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Manchin ‘Taken to the Cleaners’ on Climate and Tax Deal

  • Sen. Pat Toomey on Sunday criticized the Democratic-led climate and tax plan backed by Joe Manchin.
  • “It really looks to me like Joe Manchin has been taken to the cleaners,” the Republican said on CNN.
  • Democrats have hailed the proposed climate investments as something that has been long overdue.

GOP Sen. Pat Toomey on Sunday criticized the Democratic-led climate, health care, and tax deal crafted by Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, stating that he was “really surprised” to see the conservative West Virginia senator agree to the proposal.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the retiring two-term Pennsylvania lawmaker told co-anchor Jake Tapper that he valued his relationship with Manchin, but said the bill that is slated to come from the deal would be “a disaster” .”

“I like Joe Manchin very much — he and I’ve become friends over the years that we’ve served together in the Senate,” Toomey said. “But it really looks to me like Joe Manchin has been taken to the cleaners.”

He continued: “And what does Joe get for this? He gets the promise that someday in the future, they’ll pass some kind of legislation about energy infrastructure. So this is a disaster. It’s gonna make inflation worse. It’s not going to do any good. I’m really surprised that Joe agreed to this.”

Manchin has played a highly consequential role in the 50-50 Senate since his vote can sink or swim everything from reconciliation legislation to judicial appointments, and he has been a tough sell on many of the larger social-spending proposals that many Democrats sought to pass ; his support of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has been a boon to the party’s morale, as many had all but given up on enacting climate legislation before the November midterms, when Republicans could potentially win back one or both chambers of Congress.

The bill would greenlight a three-year extension of subsidies for individuals to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, while also providing nearly $370 billion for climate and energy programs and $300 billion to reduce the federal budget deficit. The bill would also generate roughly $739 billion in revenue over the next decade, aided in part by a 15% corporate minimum tax on companies with net income exceeding $1 billion.

Toomey contended in the interview that the legislation would chip away at the 2017 tax reform package signed into law by then-President Donald Trump.

And Toomey said that the bill would “do nothing” to fight climate change despite the huge investments made in the proposal, pointing out that many other countries lack programs that would put a dent in overall emissions.

“What we need is a strong economy and the ability to find the innovation and the technology that will allow us on a massive commercial scale to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,” he said. “But these gestures, they may feel good, they’re not gonna accomplish it.”

Schumer and Manchin are looking to pass the legislation in August.

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Biden experiences a Covid rebound after treatment with one course of Paxlovid

Biden’s new positive test is an example of a rebound Covid-19 case, a phenomenon that has happened in some cases after people take Paxlovid.

Biden is isolating in the White House and has canceled his immediate travel plans. He had planned to meet up Sunday with the first lady in Delaware as well as take a trip early next week to promote passage of the chip funding bill. “He will not go to Delaware or to Michigan and he is isolating in the White House residence,” a White House official said.

The official said the White House was “in the process of contact tracing and once we have determined the number, we will release it.”

Biden tweeted about his condition on Saturday. “Folks, today I tested positive for COVID again. This happens with a small minority of folks. I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate myself for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon,” he tweeted.

Biden emerged from his initial isolation last Wednesday, after completing a five-day course of Paxlovid, an antiviral therapy from Pfizer, and testing negative for COVID-19 on Tuesday evening and again Wednesday morning.

The president was not masked at public events he attended at the end of the week, which is in conflict with CDC guidance that says people should wear a mask for 10 days after a Covid infection.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing that the president was still in compliance with CDC guidelines because he was more than six feet apart from other people.

When I initially tested positive for COVID, a week ago Thursday, the president experienced mild symptoms in the upper floors of the White House.

In late May, the CDC issued a health advisory about the recurrence of symptoms and noted that there have been no cases of severe disease as part of this rebound. The agency also said that there is currently no evidence that a second round of Paxlovid is necessary for these symptoms to resolve.

However, that hasn’t stopped some physicians from prescribing patients a second round of Paxlovid out of an abundance of caution. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, received two courses of the antiviral after experiencing a similar rebound of symptoms.

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University of West Georgia Professor Richard Sigman Accused of Gunning Down 18-Year-Old Student Anna Jones

A University of West Georgia professor fatally shot one of his own school’s students in a parking lot in the early hours of Saturday, Carrollton Police said.

Richard Sigman, 47, is now facing a murder charge over the death of 18-year-old Anna Jones.

