Section: Salon (USA)
Clearing the radioactive rubble heap that was Fukushima Daiichi, 7 years on
FILE – In this Feb. 21, 2012, file photo, workers spray the roof of a radiation-contaminated warehouse as a massive cleanup begins in Fukushima, Japan. Five years after a powerful earthquake and tsunami sent the nuclear power plant in the country into multiple meltdowns, cleaning up the mess both onsite and in surrounding towns remains a...
Is Donald Trump fueling a mass extinction of democracy across the planet?
(Credit: AP/Michael Conroy) Earlier this week, during a freewheeling speech to Republican donors at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump cracked the following joke about Chinese leader Xi Jinping: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to...
Encrypted smartphones secure your identity, not just your data
Smartphones store your email, your photos and your calendar. They provide access to online social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and even your bank and credit card accounts. And they’re keys to something even more private and precious — your digital identity. Through their role in two-factor authentication systems, the most commonly...
Why use a “back channel” when you’ve got a hotline? Mueller turns to the saga in the Seychelles
Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan; Donald Trump; Erik Prince (Credit: Getty/AP/Photo montage by Salon) Oftentimes, the best way to understand a complex news story is through the lens of your own experience. So I’ve got a question for you: When was the last time you traveled to an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean to meet up with people...
Income inequality in the U.S. is even worse than you’ve been led to believe
In this March 7, 2017 photo, a man wearing plastic bags in the rain carries belongings as he walks during a sweep to clear out people living at a homeless encampment known as “The Field,” in Seattle’s Stadium district south of downtown. Sixteen months after he declared a state of emergency on homelessness, Seattle’s mayor...
Donald Trump’s relentless fixer: The many mysterious doings of Michael Cohen
Stormy Daniels; Michael Cohen (Credit: AP/Damairs Carter/Andrew Harnik) If there is one person lurking around the shadows of every Trump scandal, it would be his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, known as the Tom Hagen of the Trump family, only with much less class and dignity than the original consigliere of “Godfather” fame. Back in 2011 ABC News...
Sam Nunberg melts down on live TV
During the campaign Trump said over and over that he was going to hire “only the best people,” that he was going to “surround myself only with the best and most serious people.” Well, he hired them, and he’s paying for it every single day. One of the best people Trump hired was the wife-beater Rob Porter, stripped of his security clearance...
Is it the coverup — or the crime? With Trump and Russia, we still can’t be sure
(Credit: Getty/AP/Photo montage by Salon) This latest Trump White House scandal, involving one high-level staffer’s firing and another’s hasty resignation, after reports surfaced that they had been accused of domestic violence, has been infuriating. As is par for the course, the president stepped forward to defend Rob Porter, the man...
Left-wing sites got trolled by Russians too: The strange saga of “Alice Donovan”
(Credit: Getty Images) It has become well known over the past year that various Russian agents conducted an online propaganda campaign to promote the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. But it is worth noting that while Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump may have some common ideological and personal similarities (such as their...
Lorde pulls planned concert in Israel due to pressure from anti-Israel groups
(Credit: Getty/Rawpixel) The New Zealand singer Lorde has cancelled a planned concert in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv due to an outcry from fans who are critical of that country’s human rights record. The news of Lorde’s cancellation came from the concert producer Naranjah, according to The Jerusalem Post. The company released a...
