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.

Schumer launches long-shot bid for legal weed  —  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released sweeping draft legislation Wednesday to legalize weed, officially kickstarting a difficult debate in his chamber that also makes a major splash for one of his campaign promises.

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 …

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.

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.

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

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.

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 …

‘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.

‘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 …

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.)

Senate presses forward passing GOP voting and bail bills, as Texas House in chaos over Democrats' decampment  —  If the House Democrats who skipped town to block voting legislation don't return before the special session ends, the Senate bills will languish without becoming law.  —  Copy link

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” …

Terry McAuliffe Fundraises for Virginia Dem Who Served Time for Underage Sex  —  Five years after calling on him to resign, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe spoke at a fundraiser for a state lawmaker who served jail time in an underage sex case.

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 …

Iranian Operatives Planned to Kidnap a Brooklyn Author, Prosecutors Say  —  Masih Alinejad spoke critically of her native country's autocracy.  Now an Iranian intelligence official and three others have been indicted in New York.  —  An Iranian American journalist living in Brooklyn …

Parts of the Amazon Go From Absorbing Carbon Dioxide to Emitting It  —  A new study analyzing hundreds of aerial readings of emissions above the forest canopy found that forest regions in the southeast were most affected.  —  Portions of the Amazon rainforest are now emitting more carbon dioxide …

Critical Race Theory Is a Hustle  —  It may resemble a serious academic discipline, but it's really just a fancy argument for racial preferences.  —  A majority of American fourth- and eighth-graders can't read or do math at grade level, according to the Education Department.

Emails Reveal Cops Fanned Flames as FBI Debunked Antifa Hoax  —  LIE SEASON … Wildfires are back and could be worse than ever.  Just don't tell the cops manufacturing wild rumors about how they start.  —  On Sept. 11, 2020, the same day the Federal Bureau of Investigation released …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

Why Cuba is having an economic crisis  —  Three crises and a whole lot of bad policy decisions have driven hungry Cubans into the streets.  —  6 hr ago  —  Cuba is in chaos.  A wave of protest has been followed by internet blackouts, reports of shootings, lists of missing persons …