Congress should 'step in' to block Trump's White House ballroom makeover

'The White House doesn't need a big, beautiful ballroom'

Bill Press at The Hill

President Donald Trump "thinks he's still an all-powerful real estate developer and not the temporary occupant of the 'People's House,'" says Bill Press. A White House ballroom is "Trump's most outrageous project by far." It "will do more than modify or 'improve' the existing White House." It "will destroy its existing, historic footprint. And it will shatter the shape and image of one of America's most beloved and iconic buildings." Trump "should leave the White House alone."

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'The big picture on Alzheimer's is missing the smaller pieces'

Anjana Ahuja at the Financial Times

There "may be more proteins implicated in cognitive decline than first thought," says Anjana Ahuja. This "suggests that the most obvious answers are not necessarily the whole story." While "plaques and tangles are easy to spot in the lab, more subtle changes that contribute to mental decline could be flying under the radar." Such "insights matter. The 'unusual disease of the cerebral cortex' described by Alois Alzheimer is no longer that unusual."

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'Sixty years after the Voting Rights Act, our voices are being eroded'

Al Sharpton at The Guardian

In a "moment when we should be celebrating one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history, we are in fact at a worse place as a nation than when it was passed," says Al Sharpton. In 1965, Congress "passed a law to end the centuries-old rigging of American democracy. Yet today the system is as rigged as ever, with the battered Voting Rights Act on life support." The "erosion of our rights is playing out."

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'Not the promised realism'

Sumantra Maitra at The American Conservative

If "America's trade and foreign policies are now seemingly subservient to the question of immigration, it makes some sense as a negotiation ploy to start a trade war with India," says Sumantra Maitra. Neither "India nor the EU is currently in a position to dictate terms yet." America is "on the path towards a simultaneous confrontation with New Delhi, Beijing, and Moscow, the first and third of which were supposed to be in alignment with us."

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