Two Democratic aides say the announcement is planned for 9 a.m. ET. The articles would need approval from the Judiciary Committee and then the full House for President Trump to be impeached.

(Image credit: Patrick Semansky/AP)

Warren's political identity was forged in Texas. The ideas she espouses now about the danger of a shrinking middle class come from her years of bankruptcy research as a law professor in Austin.

(Image credit: Photo Courtesy of Kimberly Winick)

Students and advocacy groups want the University of California system to drop the test requirement. They argue the policy "illegally discriminates against applicants on the basis of race and wealth."

(Image credit: Ryan Johnson for NPR)

If some U.S. allies allow Chinese company Huawei into their 5G telecommunications networks, Robert O'Brien says China's communist government would have access to sensitive personal data.

(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Many buses and vans can safely accommodate and restrain a passenger's wheelchair, but airline passengers are required to transfer to the plane's standard seat. A grassroots group hopes to change that.

(Image credit: Jon Hicks/Getty Images)

With Kentucky's gubernatorial inauguration on Tuesday, Democrats are nearing parity with the GOP after a historic low point in 2016. That could have a big impact on redistricting and other key issues.

(Image credit: Sean McMinn and Jessica Taylor/NPR/Ballotpedia)

In 2018, GEDmatch played a key role in reopening the 40-year-old Golden State Killer case. Now a company that serves law enforcement is gobbling it up.

OCLC – Thomas Padilla – “Responsible Operations is intended to help chart library community engagement with data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) and was developed in partnership with an advisory group and a landscape group comprised of more than 70 librarians and professionals from universities, libraries, museums, archives, and other organizations. This research agenda presents an interdependent set of technical, organizational, and social challenges to be addressed en route to library operationalization of data science, machine learning, and AI. Challenges are organized across seven areas of investigation:

1. Committing to Responsible Operations
2. Description and Discovery
3. Shared Methods and Data
4. Machine-Actionable Collections
5. Workforce Development
6. Data Science Services
7. Sustaining Interprofessional and Interdisciplinary Collaboration

The last time Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was at the White House, Trump bragged about firing former FBI Director James Comey.

(Image credit: Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)

The New York Times – See How the World’s Most Polluted Air Compares With Your City’s – “We visualized the damaging, tiny particles that wreak havoc on human health. From the Bay Area to New Delhi, see how the world’s worst pollution compares with your local air. …Outdoor particulate pollution was responsible for an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide in 2015, with a majority concentrated in east and south Asia. Millions more fell ill from breathing dirty air. This fine pollution mainly comes from burning things: Coal in power plants, gasoline in cars, chemicals in industrial processes, or woody materials and whatever else ignites during wildfires. The particles are too small for the eye to see — each about 35 times smaller than a grain of fine beach sand — but in high concentrations they cast a haze in the sky. And, when breathed in, they wreak havoc on human health. PM2.5 can evade our bodies’ defenses, penetrating deep into the lungs and even entering the bloodstream. It has been shown to exacerbate asthma and other lung disorders, and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. This microscopic pollution, named because each particle is smaller than 2.5 micrometers across, has also been linked to developmental problems in children and cognitive impairment in the elderly, as well as premature labor and low birth weights. Under high levels of particulate pollution, “you can’t function, you can’t thrive,” said Alexandra Karambelas, an environmental analyst and research scientist affiliated with Columbia University. “Having access to clean air is kind of a basic human right.”….

Center for Data Innovation: “Researchers from FiscalNote Research, a technology firm based in Washington, DC, have released a dataset of U.S. Congressional and California state bills to advance the development of systems that can summarize legislation. The dataset contains more than 22,000 U.S. Congressional bills and summaries from 1993 through 2018 and more than 1,200 California state bills and summaries from 2015-2016. While the Congressional Research Service summarizes federal bills, summaries for many state and local bills are not available. ”

Get the data.

The New York Times – Despite Big Tech’s attempts to combat manipulation, companies that sell clicks, likes and followers on social media are easy to find. “Companies like Facebook and Twitter are poorly policing automated bots and other methods for manipulating social media platforms, according to a report released on Friday by researchers from the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence. With a small amount of money, the researchers found, virtually anyone can hire a company to get more likes, comments and clicks. The group, an independent organization that advises the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, tested the tech companies’ ability to stop paid influence campaigns by turning to 11 Russian and five European companies that sell fake social media engagement. For 300 euros, or about $330, the researchers bought over 3,500 comments, 25,000 likes, 20,000 views and 5,000 followers, including on posts from prominent politicians like Ms. Vestager and Ms. Jourova…”

• See NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence – How Social Media Companies are Failing to Combat Inauthentic Behaviour Online, November 2019

Book Riot – “It’s the season of best of lists, and with the bonus of this being the end of a decade, we’re being treated to double the number of best of lists this year. What shouldn’t be overlooked among those lists are the incredible book covers that graced shelves this year. Works of art in and of themselves, it’s an outdated belief that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The reality is we do and that we should. In honor of that, let’s take a peek at the best book covers of 2019. Finding information about the designers and artists behind book covers isn’t always possible. I’ve done my best to track down that information. In places where that is missing, any leads would be appreciated…”

Postreproductive killer whale grandmothers improve the survival of their grandoffspring [full text – no paywall]. Stuart Nattrass, Darren P. Croft, Samuel Ellis, Michael A. Cant, Michael N. Weiss, Brianna M. Wright, Eva Stredulinsky,Thomas Doniol-Valcroze, John K. B. Ford, Kenneth C. Balcomb, and Daniel W. Franks. PNAS first published December 9, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1903844116

“Why humans and some species of whales go through menopause remains an evolutionary puzzle. In humans, postreproductive females gain genetic benefits by helping family members—particularly increasing their number of surviving grandoffspring. The extent to which these grandmother benefits are important in the evolution of menopause in whales remains unclear. Here, we test the grandmother effect in resident killer whales, where females can live for decades after their last reproductive event. We show that grandmothers increase the survival of their grandoffspring, and these effects are greatest when grandmothers are no longer reproducing. These findings can help explain why killer whales have evolved the longest postreproductive life span of all nonhuman animals.”

Catch up on the most important news from today in two minutes or less.

The CEO of a nonprofit organization joins a crowded GOP field in a suburban Houston district likely to be a Democratic target in 2020.

(Image credit: Dave Einsel/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Calling for a review of federal gun laws, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says, "The Second Amendment is so that we the American people can keep and bear arms. It does not apply to Saudi Arabians."

(Image credit: Brendan Farrington/AP)

If you own a rescue dog, you're probably curious about your pup's heritage. DNA kits may offer insights, but experts warn to be a little skeptical about results.

(Image credit: Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images)

Mary Gray on the need for a better social contract when it comes to the rights of informal workers:

“The challenge is that unless policy makers and the public see the people doing the work, we’re not likely to say that we need a portable benefit system for them. Companies are [benefiting from] this work, so they have to pay their fair share to support the availability of people on demand.”

Read more from the Centre for International Governance Innovation

BKC faculty associate Danielle Allen ponders how Americans can become citizens again.

“Things were getting bad even before the 2016 election, but somehow, within just a few years, they have gotten worse. In an environment of intense partisan warfare, each side believes it has a claim to lead the nation based on its own set of values,” writes Allen. “Each side understands that it has more to gain from aggrievement than achievement, and each side beholds the other with contempt. Meanwhile, the republic seems to be unraveling.”

Read more in The Atlantic