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Sen. Kamala HarrisKamala Devi HarrisRand Paul introduces bill to end no-knock warrants The Hill’s Campaign Report: Biden campaign goes on offensive against Facebook McEnany says Juneteenth is a very ‘meaningful’ day to Trump MORE (D-Calif.) said Thursday that Attorney General William BarrBill BarrMilley discussed resigning from post after Trump photo-op: report OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: Joint Chiefs chairman says he regrets participating in Trump photo-op | GOP senators back Joint Chiefs chairman who voiced regret over Trump photo-op | Senate panel approves 0B defense policy bill Trump finalizing executive order calling on police to use ‘force with compassion’ MORE is acting more like President TrumpDonald John TrumpSenate advances public lands bill in late-night vote Warren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases Esper orders ‘After Action Review’ of National Guard’s role in protests MORE’s defense attorney than the attorney general.
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Harris, who is running for president, noted in a campaign email that, prior to the public release of special counsel Robert MuellerRobert (Bob) MuellerCNN’s Toobin warns McCabe is in ‘perilous condition’ with emboldened Trump CNN anchor rips Trump over Stone while evoking Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting The Hill’s 12:30 Report: New Hampshire fallout MORE’s redacted report, Barr provided a copy to Trump’s legal team and held a press conference where he offered a strong defense of the president.
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“Attorney General Bill Barr only released this redacted report after providing a copy to the president’s personal lawyers, and after he gave a press conference on national television filled with political spin and propaganda. Let’s be clear: Barr is acting more like Trump’s defense attorney than the nation’s Attorney General,” Harris said.
Harris added that Congress “has a constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the executive branch” and called for the “full, unredacted” report to be shared with lawmakers.
“The American people deserve the unvarnished truth — without spin from the president’s hand-picked Attorney General. This redacted report is not enough,” Harris wrote in the email. “Congress needs to see the full, unredacted Mueller report and all of the investigation’s underlying evidence — and Special Counsel Robert Mueller must testify publicly before Congress.”
Barr on Thursday released the redacted version of Mueller’s report, which the special counsel submitted weeks ago to Barr.
Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election, noted in the report that the evidence prevented his team from “conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred” over obstruction of justice.
Pete ButtigiegPete ButtigiegScaled-back Pride Month poses challenges for fundraising, outreach Biden hopes to pick VP by Aug. 1 It’s as if a Trump operative infiltrated the Democratic primary process MORE’s rising popularity among the Democratic presidential primary field has stalled for the first time in weeks, according to a new poll released Tuesday by Morning Consult.
Buttigieg, who saw his stock soar last month after a widely hailed CNN town hall, dropped from having the support of 9 percent of respondents last week to 8 percent, among Democratic primary voters across the country who were polled for Morning Consult’s weekly Political Intelligence survey.
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The figure, though still within the survey’s 1 percent margin of error, suggests that the jolt the South Bend, Ind., mayor saw in the polls in recent weeks may be starting to slow.
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Prior to his March 10 CNN appearance, Buttigieg lingered around the 1 percent mark, according to Morning Consult polling data.
But in the weeks after, his numbers shot upward, putting him on par with better-known candidates, like Sens. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenWarren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: Joint Chiefs chairman says he regrets participating in Trump photo-op | GOP senators back Joint Chiefs chairman who voiced regret over Trump photo-op | Senate panel approves 0B defense policy bill Trump on collision course with Congress over bases with Confederate names MORE (D-Mass.) and Kamala HarrisKamala Devi HarrisRand Paul introduces bill to end no-knock warrants The Hill’s Campaign Report: Biden campaign goes on offensive against Facebook McEnany says Juneteenth is a very ‘meaningful’ day to Trump MORE (D-Calif.). The rise in the polls was accompanied by a flurry of high-profile media appearances that helped boost his national profile, despite him entering the 2020 race as a relative unknown.
Among Democratic voters in early primary and caucus states, Buttigieg saw his numbers dip from 9 percent last week to 7 percent, the Morning Consult survey found. The figures are still well within the poll’s 4 point margin of error for early-voting states.
The survey also showed former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenHillicon Valley: Biden calls on Facebook to change political speech rules | Dems demand hearings after Georgia election chaos | Microsoft stops selling facial recognition tech to police Trump finalizing executive order calling on police to use ‘force with compassion’ The Hill’s Campaign Report: Biden campaign goes on offensive against Facebook MORE surging among Democrats both nationwide and in early primary and caucus states in the days after he announced his candidacy. Among national voters, Biden climbed 6 points to capture the support of 36 percent of national respondents, while his support among early-state voter grew 4 percentage points, to 38 percent.