According to police in Carrollton, a college town located about 50 miles west of Atlanta, Sigman threatened to whip out his gun during a verbal fight with another man in the parking lot of a pizza joint at 12:30 am Saturday.

The man alerted a security guard and when the guard saw that Sigman was indeed armed, police say they asked him to leave. But Sigman walked away and began to shoot into a vehicle parked in the lot near Adamson Square, a busy nighttime district in downtown Carrollton.

One of the bullets hit Jones, though it’s unclear if she was the intended target or if she knew Sigman. Her friends of her drove her to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.

In a GoFundMe organized to cover funeral expenses, Jones was described as “a beautiful, sweet soul” whose “smile would light up a room.”

“This was a devastating and senseless crime that left a lot of hearts broken, a community mourning, and a family grieving,” the fundraiser said.

Relatives and friends also took to social media to express their grief and shock, with one friend writing that “to know Anna was to love Anna.” Stephanie Hodges, one of Jones’ former teachers, wrote that the 18-year-old freshman was planning on becoming a teacher herself, having had a natural knack for working with children.

Another friend, Emma Phillips, described Jones as “endlessly kind, selfless, extremely loving, hilarious, and overall the life of every party. She was simply full of life and love. She had such a love for her family, friends, and her home de ella mount zion. ”

“I remember multiple times her buying me clothes, dinner, and even paying for me to get my nails done because I had no money and she wanted me to feel included,” Phillips wrote. “That’s exactly how she was… Anything I needed, she was there to give it. I wish I could be half as selfless as she was.”

A relative told The Daily Beast on Sunday afternoon that the family is not yet ready to speak publicly about Jones’ death.

Zoie Whitestone, who was one of Sigman’s students last semester, told The Daily Beast Sigman taught upperclassmen management courses.

“Many of us had him a few months ago and never would’ve suspected this,” she said.

The University has since fired Sigman. “On behalf of the university, we wish to convey our deepest condolences to Anna’s family and many friends,” UWG President Dr. Brendan Kelly said in the statement. “We know this news is difficult to process and affects many members of our university community. We ask that you keep Anna’s family, friends, and all who have been touched by this tragedy in your thoughts during this tremendously difficult time.”

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University instructor charged in shooting death of student

CARROLTON, Ga. — A university instructor in Georgia has been charged with killing an 18-year-old student who was fatally shot while sitting in a car.

The Carrollton Police Department said in a news release that Richard Sigman, 47, is charged with murder and aggravated assault for the shooting death of Anna Jones, 18. Police said they believe Jones was killed when Sigman shot into a parked car following an argument with a man at a pizza restaurant. The shooting happened shortly after midnight Saturday.

Police said a man told security that Sigman had threatened to shoot him during an argument, and security then asked Sigman to leave. Investigators believe when Sigman left, he walked to the parking deck and started shooting into a parked vehicle, hitting Jones. Friends drove Jones to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.

It is not immediately clear if Sigman has a lawyer to speak on his behalf.

The University of West Georgia told news outlets in a statement that Sigman’s employment has been terminated. A current course catalog listed Sigman as a lecturer in business administration.

The university said Jones was a student at the university.

“On behalf of the university, we wish to convey our deepest condolences to Anna’s family and many friends. We know this news is difficult to process and affects many members of our university community. We ask that you keep Anna’s family, friends, and all who have been touched by this tragedy in your thoughts during this tremendously difficult time,” University of West Georgia President Dr. Brendan Kelly said in the statement.

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17-year-old killed, 4 hurt in stabbings on Wisconsin river

SOMERSET, Wis. (AP) — A Minnesota teenager died and four other people were seriously hurt after being stabbed while tubing down a Wisconsin river, authorities said.

St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson the victims and suspect, a 52-year-old Prior Lake, Minnesota man, were all on the Apple River when the attack happened Saturday afternoon. Knudson said investigators were working to determine what led to the stabbings and whether the victims and suspect knew each other. They were tubing with two different groups that included about 20 people.

“We don’t know yet who was connected to who, who knew each other or what precipitated it,” Knudson said.

The knife attack happened on a difficult-to-access section of the river near the town of Somerset, Wisconsin, which is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Minneapolis. The suspect was arrested about an hour and a half later while getting off the river downstream.

“Thank goodness a witness had taken a photo of him,” Knudson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “Another witness located him at the exit of the tubing area, where he was taken into custody.”

A 17-year-old boy from Stillwater, Minnesota, died. Two of the other victims were flown to a hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, and two others were taken there by ambulance. The sheriff’s office said Sunday that the condition of all four surviving victims — a woman and three men in their 20s — ranged from serious to critical. They suffered stab wounds to their chests and torsos.

