The Manchin empire extends to a nondescript nursing home in deep coal country. It’s a relic of a social welfare system that has collapsed. Until Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was listed as a corporate officer of a state-run nursing home in West Virginia, new reporting by the Prospect shows. The John Manchin Sr. Health Care Center is one of four nursing homes operated by the state, which has the largest population of people with disabilities in the country. In a study by AARP and the Commonwealth Fund, West Virginia’s long-term care received the second-worst ranking of all 50 states. The nursing home and an attached clinic serve Sen. Manchin’s home county of Marion, in deep coal country near the Pennsylvania border. The center opened in 1899 as a hospital for miners, and was renovated in the early ’80s by the senator’s brother, John Manchin Jr. On a filing with the West Virginia Secretary of State, the senator’s nephew, John Manchin III, is now listed twice as both a member and an organizer of the limited liability company (LLC). Sen. Manchin was listed as the LLC’s organizer until Tuesday afternoon. Then, less than 24 hours after the Prospect contacted the senator’s Washington, D.C., office for comment, his name was removed from the filing. A spokesperson said, “Sen. Manchin is not affiliated with this facility and any filing that indicates he is was done incorrectly.”

Figures behind deal include a politician linked to deforestation in the 90s and an associate named in the Panama Papers. A politician linked to wide-scale deforestation in the 1990s and his Panama Papers-named associate, a Singaporean shell company, and the owner of an agricultural consultancy in Australia are among the figures behind a controversial carbon trading deal worth an estimated $80bn in Borneo. The Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) ostensibly protects 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of jungle in the Malaysian state of Sabah from logging for the next 100 years. But the deal, signed in October between Sabah state officials and a Singaporean shell company, was hammered out in absolute secrecy and without credible due diligence, a tender process or public consultation, according to Indigenous leaders, activists and NGOs that spoke to Al Jazeera as part of a months-long investigation. From the outset, the NCA gives 30 percent of Sabah’s revenue from carbon credit sales – estimated to be $24bn over the life of the contract – to a company in Singapore, Hoch Standard, with no obvious history in carbon trading. “It makes me sick to my stomach,” a whistleblower with firsthand knowledge of the deal told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation.

The Democratic president slammed but now backs a Trump ruling that could help private equity kingpins loot retirees’ savings.

The settlement suggests that police, who have a history of sympathizing with anti-abortion activists, can intimidate clinics and even get paid for it.

Whether it’s the five-star match reviews that fans endless debate or holding promoters accountable for the sins of the industry, for 40 years now, the famed wrestling journalist has called it exactly as he’s seen it

Lawmakers in at least 12 states have introduced legislation to require schools to post lists of all of their teaching materials online, including books, articles and videos. The governors of Arizona, Florida and Iowa, who have previously raised concerns about how teachers discuss racism’s impact on politics and society, called for curriculum transparency laws in speeches to their legislatures this month. “Florida law should provide parents with the right to review the curriculum used in their children’s schools,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said in his State of the State address last week. Some conservative activists say the effort — which has come under fire from Democrats, teachers and civil liberties advocates — is a potent strategic move to expose and root out progressive ideas from schools. It’s the next move in a fight over critical race theory, the academic concept typically taught in college courses to examine how laws and institutions perpetuate racism, which some conservatives have used to describe ideas and books that they believe are too progressive or political for the classroom. (note: This is like the fine wine paired with these ghouls' main course which is the massive expansion of for-profit charter schools whose teaching materials are all proprietary.)

The story of Brady’s career is the story of the NFL for the past two decades. You cannot tell one without the other.

The president created draconian bankruptcy laws — now his administration appears to be trying to overturn a ruling that helps those bankrupted by student loans.

Trump-allied operatives have baselessly accused the National Butterfly Center of being involved with child trafficking.