The Morning Consult Political Intelligence survey is based on interviews with 15,475 registered voters who indicated that they may vote in their state’s Democratic primary or caucus. Those interviews were conducted from April 22-28. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
The results for early-voting states are based on surveys with voters in the four states that will kick off voting in the 2020 Democratic primary: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
Following an announcement that the for-profit University of Phoenix has agreed to forgive $141 million in loans of former students, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders responded on Thursday: “Good. Now $1,685,456,413,335 more to go.”
While Sanders has proposed cancelling all outstanding college and university debt in the U.S. as part of his plan to help revitalize the U.S. economy and re-level the playing field for working-class and low-income Americans, the move by Phoenix (UPO) and its parent company, the Apollo Education Group, comes in the form of a settlement deal reached with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) early this week and stems from charges of fraudulent and deceptive practices directed at students.
The overall settlement of $191 million includes the debt forgiveness portion and a separate $50 million in cash that will be used “for consumer redress” by the commission.
According to a statement by the FTC, the settlement—in which the companies admitted no actual wrongdoing—was levied because the for-profit chain and Apollo “relied heavily on advertising to attract students, including specific ads that targeted military and Hispanic consumers. The companies’ ads featured employers such as Microsoft, Twitter, Adobe, and Yahoo!, giving the false impression that UOP worked with those companies to create job opportunities for its students and tailor its curriculum for such jobs.”
The reality, however, was that the school had no such program. In a scheme that victimized students, the FTC alleged that “these companies did not partner with UOP to provide special job opportunities for UOP students or develop curriculum. Instead, UOP and Apollo selected these companies for their advertisements as part of a marketing strategy to drive prospective student interest.”
The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Andrew Smith, in a statement on Tuesday, said, “This is the largest settlement the Commission has obtained in a case against a for-profit school. Students making important decisions about their education need the facts, not fantasy job opportunities that do not exist.”
In June, Sanders introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would used funds raised by a tax on Wall Street to fund the cancellation of the $1.6 trillion student debt burden in the country.
“In a generation hard hit by the Wall Street crash of 2008, it forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education,” Sanders said at the time.
Days later, while others denounced the idea as pie-in-the-sky and unworkable, over one hundred academics endorsed the plan in a joint letter sent to Congress. It read, in part:
“To some, this will appear too radical,” the academics said of Sanders’ proposal. “To us, it is the bold solution we need.”
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A brutal police crackdown on student protests in India over the latest legislation aimed at curtailing the rights of the country’s 200 million-strong Muslim majority have observers concerned over a possible escalation in state repression in the world’s largest democracy.
The police response to the protests reportedly claimed the lives of at least five demonstrators around the country in the past week.
“We are faced with the biggest challenge since independence,” Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy said. “Stand up. Please. Stand up.”
As Common Dreams reported on December 10, the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill on December 9 is just the latest move by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extremist right-wing government to codify Hindu supremacy across the nominally secular nation of 1.3 billion people.
Modi, whose ruling government has already set up internment camps for religious minorities in the northeastern state of Assam, is being blamed for the violence against protesters.
“Modi’s use of violence against minorities and dissenters in India is an affront to democratic values,” tweeted journalist Ash Sarkar. “It is fascistic.”
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Police assaulted demonstrators New Delhi’s Muslim-majority Jamia Millia Islamia University Sunday, The New York Times reported:
“Students were running around to save their lives,” one woman at the protest told the press. “Is this democracy? Where are we living?”
Video from the demonstrations showed in stark relief the level of brutality of the police response to the student protest.
Sociology student Mohammad Faisal, in comment to The Guardian, described a violent scene.
“The policemen entered the library and mosque inside our campus and beat up the students mercilessly who were studying or offering prayer and in no way were connected to the protests yesterday,” Faisal said. “Police fired teargas shells inside the library. There was a blind student in the library then. He started crying loudly. Police even beat up that student.”
The student demonstrations, and state crackdown, were of concern to journalist Rana Ayyub, who on Sunday posted a picture from the demonstrations to show the bravery of the young protesters.