The sheriff’s office didn’t name the victims, but did provide a few details about them. The victims included a 20-year-old man and a 22-year-old man from Luck, Wisconsin; a 22-year-old man from Elk River, Minnesota; and a 24-year-old woman from Burnsville, Minnesota;

The name of the suspect wasn’t immediately released, but St. Croix County jail records show a 52-year-old man was being held without bond on suspicion of first-degree homicide, four counts of aggravated battery and four counts of mayhem.

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Lies for Profit: Can Sandy Hook Parents Shut Alex Jones Down?

AUSTIN, Texas — When viral lies harm private people, are the courts their best refuge? A trial to decide how much the conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones must pay a Sandy Hook family for defaming them attempts to answer that question.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of Jesse Lewis, 6, who died at Sandy Hook, are requesting $150 million in compensatory damages for years of torment and threats they endured in the aftermath of Mr. Jones’s lies about them on Infowars, his Austin -based website and broadcast. They are suing him in the first of three trials in which juries will decide how much he must pay relatives of 10 people killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., for spreading lies that they were actors in a “false flag” operation, planned by the government as a pretext for gun control.

Last year Mr. Jones lost a series of Sandy Hook defamation cases by default, setting the stage for the damage trials.

Mr. Heslin, Ms. Lewis and JT Lewis, Jesse’s brother, will testify this week.

More important than money, the parents said, is society’s verdict on a culture in which viral misinformation damages lives and destroys reputations, yet those who spread it are seldom held accountable. “Speech is free, but lies you have to pay for,” Mark Bankston, the parents’ lawyer, told the jury in his opening statement last week. “This is a case about creating change.”

But the trial demonstrates how difficult it is to counter the views of die-hard conspiracy theorists. Over nearly three days of testimony last week, Daria Karpova, Infowars’ corporate representative, advanced bogus claims, refusing even to rule out the possibility that the trial itself was a staged event. She cast Mr. Jones as the victim, worrying over his health and saying the Sandy Hook lawsuits have cost him “millions.”

That claim allowed the families’ lawyers to share records with the jury showing that Infowars reaped revenues of more than $50 million annually in recent years.

At the heart of the trial is a June 2017 episode of NBC’s “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” in which Ms. Kelly profiled Mr. Jones. In the broadcast Mr. Heslin protested Mr. Jones’s denial of the shooting. He recalled his last moments of him with Jesse, saying, “I held my son with a bullet hole through his head of him.”

Afterward, Mr. Jones and Owen Shroyer, a lieutenant of Mr. Jones at Infowars, aired shows implying that Mr. Heslin had lied. “Will there be a clarification from Heslin or Megyn Kelly?” Mr. Shroyer said on Infowars. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

Lawyers say the three trials hold lessons for other cases against conspiracy-minded defendants, from the Jan. 6 insurrectionists to Trump allies sued for falsely claiming that voting machine manufacturers helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Jones is also under scrutiny for his role in events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“These Sandy Hook parents have spent years of their lives and sacrificed whatever is left of their privacy to shine a light on peddlers of disinformation, not only to seek justice for their children, but to make folks who profit from tragedy consider the consequences of their actions,” said Karen Burgess, a trial lawyer at Burgess Law in Austin who represented Dominion Voting Systems when it was sued by Texas conspiracy theorists who said the company helped rig the 2020 vote. Facing sanctions from the court, the conspiracy theorists dropped their suit against the company.

Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families say a verdict, expected this week in the first trial, could send a signal to other conspiracy purveyors about the cost of online lies and set into motion a chain of events that could shut Infowars down.

Still, the path forward is not clear. On Friday Mr. Jones put Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which usually automatically halts all pending litigation. Free Speech Systems, however, requested that the bankruptcy court lift that automatic stay, so the trial in progress can continue to a verdict. That motion is set for a hearing Monday morning in a bankruptcy court in Victoria, Texas. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the Travis County District Court indicated that the trial would proceed.

Lawyers for the families say a big jury award this week along with the bankruptcy could threaten Infowars’ operations, but many details about Mr. Jones’s current finances are murky.

For now the filing puts on hold the remaining two Sandy Hook damages trials, both scheduled for September.

In court last week, Mr. Jones’s lawyers launched a defense advanced by other defendants in politically charged defamation cases: Our national discourse has become so polluted by disinformation, they said, that who really knows what is true or false?

