Trump Readies Thousands of Attorneys for Election Fight (Gerry)
From Politico: “A year before President Donald Trump alarmed Americans with talk of disputing elections last week, his team started building a massive legal network to do just that. Dozens of lawyers from three major law firms have been hired. Thousands of volunteer attorneys and poll watchers across the country have been recruited. Republicans are preparing pre-written legal pleadings that can be hurried to the courthouse the day after the election, as wrangling begins over close results and a crush of mail-in ballots. Attorneys from non-battleground states, including California, New York and Illinois, are being dispatched to more competitive areas and trained on local election laws.”
Suffolk DA Releases Watch List of 136 Area Officers Accused of Misconduct (Reader Steve)
From the Boston Globe: “Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins released a list of 136 police officers on Friday night that her office said have been accused of lying, corruption, or misconduct, and whose credibility may be undermined in court. The database, called the Law Enforcement Automatic Discovery, or LEAD, database, includes current and former officers from the Massachusetts State Police, Boston Police, and Transit Police, as well as Chelsea and Revere.”
Mark in the Middle (Russ)
The author writes, “For years, Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism that Facebook is bad for democracy. Employees want him to take a harder line against the Trump Administration. His user base wants him to do the opposite. In a summer’s worth of leaked audio recordings obtained by the Verge, you can hear Facebook’s CEO trying to hold the center.”
How Big Oil Misled the Public Into Thinking Plastic Would Be Recycled (Dana)
The author writes, “NPR and PBS Frontline spent months digging into internal industry documents and interviewing top former officials. We found that the industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic. The industry’s awareness that recycling wouldn’t keep plastic out of landfills and the environment dates to the program’s earliest days, we found.”
The Remarkable Ways Animals Understand Numbers (Dana)
The author writes, “It turns out that processing numbers offers a significant benefit for survival, which is why this behavioural trait is present in many animal populations. Several studies examining animals in their ecological environments suggest that representing numbers enhances an animal’s ability to exploit food sources, hunt prey, avoid predation, navigate its habitat, and persist in social interactions.”