“These are the protestors who have rattled the Indian democracy,” said Ayyub. “These are the students being brutalised for fighting communalism in India.”
In a statement, Amnesty International India executive director Avinash Kumar called for security forces to show restraint.
“Amnesty India urges the government of India and state governments to respect the right to dissent by peaceful protesters and review their approach in policing the protests in order to de-escalate the situation and prevent more lives being put at risk,” said Kumar. “Police should only use lethal force in response to an imminent threat of death or serious injury, and only as a last resort.”
Al Jazeera journalist Sana Saeed on Twitter asked why the protests and state response were not receiving more coverage in western media.
“Thousands have been protesting but where is the media coverage?” wondered Saeed. “The shouts of solidarity from impressed media pundits?”
“Next time,” she said, “people in countries which are close U.S. allies should protest in Hong Kong instead.”
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As Australia endures ongoing wildfires that have choked out cities with smoke and are incinerating wildlife habitats, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made clear that he would not entertain any curtailment of coal production—a signal to observers that the country’s leader isn’t willing to take seriously the threat of the climate crisis.
Morrison on Monday rejected calls to slow Australian coal production, saying such a move would be to “engage in reckless and job-destroying and economy-crunching targets which are being sought.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific head David Ritter found the statement flabbergasting.
“Staggering egotism atop monumental negligence,” tweeted Ritter.
As Common Dreams reported Saturday, Australia’s fires have ringed the continental country and claimed the lives of at least two firefighters. The infernos have destroyed much of the koala habitat on the country’s east coast.
The prime minister’s love of his country’s coal industry, paired with his denial of the climate crisis, drew the ire of journalist Christian Schwägerl.
“Statements from Scott Morrison and his support for new coal mines give the impression that it’s way too cold in Australia and not enough forest has burnt down,” said Schwägerl.
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New South Wales Rural Fire Service spokesperson Angela Burford told reporters Monday that the fires continue to rage.
“We continue to see these fires spread, and in some places, they’re so large, we’ve seen two fires merge,” said Burford.
The crisis could affect Morrison’s political future. As the fires grew in size and number, and killed firefighters, the prime minister was in Hawaii on vacation. Morrison cut the holiday short but not before sustained criticism.
“I think the man just needs to step back and take a bit of a check on himself,” said Australian Ben Parsons, who shared a picture taken by his uncle of the prime minister relaxing while Australia burned.
Progressive writer Jodi Jacobson bemoaned Morrison’s call to continue coal production and said it was part of a broader problem in how the world is approaching the climate crisis.
“These are the realities that make me wonder at how corrupt must be the souls of people who have the power to stop this and fail to act,” Jacobson said.
“We talk about ‘what our grandchildren will say,'” added Jacobson. “Will your grandchildren even exist in 50 years when we’ve destroyed the Earth?”
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The 500 richest people in the world, all of whom are billionaires, gained a combined $1.2 trillion in wealth in 2019, further exacerbating inequities that have not been seen since the late 1920s.
That’s according to a new Bloomberg analysis published Friday, which found that the planet’s 500 richest people saw their collective net worth soar by 25 percent to $5.9 trillion over the last year.
“In the U.S., the richest 0.1 percent control a bigger share of the pie than at any time since 1929,” Bloomberg noted. “The 172 American billionaires on the Bloomberg ranking added $500 billion, with Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg up $27.3 billion and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates [rising] $22.7 billion.”
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, eight of the 10 richest people in the world are from the U.S.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos lost nearly $9 billion in wealth in 2019, according to Bloomberg, but he will still likely end the year as the richest man in the world with a total net worth of $116 billion.
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The analysis comes as 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, particularly Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have made tackling inequality a key component of their policy platforms.
Warren has proposed an annual two percent tax on assets over $50 million and a three percent tax on assets above $1 billion.
Sanders, who has said he does not believe billionaires should exist, is calling for a wealth tax that would slash the fortunes of U.S. billionaires in half over 15 years, according to his campaign.
“A small handful of billionaires should not be able to accumulate more money than they could spend in 10 lifetimes,” Sanders said in September, “while millions of Americans are living in poverty and dying because they can’t afford healthcare.”
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Iraq’s parliament voted in an extraordinary session Sunday to expel all American troops from the country and file a United Nations complaint against the U.S. for violating Iraq’s sovereignty with its assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.
Ahead of the vote, chants of “No, no, America” rang out inside the hall.