French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour believes that France is on the brink of self-destruction. Parts of the political establishment, including President Emmanuel Macron, increasingly seem to agree. On the 5th of December, Éric Zemmour held his first official political rally. It was an intense affair, with 13,000 “Zemmouristes” assembled to listen to the newly-minted candidate for the French presidency deliver a barnstorming speech in which he blasted the “eternal adolescent” Emmanuel Macron. Despite some chaotic moments—several left-wing militants were punched by far-right opponents—the rally was a triumph for Zemmour and cemented his transformation from political commentator to presidential candidate. Zemmour is a descendant of ethnically Berber Jews from Algeria. Once, this would have made his new position as a leading politician on the French far-right unthinkable. Times have changed even in these political quarters... This convergence between Zemmourian ideas and French public opinion is not confined to the center-right. A recent Harris Interactive poll concluded that 67% of the general population are concerned to some degree about the idea of a “Great Replacement,” including 61% of supporters of La Republique en Marche (LREM), Macron’s political party. When asked whether they believed such a development would actually occur, 61% of the general population and 52% of LREM supporters responded that they did. The mainstream of French society—including the Macronist base—has shifted toward a consensus that, only a few years ago, was too radical even for Marine Le Pen to endorse publicly.

NASA announced recently that the International Space Station will begin a series of retrograde maneuvers sometime between late 2026 and summer 2028, intended to lower the satellite’s altitude and prepare it for de-orbit. Solar activity will determine when this process begins and how rapidly it progresses, but the goal will be a steep altitude loss climaxing in January 2031. How steep? Following a final series of maneuvers oriented to the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area, “operators will perform the ISS re-entry burn” and crash the poor sweet International Space Station into what is called the “oceanic pole of inaccessibility,” where it will meet its watery end as a large field of debris. Having never visited the International Space Station—and really this will be a painful lingering regret, for NASA—I don’t think I can exactly say that I will miss it. Nevertheless I will be sad when it is gone. I don’t remember any specifics from the first time I noticed it crawling along the night sky, but I still think it’s insanely fucking awesome whenever I happen to spot it. I had the chance to track the ISS using a huge expensive telescope once, and that was very cool. However jury-rigged and structurally unsound the International Space Station may be by 2031, it will strike me in the nostalgias when it finally kerplodes and sinks to the bottom of the sea in a spot more than 1,600 miles from nearest land. This will not be the end of humankind’s low-orbit hijinks, not by a long shot. But it will for sure be the end of something, a thing that is even more worth mourning than that big hunk of orbiting science up there.

A rain-weakened hillside collapsed in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, sweeping over homes and a sports field and killing at least 24 people, city officials have said. The Quito Security Department also said on Tuesday that 32 people were injured and eight houses had collapsed, with more damaged. Neighbours joined rescue workers in hunting through the ruins for survivors of the disaster that hit after nearly 24 hours of rainfall.

EXCLUSIVE, SPOILER ALERT: Rudy Giuliani was unmasked as an exiting costumed contestant in last week’s taping of the first Season 7 episode of Fox’s popular primetime series The Masked Singer. Deadline hears that as soon as they saw Giuliani, judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke quickly left the stage in protest.

After disappearing during a camping trip, Enrique Roman-Martinez became one of dozens of Fort Bragg soldiers to die recently under unexplained circumstances

Jackson joined fired Dolphins coach Brian Flores, who alleged in his bombshell lawsuit on Tuesday that he was paid more to lose.

A massive steel bridge in Rotterdam is to be partly demolished so that the pleasure yacht being built for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos can sail through it to the sea, local broadcaster Rijnmond said on Wednesday. The Koningshavenbrug, known to Rotterdammers as De Hef, was renovated in 2017 and the council pledged at the time it would never be dismantled again. But that promise is now set to be broken, Rijnmond said, to let Bezos’ yacht through. The bridge, placed...

Very quickly, I knew something was wrong.

Moscow ramps up criticism of Britain’s bid to be at helm of fight to protect Ukraine from Russian invasion

Extreme heat in the world’s oceans passed the “point of no return” in 2014 and has become the new normal, according to research. Scientists analysed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating. They found that extreme temperatures occurring just 2% of the time a century ago have occurred at least 50% of the time across the global ocean since 2014. In some hotspots, extreme temperatures occur 90% of the time, severely affecting wildlife. More than 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean, which plays a critical role in maintaining a stable climate. “By using this measure of extremes, we’ve shown that climate change is not something that is uncertain and may happen in the distant future – it’s something that is a historical fact and has occurred already,” said Kyle Van Houtan, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, US, and one of the research team. “Extreme climate change is here, it’s in the ocean, and the ocean underpins all life on Earth.”

A new history of addiction asks: Is it really a disease? Or is it something more complex?