Federico Andino Reynal, Mr. Jones’s lawyer, blamed errors in mainstream media reports about Sandy Hook for the bogus theories spread by Mr. Jones.

“He had seen what he perceived as so many lies and so many cover-ups and so much hand-washing of the facts that he had become biased,” Mr. Reynal said. “He was looking at the world through dirty glasses. And if you look at the world through dirty glasses, everything you see is dirty.”

But Infowars staffers testified that they did not check easily available facts about Sandy Hook — or much else — before broadcasting their incendiary assertions. Lawyers for Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis, using internal emails and testimony from Infowars staffers, showed how Mr. Jones and his top lieutenants ignored multiple warnings that continuing to broadcast Sandy Hook lies would harm the survivors and land Infowars in legal trouble.

In a videotaped deposition, a former employee, Rob Jacobson, said he repeatedly delivered these warnings to Infowars staffers, “only to be received with laughter and jokes.”

The NBC episode, which was shown in court, was particularly striking. In it Mr. Jones made a variety of damaging false claims, including dismissing a 2017 suicide bombing that killed 22 adults and children at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, as an attack on “a bunch of liberal trends,” who support “ Islamist” immigration.

Mr. Shroyer also testified that he failed to fact-check a false report on the episode defaming Mr. Heslin because he did not have the time.

At the trial last week, Mr. Jones’s seat at the defense table often remained empty. His lawyer for him, Mr. Reynal, has declined to say whether he will testify, adding that Mr. Jones is in charge of his defense for him. Mr. Reynal told the judge that Mr. Jones’s absences were because of a “medical condition” that Mr. Jones, speaking outside the courthouse, described as an untreated hernia.

But he continues to broadcast his show, where he and Mr. Shroyer derived the trial last week, violating the judge’s order not to comment on it. When Mr. Jones did come to court, he drove up in a motorcade and sat in the courtroom surrounded by bodyguards. Last week Mr. Reynal thrust a raised middle finger into the face of the families’ lawyer in a dispute over exhibits that nearly ended in a fistfight.

The trial proceedings have taken a toll on Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis. They hired security after they spotted people waiting for them outside their hotel, and they have heard Infowars loyalists describe them as pawns in Mr. Jones’s pursuit of online clout.

During his testimony in court on Thursday, Mr. Shroyer suggested that it was the lawsuits, not his and Mr. Jones’ lies, that exacerbated the families’ suffering. “I’m very upset that this continues,” he said, citing its “tremendous negative effects on my career and livelihood.”

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Arizona House Speaker doubles back, says he’ll ‘never’ vote for Trump again

Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) on Sunday said he’ll never vote for former President Trump again, a reversal of earlier claims that he’d back Trump in a match-up against President Biden.

“I’ll never vote for him, but I won’t have to. Because I think America’s tired and there’s some absolutely forceful, qualified, morally defensible and upright people, and that’s what I want. That’s what I want in my party and that’s what I want to see,” Bowers told moderator Jonathan Karl during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Arizona lawmaker called Trump a “demagogue” who maintains hold on his base through “thuggery and intimidation.”

“I have thought, at times, someone born how he was, raised how he was — he has no idea what a hard life is. And what people have to go through in real—in the real world. He has no idea what courage is,” Bowers said.

Bowers’s comments were a reversal of his remarks in June, when he said he’d support the former president in a rematch of the 2020 election.

“If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I’d vote for him again. Simply because what he did the first time, before COVID, was so good for the county. In my view it was,” Bowers told The Associated Press before testifying in June to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol.

Testifying before the House panel, Bowers rejected the former president’s claims that the two men had discussed a rigged 2020 presidential election in Arizona.

Bowers said members of his party called him a “traitor” after his appearance before the committee. Trump lambasted the lawmaker as a “coward.”

Bowers on Sunday said he hoped Trump would never return to a position of power.

“I would certainly hope not. I certainly don’t trust that authority that he would exercise.”

Bowers is running for Arizona’s state Senate in this year’s midterms, and Trump has endorsed his challenger, David Farnsworth.

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Indiana police officer shot and killed during traffic stop in ‘senseless act of violence’

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A 24-year-old police officer was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Madison County, Indiana, around 2 am on Sunday, according to law enforcement.

Noah Shahnavaz, a US Army veteran who had been a member of the Elwood Police Department for 11 months, was taken to an Indianapolis-area hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The suspect, 42-year-old Carl Roy Webb Boards II, allegedly got out of a 2012 Buick LaCrosse after being pulled over and fired at Shahnavaz multiple times, striking him at least once, according to the Indiana State Police.