“Iraq called on the U.N. Security Council to condemn the bombing and assassinations,” Iraq’s foreign ministry said in a statement following the vote.
As The National reported, the Iraqi parliament approved “a five-point action plan that would require the Iraqi government to end the presence of foreign troops in the country, and withdraw its request for assistance from the anti-ISIS global coalition.”
“Parliament also called on the government to ban the use of Iraqi airspace by any foreign power,” according to The National. The resolution is non-binding, and the plan to expel American troops still requires the approval of the Iraqi government.
The U.S. currently has around 5,000 troops stationed in Iraq.
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Speaking before an extraordinary session of parliament Sunday, Iraq’s outgoing Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi recommended that the nation’s lawmakers approve a measure to end U.S. troop presence in “immediately” following the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.
The prime minister’s remarks came before Iraqi lawmakers are set to vote on a resolution to end permission for American troops to remain in Iraq.
Washington Post reporter Mustafa Salim summarized Mahdi’s recommendations:
The U.S. assassination Soleimani on Iraqi soil was met with fierce condemnation from Iraq’s foreign ministry and the prime minister, who called the drone strike a violation of the nation’s sovereignty.
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“What happened was a political assassination,” Mahdi said. “Iraq cannot accept this.”
In a previously undisclosed detail one observer described as “stunning,” Mahdi said Soleimani was in Baghdad to meet with him about a Saudi request for dialogue to relieve tensions in the region—not, as the U.S. has claimed, to plan attacks against American forces.
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Highlighting the thousands of dollars American households are forced to pay in healthcare costs that people in other wealthy countries save thanks to universal healthcare plans, two top economists wondered aloud this weekend why Americans have accepted increasingly high costs and poor health outcomes for decades.
At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in San Diego on Saturday, Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton said they were “surprised Americans aren’t revolting against” the $8,000 per year that U.S. households pay to doctors, hospitals, health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and the rest of the for-profit healthcare system, compared to what people in other countries.
“A few people are getting very rich at the expense of the rest of us,” Case said.
Case and Deaton compared the yearly costs to a poll tax, or head tax, because the costs apply to all Americans regardless of their ability to pay. Americans pay $8,000 a year more than what people in Switzerland pay to that country’s system—the second-most expensive healthcare system in the world after the United States.
The payments made to the U.S. healthcare system are “like a tribute to a foreign power, but we’re doing it to ourselves,” Case said.
Calling the expenditures “a tax” led one single-payer healthcare advocate on social media to question the premise used by many people who oppose Medicare for All on the grounds that some Americans’ tax bills would rise slightly to pay for the program.
“I’ve been trying to get this message across for years now,” tweeted former congressional candidate and physician Kathie Allen. “So what if your taxes went up modestly?”
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While campaigning for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have also rejected the notion that Americans should fear higher taxes under Medicare for All, considering the annual “tax” they essentially pay to the for-profit healthcare industry.
“We are going to increase personal taxes,” Sanders said at last month’s Democratic debate. “But we’re eliminating premiums, we’re eliminating co-payments, we’re eliminating deductibles, we’re eliminating all out-of-pocket expenses, and no family in America will spend more than $200 a year on prescription drugs.”
Case and Deaton, who are the authors of an upcoming book called Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, say skyrocketing healthcare costs over the past two decades have helped drive the rising number of deaths from opioid overdoses, alcohol-related diseases, and suicide.
“We can brag we have the most expensive healthcare. We can also now brag that it delivers the worst health of any rich country,” Case said.
Case and Deaton spoke two days before researchers at the University of Michigan released a study showing that because of price-gouging by the for-profit healthcare industry, the cost of childbirth in the U.S. went up by about $1,500 from 2008 when it cost about $3,000 to 2015 when the average rose to more than $4,500—an increase of more than 50 percent.
Although the net costs associated with childbirth remained relatively stable over that time period, the Affordable Care Act’s “relative lack of restrictions on things like co-pays and deductibles” allowed insurance companies to “sneakily shift the financial onus onto [patients] by charging them more upfront,” according to Claire Lampen at The Cut.
Case and Deaton’s statements on healthcare costs led to renewed calls on social media for Medicare for All.
“Nobody should have to choose between their health and providing for their family, yet that is the reality for so many Americans,” tweeted Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).
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In a letter to investors Tuesday, Larry Fink, CEO of money management firm BlackRock, announced the company would prioritize the climate crisis in deciding on investments and strategies going forward—a major victory for the environmental movement.
