The paper published by the respected British Medical Journal earlier this month was eye-opening, to say the least. It questioned why excess deaths in Western countries remained unusually elevated during the COVID-19 pandemic even after vaccines were introduced in 2021.

A report released Thursday puts numbers to the Supreme Court’s ethics scandals, finding that the justices have received over 300 gifts worth $3 million in the last 20 years.

Judiciary watchdog Fix the Court unveiled a detailed account of the value of the gifts that ignited calls for ethics reform at the court.

“Supreme Court justices should not be accepting gifts, let alone the hundreds of freebies worth millions of dollars they’ve received over the years,” Gabe Roth, executive director at Fix the Court, said in a statement. “Public servants who make four times the median local salary, and who can make millions writing books on any topic they like, can afford to pay for their own vacations, vehicles, hunting excursions and club memberships — to say nothing of the influence the gift-givers are buying with their ‘generosity.’”

IN A CONVERSATION he didn’t know was being recorded, embattled Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito shared his private belief that his movement’s battle with secular forces in the country was a zero-sum contest of irreconcilable values.

“One side or the other is going to win,” Alito says in secretly recorded audio. Alito was speaking at a reception for the Supreme Court Historical Society last Monday evening. “I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. It’s not like you can split the difference.”

Alito was responding to a question from Lauren Windsor, a progressive advocacy journalist and activist who regularly records conversations with Republicans and conservative movement leaders.

Israel’s raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp has caused outrage, with the EU calling it “a massacre”. The death toll has risen to 274 and more than 698 others injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Doctors describe the scenes inside Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza as a “complete bloodbath”, with one medic saying the inside of the hospital “looks like a slaughterhouse”. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals are “overwhelmed”.