Boards then allegedly fled the scene in his car before Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputies located him around 2:30 am

Police deployed a tire deflation device and performed two PIT maneuvers, sending the Buick into a median. Boards was taken into custody without further incident.

He will be charged on Monday with murder, possession of a firearm by a violent felon, resisting law enforcement, as well as two enhancements for use of a firearm and being a habitual offender, according to Madison County chief deputy prosecutor Andrew Hannah.

TWO LOS ANGELES-AREA POLICE OFFICERS DIE AFTER SHOOTOUT WITH SUSPECT

“Noah proudly wore the Elwood Police Department uniform, serving the citizens of Elwood, he was part of our city family. A senseless act of violence robbed this man of the life and career that he had ahead of him,” Elwood Mayor Todd Jones said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon.

“On behalf of myself, my family and a most grateful city, I’m asking you to keep Noah’s family, friends, the Elwood Police Department and our city in your thoughts and prayers as we attempt to navigate through this tragic time.”

Carl Roy Webb Boards II, 42, allegedly shot and killed a police officer on Sunday morning in Madison County, Indiana.

Carl Roy Webb Boards II, 42, allegedly shot and killed a police officer on Sunday morning in Madison County, Indiana.
(Hamilton County Jail)

Boards is currently being held in the Hamilton County Jail.

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Shahnavaz, who served in the US Army for five years and graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy in April, leaves behind his mother, father and siblings.

“When’s it going to stop? I wish I had the answer. This young man served this country for five years and chose to come back and serve a local community,” Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said Sunday.

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Hollywood Farmer’s Market Sees Shots Fired – Deadline

UPDATE: Shortly before noon, police confirmed that the Hollywood Farmer’s Market suspected gunman was taken into custody.

LAPD confirmed that the man had been firing a gun Sunday morning. No injuries were reported.

EARLIER: Los Angeles television station KTLA reported a series of gunshots shut down the Hollywood Farmers’ Market Sunday morning around 7:30 AM.

Witnesses described an “active shooter” situation, but no reports of injuries or deaths were immediately available. Los Angeles police received reports of a man with a handgun who fired “multiple rounds” in the 1600 block of Cosmo Street.

Around 7:30 am, Los Angeles police received reports of a man with a handgun who had fired “multiple rounds” in the 1600 block of Cosmo Street.

The Hollywood Farmers’ Market was closed for the investigation. A police helicopter was seen overhead, and around 9:20 AM, LAPD said there was an active standoff with a suspect who was throwing rocks from a balcony. A SWAT team was on the scene.

Farmers’ Market organizers posted a statement on Facebook that said in part, “We’re glad our staff and vendors are OK.” Shoppers were also encouraged to visit the Farmers’ Market sister location at Atwater Village.697

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Kentucky floods kill at least 28 – ‘Everything is gone’

July 31 (Reuters) – Floods unleashed by torrential rains in eastern Kentucky have killed at least 28 people, including four children, Governor Andy Beshear said on Sunday as authorities worked to provide food and shelter for thousands of displaced residents.

Some homes in the hardest hit areas were swept away after days of heavy rainfall that Beshear has described as some of the worst in the US state’s history. Rescue teams guided motor boats through residential and commercial areas searching for victims.

“Everything is gone. Like, everything is gone. The whole office is gone,” one of the flood’s victims, Rachel Patton, told WCHS TV. Around her, houses were half-submerged in water.

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“We had to swim out, and it was cold. It was over my head, so yeah. It was scary.”

Officials warn the death toll may continue to rise with more expected rainfall potentially hampering rescue efforts. The National Weather Service forecasts several rounds of showers and storms through Tuesday, with a flood watch in effect through Monday morning in southern and eastern Kentucky.

“We are still focused on meeting the immediate needs of providing food, water and shelter for thousands of our fellow Kentuckians who have been displaced by this catastrophic flood,” Beshear said in a statement.

Beshear, who declared a state emergency over the floods, earlier told NBC that authorities will “be finding bodies for weeks” as rescuers fan out to more remote areas.

The floods were the second major national disaster to strike Kentucky in seven months, following a swarm of tornadoes that claimed nearly 80 lives in the western part of the state in December. read more

President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in Kentucky on Friday, allowing federal funding to be allocated to the state. Beshear’s office said that affected residents could begin applying for disaster assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Power lines were widely damaged, with over 14,000 reports of outages on Sunday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.US.

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Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Rami Ayyub in Washington; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Lisa Shumaker and Sandra Maler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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