The new direction for BlackRock, the largest investment firm in the world which manages assets of around $6.96 trillion, is the result of a hard-fought effort by a group of dedicated activists, tweeted 350 Action co-founder Bill McKibben.
“This is a massive victory for a small band of fighters,” said McKibben.
“It gives us enormous confidence as we take on the giant banks,” he added. “When we start to fight we start to win.”
As Common Dreams reported last week, a new campaign called “Stop the Money Pipeline” is aimed at stopping financial support for the fossil fuel industry and has BlackRock as one of its primary targets.
Fink says in his letter to investors that he believes “we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”
“The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance,” Fink wrote.
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According to the New York Times:
Diana Best, senior strategist for the Sunrise Project, said in a statement that Fink’s letter was a welcome first step.
“BlackRock beginning its shift of capital out of fossil fuels, including today’s divestment of coal in its actively managed funds, is a fantastic start and instantly raises the bar for competitors such as Vanguard and State Street Global Advisors,” said Best. “We will be looking for additional leadership from the company in, as Larry Fink put it, ‘fundamentally reshaping finance to deal with climate change,’ including additional shifts of capital out of fossil fuels.”
Sunrise Project is a key player in the BlackRock’s Big Problem campaign.
Climate advocates celebrated the letter as a victory for years of activism and protest, but warned that the firm would have to be held accountable for its behavior going forward.
“BlackRock’s coal divestment decision is yet another significant blow to the already dying market, yet major banks like Barclays continue to prop up coal-heavy companies,” said ShareAction campaign manager Jeanne Martin. “If BlackRock is serious about its commitment to phase out thermal coal, it should use its voting rights to get major coal financiers to do the same.”
In a statement, the Sierra Club’s campaign representative Ben Cushing said BlackRock’s decision was a watershed moment while warning the letter needs to be backed up by immediate and concrete action to divest from dirty investments.
“As the biggest financial institution in the world, BlackRock’s announcement today is a major step in the right direction and a testament to the power of public pressure calling for climate action,” said Cushing. “But BlackRock will continue to be the world’s largest investor in coal, oil, and gas.”
“It is time to turn off the money pipeline to dirty fossil fuels for good,” Cushing added.
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The Missouri Library Association says it is monitoring a bill put forward in the state House by a Republican lawmaker, which, if passed, could create committees across the state with the power to jail librarians for distributing material the panels deem “inappropriate.”
Under the Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act (H.B. 2044), proposed by Rep. Ben Baker, locally elected “parental library review boards” would be permitted to unilaterally remove books they decide are sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate for young readers from library shelves.
Libraries that allow children to borrow books that have been banned or whose access has been restricted would risk losing state funding, and librarians could be ordered to pay fines of up to $500 or sentenced to jail time for up to a year.
The Missouri Library Association (MLA), a non-profit which advocates for library service and librarians, said in a statement and on social media on Wednesday that it “will always stand against censorship and for the freedom to read, and therefore opposes Missouri House Bill 2044.”
Baker told local radio news station KOAM that the bill came out of his desire to ensure libraries are a “safe environment, and that [children] are not going to be exposed to something that is objectionable material.”
MLA President Cynthia Dudenhoffer rejected that explanation.
“Public libraries already have procedures in place to assist patrons in protecting their own children while not infringing upon the rights of other patrons or restricting materials,” Dudenhoffer said. “Missouri Library Association will always oppose legislation that infringes on these rights.”
Libraries, authors, and others in the literary community also spoke out about the proposal.
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Freedom of expression advocacy group PEN America called H.B. 2044 “a shockingly transparent attempt to legalize book banning.”
“Books wrestling with sexual themes, books uplifting LGBTQIA+ characters, books addressing issues such as sexual assault—all of these books are potentially on the chopping block if this bill is passed,” said James Tager, the group’s deputy director of free expression research and policy. “Every reader and writer in the country should be horrified, absolutely horrified, at this bill.”
On social media, Tager added that the bill, while only in the early stages of consideration in Missouri’s legislature, shows why groups like PEN America are vigilant regarding the fight against censorship.
Others slammed the bill as “absolutely detestable” and “ominous.”
In Cincinnati, the city’s public library suggested on its official Twitter account that the bill is a warning that all organizations promoting free expression should “stand with Missouri libraries in the fight against censorship.”
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