one in his family to not get vaccinated and now he remains in a hospital ICU more than three months after contracting COVID-19, according to his family.

Top U.S. General Said Trump Preached ‘Gospel of the Führer’  —  General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, likened Donald Trump's effort to hold on to power after the 2020 election to Adolf Hitler, saying the president was preaching “the gospel of the Führer” …

Merkel versus mania  —  It's a head-spinning week.  It would be convenient if the Iranian attempted kidnappings, Latin American political arrests, possible twin migration crises, last-minute APEC summit, climate policy knife fights among allies, and Olympic drama all packed neatly into one narrative.

Inside the Industry That Unmasks People At Scale  —  Unique IDs linked to phones are supposed to be anonymous.  But there's an entire industry that links them to real people and their address.  —  Joseph Cox  —  Tech companies have repeatedly reassured the public that trackers used …

Ken Starr's Completely Inexcusable Career Has a New Chapter Titled ‘Jeffrey Epstein’  —  If there is a less excusable human being walking upright than Ken Starr, head huntsman of the Great Penis Chase of 1998, then I'm hard pressed to think of who it is.  Since his salacious moment in the national spotlight, Starr has presided over a

Storm Clouds Brewing for Terry McAuliffe as Democrats Face Reckoning Nationally  —  There's no doubt about it - Terry McAuliffe is in trouble in Virginia.  After previously serving as governor from 2014 to 2018, McAuliffe presumably believed he could simply cruise back into the position he once won by nearly three points.

Inside Shepard Smith's Post-Fox News Crash on CNBC  —  The ex-Fox anchor's much-hyped new show has failed to bring in viewers and, per insiders, it has struggled with some internal turmoil, including “regular tantrums” from Smith.  —  Whether it's a poor time slot, behind-the-scenes squabbles …

Norwegian Cruise Line sues Florida over prohibition on vaccine requirements.  —  The fight over requiring vaccinations for travel is heating up.  —  Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings sued Florida's surgeon general on Tuesday, accusing the state of preventing it from “safely and soundly” …

The Deeply Racist Dimensions To Ashli Babbitt's Martyrdom  —  “Who killed Ashli Babbitt?”  —  It's a question that, in recent weeks, has become a mainstream rallying cry among the MAGA crew after growing in volume for months on the far-right fringes.  Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has asked it repeatedly …

New Book Details Eric Trump ‘Flipped Out’ On Election Night  —  Donald Trump's son reportedly screamed at campaign aides as his father's lead against Joe Biden narrowed, according to Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker's new book.  —  Eric Trump “flipped out” on the night of the 2020 election …

Can the Black Rifle Coffee Company Become the Starbucks of the Right?  —  The company doubled its sales last year by leaning into America's culture war.  It's also trying to distance itself from some of its new customers.  —  To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

My Friends Were Sent to the Camps  —  If you took an Uber in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, there was a chance your driver was one of the greatest living Uyghur poets.  Tahir Hamut Izgil arrived with his family in the United States in 2017, fleeing the Chinese government's merciless persecution of his people.

Biden's civil rights nominee remains unapologetically divisive on Title IX  —  The Department of Education's former civil rights head Catherine Lhamon has not changed much over the past four years.  —  On Tuesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing …

She says vaccines make you magnetized.  This lawmaker invited her testimony, chair says.  —  After a discredited doctor's conspiracy theories involving COVID-19 vaccines, magnetics and 5G towers made a mockery of the Ohio House of Representatives, the Health chairman blamed the sponsor …

Facebook staffers were told by execs to scrap any mention of Russia in a 2017 white paper on the platform's security concerns: ‘We started to feel like we were part of a cover-up’  — Facebook's 2017 white paper initially mentioned Russian election interference, a new book says.

Family of five charged for allegedly storming the Capitol after tipster provides social media screenshots  —  For five people arrested this week after they were charged by federal prosecutors for allegedly storming the U.S. Capitol, the Jan. 6 insurrection appeared to be a family affair.

US to begin evacuation of Afghans who aided US military  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is set to begin evacuations of Afghans who aided the U.S. military effort in the nearly 20-year war during the last week of July, according to a senior administration official.

Ex-Kamala Harris staffers have bad memories of a toxic culture in her past offices and are texting each other about it  — Some former Harris staffers are feeling vindicated after reports of dysfunction in her office.  — They're texting one another and having flashbacks about their time working for her.

There Goes Biden's ‘Moderate’ Brand  —  President Biden's implicit promise to turn down the temperature and restore normal patterns of rhetoric to the presidency can no longer be taken seriously after yesterday's ridiculous episode of hyperventilation disguised as a speech.

More than 150 companies back update to Voting Rights Act  —  More than 150 companies, including PepsiCo, Amazon and Target, threw their support behind updating the Voting Rights Act in a letter released Wednesday.  —  The signatories, all U.S. employers, urged Congress to enact …